Team Optibike

I have had the opportunity to do many amazing activities in my life, and often there is a singular moment in these that I remember particularly strongly. Among those I count: climbing the knife ridge approaching the summit of Denali at nearly 20,000 feet; the descent of the Turrialba Volcano during Stage 3 of La Ruta in Costa Rica; and the final pull up to the finish of the 100-mile Leadville race this summer when I knew I had my 10^th finish. To that list I can now add the moment I spent flying across the plateau at over 13,000 feet in the Pike’s Peak race.

Pike’s Peak has a long and celebrated history of motor-powered vehicles scaling its narrow road. The first automobile made it to the summit on August 12, 1901. It was a two cylinder Locomobile Steamer driven by C.A. Yont and W.B. Felker. It’s unknown how long it took these two gentlemen to get up the road, but I’d be willing to bet I was faster. The first Pike’s Peak Hill Climb race was held August 10 – 12, 1916, to commemorate the opening of the Pike’s Peak Highway. It is the second oldest auto race in the United States (the Indy 500 being the oldest). There are 156 curves on the course. In 2011, a 910-horsepower purpose-built car made it up the 12.42-mile course in 9 minutes and 51 seconds – the first car to ever break the 10-minute barrier. That’s an average of 75.65 mph. In 2010 the first bicycle race up Pike’s Peak was held, using a much longer 25-mile course that started in the city of Manitou Springs. In that event, two Optibikes made the trip at an average of 14.3 mph, finishing in 1 hour and 46 minutes, and winning the electric assist category. This year we had to beat that.

The course map

Back in April there was a lot of chatter on-line about the race. Some of the on-line electric bike communities were planning big things to topple Optibike. I’ve been a customer and fan of Optibike since 2006 and have owned two of their bikes. I was one of their first brand ambassadors and I have shown off my custom-painted “Nevada One” Optibike every chance I get, including bringing it into hearing rooms at the Nevada Legislature. I posted some stuff on-line about the race, and then Craig Taber (sales and marketing for Optibike) called me and asked if I wanted to come out and race Pike’s Peak as part of Team Optibike. I didn’t have to think about that one at all. Over the months leading toward the race, I learned more including that they were bringing out a new, more powerful Optibike and that they would be showing them off by racing a team up Pike’s Peak. I also learned that my friend and fellow Optibike maniac Jamie Johnson from San Francisco was also going to be racing.

The Friday before the race, Jamie and I met at the airport, got a car, and headed for Boulder. Once there we got reacquainted with our old friends at the Optibike company and each got to see the bike we’d be riding. We got to set up them up to our liking and immediately one funny difference occurred. I had brought out a flexible tape measure to set my saddle height just where I wanted it: 73 cm from the center of the bottom bracket. Jamie just looked at his saddle and said, “Yea, that’ll work.” We took the bikes out for our first test ride, just 5 minutes around the block near Optibike. Even in that short a ride, I was blown away by the speed and handling of these bikes. The all had new Schwable tires, and mine had the new Avid Code brakes with four pistons. This is very good when stopping from 35 mph, which was an easy speed to attain on these bikes.

After some adjustments and messing around, we headed off for a “quick” ride up to Brainard Lake, a mere 25 miles away with 5,600 feet of elevation gain. Nothing much. On the way up, we were climbing Boulder Canyon on Lee Hill Dr., and I found that with not too much effort I could pull away from Jim Turner (who designed the Optibike and owns the company). Jim’s strong but he’s a big guy, easily over 200 lb; with my relatively light weight and stronger human-based power-to-weight ratio (our bikes had the same power-to-weight ratio), a bit of leg push and I was right up past him. Just to be dramatic, I did this seated – it’s good to know how to do that, just to put the moves on people without them thinking you’re working that hard. Oh, I worked plenty hard, but only for about 30 seconds to get a gap on them, then I could ease off. During one of my pulls off the front of the group, Jamie caught me and hung on the back of my bike to pull himself past. He was so smooth pulling on me, I first thought the battery was dropping out when I felt the bike slow.

We got up to the lake in just about an hour, spent some time riding around the lake, and then came back. On the way down I got up to just over 55 mph, which could be scary on a bike, but this machine feels really solid even at that speed. I think Kyle said he got up to 62 mph. That’s nuts, although arguably not much more so than 55 mph is. I managed most of that ride on a single battery (we were all carrying 2), so I felt really confident going into the Pike’s Peak race.

Saturday was mostly about prepping and packing and getting everything down to the Colorado Springs area. Jamie and I got our packets and then found an REI store for him to get some mounts for his GoPro helmet cameras. We all met again at the hotel in the early afternoon and spent some time running the batteries down just a bit so we could charge and balance them overnight and be fully charged when racing. The rest of the day was spent putting on numbers, picking clothes, food, and stuff for the drop bag, and just reminding myself to relax and get ready to race.

Ready to Race

The morning of the race dawned clear and beautiful. I remember being out in the hotel parking lot helping to load the bikes, everyone dressed in their team jerseys working together. Driving down to the race start, seeing Pike’s Peak sticking it’s bald head into the sky up above the surrounding mountains, I began to wonder what it was going to be like to be up there, racing across those ridges in the sky. I started putting my mental images together, thinking about my efforts. The team was pulling together, working together and everything was going just the way we wanted it to.

Down at the start there was a lot of interest in the Optibikes and we talked to a lot of people. I tried to stay out of that and just relax and focus on the race. As we got lined up, we realized that Garrett was not there with us. Just as they were counting down the last 10 seconds to the race start, we saw him riding on the sidewalk coming up to the start. He had gone off to get a coffee and sandwich and was late getting back. He did start a few seconds late and rode the first part one-handed to hold his coffee. Later, at the top, he told Jim, “This thing needs a cup holder!”

The start was a bit chaotic as one of our riders got a bit aggressive with the throttle and flipped her bike, ending up on the ground. Here’s a video of the start:

One funny thing to note about this is the last bike coming through at about 33 seconds in the video is Garrett. You can just barely see him holding his coffee. That’s dedication.

Because of the dropped bike, we got a kind of a slow start. We had planned on a pace-line of the six of us (figuring that Garrett on the older bike would be too slow to hang on) and had hoped to be up in the 25-30 mph range going up the initial part of the climb and up highway 24.

Unfortunately there was a strong wind blowing down the canyon and right in our faces. Staying in the pace-line was really the only option at that point, and any time I moved out of Jim’s draft, I was immediately reminded of why we were doing the pace-line. Up a bit above the toll road gate, the hill pitches up steeply and I found myself really considering just leaving the group at that point and striking out on my own for the summit. We were just over 6 miles in and hadn’t gotten the speeds up high enough to achieve my pre-race goal of under 1 hour to the top. That was going to require just over 25 mph average speeds and we weren’t close to that. Look at the elevation profile, and you can see that section starting at about 14 miles with sustained 8% or more grades. That’s going to be tough. I wanted all my battery and all my legs ready for that.

The Pike's Peak Course Grade and Elevation

Another way to look at it is the trainingpeaks file. You can play with that and see where I was working hard, both early on and during my solo pull at the end.

