roadcx.net

The day after Ore to Shore, Andrea and I wanted to ride some of the South Marquette trails.  Our legs were still sore, but we rode part of the trails out my mom’s house starting with the north part of the blue trail and then hooked into the gorge-ous trail to the carp trail up the back of Mt. Marquette.   We descended one of the overgrown downhill runs back to the highway.  After that, we climbed up Benson’s grade and took the “free ride” Flow trail back down.  The Gorge-ous trail features some impressive bench trail along the Carp river..  one wrong move, and you will slide down a bit (until hitting a tree).  The “free ride” trail was just a nice technical descent, our full suspension cross-country bikes were fine (a hard tail would be fine also).  That ride didn’t take us long (as planned — Andrea is trying to cut volume back this week).

That afternoon, we packed up and headed down to my hometown of Midland, MI to see my dad for a few days.  I hadn’t ridden the trails in the area since I was in high school (with a period rigid MTB), so I didn’t remember much.  The internet shows two places to ride, City Forest (a short ride from my dad’s) and Pine Haven (beyond Sanford Lake).

City Forest was a surprisingly good ride (remember the wide sandy ski trails from my HS days).  There is about 12 miles of singletrack (albeit with little to no elevation) twisting and twisting through the pine trees.  The challenge is to try to lay off the breaks which is tough since it so easy to pick up speed and the turns are so sharp.  I tagged two trees trying to push it (mostly as I 2-wheel drifted I would fall over into the tree on the inside).  Both were sore shoulder and soft sand landings.

The next day we headed out to Pine Haven to ride the shorter trail.  It is similar to City Forest, but includes some (short) steep climbs and some tight switchbacks early on, but most of it looks the same.  We rode the MTB loop at Pine Haven and then rode out the skating loop (think 2-track wide) to the point were the Stubway connector trail under US10 expressway.  The trail goes under the east bound lanes and then rides through the middle for a while before crossing the west bound lanes.  At this point, we turned around because of time limitations, but there is a whole mess of trails north (also accessible from Burns road).  We didn’t ride them, but the connector trail was a nice change (up and down and rooty).

Under the W.B. US-10 bridge before deciding that a 3-4 hour epic was not something on the training plan for the day.

At this point, we are making the 800 mile drive back to Memphis.  We both are racing this weekend (Andrea – Fool’s Good in Ga. / me – Cuba-Meridian in Ms./Ala.).  Have two days at work in there somewhere as well.  Probably take both days to catch up after being off for a 1.5 weeks.

The trip took us some 2500 miles starting in Memphis to Fond du Lac to Copper Harbor to Marquette to Midland and back to Memphis.  Since I am bored in the passenger seat, here is a nice map…

After leaving Copper Harbor we hit the Michigan Tech trails (my engineering degrees are from there) on the way to my mom’s house in Marquette, Michigan.  Andrea already blogged our ride, so here it is.

On Friday, we rested and went on the Cleveland Cliffs Iron mine tour.  Sort of long, but they have some pretty cool equipment.  Sorry, no photos are allowed, so you will have to just imagine a pit a mile across and 900 feet deep.  The processing plant is all about large rotating equipment and iron ore dust everywhere.  After the tour, we did a bit of a tune up ride and along the way stopped by the Ore to Shore registration.

On the race morning, we got there early (around 8:20a or so) for a 9:45a start.  People already were putting bikes down in the start grid (except those with a preferred start at the front.  We setup in the 2:50 or under group (expected time) and then walked around to warm up (since we didn’t bring another bike).

The start was fairly fast, but not too bad.  I sort of laid up a little to make sure that Andrea was making good progress (first two miles are generally uphill and on pavement).  Once we hit the trail, we separated and I avoided a few crashes (most were guys lying in a puddle or hung up in the sand).  I continued on and then thought I should wait for Andrea.  Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did.  About 40 people passed as I slowed up and then stopped for a minute.  Once she passed, I caught up and then I lost her again.  At this point, I decided to hammer and improve my placing. I repassed everyone that I let go by the Misery Hill feature (loose rock powerline climb).

After this point, it was taking longer and longer to bridge up to the next group, but I continued to pass people until maybe 5 miles to go. I had my only “crash” of the day which wasn’t a real crash, just a near miss.  I dove into a steep sand pit (I took the wrong line) and had to suddenly stop to avoid the endo.

