roadcx.net

On Friday, our plan was to ride 2-3 of the loops of the Syllamo trail system starting with the Orange – Bald Scrappy loop. This trail starts out a lot different than Bad Branch as it drops down some rocky descents. Those caught me a little off guard, but I managed through them. Andrea was staying out ahead of me as she is more experienced in mountain biking. We were getting to the part where the trail levels out and speeds up when I found Andrea stopped on the trail.

Only ~2 mile in, a stick kicked up into her rear derailleur and snapped the hanger and bend the pulley cage. Since we didn’t have any parts with us, her day was done. Since we didn’t have any parts at all, her weekend was done. She tried to trail-side singlespeed it, but it wouldn’t take. The rigid rear end on her Air 9 meant that it had to be exactly right (it wasn’t).

She ended up walking back and I finished out the trail. Most of the rest of the trail was pretty reasonable even for a relative beginner like me. There was a nice little climb once it joined up with the blue trail, but it wasn’t that bad.

Once over the road again, I started going down this road which I thought was the trail and followed orange blases on the trees. There were sign denoting trail work in progress, so I didn’t think much of hefting my bike over huge brush piles.

After a while, the road sort of ended, so I started to work my way up the steep hill to find the trail. I did after about a 1/4 mile going up.

I finished out the loop (which has some more tricky sections in it, this time going up). Andrea met me close to the end as she had walked back up from the trailhead. We decided to head back to the cabin and hike the Green trail / White River Bluff loop after lunch.

The White River Bluff loop had some tricky sections in, but also offered a lot of good views out over the river. The amount of rock ledges forced some trees to go up through the rocks.

As we hiked we cleared what we could do without a saw, leaving only 2-3 forced dismounts on the loop (8″ trees off the ground across the trail, etc.)

The next morning, I geared up for a ride (Jacks Branch / yellow), Andrea for a hike/trail clearing hike (Bald Scrappy / orange). Jack’s Branch starts out mostly flowy, mostly downhill for the first several miles. There are a few rocky sections especially near an overlook outcropping.

I finished up the loop by following the Blue and then the Orange back to the White River Bluff Trailhead. The section of the orange was a repeat from the day before and it did go better, still need some additional practice to get it right.

Andrea and I headed over to Mountain View / Syllamo to spend Thankgsiving with her family at her dad’s new place up there. Our plans were to relax and ride as much of the Syllamo mountain bike trails as possible.

stopping to let the dogs run around on the way there by some random rice field along US64 west.

We got up this morning (after sleeping in a little bit) and headed out from the cabin (we stayed last night at a cabin since her dad’s house had too many there on Wednesday night). It was a quick 2 miles on the road, plus another 5.5 miles up a gravel road (Green Mountain Road) to the Bad Branch trail head.

We rode the 12 miles Bad Branch trail without too much problems. As the easiest both in terms of skill and required fitness, it was good one to do first. We clear off some newly fallen branches over the trail, but it was clear that a lot of chain saw work was done on this trail in the recent past. The trail has some nice flowy sections riding on top of pine needles/leaves over the hard pack surface. The rock in the area breaks apart and packs nicely making a great trail surface.

Our original planned trail involved creek crossings and we didn’t want to deal with those in the cold (on the menu for tomorrow). We ended up have a nice ride of 28 total miles with the first 7 and last 7 being pavement / gravel road. The climb up to the trail heads on Green Mountain road is no joke, it is about a mile or so at 6-8% grade.

Andrea with her commuter safety vest. Hunting season… can’t be too careful.

Back at the cabin, getting packed up to move up to the house for the rest of the weekend. My Titus on the way up, her Air9 on the ground to the left.

I decided to revisit the random banner image thing. I learned a bit too much about php (I knew almost zero just an hour ago…) It is a pretty basic script, but watch out for extra spaces at the end of the line (it does matter).