I decided to stick with the original plan and just ride the pace-line with the team until after the dam, which is preceded by a reasonable section of downhill. That’s where we were moving at about 42 mph. I had been riding to that point in eco-mode, which means just over half the available power. The advantage I had is that I could still fill in the power gap with my legs, so I never lost contact with the team and saved on battery. I knew I could produce more power at 8,000 or 10,000 feet elevation than at 14,000 feet. That’s why my heartrate spiked up a few times in the first half, hitting my high for the day (180 bpm) at 15 minutes and 11 seconds. Spikes again at 22 and 27 minutes kept me working hard and saving my batteries.

Up to the point I left the pace-line, I was having a great day, only worried about our average speed to that point, but we were in the trees, it was a nearly perfect temperature, and other than my breathing I really didn’t have any way of knowing how high up I was. With the team together I felt very comfortable, the bike was running strong, and I didn’t have a worry in the world. But I hadn’t come there for a steady and comfortable ride to the top; I had come there to race and race hard, to leave it all out there on the mountain and have nothing left on top. Part of being on this team was my responsibility to the overall effort – getting everyone up, but another part was getting Optibike the best possible time. Sometimes being part of a team means going alone. Pulling out of the pace-line and moving up to the front and off the front was more than just a change in ride position, it was a change in attitude to one of an all-out time trial to the summit. I started what I had come there for – to race.

For the first part of my push to the summit, Jamie held onto my rear wheel. I had seen his shadow when we started, and then I became so focused on the road in front of me, my body’s response, and the bike that I pretty much forgot everything else. According to Jamie, when he had to switch to his front battery (we had all started on the rear ones) the momentary loss of power caused him to lose contact with me. He never got it back. Like I said, I didn’t even realize that and had just kept cranking along. You can see in my heart rate file: the heart rate jumps up to about 170 and stays there for just over 30 minutes. That’s a long time to hold that kind of effort, but I was at that moment committed to do everything I could to get up that hill as fast as I could.

As I went through the Glen Cove area at about 11,500 feet and saw the elevation sign, I realized I was still on the rear battery, so I switched there. With less than 3,000 feet to the summit, I was just going to my second battery. That knowledge gave me the confidence to really dig in and run the bike as hard as it would go and, at the same time, push myself even harder. Just beyond Glen Cove, I went above tree line.

Up there the views open greatly to large expanses of dirt, rock, and sky – a truly alpine environment. Looking out from the road, most of the views are down and I caught occasional glimpses of the forests and lakes. While it’s fun now to review the helmet camera images, I really didn’t look around much since it was taking every bit of my concentration to keep that bike straight and fast along that road with almost no guardrails. But I was very aware of the change to this alpine environment, a really foreign place for me to be doing what I was – a full out time trail on this very impressive bike. The change to this open and sparse environment made me feel even more alone out there, just riding and breathing. I found that the switchbacks on the steep part of the climb were so tight I was dropping to 13-14 mph to get around them and that was on a closed road where I was using most of the road. Out of every switchback I was on my feet, hammering the pedals down getting my speed back up.

The whole way that I was on my own up high I had a motorcycle escort. Turns out the driver was one of the two main organizers, but I didn’t know that. I had this feeling like I was Marco Pantani climbing Alpe d’Huez with a motorcycle escort. Except for the fact that I was all alone up there with my thoughts—no fans were lining the roads. I had never been in that kind of place in a bike race: all alone off the front.

This is what it felt like...

I still knew what I had to do, my main focus was still to pedal as hard as I could and push that bike ever higher. At about 13,000 feet there is a level portion called the Devil’s Playground. At that altitude, the air is about 40% less dense than at sea level, and I really think I noticed as I was able to accelerate to 38 mph going past the aid station. Up there I felt completely relaxed despite the impossibility of the moment. I was riding very hard with my heart rate as high as I dared keep it at about 170 beats per minute, but I was really in my element, working perfectly with the bike, both of us right at our limits but within a strange new comfort zone at such high speeds and altitudes.

The thinning air did much more than cut the air resistance; it made me breathe a lot harder. It also likely made my thinking and reaction time slower, but that didn’t change much. I still was using up all of the road on the switchbacks and trying to make the lowest time I could.

I was tucked down to minimize air resistance and cranking the pedals as hard as I could. I noticed the surprise in the faces of the aid station workers as I passed by at that speed. Above that lay about 1,100 feet of vertical climbing in maybe 2 miles. I knew I was close.

As I began that last 1,000 vertical feet of climbing, I knew I was near the summit and really dug in and raced for the finish, cresting the top of the road with my legs in lactate-driven pain and my breathing labored at 14,110 feet. I rounded the last turn, I could see the road crest in front of me, nothing but sky beyond that. I was on my feet, racing those last few seconds and accelerating the bike to over 28 mph before I hit the stop button on the watch. I wasn’t sure exactly where to hit stop because they had not yet set up the finish line! I cruised across the top parking lot as people yelled at me to stop. With nothing else to focus on I became acutely aware of my breathing and how labored it was.

It took a minute or so for me to be able to speak, and that’s when it hit me. I suddenly realized I had done what I had set out to do – win. Not just win, but race solo at the limits of my efforts in this potentially hostile thin-air environment and I had made it. As I slowed down after the finish, I suddenly became aware of just how hard I was breathing. It took a minute or two before I really realized what I had done.  Standing there alone, the feeling of celebration welled up within me and I had nothing left to do but yell out in joy. The feeling was incredible. Standing was not the best idea, as my quads where twitching visibly – that again told me I had accomplished my goal of leaving nothing in my personal gas tank—to run that to the limit and do as much as I could.

It was actually only 4 minutes I stayed there alone before Jamie made it up. Two minutes after that Kyle was there, and then after 2 more minutes Craig and Jim were only 20 seconds apart. Traci was up just over 6 minutes after Jim and then 5 minutes after Traci came Garrett, doing the finish in high style, sidesaddle on the frame as he crossed the line. From the first Optibike to the last only 20 minutes had gone by. Everyone except Garrett was on the new bike, but even he had a current model. Garrett had started late and ridden one-handed at first to manage his coffee. It had been quite a showing, with seven bikes entered placing first through seventh. I thought I had counted four other ebikes at the start, and the official record shows one other made it.

Before anyone dismisses what I did as “riding a motorcycle” or something, first look at the heartrate file and see how hard I was working and also remember that I had just over 1 horsepower and about 1600 watt-hours of battery at my disposal, not all that much. My heartrate averaged 161 bpm over the whole race, and 168 bpm over the last 30 minutes, which is among my best ever.

My heart rate over the entire climb.

Video Of the climb:

In the days following this event I kept thinking back to those moments high up on the mountain, moving so fast. It brought me back to where I started this write up – thinking of other events I had done and wanting desperately to get back to that moment of exhilaration on Pike’s Peak. I have to thank Jim again for designing such an impressive machine. Thanks also to Craig, Kyle, Garrett, and so many others at Optibike for doing what they do and making it possible for me to have this incredible experience. The bike is a near-perfect integration of many parts to make not just a strong climber, but an undeniably solid, complete bike that can race up those kinds of hills and also get me safely down again without ever feeling out of control. Like every Optibike, it lets me add as much as I can by pedaling to where I can really push myself and have so much fun doing it.

