Mt. Mitchell

Last year, I left my car in the mid 40s, and the summit was at 20 F, not counting wind chill. I rather froze on the way down. This year, I was much better prepared, the weather was significantly warmer, and consequently there was much less suffering.

I rolled away from the car with temperatures in the upper 60s, and clear blue skies with a warm sun. I was carrying extra layers, more water, and about twice as many bars.

The 30 miles up to the top can be divided into three sections, the first has a little up and down and is quite sheltered by trees and ridges, so it is the warmest part. After crossing over to the other side of the ridge, the temperature drops, and the road is much more exposed to wind. This part is the long, grinder of a climb. A steady up and up. The last third has some descents, so it is easy to get chilled here. The last 5 miles feature some of the steepest sections on some switchbacks, and within 2 miles, you can see the ramp on the summit looming over head.



Instead of the frigid temps last year, today was only 48 at the summit, rather pleasant. After turning around from the summit, I wanted to be able to just descend back home, but there are still two climbs over the next 10 miles. Finally, with about 20 miles to go, the descent opens up and you can just fly down the switch twisty roads.

It took 2:45 to get to the top, 15 minutes of sight seeing, and then 1:45 to get back down.

Some great riding down here in North Carolina.

Kutztown Cross 2011

If last week everything went perfectly, this week was the opposite. Hopefully, I learned a few things in the process. Although my bike stayed together, I pretty much fell apart, and I could tell instantly.

Right after the start, on the sweeping 180, my front tire was squirming out and I couldn't properly turn. I had taken a lackadaisical warm up off the course, and a tire pressure that felt ok at putzin' around speeds, was way under pressure at speed. (Later I checked, turned out it was only about 12 psi. Clearly, not enough for any tire.) I had to back off in the turns and realized that I was holding up the line behind me. Plus, I then attempted to hop the log on course, although it didn't look so difficult to do, my lack of skills just about put me over the top, "ass over tea-kettle". The course this year was super twisty, and I was totally washing out all over the place. I decided to pit and try my other wheels, as this arrangement was pretty much un-rideable, or rather, un-corner-able.

I had the Captain CX mounted tubeless on my pit wheels, and what a world of difference. Immediately, my confidence started returning, and I got focused on trying to catch back up as much as possible. The difference in cornering traction was astounding, and I gradually started to carry more speed into turns, feeling out the new limits of this tire arrangement. On the next lap, however, I came through a tight turn and BRRAAAPP washed out the front entirely. There was a hissing sound coming out of the front tire, some dirt and rocks had lodged into the tire bead opening the seal, and was letting the air out. I'm not sure if the burp triggered the wash-out, or vice-versa, but now I had a very flat front tire. This was now completely un-rideable. I half jogged, half coasted my way around the lap again to the pits, where I used a pump to inflate the Captain CX again. Fortunately, it held air, and I was back on course rolling on two wheels again.

But now, trying to focus on the race again was difficult, it didn't take long before the top 3 came through and blew right on by. Joe came up shortly afterward, lapped me as well, and asked what happened, all I could think to say was "nothing good...". My race ended some 100 meters after it started, so I just tried to work on finding some flow, and riding the twisty sections. I think that it would have been a pretty decent course, but I was mentally checked out and never gave it a fair shot.

Although not super technical, it would be a good course for those with good bike handling skills, and those are clearly cross skills I have room to improve on. Fortunately, the PA series have a range of course types, suiting all kinds of riders, Town Hall has got the St. Luke's Staircase (hill), Spring Mount is the power course, and apparently Kutztown is the swoopy: keep-turning-now-turn-the-other-way course. It takes all kinds to make a complete season.

Spring Mount Cyclocross 2011, Crossasaurus Awesome

Two years ago I did the C race here, last year I raced the Bs (coming in 6th both times), so it seemed somewhat fitting to sign up for the A race this year. Fortunately, David granted me the Cat 2 upgrade last week, just in time to be able to sign up for the 1/2 Elite race.

I was a little nervous seeing the list of names on the pre-reg list stack up with some seriously fast people, and my originally very optimistic outlook regressed to not getting lapped too many times and try not to finish DFL.

The weather turned out to be ideal, partly cloudy, cool, but pleasant fall weather. We arrived in time to see Jeff ride to 10th place in a competitive Masters 35+ field, and then Jen take a very solid 4th place in the women's race, behind such powerhouses as Selene and others.