Here is the first four that I made up (most are from today)

First race in the new kit (Marx & Bensdorf) and last race of my Fall campaign, it was good to do both at a race in Memphis. Andrea and I headed down to the river to race the 23rd annual Outdoors Inc mid-south cyclcocross championships. This year the race is not the Tennessee state championship (which it has been for most of the last decade). With increased racing statewide, the state championships has moved around, this year to a late season race in Johnson City. I guess that is payback for last year and other years where it was held in Memphis.

Since my lightweight tubular wheelset is out of service (front tubie rolled off, rear one needs a little spoke wrenching after the crash last weekend), I decided to put some Michelin Jet tires on my Shimano DuraAce carbon / aluminum wheelset. The course is pretty much grass or hardpack, so these were perfect… I ran them down at 30 psig front, 35 psig rear, so I was taking a risk with that low of a pressure with tubed clincher tires, but it was the right setup.

Andrea raced her teammate Casey in the Womens race which started behind the CX4 / Beginner Masters “B”-race. She won and rode a good race (I let her race my above mentioned DuraAce/Jet combos since her tubeless burped out some air on our preview lap.)

The A-race was right after it. This race was most of the rest: CX1/2, CX3, and Masters 35/45+. Lined up 2nd row, right behind Russ (M&B) and right next to Will (also M&B). Got a reasonable start, staying close to the leaders maybe in 6th – 7th spot. I started to move up when I could and after a while (maybe 2 laps), 2 leaders had a decent gap on Russ and Bert (35+ racer) and they had a gap on me.

I started to make some separation to those behind when I ran under the course rope going down a hill and had to push hard to regain the gap. By mid-race, I ended up catching up to Russ and we worked together going down the long straightaway.

The laps pretty much went the same way, he would get up the steep ride-up to the sidewalk better than I, I would catch back by the timber stairs. He would ride the timber stairs…I would run them… chase.

Repeat, repeat. On the last lap, I was little slower coming back to him and had to navigate around a lap rider at the top of the course. Over the log barriers to the finishing stretch, he had a few second gap… I big-ringed it (for the first time all race) and started to come back. Russ spotted that move before it was too late, so we finished 3rd and 4th (me).

Andrea took all these photos, I edited them and put them up in a gallery.

I’ll make this short and sweet.

(1) Andrea and I are getting married, December 12th.

(2) I am changing teams… from Memphis Velo / Smith & Nephew to Mrax & Bensdorf cycling team. The change is going along with my plans upgrade to category 2 in 2010. This year should be a good year to go on top of 2009 (which was my best year yet).

This weekend completes my Fall cyclocross campaign with the Outdoors, Inc Cyclocross race on Mud Island (Memphis). I will race a couple more times this winter, but this is the last of 5 weekends in a row… It will be nice to finish it up with a race at home. (I decided not to race the Lock 4 – six hour mtb race this weekend).

With only 2 races under my belt (as far as TBRA points go), I am actually 2nd in the series in CX1/2. I am miles behind Jeremy Chandler and basically tied with a few others with similar totals, so it doesn’t mean a whole lot. We’ll see how that develops….

Andrea’s new hat was right in its element at the Log Cabin restaurant in Hurricane Mills.

After heading back home, hitting the Memphis Velo team dinner… I was already pretty tired from the race…we manged to hold it together and be social. We got up in the morning and made the trek to McEwen for day 2.

I was a little worse for the wear for racing today… I had some scuffing and soreness due to the tumble yesterday, but mostly it was my hip. Nevertheless, I planned to race the CX1/2 (+CX3 + Women 1/2/3) race in the early afternoon. The combined field meant we started with about 10. Some of the field had already raced (either Masters or CX3), but there were a few pairs of fresh legs in the group.

The course was nearly identical to Saturday’s course…except it was run in reverse with a slight modification incorporating a run up (or a small hop + ride up if you could pull it off).

Run up (ride up) [photos by Marsha White]

Unfortunately the sketchy up hill off camber turning into a downhill version of the same.. I never really figured that out…..

