Mt. Mitchell, attempt #2

This time, the forecast looked great, and I was really gung-ho to actually get to the top of Mt. Mitchell this time. The weather started off in the high 40s, and with several layers I felt prepared for colder temperatures at the top. I didn't realize how much colder, however, and I wouldn't have minded bringing some of the layers I decided to leave in the car.

The climb up was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky and visibility seemed to be unlimited. The grade was steady and gradual, perfect for setting into a rhythm.



There were a few tunnels along the way, and only a handful of cars. I did see two other bikers coming down.



When I hit the first little short descent, I came around the back side of a ridge where it was hidden from direct sun light. That was my first little blast of COLD. Snow drifts along the side of the road and large icicles hanging from the rocks.



I was glad to get climbing again. The northern side of the ridges and peaks were covered in ice.



The last 4 miles really kicked up (about 8%) which was a real kick in the gut after 30+ miles of climbing already. That was definitely the hardest part, but I knew I was near the top, so that served as extra motivation. The final summit is hidden from view, and there were plenty of false peaks on the way, but finally I emerged onto a paved ramp to a look out platform on the very top. I actually didn't spend much more then a minute up there, the wind was blowing hard, and according to a thermometer it was 20 F, (about -7 C), plenty cold. I wanted to get moving again.



With the summit at 6684, and starting around 2100, that was a total of about 4500 feet of climbing in 3 hours. One more quick look around, and I was ready to get off the top of the mountain.



The descent was when I really started to get cold, it is nothing but mile after mile of descending, with a strong, cold wind blowing. Fortunately, despite the sun starting to set, the weather was getting continually warmer as I descended. What took 3 hours to climb, barely took an hour and a half to descend.

My water bottle froze up, so with only drinking a few ounces over 5 hours, I was mildly dehydrated. It took a day to get enough fluids back in.

A hot tea was the first order of business.

Mountains

Something about seeing mountains in the distance, makes me want to go climb them.



I can't wait for Nepal....

Blue Ridge Parkway

Besides cross races, and mountain biking, Asheville has the the Blue Ridge Parkway nearby which is an ideal place for road biking. I set out with the bold attempt to climb to Mt. Mitchell, which would be about 80 miles round trip. So I packed plenty of food:



I started off with arm and knee warmers, and it felt too warm for that. The sun was out, the skies were blue, and the climbing kept me plenty warm. The grade was never very steep, but long and steady so it was easy to settle into a comfortable rhythm.



I turned one switch back and felt my stomach turn when I saw a big, black cloud over the ridge. It didn't look good...



Literally one minute I was standing in the sun, and the next I watched as the shadow came across the range and hid the sun from view. Note the shadows from the direct sun.



I kept going, but very quickly the temperature dropped suddenly, the wind picked up, and the rain started. While the climbing was still comfortable, I knew the descent was going to be cold, so I decided the prudent thing to do was head back. A dry pair of clothes and a hot cup of tea sounded very appealing.

I made it about half way, maybe next time...

There is more to biking then road and cyclocross

Say what? There is a whole world of cycling that I've never even been exposed to, until just recently.

Asheville, NC, is the perfect setting for mountain biking. Thanks to Travis for the bike and showing me some real mountain terrain. Awesome. I could really get into this.

NC Cyclocross

As a bonus for the season end, I decided to jump into a race down in Hendersonville, North Carolina that was barely 30 minutes from where we were staying for Thanksgiving. What luck. There was also a double UCI race over the weekend, so the turnout was quite good.

Because UCI races don't allows Cat 2 to ride with the pros, they were combining them with the 3s for this weekend. As I had just submitted my 4 to 3 upgrade, this meant I was going to race in the 2/3 combined category. With no call ups, and no specific intentions other then to have fun, I staged at the very back and decided to see how far up I could move. I had a good start and was already making some passes on the first lap when I felt my front rim bottom out hard on some roots. No problem, I've done that before, and the tubeless combo always held up well.

However, as soon as I came to a sharp right hand off camber turn before the first steep ride-up, my front washed out as if I had hit an ice patch. My chain also dropped and it took me a while to get myself sorted out. I fumbled my way up the steep section, but my front tire was completely flat. I had a long way to go to get to the pits, and it meant running through the start-finish section. The announcer saw me running through and gave me a shout of encouragement through the PA.