A year is a long time to wait for another chance to do this, but it’s already on my calendar. I can’t wait to get back up into that clear, thin air and race for the summit.

After just over a month with with my new bike I’m finally able to offer something of a review of it’s performance with more detail than, “It’s AWESOME!” I’ve ridden it on trails I know like the ripples on a strip of bacon and trails I’ve never seen before in my life, like the inside of a tofu package. So what I’ll do is talk about particular trails and how the bike handles them. Before I get into that, watch this snappy little video I made…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Keep in kind that other than one run down the N-Trail on an intense and a mile or two on Japhy Rider’s old Turner, i’ve never really ridden a full suspension bike. And for the last few months I’d been riding my Vulture 29er in single speed mode. So getting a 130/140mm all mountain bike, with gears was a shock to my system.

Trail: Upper Aspen Slalom

• Location: Deer Valley Resort, Utah
• Dificulty: Black Diamond
• Description: Steep, Root, Rocky with tight switchbacks and root drops.

This trail was fun and the super stiff front end on this bike makes the switchbacks manageable and the steep rollouts fun. I did walk the nasty ones, but I rode more than I would have on my Vulture due to the Bandit’s 68 degree head tube angle. This trail was fun, but we skipped the lower half for some swoopy bermed single track with was amazing. Then we hit some boardwalk features with tight switchbacks.

The bike handled those really well, as it does all tight switchbacks. I think the main reason it feels so good in tight switchbacks is because of the through axle Fox fork, the stiff ass Crank Brothers Cobalt wheels and the fact that 26er wheels are way less flexy than 29er wheels.

Trail: Keystone, Luge Run, Halo, N-Trail

• Location: Peavine, Nevada
• Dificulty: Blue
• Description: Flowy Singltrack, extended climbs, hard roller coaster g outs, rocks, drops, sidehills

Ok, so that’s a lot of trails. I’ll talk about the way the Bandit handles the various elements.

It climbs like a hard tail. With the Fox Pro Pedal on, there is no noticeable bob or inefficiency yet it soaks up the bumps and makes seated climbing a dream. At the same time, climbing out of the saddle the bike feels tight and stiff and like a hard tail. The Crank Brothers Cobalt Wheels are the lightest i’ve ever had and the Maxxis Tires are super light so the rolling stock spins up fast when I put my meager wattage into gear.

It descends like you’d expect. The Fox Suspension is amazingly stiff and plush. With the Propedal and lockout off, it’s super squishtastic. The only problem I have is the damn Maxxis Crossmark tires. I guess Maxxis just don’t agree with me. I had some 29er ignitors that I wanted to impale on a spike. I have some WTB Mutano Raptors on order and will be installing them ASAP.

The bike handles drops pretty well too. Once I got the shocks pumped up tight they don’t bottom out on small drops. The ones in the video, at the park and above the N-Trail are small, but more than I would do on a casual ride on a hard tail. Having a 5 inch + travel bike is like riding fat skis in powder. It’s a world of difference. Super fun. Drops and big bumps just get soaked up with no dive or brake dive or squatting or whatever else weirdness might happen. Either way, I’m going to get myself hurt.

The luge run is super fun on the bike, but it lets me go so fast that I run off the trail. That’s mostly from the tires which don’t do well in the lose peavine dirt. The G-Outs and swoops are super fun with the rear suspension. And the 140mm front end is a big difference over the 100mm on my Vulture 29er.

Long bumpy descents are sweet on this bike. You never want to stop!

Trail: Lake View Climb

• Location: Alpine Meadows, CA
• Difficulty: 1 hour long climb
• Description: Mostly just a grind, but descending gets steep, lose and rocky in spots.

This was a good test of the efficiency of the suspension, the range of the 2 x 10 drive train and the cockpit setup.

The bike came with a 70mm Thomson Stem. I swapped that out for a 90 mm stem, and it made me a lot more comfortable. No back pain issues, no handling issues. Feels much better. The front end is still a little light in steep seated climbs, but i think I’ll get used to it. Coming from a Single Speed, it just feels weird to stay seated in hard climbs, and i am getting used to it.

As I said above, the Transition Bandit suspension is very efficient for both seated and out of the saddle climbing. I boosted the pressure in the rear to 150 and the sag is still about right, but the feel of the rear end is nice and stiff while still soaking up the bumps.

Complaints:

Number 1 complaint is pedal strike. Perhaps this is just a constant problem with full pension bikes, particularity 5 inch + bikes, but I think that on an “All Mountain” bike the BB could stand to be a bit higher without affecting handling too much. If the idea is that you can pedal through rock gardens with a 5 inch all mountain bike, then I must be missing something, cause the rock gardens are always reaching up and grabbing my pedals.

The Crank Brothers Cobalt wheels are too bling for me. I want to swap them out for a DT Swiss / Stans wheel set from Matty Larson wheels.

The Crossmark wheels are weak. I can’t use them.

Transition Bandit: Build 1

STEM: Thomson X4 70mm
HANDLEBAR: Crank Brothers Cobalt 3 Riser 720mm

• Comfortable, cool shinny black finish

HEADSET: FSA Gravity DX Pro
CRANKSET/BB: SRAM XO 2.2 10 speed 175mm 39/26 – GXP 73mm

• It’s carbon and it’s going to get thrashed, but whatever.

BRAKES: Front: SRAM XO Carbon 6″ / Rear: SRAM XO Carbon 6″

• The levers are nice and the feel of the whose setup is powerful and consistent.

TIRES: Maxxis Crossmark 2.1 Foldable

• Light and squirrely. These are not good for RenoSlashTahoe in the summer.

SEATPOST: Thomson Elite

• Beautiful

SADDLE: Transition Park n’ Ride Diamond Stitch

• Cool looking, but taint rubbing.

GRIPS: ODI Ruffian Lock-on

• These are thin and hard. I prefer thick and soft.

CASSETTE: SRAM PG1070 10 speed 11-36

• It works

WHEELSET: Crank Brothers Cobalt 3

• Light, stiff, but fancy looking.

SHIFTERS: SRAM XO 10 speed

• Precise, tight, nice.

REAR DERAILLEUR: SRAM XO 10 speed

• Good stiff spring keeps the slap to a minimum.

FRONT DERAILLEUR: SRAM XO 10 speed

• Unremarkable. So that means it’s good. The whole 2 x 10 speed thing is very nice. I leave it in the big ring and cross chain most of the time only dropping into granny for the super steeps.

CHAIN: KMC X10.93

• It’s a chain…

Black Rock Bicycles

Curtis and Steve @ Black Rock Bikes did an awesome job putting this together for me. Thanks guys!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thursday I went out to Black Rock Bicycles to witness the buildup of my new Transition Bandit. Curtis and Steve did a kickass job of putting it all together not saving any time or cutting any corners. Curtis reamed out the seat tube with a wire brush to de-burr the inside. I’d never seen that before. But it makes sense that it could cut down on creaking of the seatpost and make for a more secure connection.