Sketch corner

We started out and quickly it started to develop like Saturday. Andy was well out front, a group of 2 behind (Jeremy + Jeremy), and then a group of 4 (my group). The first lap or so, I wasn’t really in a groove yet and would fall back from this group and rejoin them after long grass sections. One of the times down the hill, I tried to pass on the inside… on that sketchy downhill. Rather than take out a large group as the line closed, I rode into the tape and left a huge gap. I took nearly a lap to get back to the group. Once back, I started to attack where I could. I generally sucked the descent (maybe gun shy from the previous day’s crash?).

By 3-4 laps to go, I was successful at dropping the rest and tried to chase down the Jeremys. I was able to hold the gap, but didn’t really make up much ground. 4th place.

Finish

I had already signed up for the “Hoss of Cross” race at the end of the day, so I got resuited up even though I was pretty spent from the race. The idea is a 2 lap race for a wheelset (and other prizes) with all categories racing together and against each other for one winner. The start was staged by average lap times of each category’s winner. This meant that I would start at the back.. The junior went first, then 45 seconds, then Andrea. Another 45 seconds, the Cat 4’s and the S/S’er. After 25 seconds, Barrett (CX3) and I were allowed to go.

Barrett started out fast (my lack of warmup was showing here). I ended up coming back to him and lead us into the run up. At least that was my plan. I suspected that he might ride it, so I was trying to go outside…that would have been great if I would have unclipped. I ended up on the ground before the log at the bottom and Barrett basically half-crashed into me. Nice. We managed to pick up the pieces and start the run up pretty quickly. As I pushed my bike up the hill, the rear wheel was dragging…the brack shoe had pushed past the rim. I took a second and dislodged it. By the time I got going, Barrett was well ahead, but I stayed close enough to him through the back section of the course passing one CX4 along the way.

We passed the next CX4 (part of a larger group) going to the run-up the second time. He rode, I ran it…. When I tried to remount, I was overgeared (dumb) and stalled going on the pavement. Fail. I was passed back the CX4 racer and had to ride behind him. I didn’t overtake him until half-way around the course (messed up the decent again and then was jammed up a few times). By this time, I was all over anyway, so I just rode it in. I think I ended up 6th? Barrett did well to get up to 3rd place to take a prize. The grand prize… the Junior took it. Andrea dropped out when her chain dropped below her chain watcher effectively ending her race.

After the race, we stayed around, helping finish off the keg and (at least somewhat) helping teardown. Actually we didn’t do much with that. All-in-all a good weekend, even though I had a mediocre weekend of racing (results wise)… Sketchy stuff (in the dry) isn’t my strength. Andrea and I will have to return there for some mountain biking… maybe the weekend after next…

One more weekend of cross. Outdoors, Inc on the island. At least it is a hometown race!

Well, I rolled the other one. Probably shouldn’t have used those used tires, but it looked to be a good glue job. One hard corner and I was in the dirt.

I am writing this as we head back to Memphis (Andrea behind the wheel). I got one of those Verizon MiFi portable access points… So far, so good. We will testing out the coverage map in rural Arkansas in the coming months. It worked at the race venue (rural Tennessee where my AT&T iPhone didn’t work at all). Yeah, AT&T sucks. (I had 3G coverage where my iPhone didn’t work at all, no voice, no EDGE, certainly no 3G.)

Back to the race. Raced the CX1/2 + 3 race at the McEwen CX festival. We had a decent sized field (maybe 10 at the start). I got an okay start, Andy Reardon showed up and walked away from our group of 5. We were traversing an offcamber section when Jeremy when down in front of me…. I tried to cut up the bank and joined him on the ground 10 feet behind him. We both recovered and chased back to the other 3.