Thankfully, Becca ran to the car, grabbed my pump for me, and delivered it to the pits. I tried to inflate the tire, but it wasn't holding air, so I withdrew. I made it about a lap and half, including the running.

On closer inspection, there is a small hole in the sidewall, I seem to have pinch flatted the tire itself. Maybe next year is the year for tubeless.

Carbon Cross Compact Crank Cracked....

or: Weekend of the Giant Crank Arms.

So while cleaning my cross bike after a muddy night of Fifth St., I noticed that my pedal was loose, but it was tight... The threaded metal insert was coming lose from the carbon crank arms.

Crap.

Thankfully, an email to the team got a quick response from Roland offering me his compact road crank for the rest of the cross season. I took him up on his generous offer, and could now finish the rest of my races.

My brother Peter was up from Michigan that weekend, on his way out to Nepal. I asked him to guess how big the cranks were: "170mm? 175mm? 177.5? I have no idea..." 180mm. They felt strange just pedaling around, but as soon as I started racing, I didn't notice any difference at all.

I had two races that weekend, Phelps School on Saturday, and Kutztown Cross on Sunday.





On Saturday, I got a nice front row call up for the B (3/4) race. My start was good and I was sitting about 5-7 coming down the first fast descent. Around the bottom turn, the guy in front of me slid out and sent me in to the tape at the bottom of the hill. In 2 seconds I went from top 10 to dead last. I accelerated as quickly as I could, and hammered it hard for the next two, passing as much as I could. I worked my way back up to 6th place, but those two laps put me a little too far into the red. It didn't help that my cleats were popping out of my pedals, once on the steep ride-up, once just on a bumpy section of grass, and once for no good reason. I was a little too tired, and started to make mistakes, coming around with 2 to go, I slid out on a turn and got passed by the guy on my wheel. I lost contact with him and then got passed once more to finish in 8th.





Overall, a fun course, I liked the hill in there. Check out Chris's race report from Phelps.

Sunday was another dry, fast day. This whole season has missed out on the mud from last year. The B field was small, and I enjoyed another front row call up. Jeff went out hard from the gun and I followed him around the first few turns. I slid back another few positions and ended up trading spots a few times with a Cutter's rider. It took me a few laps to figure out a good rhythm and find good lines through some of the really tight twisty sections. I never did work out a good way around the trees and went down over those roots at least twice.









I ended up coming through in 5th, overall a good weekend of racing, and it looked like it would be the final wrap up of the cross season for me. Goals for next year include not falling down quite so much.

Chris also had a

But, there was to be one more race....

Spring Mount Race Report

Last year this course was quite muddy, with a huge sloppy section of peanut butter mud that was a real leg wrecker. With that thought, and the memory of last weeks Fifth St Cross race (12+ hours straight of rain), I ran straight to Cutter's and bought a pair of Specialized Captain CX tires. It wasn't until much later that it dawned on me that the "2bliss" advertised on the tires wasn't 1bliss version 2.0, or a statement that these tires were going to make me extremely happy, but actually TUBELESS.

Cool, bonus. I had no idea.

So my mental confusion aside, and an extra pair of mud wheels just in case, I rode down with Greg and Roland to get there early for the "C" race. It was cooold, and the wind was really starting whipping up some frigid wind chill.

Greg decided to jump in the "C" race, so Lamprey Systems had a good showing with George, Roland, Greg, David, and Jeremy showing up. In usual Greg style, he took off from the gun and took the lead early. He was so far ahead of the next guys, that the announcer missed him on each lap, and called the guys behind him as the "leaders". Amy wasn't going to put up with that, so she straightened out the announcer for all of us. It looked like he was going to pull it off, but got passed right at the end by just a few bike lengths. Jeremy had a good race, pulling off a solid top 10 (7th?).

Although I had almost 3 hours to get ready for my race, I somehow managed to get to the line late, and barely got my call up position. Then, to top off my start, I had my number pinned on the wrong side. So I'm stripping off my jersey, trying to switch the number around, and dropping my pins into the rocks. Great.