Along the way, I ended up working with one guy for a while (one of the photos below is us at the finish line).  He ended up missing a turn and finished a minute or so after me.  By the end of the race, I was spent, my arms were getting weak and I was ready to be done on the last mile or so of pavement to Lakeside Arena.  Towards the end we started to overtake some of the back markers on the Soft Rock (28 mile version that started 45 minutes before ours).  So I wasn’t getting bested by someone’s grandma…

In the end I finished 1 second over 2:55 for 86th place.  I probably wasted 5 minutes with waiting for Andrea (and about 40 places), but I certainly didn’t have anything left after my efforts the last 40 miles.  I don’t have power data, but almost 60% of my race was in the threshold heart rate zone.

My mom took some photos at the start and the finish.  She was out on course, bu didn’t get a chance to take any photos.

The second day in Fond du Lac, WI, we headed out on the road not knowing what the trails would be like after the overnight rain.  Since I knew it and it is a nice rolling course, we headed down to Greenbush to do the ToAD loop as a start.  Along the way, we stopped at the trailhead and found the trails to be in great shape.  The overnight rain turned the dusty trails tacky (meaning fast), but we had moist rocks to deal with so it was not a good plan to get up going too fast.  We rode most of the those trails and completed the Greenbush RR loop back to the car.

That after my brother came back from a morning fishing out on Lake Winnebago.  We decided to go out with him in the mid-day heat.  We ended up pulling in quite a bit of Perch, a few bass, and a healthy amount of Sheephead (not keepers).

The next morning, we drove north 5 hours or so to Copper Harbor (hitting the Lena cheese shop and Dobber’s in Iron Mtn for Pasties).  It was almost 6 before we got settled in after comparison shopping about every hotel in town (after rejecting camping at the overpriced state and private campgrounds).   We headed out on US41 to the end (or the beginning as the sign indicates).  Past the end of the pavement, gravel roads beckoned….  We headed out along the GPS track (past many forks) until we thought we need to turn off or turn around (the sun was getting lower and lower).  I thought it would be more interesting to make a loop, so we started to follow the loop around…   All was cool until the wide and open road in front of us went straight, but the GPS track went hard left into an overgrown double track.  Since the wide open road went away from town, we opted to go into the overgrown trail.  It was slower going, but in the end, we ended up popping out on a open gravel road (as shown, sort of) and back to the main gravel road back to US41.

After an overpriced dinner (Mariner North), we settled in for the night.  It has been relatively hot up in the copper country and most of the hotels (ours included) don’t bother with A/C.

The next morning, it was threatening rain.   We went down the street for breakfast and wondered what we should do… ride now or wait it out.  Andrea and I decided to head out and bail out on one of the many road crossings if it started to rain.  Our ride plan was to ride the IMBA epic ride from start to finish.  Andrea only wanted to ride about 2 hours, so she might have had to bail out if it was running long.

First of all, the trails at Copper Harbor are an excellent mix of flowy, rocky, and down right frightening.  Most of the trail is fairly moderate, but the red trail is particularly tricky at time and includes two notable bridges (well marked).  We opted out from riding them not wanting to get hurt coming into the race weekend (Ore to Shore this weekend).  We made one wrong turn and cut off some of it near the end, at ended up back in town under 2 hours.

Wanting a little more riding and with the rain seeming more imminent, I decided to climb Brockway Mountain.  I have been up there in the car many times, but I never noticed how steep it was in parts.  Most of the climb is 5-8% when going up, but there are a few sections at 15% with an early 21% pitch right out of the first switchback.  The climb is broken up by a few reprives where the road heads back down before heading back up again.  This meant that on the return trip, it wasn’t a freeride…it requires a bit of pedaling to get back over these reversals.

Since we were done riding for the day, we decided to play tourist some.  We toured the nearby Delaware Mine which is quite a bit more interesting as a self guided tour (and longer) than went I went the last time probably over 20 years ago.  We drove around, bought some jam at the Jam Pot (monks selling jam and bakery near Eagle River), and looked around the houses they fixed up in the ghost town of Central Mine.   After dinner of some lake whitefish and trout, we rode out to a trail head and walked out to the lake front.  The overcast sky made it pretty cold and not so scenic, so we headed in before the sun went down.

