Saturday, December 29, 2007
Three bike geeks in running shoes…
5.7 miles, 325′ climbing, One hour flat.
This run hurt….. bad…. Mike and Erinna were ahead for the warm-up and I couldn’t get my legs to cooperate. Floyd was pulling every-which-way and I was having no fun at all. Somewhere around Carrier Park my legs loosened up, Floyd realized we were running, not squirrel hunting, and I started having fun. My knee started feeling stiff somewhere along the 4.5 mile mark though and I had to slow my pace way down….. hmmm… looking at the profile…. I wonder why??
Anyway, great run, first time out with anyone other than Erinna. Thanks for joining us Mike!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Unbelievably great ride today! I met up with Rich ‘Teamdicky‘ D., Bill ‘Big Worm‘ F., and Ryan ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ C. at 9:30 at Yellow Gap. It had started raining yesterday and hadn’t let up all night. When I arrived (after hauling serious ass up the fireroad in the refurbished Jeep, Thanks Mike R.!) it was still raining. Even though it had only taken 6 minutes to travel the 3 miles of fireroad I was a few minutes late. Everyone was wearing big smiles despite the rain and my tardiness. Our eventual route for the day: Laurel Mountain->Pilot Rock->Pilot/Slate Connector->down Slate->Up the non-loop part to Slate Rock->Pilot Cove->1206. Or as we call it, Outer/Inner.
16 miles, 4170′ climbing, nearly 100% pure Pisgah singletrack.
Rich decided he had to do something even more manly than driving 2.5 hours to do a 4+ hour mountain ride in the rain… He decided it would be a good day to forgo coasting all together and turned his Singlespeed into a fixed gear rig…. and yes, he was only running a front brake to boot. Maniac.
click=make big
The rain tapered off around the meeting log and we saw our first rays of sunshine shortly thereafter. We made it to Sassafrass without me even realizing we had passed The Cairns and about that time Bill pointed out the bright blue skies to the North. We got to the top in good time (6 miles of climbing later) and continued on to Pilot in high winds, temps in the high 40’s and sun sun sun.
I led out for the Pilot descent and had a super-fun run of it. Not the fastest ever but still a ton of fun. We stopped at both overlooks and checked up a couple times other than that. The best part of the descent was the Hum-Vee section, a downhill boulder field that… if you carefully pick the right line… and you’re having a good day… may be ridable… for some… I did a little wheelie drop off the slab rock and was feeling good. I took a deep breath as I went into the rocks and said out loud ‘Oh my God’ as I dropped into a nearly foot deep creek running right through the best line. I held on tight, cranked the pedals over a few times to keep up momentum, and was spit out the back end of the fray (50 yards later?) wet, upright, and whooping with joy. Bill was only a few feet behind and cleaned it, too. I have never seen that section of trail like that before. It was rad.
A bit more fast descending later we were at the connector turn. I really felt the climbing but we made it to the next intersection quickly. Down Slate was a nice change from Pilot. Easy, twisty, turny singletrack with shallow creek crossings and small log hops.
Next was Slate back up to the rock. I walked. I walked nearly the whole thing. Rich stayed back with me and we chatted about who knows what…. then we were at the rock.
more later.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Multi-tasking
Headed to Boyd Branch:
On Green Slick:
Then when I got home I kept my promise to Floyd and we went on a run. I changed out of my wet jersey and put on my running shoes as soon as I walked in the door. We ran a new route, down Hanover, Up State to Pro Bikes, Haywood back to Hanover and on home. 25 minutes with ZERO knee pain.
When I got in from that I figured ‘what the hell’ and got on the floor and did 50 situps and 25 pushups. YEAH! Maybe I need to get some weights and turn this into some sort of work out routine….
Thursday, December 20, 2007
On the road again….
Anyone want to ride tomorrow (Friday)?
Oh, my Christmas wish came true! I got a new camera! I took it along on the run but found out taking pictures of yourself while running will only produce photos of yourself that you don’t really want to share. Anyway, for the sake of getting some photos going again…. a few… not of me.
Lucy wanting to go out as I left:
Frontyard Cabbage:
I might have to back and swipe those jumper cables someone left behind:
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Farlow…. In the rain….. In December.
16.75 miles 4112′ climbing.
Oh and Rich, Sorry for calling you a puss. My knee hurts like mad. I’m going to Chicago for most of next week for work…and that’s perfect. I need a week off.