He dialed the shifting and brakes, set up the fork and shock, pressurized the tires with their own mix of Stans and Slime and just got the whole think totally dialed!

Transition Bandit Buildup on Vimeo on Vimeo

via Transition Bandit Buildup on Vimeo.

The next morning I took it out for a shakedown on Jones, Whites and Thomas Creeks. It was pretty sweet. Gonna take some getting used to both gears and 5.5 inches of suspension travel coming off my Steel Vulture SS hard tail!

More to follow…

-M

DISCLOSURE: This and other video posts relating to my new Transition bike are part of a deal between me and Black Rock Bikes. I am not being compensated, but they gave me a significant discount on the bike in exchange for the videos with the goal of promoting Black Rock Bikes, their services and their Nevada Transition Bikes dealership.

I have had a relationship with BRB over the years, riding, hanging out and purchasing gear. I highly recommend them for service and sales. They deal in the best high end production mountain, freeride and downhill mountain bikes available, do great work and are excellent stewards of the cycling community and resources in Northern Nevada.

Finally!

The Cascade Cream Puff, 2011 version…Redemption.

Yes, I finished it. Really proud of this finish, really happy with my day and the whole thing. Amazing race, and I’m really not sure I’d do it again. We’ll see, memories fade and so will the colors on that hat.

For a bit of a back-story, I went up to do this in 2009, after hearing all kinds of great reports about it. It was a cold, drizzly to rainy day and the course was different from this one. Took me a ridiculous amount of time to finish my first lap and I was feeling crappy and I just DNF’ed out. In the days and weeks after, I kind of beat up on myself and regretted the decision to drop out. Honestly, I don’t think I would have finished in time, but there’s something different about being pulled vs. dropping out. I should have been pulled. So while the pain of finishing a hard race fades in the hours after you stop riding, the regrets of dropping out last a whole year until you can return and redeem yourself.

I signed up early in 2010 to go back and get that redemption, but then a funny thing happened: I got onto Chris’ La Ruta team and began focusing on that and they scheduled one of our training camps in Colorado Springs the same weekend as the Cream Puff. Lost that opportunity. I guess I did ok that year by finishing both my 9th Leadville and La Ruta, but still, no redeeming myself on the Cream Puff. So, 2011 rolls around and the entries open and my check gets sent in. This time I’m going. It is time to ride.

I drove up with Paul Meirs and we camped Friday night and a friend of his came from Hood River, OR and we all hung out for the race. Saturday I did a short hour-and-a-half spin on the river trail and the main road climb, just to make sure the legs were good, the bike was good and all was set. The weather was about perfect, not too hot, not too cold (unlike the showers that were too cold). Still that 3:30 AM wake up alarm was not too welcome, modified only by the fact that I had thought far enough ahead to make a thermos of coffee the night before and so I had hot coffee from the get-go. Food, coffee, quick check of the bike, and I realized mistake #1: I had left my helmet hanging on my handlebars the night before (so I’d know where it was) and when I put it on, I remembered that they get this thing called dew in the Cascades. Great, a cold, wet helmet to put on first thing.

The roll-out was easy and the first climb started hard. I found Paul in the pack and locked myself onto his rear wheel. That kept me moving up to the first aid station and onward before I lost him. The support here was amazing, lots of stuff and they handed out water bottles so you hardly had to stop. I grabbed bottles and kept riding. At the top of the road climb, there was a short single track that dropped you back on the road, followed by a climb back up to the top aid station and then onto the famous Alpine trail. This climbed up a good amount (someone had said 1,500′) and then down and around. We went through the Jedi section (so named because it look like the Ewok’s home with ferns and big trees and great, sweeping single-track). Drops, rocks, rough sections, thin sections, more and more and more single track and finally I dropped out to the Red Covered Bridge and finished one lap. Including the roll out, that was under 4 hours, which I was really excited about. Good time, and I felt ok. I had been eating and drinking and keeping up with both. Long days, need lots of fuel. Again, super support, someone cleaned and lubed my chain and I was off again for lap 2.

Somewhere along the Single Track

Yes, there was snow along the trail, and even some you had to hike over

Lap 2 was close to lap 1 in time and in how I felt, much to my surprise. All that training was paying off. Another chain clean and lube and I’m out again. This time, after crossing the river trail I hit that climb and just about stopped. I was running way low on energy and started eating more. I got up to the main aid station (aid 2) and got an espresso GU (awesome stuff) and kept going. Got to the top and then I realized where I was really getting beat up — my hands, arms and low back. I think the descending was a tough or tougher than the climbing. I was getting beat, was tired, my brain wasn’t as quick and the trail was just as dangerous. I kept slowing down more than before, I almost fell a couple of times and despite eating and drinking I was seriously bonking out.

I made it down. 12:26. Done, finished and beat, but I felt elated. I also was still bonking out and I pretty much sat down at the aid station and ate everything in my reach. Then I went to the food area and had a dinner.Rest, food, more rest and more food. I ran the PowerTap and it recorded over 6,300 KJ of work before filling up at 11:45, so I was probably closer to 6,600 at the end. Compare that to 4,500 KJ the last time I did Leadville and I realize how hard this race is.

Getting my hat from Scott

I’m sure this will be a good tune-up for Leadville. Lots of climbing and riding. Now it’s rest, recover, and a few strong kicks before winding into Leadville.

There were photographers out in some cool places in the trail, but I haven’t seen any of those photos yet. I’ll post some if I get some. UPDATE: Got the photos, and inserted a few.

The coveted hat.

MTBR did a little interview with Wade @ the North American Handmade Bicycle Show with his Vul-Tana Full suspension custom bike. The curved top tube that blends line with the Ventana seat stays is absolutely freaking beautiful! I WANT ONE!!!

North America Handmade Bicycle Show 2011 Coverage – NAHBS 2011 » Blog Archive » Vulture Cycles – steel 29er full suspension.

A Really Fat Tire

I recently bought a used Surley Pugsley and have been riding it a bit. It’s in a class of bikes that people call “snow bikes” because they are designed to float over terrain like snow and sand. Those tires are labelled on the sides as 26×4.0 and stand 39.5″ from the ground to the top of the tire. The frame is chomoly steel and fully rigid and came with old Avid mechanical brakes and a SRAM 1×9 drive train. After the first couple of rides I realized there are some definitely odd things about riding this. The first thing is that the steering is not quick and responsive. This is a slow terrain bike. The second thing is that it is impossible to ride this bike without a full-on shit-eating grin on your face. It’s just plain old fun. I did find the mechanical brakes a bit weak and uneven in application, so I swapped out the Shimano SLX on my mountain bike for some XTR’s and put the SLX on the PUG. It was a good decision and the recent ride with Wolfy showed that well.