The Philly Ciclismo guys and gals always have a fun atmosphere, and this year was no different. Free food, plus a much improved course over last year, good work guys.

I had very little pre-race nerves, probably due to my much lowered expectations. I was playing head games and talking myself out of it before it had even begun. Surprisingly, I got one of the front row call ups (probably alphabetical), but there were only two rows in a relatively small field, so it didn't make much of a difference. Fortunately, as soon as the race begun I clicked out of mental mode, and into race mode. No room for intimidation.

As expected, the start was fast, and I slotted into a spot about in the middle. After things started to string out, I tried to move up as much as possible. Before the really wide open head wind sections, I wanted to try and get into a good position. I followed third place for most of that lap, and we continued to trade back and forth for most of the rest of the race. First place (Kincaid) was looong gone, but we could see second place dangling not too far ahead. I put in some extra efforts to try and reel in some ground, but he was still steadily pulling away. I felt really good for the first 40-45 minutes, but really suddenly, with about 2 laps to go, my legs started blocking up and I realized I was cooked. I lost his wheel after the sand section and just couldn't catch back on. It was a good gap back to 5th, so I just rode smoothly to finish out the race.

There can be a lot of head games in cross, so much of it is mental.

I ran about 20 psi in my tubulars, and could have even gone slightly lower in the front, but they felt pretty fast on the course. The Tracers clogged with mud quickly in those short sections, but it all flung off fast enough in the grass or gravel. Good, fast tires for the course.



Thanks to Craig Lebair for the photo.

The 60 minutes felt like a real shock after getting so used to only 45 minutes of race effort, ouch. That whole evening my body felt completely wrecked, I couldn't even eat for a couple of hours. I started to get the full color visual swirling precursors that sometimes precede a migraine, but fortunately it was a false alarm and after some unpleasantness, started to slowly recover. Two cups of emergency coffee may have helped as well, but it was still a few hours before I could eat any real solid food.

I'm definitely extremely satisfied with 4th place, certainly better then I expected.

Be sure to read Festa's account here.

Bear Creek cyclocross 2011 Day 2

I believe that this will go down as one of my favorite cross racing weekends. A double header, less then 20 minutes from my house, in familiar "home" territory, with perfect fall cross weather, and good racing. The atmosphere was fun and friendly, with free beer and sausages.

After my bike carnage on day 1, I had many offers for replacement wheels and complete bikes for day 2. Having a catastrophic failure directly in front of the spectators probably helps, even Ryan was trying to offer me a bike during the race as he rode by to take the lead.

Thanks to Cutter's bike shop, after a quick repair Saturday night and a quick spin around the yard, I was ready and extra motivated for Sunday morning. The bonus hour of rest thanks to daylight savings was good for catching some extra sleep, but I think the best part was the weather felt significantly warmer.

After checking out the course and seeing some of the tires of the 'C' racers, I was glad to be on the Captain CX tires which have a more aggressive tread and shed mud well. The mud was even slicker then before, and the dense consistency was like a structural building material filling in the tread of many tires, turning them into slicks.

Now, with the course in reverse, we'd have a short straight section, before a 90 degree left turn, and then the off camber switch backs around the back of the baseball diamond. This we all expected to be messy in the start, and no one wanted unnecessary crashes.

Off the line I was third going around the first corner, but when we hit that mud section there was a large tangle of wheels, pedals, and legs. I saw someone's pedals going into my spokes, so just took my time to make sure I was completely clear before picking up the bike and running the rest. Thankfully, made it through cleanly, however I had lost a lot of places and was now sitting pretty far back. I moved up as I could, and after a lap I was back in the third spot. Ryan was in front of me, and Julian from Philadelphia Cyclocross School was riding away from the rest of us. Ryan had flatted, and was just trying to make it to the pits, unfortunately his spare bike was a single speed which was quite a disadvantage on the long straight sections of this course.

I then spent the next few laps trying to catch Julian, but it seemed like he was still getting farther ahead. There was a big collection of spectators by the barriers, along with the sausage grill and Bill on the microphone who was giving me time checks on each lap. For a while, he dangled at about 20 seconds, which looks pretty far off. For much of the course he was out of sight. Gale was chasing behind me in third, and I could see him working hard. Finally the time checks started coming down, 17 seconds, then 6, the spectators seemed to be getting into it, and it all helped as I was digging for extra motivation.