Finally I was good to go (I think the officials waited for me, they didn't hide their surprise when I actually got the number on the correct that it was right side up). The start was fast and I came through the prologue loop somewhere between 10 and 15. After that it thinned out and I started moving up. I got up to the front with Joe and another strong rider. We had a great support crew cheering at the sand pit, so I decided to try and ride it, and actually got through. After the fast start, we settled down in the middle of the race and it didn't take long for us to grow to a group of 6 at the front. I wanted to try to keep the pace high so others wouldn't ride up to us, but the wind was absolutely killer and finding a wheel to sit behind was crucial, especially on the open back section.

Overall, I was happy with my riding, I was carrying good speed through the turns, my light weight was an asset here as I could take a tighter line with the same speed and make passes on the insides of the turns. I momentarily panicked as I burped a bunch of air out of my rear tire again, but calmed down when I realized it was holding, and as a bonus my bike felt even faster yet. I was bottoming out on the tree stumps, but the bike floated over the course and cornered great. What a difference. I probably finished with not much more then 20 psi.

I knew that if it came down to a sprint at the end with this group of 6, I wouldn't be able to really contest it, but trying some solo move at the end didn't seem prudent with the wind. Plus my right quad was cramping up and I didn't have much left by the time the last lap came around. In the end, I couldn't match the accelerations and rolled through for 6th.

But great racing; riding in the group helped with pacing, flow, and wind. Forty minutes never went by so quickly.

Philladelphia Ciclismo put on a great race, I liked the course much better then last year, and their food was awesome. The gusting winds blew the cheese off my chili, but it was still awesome.

Beacon Cross 2010

This race was a last minute plan, hatched over a beer at the Wednesday night Halloween Fifth St Cross race (night of the G.O.A.T). Although I had missed pre-registration by barely an hour, I figured it was worth a shot to drive up with Greg and Chris and jump in the "C" race Saturday morning. The downside is no call-ups, but Beacon sounded like fun, and it's always worth going to a cross race.

The morning was cold, and I pre-rode the course in my fleece just to try to warm up. I tried to stage myself up towards the front, hoping that they might just do call ups for top 20 or something, and let me scrum in behind them, but no dice. They called up the numbers from 400 all the way back to to at least 480, and me with number 493 got to scrum in at the very back. There were a few guys behind me, but not many.

Fortunately the start was on a long, paved, slightly up hill straight and I managed to slip by a good number of people before the course narrowed into the woods. After that, it was a matter of finding openings and squeezing through any cracks I could find.

On the first time up the amphitheater, I totally screwed it up. There is a descent down the hill, then a sweeping left hand 180 degree left turn to the run back up the amphitheater section. Despite doing it well during the warm-up laps, I unclipped with my left foot and had to come to a complete stop at the bottom step, un-clip my other foot, clumsily climb off my bike, and then start the run up. Lost several spots doing that. Check out this dope:



About a lap and a half in, Chris tells me from the side that I'm up to 7th, coming into the "Amphitheater of Pain", I manage to make another pass on the run up, and the announcer is playing up the battle for the top 5 podium spots. He was doing a good job, much better then some of the race announcers you hear at these amateur races. The run sections were very good for me, the sand pit almost the maximum 90 meters long, (Greg said 89 meters) and I was able to consistently make up a spot or two there. On the final lap I got into 4th place and I could just barely catch Greg's yellow jersey through the woods, but coming up to the finish, he was still a ways ahead of me.



Our finishing order worked out great, Greg held on to his aggressive start for 3rd, good for more MAC series points. With me slotting in at 4th, that will help him against his closest rivals in the MAC series. He finished ahead of Alvarez and Lavelle, and my 4th bumps them down one more spot then they would have been if I hadn't raced.

Now I've got 9 points and 9 cross races, and it takes either 10 races or 10 points to upgrade to Cat 3. So either way, my next race should put me over the top.



The course was really fast, and had some good flow. The loose sand in the turns made picking a good line very important, but over all I liked it much more then I expected. It always seemed like there were plenty of places to pass, and I could move up pretty easily despite the high speeds.

Check out Festa's report on his win in the B race here.