The 1×9 gearing is a new experience for me as is the swept back bars, but on the steep climb on the recent ride, I found both to be quite fun. The key thing with this (other than being able to ride in nasty conditions) is that it is totally different from any other bike I have or have ever ridden. That just means there’s a good change in the way I ride and probably something of the muscles I use so I get a bit of a break and get to do something different for a while when I’m on this bike.

I’m really tempted to bring this down to the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo and do a couple of laps on it. Won’t be the fastest, but should be fun. I’d be happy to go ride anytime. Right now, I’m just hoping the forecasters are really right and it will snow overnight and I can get his thing on some snow.

The Pugsley

The Frame detail.

Proof

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

That quote will make more sense later.

“La Ruta,” the short name for “La Ruta de Los Conquistadores” kicked my ass. There’s not much more I can say about that. I have never been so destroyed by four days of riding, but I’ve never tried to ride about 240 miles in four days in a tropical environment with elevations from sea level to 10,000’ and back a few times, accumulating something like 35,700’ vertical in that time. The numbers really don’t do it justice. You can talk about day 2: about 11,000’ vertical in only 47 miles, lots of 30+% grades, a mud-hole big enough to swallow up a motorcycle and still that doesn’t explain it. Some of the descents were so steep that I had my butt off the back of my saddle, brakes screaming and letting up pressure on the bakes for seconds would send you accelerating to dangerous speeds. I’m convinced the only reason I got through this was the fact that I had a fresh pair of TBS Socks for each day, but there are more stories.

A lot of people have asked me if I will do this one again, and I can very honestly say no. I did it. I finished a very hard race, one that was ranked my Time Magazine as one of the 10 toughest endurance events on earth:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1869820_1869688_1869682,00.html

I think one-and-done is good for me. If any of you want to do it, I’ll be happy to go there again and be your support crew, but I’m not riding it.

Destroyed is how I felt after this. I think just the accumulated fatigue and effort, along with probably the stress of the crash on the last day (more on that later) caught up with me, and about 24 hours after the race, I started feeling sick. That night I started running a fever and I had a pretty miserable night. Mary was up with me all night getting water and cool washcloths to help cool me down. The odd thing was that at first, I wasn’t sweating at all, it was like my body just couldn’t figure out what to do. The next few days I was just wiped, sleeping a lot, but slowly feeling better. Even after we got home, I was still sleeping more than seemed necessary. It’s now more than 3 weeks since I finished and I went out on my first rides just last weekend. Still, I’m not back all the way, but feeling mostly like myself and ready to do some riding again. Not sure my body is ready yet.

The whole race experience was pretty neat and more so since I knew a bunch of people out there and had ridden with them. CTS had 15 people riding, Chris, four coaches, and the 10 of us CTS athletes. On top of that, they had 5 CTS people and Lava Tours as our support crew. CTS had brought over 500,000 calories (they counted) worth of GU products as well, all for a ride through the jungle.

Mmmm, GU

That’s a half a million calories of GU

The support was awesome and I’m sure a big reason why I made it through this as well as I did. Especially on the later stages, seeing a friendly face at the aid stations was as much of a boost as the caffeine in the GU’s they were handing out. Lava Tours provided all the transport and mechanics and they were all great, kept the bikes running smoothly and took all the thinking out of it. We were told where to go and when to be where. Food was available quickly and was abundant. “Ride, eat, sleep, repeat” was all I had to do. You cannot underestimate the benefit of that kind of arrangement on this kind of endeavor. The training and preparations, especially the reconnaissance trip in September was also huge – kind of knowing what you are stepping into gives you the confidence to do that. Confidence is a big part of success in an event like this, walking up to the start line with that knowledge, that base of training and knowing that support is out there just makes you feel ready to ride.

Chris Carmichael commenting about the race in Peloton Magazine:

http://www.pelotonmagazine.com/Feedzone/content/6/251/5-Minutes-with-Chris-Carmichael

In this he commented on La Ruta:

“It was a wonderful experience. Not only is the race extremely challenging, but the terrain is spectacular and the people are great. But perhaps more than anything else, I really enjoyed training for the event with a group of like-minded athletes and CTS Coaches. We had 10 CTS athletes and 4 coaches in the race, and in the months leading up to the event we were together for three training camps – including a reconnaissance camp in Costa Rica. We really came together as a team, and even though we were competing individually, there was an amazing amount of camaraderie before and during the race.”

CTS Coach Jim Lehman (a real hard man on a bicycle if ever there was one) won the 40-49 age group and later in this interview (http://pikespeaksports.ning.com/group/mountainbiking/forum/topics/cts-coach-jim-lehman-la-ruta) was quoted as saying “I will say that it is probably the hardest thing that I’ve done on a bicycle.” Coming from him, that’s saying a lot.

My teammate and friend Francois also did a great write up:

How it Went Down

November 17, 2010. Day 1: Jaco to Santa Ana

About 68 miles, and about 12,000’ of climbing.

This is the infamous first day. That first climb goes seemingly straight up about 2000’ and then you get a spectacular ride along a ridge with a lot of up and down before dropping into Carrara. I guess the official name is the Carrara National Rainforest Park, but even the locals call it Carrara Mud Pass. Between when we went though in September and the race, they had some torrential rains and a number of trees went down across the trail which added some interesting challenges, but on the plus side there had not been a lot of rain over recent days before the race and as a result the mud on the ground wasn’t all that bad. I made it to PC1 (Point of Control, also called aid stations) which is basically just before Carrara. I was with a number of my teammates, I’m pretty sure it was Dave, John and Mark were around. I have to say her that a lot of my memories of this may be pretty bad. We headed in and pretty soon were in the hike (or, more accurately, climb) with your bike through some amazingly rutted, slippery and steep sections. This was in a really odd way very fun. At least it wasn’t too hot or raining hard.

As we dropped into Carrara, we slogged, slipped and rode along, stopping at most of the river crossings to clean the drive-train and re-lube. I know I was with Dave a bunch of this time since he and I kept trading tools and lube through there. The last thing you want to do at this point is break a chain because you are going to have a long walk out of there. Overall, this section wasn’t all that bad and I kept drinking and eating the entire time. As my coach Jay kept telling me, “at the end of the day, these kind of events are eating contests.” If you can keep fed and hydrated, you can make it.