On the second lap, I attacked up the hill and caused a bit of a split and tried to keep the pressure on leading the group up the 2nd hill section. At the end of thiat section, the course went on and off the pavement twice and had a sweeping sketchy turn at speed. This is where I rolled off my front tire. I went down hard on the hard pack dirt. Throwing off my glasses in the process. Will and another nearly ran me over (there were right behind).

I picked up my bike after see the tire had rolled and walked / trotted to the pits.

Over the barriers. Injuries from the crash made suitcasing the bike not a fun activity. photo by Marsha White.

John Carr saw me running and gave me a bike change to my pit bike. At this point, I was sort of half in the mood to race and i probably took me a lap to get back into the grove. I had 8 more or so to figure it out. I picked off some of the people that passed me when I was running (mostly the women that were on the course at the same time as us). Ended up 5th of 6 finishers. (Jeremy also went down overcooking that corner and snagged the course tape ending his race.)

Chasing… photo by Marsha White.

After the race, it took a while…despite several beers out of the Yazoo keg…but that really hurt. Not much broken skin. Some light abrasions and a bruised hip. Racing tomorrow will either be awesome or really, really suck. We’ll see.

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What when wrong, an attempt to make sense of it: basically, this tire was a used tired when I got these wheels (was Tufo taped on). The tape bond on the front was strong, but after my rear one failed (Beat the Freak #2), I cleaned these up and reglued. The rear one came unbonded the next weekend (although I caught it before it rolled and put a new tire on instead). For the front, it looked to be in good shape after a pretty good glue job.

I think what killed it is that the base tape wicked up some of the nasty mud that we have been living with in Tennessee this year, before I sealed it. I think the Aquaseal on the base tape would have saved this tire, but I put it on too late (only the week before last). My plan is to clean up the rim and put it on a hook until next year and glue on a fresh tire late next summer. I only have two more races and both are dry courses (grass, etc). I will use a clincher tire / rim. I have plenty of both.

Since we were in Nashville overnight and it was Halloween, we met up with a group for dinner at Rose Peppers in East Nashville. A few from the group headed over to the Red Door Saloon a few blocks away. The place was packed with lots of people in costumes of all sorts. It was a pretty good time. That is one good thing about racing CX1/2, your race is not until after noon.

In the morning, I felt pretty good and decided to actually warm-up using the trainer and wheel we had lugged along for that purpose. During Andrea’s race, I spun for about 30 minutes on the trainer and my legs started to come around. The course was exactly the same in terms of layout and barriers, which meant that it would be a hard 60 minutes. What wasn’t the same, by the time we raced, is that the laps were lot faster as some of the spongy sections had dried out. I had a good start, leading the group into the first mud section…

On the first little hill after the mud, I was overgeared, stalled out and had to dismount and run…that put me in 5th (a.k.a. last) chasing since I had a little trouble getting re-clipped in on the uneven / off camber ground… We entered the long climb more or less all together. It would be a bit further into the 1st lap before I moved up to 4th coming through the finishing stretch (mud section).

By then, Troy had a good lead, Travis was chasing, and Jeremy C. was just in front of me. I passed him on the way to the woods on the 2nd lap–Travis on his S/S was quite a bit ahead. That gap was rapidly disappearing as he had to run up all the hills where I could ride up them in the 39×21-23. I passed him on the hill on the 3rd lap(?) and tried to hold him off as we maneuvered through the tight turns and down the descent to the muddy 180 to the 2nd barrier. Through the long mud stretch, I gained some time and continued to build on it as we hit the long hills.

So at this point I was 2nd. Troy was 1 minute or 2 ahead of me and the gap stayed until the end. A much better day indeed. Yesterday I was hating the course, but I think the pants were the biggest problem. Today went much better. I think I will have to rethink the custome for next year (something that uses shorts at the minimum!)

Two more weekends in my five weekends of Cyclocross. McEwen CX Festival is next, followed by Outdoors Inc CX race.

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Here is the course laid out in Google Earth as recorded by my Garmin. Start / finish on the lower right side of the loop, course ran clock-wise.