Notes:
1. Farlow in the rain is no joke. All four of us went down and I think I got the least of it. I did the same wreck as last week: Deep leaves+ downhill= sliding on arm and face. Jonothan: Tomato had the most spectacular crash that I’ve seen in a long time. He got squirrly at high speed, lost his front wheel, and highsided. He tumbled over-and-over, totally out of control, and didn’t get hurt! Well… until his bike caught up and hit him. Mike went down twice: Once getting a huge goose-egg on his shin and the next knocking the wind out of him. I didn’t see Dennis’s crash but as he explained it, the wet rock drop thing you’re supposed to just rail over when it’s dry… ate him.
2. I funkin railed the descent! Not fast but… Tech. Up in the steep stuff I was feeling BRAVE! Gravity is cool.
3. Pilot Mountain made me want gears. Maybe 1×9? Any 1×9er’s out there?
4. This ride kicked my ass. As soon as I got home I took a hot bath then a 90 minute nap with the cats. Could there be a better way to spend the day?
Saturday, December 8, 2007
55 minute neighborhood run
6.2 miles, 350′ climbing, 55 minutes.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
runclubrunclubrunclubrunclub….
Mission Accomplished.
We (Erinna, the dogs, and I) walked back up from State Street because of the blister that was forming so, 55 minutes of running, 15 walking. 7miles 700 feet of climbing.
Who wants to ride bikes on Thursday night and/or Sunday day?
Monday, December 3, 2007
Run Club
Running is fun.
Running is addictive.
Running is hard.
and cold.
and hot.
and sweaty.
and hard.
50 minutes around the neighborhood with my sweetie and the dogs today.
Much faster and further (feeling) than the last time.
Next time I want to double my time/distance out there.
4.4 miles, 267 climbing. Sounds like nothing in bike terms.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
DuPont State Forest!
We started at about 10:30 at Fawn Lake and were out for a solid three hours. I don’t know my way around DuPont at all so a complete ride description is eluding me. (hey tomato?, uuuuhhhh what was the route?) I basically held (or tried my best to hold) Jonothan’s or Andrew’s back wheel all day. DuPont is so different than Pisgah it’s hard to imagine the two places are so close together. DuPont is full of short steep ups and downs that twist every-which-way-and-back. There is no time for rest at any point. Each uphill is just long enough to get your heartrate going through the roof but short enough that the slowest guy is always there in no time. Let’s see, some highlights: Jonothan and Andrew riding across the river crossing of death (10-12 inches of fast flowing current over a solid, continuous, rock bottom with just enough algae that it feels like you’re on wet ice), New work by Woody and Valorie, including a super bad-ass BMX style wall ride and double jumps. Watching Jonothan and following close behind on the rock wall made me laugh out loud. Plus, I cleaned the first double with style (i.e. my front wheel was a little high). It must have been a 8-10′ jump. At some point we hit Burnt Mountain trail (I did have an idea of where we were then) and I launched off the two drops like I was on a freeride bike. The first one went super smooth, I set up for the second, went off the highest point launch rock thing, and felt that weightlessness/weight of the world feeling… My bars twisted from left to right, right to left, my trailing foot came unclicked (by the grace of God it stayed on the pedal), and I felt myself *gasp* for air…. In case I didn’t say it enough that day, or in case I haven’t said it enough here…. I absolutely love Mountain Biking!!!! I’ve not been able to replicate that feeling anywhere else in my life. I pulled the drop and rocketed into the gravel road. Jonothan was right behind me and when Andrew and Chuck arrived they commented on our perma-grins. We went over to the quarry and rode a few miles of singletrack that was totally new to me. When we got to our furthest-out point I was starting to feel fatigued. We turned around and Jonothan joked that now all we had to do was retrace our steps (pedalstrokes) all the way bak to the car. Whaaaa? As I was still processing if he was kidding or not I had one of those slow speed crashes that will either wake you up, or knock you out of the game. Front wheel washed out in deep leaves and *BAM* I was sliding on my arm and face. Uuugh. Lucky for me Chuck was feeling even more fatigued than me… I was able to take a breather at the top of hill #3452 of the day and regain focus…. If we were only at the half way point… I needed to get it together. Well, we were actually at the 3/4 point (ha ha tomoto. ha ha. you must have seen me hurting). I wrapped my mind around how far we really had to go and I actually started to have a second wind. Two guys (one from Cuba, one from Greece) hopped on with us in the last few miles and brought the pace back up to… where it was when we started. We bid-adeau to them at the turn back to the parking lot. When we got back in Kristin (Tomato’s misses) was waiting for us after her own long day in the woods, reading a book. She let us know Wode had shown up around 1PM and was also enjoying the day. Chris came out of the woods as if on cue, and we all popped open beers and said ‘Cheers!’ to a great day in the woods.