Riding hard

PC2 is the end of Carrara and almost back down to sea level, which means it’s also the start of the big climb to about 1200m (~4,000’). The first part of this is all on dirt and a few more river crossings before you get up to PC3. Along the way here a group of us met up with Francios who was walking his bike. He had broken his chain at some point, fixed it and then broke it again and he didn’t have more supplies to fix it. I had a spare link and a chain tool, so I stopped and worked with him on it. We got it going again and found out that a 9-speed link will work on a 10-speed system (he was running a Sram 2×10) at least in a pinch. Along this way, there were a few schools (for the most part, we are on roads that are in regular use) and often there were school children in their uniforms lined up along the road and cheering for everyone who came by. Amazing to see that. Also sometimes, kids would try and come over and get a hand-slap, which is ok on the steep hills where we are going like 4 mph, but not so much on the flats where we are faster. This habit of the kids will become my literal downfall later. Francois and I rode together for a while and seemingly pretty soon we were at PC3, which is the first time that we saw the CTS support crew. I refilled the camelbak, got some food and was feeling good so I told people I was going to head on. Francois was going to get a new chain installed because he was afraid that the 9-speed link was going to break. From PC3 to PC4 is a lot of pavement climbing, so once I was on the climb, I just locked out the suspension and got into my zone and spun. I made great time up to PC4 and was feeling strong. Refilled, refueled and got on my way. The start of the descent there gets REALLY steep in sections and this is where during the September recon trip Jane just about slid the whole thing (cursing as she went) and I made sure I stayed on the road. Actually it was a lot dryer so that helped. I ended up pretty alone a lot of this section and there didn’t seem to be a lot of markings. At one point I was wondering if I was off-course (wouldn’t be the first person to do this), but luckily pretty much everyone in the area knows “La Ruta” so when I saw two young kids on a motorcycle, I waved at them and asked “La Ruta?” while pointing down the road. They answered “Si, si!” and pointed the same direction. I kept riding downs and ups and a couple more river crossings (this time on bridges) and I got into the town. There were people showing us the way and all of a sudden Francois came blowing by me like a mad-man and I tried to catch him but couldn’t on that down-grade (he’s fast), but fortunately for me he missed a turn and I didn’t so I managed to get him on that up-hill and locked myself onto his rear wheel. In a wonderful payback for my helping him with his chain, he pulled like a mad-man and we were hauling along these roads. Just a few km from the end there’s a very steep climb that’s on dirt and it’s another of those 30% grades. We put the pressure to the pedals and just rode this hard. Around and down and finally I knew where we were and we were mere meters from the finish. I rode up alongside Francois and we finished side-by-side at 9 hours 41 min. A great day and we were just 3 min behind Chris. It was a nice day and we sat on the grass and enjoyed the moment.

After Stage 1

So lesson #1 learned: we went a long way and it was good to have people with you. It was fun to have people I knew slogging through Carrara and it felt good to be able to help a teammate and even better to get some help from him at the end.

My other great memory of this day was seeing my friend Dax just before the start. Dax is the amputee rider that I met first during our reconnaissance trip in September and he’s in a lot of the video from that trip, since we rode together a lot. We’ve kept in touch since and he is quite inspiring to ride with and hear from. I knew he would be way up near the front, but I saw him as we were lining up and he had some small flowers taped to his handlebar stem – an early morning gift from his 5 year old daughter, and perhaps a reminder of what’s important. He told me one last thing: “to finish La Ruta you must have head, heart and legs: all three together.” I kept that in my mind the entire time and I must say he’s right. Unfortunately, he had a bad mechanical breakdown (think I heard he busted his rear derailleur) the first day and didn’t finish. He had a philosophical attitude toward it and I can’t help thinking that in some way his daughter’s gift was the reminder: we take our fun seriously and we do this for some serious fun, but there are other things that are more important.

November 18, 2010. Day 2: Santa Ana to Terramall

Day 2

Hey this is “only” 47 miles (76 km), but it has about 11,000’ vertical packed into that relatively short distance, plus you just did Day 1 the day before. This is the day of UP and DOWN, with pretty much nothing else. Yes, there are a few “flat” sections, but really the profile lies.

This was also my birthday. 47 years young. More on that later.

Overnight my coach Jay sent an email to the effect of “don’t let Carmichael beat you” and so that morning I was contemplating the start and how I was feeling and I was surprised to feel as good as I did. I ate a bunch for breakfast and got ready. As the profile shows, heading out the climbing starts pretty much right away. As the pack spread out I found myself riding Carmichael’s wheel and just king of hung out there. I always take a bit of time to warm up so this was good for me and I was feeling ok.

As an aside, I’ve ridden quite a bit with Chris over the eight months of doing this, at each of the camps and even here. Chris is a pretty quiet guy much of the time and especially when riding. What I’ve discovered is that he doesn’t just go to his happy place and sit and spin… No, when he’s quiet, he competing with you. He’s considering his next move and wondering what your weaknesses are. You don’t take a guy who’s ridden in the Olympics, as a professional and competed for years in business and just magically take that out of him when he gets back on a bike. “The competitor” is still in there and still fighting.

I guess I knew that and was playing with fire, but I was feeling really strong and as we rolled up the first climb, I pulled up alongside him and said “Jay tells me I have to take 3 minutes off you today, sorry…” and with that, I looked forward and hammered. I just rode away and never looked back. Oh, don’t worry, I got my comeuppance for that and later Chris told me that as I did that he was thinking, “this is long race, don’t kill yourself.” Still, I gained 6 min on Chris that day and it felt awesome. Chris has several times gone under 9 hours at Leadville and is a serious competitor, so to be playing at that level, even for two days, is a memory I will cherish, even as I know about what’s to come.

The course is as crazy as it looks. 30% grades, downhills so steep and muddy is was two-wheel sliding at a few points, long, seemingly relentless climbs and then you just go down again, only to head back up soon enough.

Note TBS Socks

One of the downhills. Note the TBS socks.

I rode alone much of the day, seeing other riders but not spending much time near anyone. I did see teammate John M at PC3, but only briefly as we left together and John is an incredibly fast downhiller and just rode away from me with ease. Toward the end the race was on pavement for a while and I traded pulls with another rider but he was slower than I was on the technical descent near the finish and I finished pretty much alone. I felt good, got some food and just enjoyed the energy of the race as I relaxed and thought about what tomorrow was going to bring. I noticed that my front disk was making a lot of noise and the mechanics looks at it and it was pretty beat up, but was holding together and I didn’t have a spare, so I was running that to the finish. This race is tough on equipment as well as on bodies.

That evening, our support team brought out a cake for my birthday. That’s Carlos and Giovanni standing at the end of the table – great people. I really couldn’t think of anything better to do on my birthday than go for an epic ride on some crazy route with a bunch of my friends.

Birthday

Day 3 Terramall to Turrialba

Day 3

In a lot of ways, this stage looks pretty straight forward: Climb the Irazu Volcano, “traverse” over to the Turrialba Volcano and descend into the town of Turrialbla. What could be simpler? To start off with: that’s a lot of climbing. Plus, you’ve done two pretty hard days before you even get to the starting line. That “traverse” is more of the Costa Rican up-and-down, and then the start of the “real” descent after PC4 is full of baby head rocks that roll around and are often wet from the rain. Actually, it’s a lot like many Sierra trails and this became part of my success on the day.