The plan for tomorrow is get up and head down to Houghton to ride the Tech trails some and then head to Marquette where my mom lives.  The Ore to Shore race is on Saturday.

This morning Andrea and I went for the long loop of the Edge trail at the Bookcliffs north of Fruita, CO.  We started out from our campsite at the base of the cliffs and headed down the Frontside trail (~5 miles, 500 feet up).  Once clear of that, the Edge loop puts you on a gravel road for a while past numerous natural gas wells.  The road is pretty much up and some times really up.  In all, by mile 18 of the route, we were at 7300′+ from our base camp of 5400′.  Once up there, the trail has a couple ridiculous drops (steep descents).  We rode only the last of the big three because the others ones looked a bit too ridiculous.  Part of the trail follows a dry creekbed (wash) and includes a 30′ waterfall obstical.  There are ropes which were useful in getting ourselves and our bikes down the steep rock formation.

We were doing well on the trail, until I got caught by a trail monster and endo’ed with about 7-8 miles to go.  It was one of those JRA moments with moderate trail, must have caught a rock or something.   I was starting to feel a bit dehydrated despite trying to drink constantly and may have needed to eat again given the length of the ride.   The photos I took with my phone are included in the gallery… Andrea will have the rest on her blog.

We decided to leave the gnats behind (Bookcliffs campground is sick with them) and just head back to Frisco for my last night in Colorado.

We drove down from Frisco to Fruita to get to some warmer temperatures and to try a different style of singletrack.  The forested slopes of the Frisco/Breckenridge area were replaced with wide open desert with occasional Juniper trees.  The terrain is extremely varied in the Bookcliff area.  After stopping by the LBS to get Andrea’s SS wheels trued up and get some advice, we headed up to the camping area and setup.  The campground is pretty basic, but the price is right…free.  Marked spots, picnic tables,  and vault toilets are what that gets you.  You need to bring the rest (including water especially since it is brutal dry).

Fruita is lower in elevation (around 5500 at the campground), so the temperatures reached about 85F-90F in the middle of the day (Breck was only 65-68F).  But we have more air to breathe.  By the time we setup camp, ate, and got geared up it was after 1 pm.

Our ride (after a brief look at the local trail guide) was to link Chutes and Ladders and the Zippety Do Da trails.  Both sound innocuous, don’t be fooled.  The Chutes and Ladders course has some pretty wicked steep climbs straight away with the pay off of a long flowy descent (that is the “chutes” part).  The second part of our ride, the Zippety Do Da loop also had some wicked steep pitches, but with the added fun that some of the course is on the knife edge of a ridge (meaning you have the trail and drop offs on both sides)..  Some of the drops (and that is the right word) are really steep and require a bunch of bike control (and courage if you stop to think about them before dropping down).  Andrea and I navigated all of it successfully.  By the time we finished that, we had enough after only 16 miles of trail.  Her race and my 4th of July adventure meant we were a little tired.

We are going to stay one more day planning to ride up the bluff (Edge trail) before lunch and a shorter loop down in the Kokopelli section.  Wednesday morning, we will strike camp and head back to Denver for my afternoon flight out.

Today was the day.  Race day for Andrea.  The Firecracker 50 is a big event for Breckenridge and adding to it is the fact that is the Marathon National Championships (long distance / endurance mountain biking).  Since I didn’t register for the race (it fills up months before), I decided to go off in the other direction (away from the race) after they started.

My ride, started off with heading back to camp to get my helmet (left it in the tent).  It felt weird to ride without a helmet, but I didn’t think driving back to camp was smart (and would lose our parking spot).  That ride is pretty much down 500 feet over 5 miles on the rec-path.  And then up those same 500 feet on the road (5-6% grade) and then drop down 500 feet again to the campsite (Prospector Campground).  I picked up my helmet and filled a bottle and headed back over the hill back to the rec-path.

The single track ride I planned was to ride up Colorado trail (up 1200′ in 2.5 miles) and ride the Peaks Trail back to Breck.  The Colorado trail starts off up at a moderate grade (and fairly non-technical).  After getting up past 10,000′ the trail turns nasty with lots of rocks, roots, and much steeper pitches.  Several times I would charge into a section (3-5″ ledges to pop over) and just run out of gas, stall and have to stop for a moment to catch my breath.  Damn thin air.  Once over this, it bombs down to the Peaks trail (photo first photos of the sign and the trail photo).