With two to go, he was in sight, and I changed from thinking that there was no way I could catch him, to suddenly thinking it might be possible. Basically with one to go, I caught him near the start finish line. I think that we both slowed up a bit at this point, as we each tried to decide what to do next. We traded the lead a few times in the last lap, I tried an acceleration up the hill to the switchbacks on the back side where it was dry and fast, but he followed me easily. But that did put me in front through the barriers which was probably the better place to be. At the top of the hill before the finishing straight there was a set of muddy switch backs that were really slick. I concentrated on not sliding out at all, which basically required creeping along at barely a crawl. Neither of us could get much traction, so nothing changed, and I hit the slightly downhill straight first. I tried to accelerate quickly, as I wanted to stay in front, but be ready to respond to his sprint. I could look down and watch his shadow, and when it looked like he was up out of the saddle and really starting to go, I clicked down and sprinted as hard as I could. My smallest cog was caked with mud as I hadn't used it before in the race, so the chain started jumping around, and he was starting to pull up alongside me, but the line came up quickly and I had just managed to hold him off. Definitely the tightest finish I've ever had in a cross race, and the most exciting.

I was completely knackered, sprinting after 45 minutes of hard cross racing left me with absolutely nothing. Julian was going really fast, we finished together with a full 2 minutes on the next finisher. Such a tight battle made for excellent racing, one in which every little dab or bobble could make the difference, coming down to less then a bike length.

I'm pretty sure we did one more lap then we did on Saturday, and the Captain CX tires worked really well. I easily picked up a couple of extra pounds worth of mud around the bottom bracket and stuck to the frame tubes of the bike. You could have built a solid house from that stuff, but the tires stayed mostly clear.

On day 1, I was trying to preserve my lead, and on day 2 I was trying to catch the leader. Both were very different experiences. I could definitely feel the pressure on day 1, as Ryan kept eating into my lead. On day 2, I could dig much deeper for motivation to chase. Neither spot is easy to be in, but when you're at your limit, a little extra motivation can make all the difference.

Definitely one of most fun cross weekends yet, I love the MAC races and will certainly do more, but it was a great opportunity to race in front of so many familiar faces close to home and soak in the fun vibes.

Bear Creek cyclocross 2011 Day 1

Saturday was cold, so I warmed up with my full winter coat and kept it on right up to the start. Might as well be comfortable before 45 minutes of distinct discomfort. I had a nice front row start to a long, fast, straight, and slightly downhill starting section. The whistle blew and I took the hole shot leading up into the first muddy switchbacks. I bobbled and dabbed a foot, long enough for Jack to get by. I followed him through the fast downhill barriers, but he overcooked the sharp left-hander at the bottom and I managed to turn inside and get by.

From then on, without anyone in front of me to judge my efforts by, I just rode hard trying to extend my lead. On the switchbacks in the back section I could see Ryan just a couple of seconds behind me. Each lap I'd get slightly further ahead on the long straight sections, but then he'd gain on me in the really rocky and rooted part. Each lap he was steadily getting closer. I was starting to feel the pressure and make mistakes.



On the final lap, coming through the off-camber section, I made the 180 left up the hill and went a bit too wide, clipping the course stake. Wouldn't have been a problem, except it popped out of the ground, and the metal pointy end went into my rear spokes. Anthony Skorochod caught the sequence here. Three spoke nipples sheared off, and one spoke got neatly wrapped around my cassette. It took me a while to realize what was going on, untangle the spokes and try to tuck them out of the way around some of the remaining spokes. I could then at least ride, but the bike was making a horrible racket, and something was definitely still dragging as it was really hard to turn the pedals. Ryan was long gone, and now Jack was gaining quickly. Shortly after he passed me, my derailleur got sucked up into my cassette and exploded, so I shouldered the bike and ran the last section of the course, hanging on to third place.



Despite my ravenous cassette eating bike parts, it felt like a good race. I'm not convinced I could have held Ryan off, but it was a good battle.

Stoudt's brewing was there with free beers, as well as someone grilling up delicious spicy sausages. Not a bad way to spend some post race spectating.

Fortunately Cutter's had a SRAM rear derailleur as well as the derailleur hanger in stock, so the bike will be ready to go with my tubeless wheelset for day 2.