I started with a plan. Really, I did. I was going to stick myself to Chris’ wheel and stay there all day. It was a good and simple plan. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. I started off and after about 10 min, I knew my legs were not there. It got worse than that, my whole body felt like it had just about had it. This is early into a long day and really only half-way through the race, I was in trouble. I had been through a few things like that and I knew what was happening to me: it was simple accumulated fatigue. Well, there’s nothing too simple about it, but I knew the symptoms: high respiration rate relative to the heartrate and very little power in the legs. Not much I can do, but suffer and ride and know I was going to loose a LOT of time to Chris. There are a few things I can do: eat a lot, drink a lot and say ahead of that curve. Only thing worse than fatigue is combining fatigue with dehydration and caloric depletion. Despite all that, I did manage a smile when I saw the photographer:

Smiling

PC1 is only 13km in and it took me an hour and forty five minutes. There to PC2 was about an hour 23 min and then I felt like I was feeling better and the next two were even faster. It was like I was waking up. I got to PC4 in a bit of mist and rain, but got my jacket there and met up with Rick and April. As we started down, I hit something pretty hard on my front tire and despite the Stans in there the rip was big and right in the middle of the tread and it didn’t seal. I stopped and had to put a tube in and got a bunch of help from Rick. That took way longer than it should have but we got on our way and I was glad to be riding with Rick. Between the fatigue and the pain and the flat, I was getting pretty pissed off and I hope it wasn’t showing, but I did finally ask Rick to tell me something positive and he came back with something to the effect of “You are in Costa Rica and riding your bike, what else do you want?” The impact of that on me was immediate and positive and I realized I’m on the downslope of the highest point in the race and I could ride this and I was going to do this, everything else be damned.

I got this great photo of Rick and I riding together on the volcano:

Descending

Amazing plant life, good trail and a friend to ride with. Really, what else do you want? As we descended, we saw more amazing sights and it got warmer and warmer to the point we stopped and took off our jackets. There was one close call on some slick, wet grass where I did my best x-games slide with the rear tire trying to catch up with the front before controlling the skid and getting straight again. Kept telling myself not to screw up here, too much at stake. The lower part of the descent we saw more people and dogs and then finally dropped onto the paved roads that would take us on a fast descent to the finish. Nice to be done; never was the finish more welcome than today. Until tomorrow that is.

It was a long day and I learned yet another lesson about having a team. It’s good to have people to back you up and help you out. Going long, going together.

Day 4: Turrialba to Limon

Day 4

Simple, easy, quick. Two big climbs in the first 40 km, then 80 km of downhill and flat there to the finish. Oh, wait. That last 80 km will make you suffer. This race will extract it’s payment, one way or the other.

The start was interesting. It rained overnight and we could hear it at the hotel. It was still raining at breakfast and still raining when we loaded up in the bus to head down to the start. It was raining harder as we got organized for the start and checked our bikes. It was flat-out pouring as we started and rode out of town. I was feeling ok, not great, but thankfully much better than yesterday. I rode easy at the first, mostly because I didn’t want to burn out early since I knew it was a long day – we had ridden nearly the entire stage during out recon trip. I stayed focused and kept riding, mostly with Rick, Mark and April nearby. I managed to stay on task.

On Task

Between the first and second aid stations, we came down a very steep and (since it had been raining a lot) slippery section of the downhill and April was just behind me. I barely made the turn and heard some skidding behind me and when I looked back April wasn’t there. I made a quick bathroom stop and adjusted some stuff on my bike and saw April coming. She had slid out but was fine.

From there it was up the slope to the second aid station where again Rick, April, Mark and I were together and started down. Mark and I were in front and we were flying down those slopes in the rain, I had gotten myself in the position where I could just see in the slot between the top of my glasses and my helmet visor.

At the flats, we started riding some on the railroad tracks. There are about 30km of these including a number of bridges that this day were wet in addition to being a bit nerve-wracking to some people. This day I felt great and confident and cruised over these bridges like they were nothing:

On the tracks

Did I mention these tracks are “live?” There could have been trains anytime. That adds a dimension to it.

The farther along I got the better I was feeling and I myself ahead of the teammates I had been riding with. I got to PC3 and Jason Koop fuelled me up and got me out of there. Along the way to PC4 it stopped raining and I found some people to work with. As I was getting ready to leave PC4, Mark, April and Rick caught up and I decided to go with them. Again, going long, go together. This would prove to be a very good decision. Somewhere out on the flat roads between PC4 and PC5, we were in a pace-line and moving along. My GPS had us at about 18 mph. As I’ve said before there were many places where kids would come out and try and get a hand-slap or something from the riders as they came along. That was fine on the slow parts but out here at these speeds I was steering clear of them. Unfortunately this one kid was not going to take not for an answer and came out at me and tried to slap at my right hand as we were moving at this speed. Unfortunately, he caught my handlebar instead. You can imagine what happens next. I’ve played the next half-second over and over trying to figure out how I managed to ride away from this. In all honesty, I should have been very badly hurt or disabled.

The kid was on my right and hit my right handlebar. That sent me down on my left side. The damage is clear, scratches on the left side of my helmet, scrapes on my left hand, elbow, shoulder, hip and ribs. My right hand has some scratches and a badly bruised thumb back in where it would have been gripping the bar. That still hurts badly as do the ribs and hip. My face managed to be unscratched, which tells me that I was down on the left side, basically the hip, ribs, shoulder and helmet all hitting hard, but my chin stayed up preventing that from getting damaged. The hit to my ribs I finally figured out was due to my heartrate monitor strap. Bummer. My bike seat got twisted slightly right when it hit and the bar-end of my left grip got knocked off the bar. That all tells me the bike and I went down hard on our left side. What’s amazing is what happened behind me. The second guy in the paceline was Mark. He was watching my wheel and we’ll deal with that in a bit. April and Rick were behind Mar and both managed to pull left and stop. The road we were on was about one lane wide and I was probably near the middle when I went down. They were fine.

Mark tells me he saw me go down and first grabbed his brakes and went left, as he realized he wasn’t going to stop in time, he basically vaulted over the handlebars and landed on his feet. He never fell. His bike did go down but wasn’t damaged. The front tire (at least, maybe the back too) went over my helmet. I’m not sure if he was on it (he thinks he was) or not. I did feel the hit to my helmet, but it wasn’t that bad. Mark’s a strong guy who does tri-sports so he’s probably 175 pounds. Add a bike and camelback, etc, and you are looking at 210 pounds or more bearing down on my head. If you look at the video at the finish line:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIaCz_UdU80

You’ll see the track of his tire over my helmet. One inch to the right and he would have gone over my completely unprotected neck. That would have been debilitating or possibly worse. I really don’t want to consider the options. Elsewhere would also have been bad. Had he run over a leg or arm with 210 lb of force at 18 mph, I’m sure it would have caused a fracture, ending my race. Instead he went over the helmet, cracking the foam (unless it cracked from the impact, we’ll never know) and leaving me basically no worse for the wear. Well, except for the pain of all those scrapes and scratches.