The Peaks trail is pretty varied from pretty rocky, some steep stuff, and some fast singletrack.  As I got closer to Breck, there was much more foot traffic (4th of July hikers).  When I got to a cross-roads, I stopped and looked at map and decided to add to my journey going up the right fork of Siberian Trail.  This is pretty much a gravel road that climbs up to 10,600′.  Some great views (some of the other photos are from there).  After out-and-backing that trail, headed down to Breckenridge via various trails (and dodging more and more hikers/dog walkers).

By the time I got back, 4 hours had went by.  Andrea was estimating a time for herself of 7 hours, but there seemed to be a lot of finishers (pro men and women).  I tried to find a lap sheet to see how fast she got her first one done, but I didn’t see that anywhere.  Hung around and drank a beer (Frisco brewery Backcountry Brewery was there with free pints).  Ate a sandwich and decided to get a shower at the Ice Rink.  When I got back, I tried to figure out if she was finishing…  Maybe 10 minutes later, I hear Dave Towle announcing my name.  Andrea had finished, saw me, but in the crowds around the finishing chute, decided to just have Dave call me.  Once I met up with her, she thought she was top 3, but wasn’t sure.

The podium presentation wasn’t until 5, she went to shower and I waited around to see if the results were posted.  Not long after she left, they were put up and indeed she was 3rd in Singlespeed Women.   Podium and apres-podium beer shots are in the gallery below.

Right now, we are headed further west to Fruita, Colorado.   After 3 nights outside at 9500′, with overnight lows in the low 30′s, Andrea wants to get some warmth.  Fruita is around 4000′, so it should be a bit closer to home and is supposed to have some good trails.  It would be nice to explore more of the trails of Summit County (Breckenridge/Frisco), we only covered a small percentage in our 3 days of riding.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone despite the amount of people in town and on the rec-path.  Get off into the single track and it is like your own little world.

As I do laundry at the Frisco, CO laundromat, I downloaded some photos that I took over the course of the day.

We started out at our campsite, climbed over the pass to the blue river rec path (connecting Breck-Frisco).  We rode up the gravel roads of Golden Run (some steep stuff in the 15-16% range at times) and dropped back into Breck.  We hit the pump track again (Andrea loves that place) and then rode back to Frisco for lunch.  We hit an Indian food buffet (dubbed “Himalayan”, but like any other Indian place I have been to).  And then rode back to the campground (climb is much harder going back… much longer).

As we entered the national forest campground, we took a spur trail that headed to parts unknown, but mostly up….  After a little bit of that, we turned around and notices some guys rock climbing.  Of course Andrea had to try one of the easier ones.  After a little time at camp, we are back in Frisco.  I am doing the laundry whilst Andrea gets a pre-race massage.  She is racing marathon nationals tomorrow (50 mile mountain bike race for the national championships).

After another short week of work, I flew out to Denver on Thursday afternoon where Andrea picked me (she is on a longer road trip this month).  I was pretty tired from meeting out with some friends on Wednesday night and getting up early (as normal).  I also think my racing schedule was catching up with me right at the perfect time since I am not planning on racing anytime soon.  By the time I got to Denver, Andrea was running behind and I had to kill 2 hours at the airport.  Unfortunately, I started feeling worse and worse, probably a combination of tiredness, maybe something I ate, and I am sure the elevation change.

When she picked me up, we headed straight through Denver and out to Frisco, Colorado.  It was getting dark and I was not really in the mood to camp, so we got a room at the Snowshoe Inn there.  Pretty basic, but it worked.  We had a quick dinner and afterwards all I wanted to do is lay down.  I fell out right after we got back.  The good news is that woke up feeling much, much better.

We headed down the street to the Log Cabin for some excellent breakfast.  After reorganizing our gear some, we headed out to find a place to camp.  The national forest campground next to Frisco was fairly full.  The nicer part was absolutely full and the next part looked like a boat launch parking lot.  We ended up going to the next one down the road.  We were settling into one part when I noticed that they had no water.  The sites were $21/night with electricity (which we don’t really need).  The other part of the campground also didn’t have water, but since it was more basic (no electricity), it was $16/night.  So we set up her small one man tent (for storage) and planned to sleep in her Element.   By then, we needed to get going, so we headed to Breckenridge for our ride.

We started off trying to find a good bike shop.  She saw two guys headed down the street looking like they knew what there were talking about and asked for a shop recommendation.  Andrea wanted to top off the Stan’s in a few of her wheels.  We headed down to the shop Elevation for this.  It was going to take him an hour or so, so had some time to kill.

We started to think about how much of a pain it would be to move out all the stuff out of the Element every night, so we decided to buy a larger tent.  We were pretty close to an outdoors store (Mountain Outfitters).  We went there and found what we were looking for right away.  The shop employee was super cool and we setup up the tent in the shop to have a look at it.  We bought it.

After dropping off the tent, we were hungry, so we hit a Japanese restaurant.  By then, her bikes were ready so we went to get them and got ready for our ride.  Our plan was to ride the short cut lap of about 15 miles from town (just like her race would start).  The first part of the ride is asphalt (3 miles or so) and a few more miles of gravel.  Most of the time it was just heading up at various pitches from 2% to 10%+.  The single track picks up after that….  here are two photos that pretty much sum up most of the trail, pine forest and old mines.

After our ride, we came back and set up our new tent…

All in all, it was a good day.  We will tackle some other riding tomorrow, some it on miles of paved bike path since Andrea doesn’t want to ride too hard the day before her race.  I still need to figure out where I will ride when she is racing… Probably will use the bike paths to get to some single track away from the race course.  On Monday, we will head to Fruita (at least that is our plan) and ride out there for 2 days before she has to take me back to Denver for my flight back to Memphis.

Andrea, Matt, and I drove down to Oxford to the Clear Creek trails.  Jay and Kat followed in their car.  There were a couple of other groups that also came down from Memphis (our trails are still in a rebuilding state after the heavy rains & flooding) and everyone is always keen on riding something different.

The last time I was here, it rained for a good part of my cross-country race.  The narrow bench trail was pretty slick and I managed to crash in several imaginative ways (didn’t help it was my 5th ride or so on a mountain bike).  Anyway, this time the trails were dry save a few small puddles, and I am much better rider now than I was back in September.

As far as my skills, still a little bit to go..  It sounds pretty funny, but I tend to forget sometimes that I am running full-suspension.  Not that I am that timid, I just rise out my saddle when I don’t need to heading down a descent.  All in good time.

I probably will race this weekend at Hamilton Creek if it is not raining.  A nice little 6-hour up near Nashville.  The races I could be doing instead include Tulsa Tough and the Tennessee state crit in far, far away Johnson City.  Both are over 7 hours away and are not really my specialty anyway.

At Clear Creek, I also got to rock my new white American Classic wheels.  I ran some Specialized Fast Trak which turned out to be the tire I was looking for on these conditions (dry, hard pack which is typical in Tennessee summer).  It gives us our first “spare” set of wheels that Andrea and I will probably fight over when running dry roads / gravel.

It was probably about 8pm on Thursday night when we finally decided to bag going down to St. Francisville for the West Feliciana Classic.  It was an okay race last year, but with no teammates for either of us going and a 5+ drive, I wasn’t feeling it.

The weekend then reverted to a few group rides and a party thrown in (teammate Will just got into a house, so he threw a party).  I felt pretty good on both the Trinity ride and the Outdoors ride, trying to do some short decisive hard efforts…  I would say that I was partially successful in that (Saturday much more than Sunday–maybe it was Will’s party?).

For about the 10th time in the last few weeks, I ejected a bottle from my carbon cages just as we turned onto Ramsey road on the Outdoors ride (where it starts to heat up).  The cages I have tend to spread open when hitting a pothole, quickly liberating one water bottle (seat tube mount).  I put an Elite cage on the seat tube and will get a different design that is not so flexible.

Tomorrow, Andrea, Matt, and I plan to head down for some mountain biking at Clear Creek near Oxford, Mississippi.  A bunch from Memphis are headed down (some pretty early).  We will be there in late morning and will try to get some laps in before it rains (if it rains).  My one and only visit there was on a rainy day (Clear Creek Challenge last fall).  I have ridden my mountain more than a few hours by now, hopefully it will go much better for me.