When I hit, I never lost consciousness and screamed out in pain and anger and just frustration. There was no reason for this crash, but it happened anyway. Nothing to do but get the bike put back together, get on it and ride. The longer I stood around, the worse it was going to be. 30 km, maybe, to go. I had to finish it. Back on the first day of the first camp in Colorado Springs, Chris told us that the only rule was that we keep going unless we have lost a limb. I was way below that standard and had to get on with it. More railroad tracks, more roads, more mud and we made PC4. 10 miles to the finish. Those 10 miles just kept going, but the whole way I had Rick at my back. He had my back both literally and figuratively with encouragement and I just kept riding. This was the section that in September was dry. Not this day. All the rain had become huge holes that pretty much sucked up a front wheel and more easily. One time Rick and I got up on the railroad tacks and rode between the rails because it was faster than dealing with the swamps. April and Mark got ahead of Rick and I and as we finally got off this section and onto pavement I saw them waiting for us. That brought a real smile to my face and I knew the four of us would finish together. We did and I’m very happy for that.

Again I learned the value of the team and the group. Had the same things happened when I was alone, I would have finished, but not nearly as quickly or as strongly as I did. Going long, go together and we did and the shot of the four of us coming down onto the beach is just great:

On the beach at last

I learned a lot from this experience. The official La Ruta website calls it “more than a race, a personal growth journey.” Well, I’m not sure I grew on that course, more likely the jarring compressed my disks and made me shrink some, but I learned some things along the way. I learned the value and helpfulness of friends and teammates. I learned that I can do some very hard things, take some hits and get up and keep going. In the rest of my life, the course is rarely as well marked and the finish line is never that clear. I did this on my own terms and finished under my own power. Well, with a few people pulling for me, both out on the course and waiting at the beach, and, as it turns out on the plane getting down there to see me. The joy of that finish will stay with me a long time as will the joy of seeing those smiling faces of my friends who were waiting on the beach and the smiling face of Mary when we made it back to San Jose later that night. Just don’t ask me to do that one again.

Well, I finally got around to cutting up the video and stills I had from Leadville and you all can enjoy a few strange images. The big difference this year over previous was that I got to the starting line and was surprisingly relaxed… That’s the word for it. Not that the feeling would last long after the gun went off, but for those minutes up to that point, I was ready, prepared and relaxed. That’s an amazing way to start a day systematically designed to beat you up:

Or the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRT7n9BMDVg
The best write up I saw on the whole day has to be this one. To quote from it:

“To say Leadville is hard, is an understatement. It conjures the historical pain of its namesake; Leadville is full of strife and through Ken’s efforts, that strife is being shared effectively with a chosen few. It seemed that as the procession slowly crossed the line, everyone left a piece of their life out there somewhere in the dirt between Columbine and the finish. Many, tearful in what they had just endured probably wont do more, but others will.”

I have now completed nine Leadville races. That’s nine starts, and nine finishes. One more makes 1000 miles on that trail, and very likely the end of my Leadville “career.” For doing that, they give you a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate, so I guess I still have that one left in me. Beyond that, who knows, but as my friend Francois pointed out “after 10 you lose that respect as it is pure madness that cannot be encouraged.” I think in some ways I have to agree, but that race has this special draw for me that I’m afraid may be stronger than logic.

Meanwhile, I’m still training and riding. I did the Hunter Lake Loop. The GPS data are here and I helmet-camera recorded most of it and made this video:

Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuKUtuyrsBQ

On next Sunday, the 12th, I leave for Costa Rica for the recon trip and will be back a week later. Sound pretty sweet — a week of riding in Costa Rica. Then the efforts keep building for La Ruta in November. Then next year, there’s the Cream Puff, Leadville and then I keep hearing about this Vapor Trail…. too many races, too little time…

Cheers,

–John

A friend just asked me that question about this ADULT MEN 26″BEACH CRUISER BIKE BICYCLE SHIMANO 7-SPEED he found on Ebay.

The brand appears to be TOBAK ERU. I’ve never heard of that. I really dig the reverse fork design. With negative trail it is sure to have snappy ass handling. This would be a really nice Burningman bike where everyone will just assume the backwards fork is simply a subtle form of radical self expression. Below is the rather impressive parts spec:

• Frame : 26″ CRUISER FRAME
• Fork : CROWN FORK
• Derailleur Shift : SHIMANO RS35 RAPID FIRE
• Front Derailleur : NIL
• Rear Derailleur : SHIMANO TX31 SIS GEAR
• Freewheel : TRIDIAMOND 7SP INDEX 14-28 T
• Chain Wheel : OPC 44T
• Crank : 165 MM COTTER LESS OVERSIZED TYPE
• Chain : KMC 1/2 X 1/8 120L
• Handle Bar : 700W X 315R
• Stem : 22.2 X 120MM X 150L
• Brake Levers : 3 FINGER TYPE
• Brake Arms : V/BRAKE TYPE
• Rim : 26″ X 1.5 X 1.15 MM 14G X 36H
• Front Hub : KT OVERSIZED NUT TYPE W/ 3/8 AXLE
• Rear Hub : KT OVERSIZED NUT TYPE W/ 3/8 AXLE
• Tire : 26 X 2.125 MTB
• Pedals : 1 PC BODY W/REFLECTOR 9/16 AXLE W/ BALL BEARING
• Saddle : PVC TOP DOUBLE SPRING TYPE
• Seat Post : 25.4 X 350 MM W/INSERTION MARK
• Box Dimension : 57 x 8.5 x 30 INCHES
• Weight : 38 LBS (BOX INCLUDED)

So, yes, this bike is a piece of crap.

-M

I’ve just started on a new adventure. I’m hoping to provide more updates on this as they happen, but for now I’m going to let you know what’s up. Back up a bit… back in February, Chris Carmichael put up a call for people to join a team going to La Ruta. That’s short for La Ruta De Los Conquistadores a four-day long mountain bike race across Costa Rica from the Pacific to the Caribbean. Nuts to begin with, so why would I even want to do this? I’ve heard about this race for a few years here’s Carmichael’s summary of what he has in mind. It’s his 50th birthday year and this is his plan for what to do. Now Chris is an ex-pro (the 7-11 team) and a very strong athlete himself, so why do I think I can keep up with this? I don’t know, but I filled out an on-line application and waited. I was a bit surprised when I saw that I had made the top 25 cut and was asked to make a short video application. They asked that this be less than 3 min long and the instructions were: “please record a video that gives us a better sense of who you are and what you’re passionate about.” So here’s my video application:

The next step was waiting and I finally found out that I’m in. So now that I’m in, what’s next? I guess I have to starting thinking out about 7 months and refocus my training on how I’m going to get into the kind of shape it takes to do that race, not that I know what that is. I figure I’ll find out soon enough.

We (the entire hand-picked team) will be meeting at Carmichael Training Systems in mid-April. At that time, they’ll run us through the battery of tests, including Lactate Threshold, VO2Max, do a proper bike fit and do some riding too. Then we go off and train for some time, coming back to Colorado Springs in mid-July. I’m sure some of us will meet up at Leadville in August, then September, we go to Costa Rica for a pre-ride of parts of the course. The cool part of that is we will be joined there by 2009 winner Manuel Prado and he’ll show up the trail. Good recon beta in that. Then some time to put the finishing touches on my training and we race… November 17-20.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to start a Video Diary and did  a couple in the last week. Mostly this is for me to see, but I thought someone else might be stuck at work and bored out of their skull and watch this…

Or this: