Sunday Hunday

Does anyone want to come out to my playground and do a gravel hundy on Sunday?  I'm going to ride from Mount Vernon to Amana and back.  I'm single speeding it so ride time will be 8ish hours with a few chances to hit convenience stores to restock.  Ride will be about 80-85% gravel with a couple B roads, at least one water crossing and 4-5 miles of DK-rough access roads.

If you're in, let's plan on leaving from my house around 8 or 9am. Email me at craig@projectbackroads.com for more details.

Midnight Metric

Lately I've been thinking about hosting some type of gravel event and the leading idea at the moment is a gravel metric run entirely at night.  The idea comes from the Night Nonsense race I did last October and since it's not looking like they'll be running that one again I though maybe I'd pick up on the format to keep it alive.  I don't know at this time whether it'd be a race or just an organized ride, but it would probably be run sometime around the second or third Saturday of October.  It would likely leave from Mount Vernon, IA at 8pm and hit the roads to the south.  One could expect a few miles of B roads, including a one mile stretch within the first few miles of the race.  This is all preliminary right now and may not happen, but if there's enough interest and I can work out the details over the next week, then I may just go ahead with it.  So, that being said...

Whaddya think?

Back From Colorado

 Sugar Loaf summit

I ended up taking my first real vacation in two years last week and headed out for Leadville, CO. First off, no I didn't race. I had a couple friends that were racing (Don and Zach) and I was wanting to get out there this summer anyway so I figured I'd head out there the same week to get a little training and BS time in with them. Ended up being a good trip overall. Here's the breakdown, with a photo dump to follow within the next couple days.

Saturday (Aug. 6th):
Left the house around 7am and spent the whole day driving. Ended up making it all the way to Dillon, CO before stopping for the night. We could have kept on going until Leadville, which was another 45 minutes away, but our campsite reservation wasn't until the next day so it seemed like a good place to stop. We wandered around for a bit looking for a sushi place I had seen advertised, but ended up settling for a Chipotle. Good burrito, bad margarita.

Sunday:
Arrived in Leadville in time to catch a train ride through the mountains and some of Boom Days, which was going on that weekend. Hit the store, set up camp and then went out for my first ride around Turquoise Lake. I kept it short since I really didn't know how I was going to do with the altitude and the climbs. Other than a significant drop in power output and some gasping right at the base of the climbs, it actually wasn't that bad. The first real climb was pretty easy (450ft over 2 miles) while the second one was a bit tougher (800ft over 3 miles). Total ride was about 17 miles at a little over an hour. I find that I like longer climbs that let you get into a rhythm, unfortunately we don't have a lot of those in Iowa though.

Monday:
Headed out with Don and his friend Bob for a short trip around Turquoise Lake, up Sugar Loaf and down Powerline.  Climbing was about the same as before for me, but with the added humility of having Don steadily ride away from me.  Bob hung with us until the turn to Sugar Loaf where he started having some pains and had to bail.  We sent some faster riders up the climb in the hopes they'd be able to get better phone reception and call a ride in for him, but when Don and I got to the top they said they'd only been able to leave a message on my girlfriends voice mail.  Don and I then made the frightening invigorating decent down Powerline and rode to the fish hatchery to meet our ride.  We drove back to pick up Bob, who had made it down to the base of Hagerman Pass by the time we got there.  With Bob and Don done for the day and me wanting some extra miles, I left them and headed off to climb Hagerman.  This was a personal goal of mine anyway since I tried to drive my old Saturn SC2 (The Saturn of Power) up it four years ago.  Back then I had to turn around a couple miles from the top when it got too rocky, but this time I was able to make the climb on the bike.    Most of the climb went well, but the last couple miles of it turn pretty steep and rocky and I had to take a few short breaks to catch my breath in the increasingly thinning air.  I got to the top, snapped a few pics and then headed back to camp to clean up for dinner with the boys.  The rest of the night was delicious fajitas, a Ride the Divide viewing and general BSing.

Tuesday:
Monday night Bob and I had made plans to ride Columbine together but unfortunately those plans never materialized.  Instead, I decided to knock another big climb off my checklist and headed out to Twin Lakes to tackle Independence Pass.  Deb came with and rode her own ride while I headed off to the sufferfest.  I had no idea what to expect from myself here and figured I'd have to stop a few times to rest and catch my breath, just like the day before.  Instead, I was pretty happy that I only stopped once early on, and that was to take a picture of a mountain goat (ran off before I could).  I was tackling the eastern approach and found the first 10 miles or so to be easier than I was expecting.  There were a lot of 5-7% grades, but they were usually followed up by a relatively flat spot to allow for some recovery.  The last five miles...  Not so much.  As I came through mile nine I saw the road ahead of me that was cut into the near cliff and thought to myself "Damn...  I bet I have to climb that".  Sure enough, I hit the first switchback and it was 5-7% from there to the summit.  I dropped into my granny gear (thank you brand new 11-28 cassette) and spun my way up.  40ish minutes later I was at the top, cuz I'm slow and all, and I snapped off a couple pics before my butt clenching descent back down at scary speeds a few feet away from 300+ foot drops (guard rails... denied). 

Wednesday:
I was going to tackle Columbine but opted for a day of shopping around Leadville instead.  Had a nice lazy day and our first campfire of the trip.

Thursday:
We rented a Jeep from a place that I won't name right now for reasons to be revealed later.  When I set up the reservation I wanted an automatic in case Deb wanted to drive, but apparently in the world of Jeep rentals this also gets you a shamefully underpowered 4 cylinder as well.  Whatever, it'd work for the novice trails that we were going to take it on.  After a quick description of the local trails by the owner and a run-through of our Jeep (in which he didn't start the motor) we were ready to go.  The first thing we notices was how friggin' loud the thing was.  I'm talking no muffler loud.  Again... Whatever.  I figured there was a reason for this and didn't go back inside to question it.  This would bite me later...

Off we went in our Jeep (the all-bark-no-bite-mobile) and hit the trails he suggested.  One of them included a  short hike up to a waterfall as well as a trip to an old mining site and ghost town.  Another took us up through Lost Canyon, which I believe might be part of the Columbine climb.  If so, I missed out by skipping it.  It was beautiful.  The third trip wasn't a planned route but I wanted to head back up Hagerman Pass, this time with a motor.  We made our way back down and headed back to Copper for dinner with the boys (and their ladies) again.  This time there was less BSing since everyone seemed more worn out, but we still got in a viewing of the latest Race Across The Sky movie.  Afterwords we returned the Jeep and headed back to camp.

Friday:
We had reservations for a full day rafting trip through Browns Canyon, but before we went there I stopped by the Jeep rental place because I thought I had left my sunglasses behind.  When I went in to talk to the owner I was a bit shocked when he asked me what I did to the Jeep.  He was trying to tell me that it didn't sound like that when we had taken off with it the previous morning.  After a bit of arguing, nothing was resolved and now I'm waiting to hear back from him after his mechanic goes through it.  I'm going to leave it at that until I hear more.

So with my morning already off to a bad start we headed on the the rafting place.  Waivers, equipment rentals, safety checks, orientation, blah blah blah... And we were on our way.  Six hour trip with a steak and corn on the cob lunch in the middle of it, class 3 rapids, jumping off a rock into the river, Deb getting dunked...  It ended up being a lot of fun.  Our guide was great and even though I'm not much of a steak eater I thought lunch was excellent.  One of the other rafters was telling us that this was the only rafting company there who grilled steak for lunch.  If you're up in Buena Vista for some rafting, I'd definitely recommend Buffalo Joes for your trip.

Saturday:
Race day!  I was sore and tired from rafting and didn't feel like getting up early for the start of the LT100.  Unfortunately, I also didn't get up in time to stake out a spot on Powerline or Columbine like I had originally planned.  Instead I waited until about an hour before I thought the leaders would hit the top of Carter Summit and then rode up there.  I staked out a spot about 1/4 mile from the summit with the intention of watching the leaders come through, taking off for a while and then coming back to cheer on the fellas.  That plan evolved into me spending five hours running up and down the climb, dancing, hooting, hollering and generally making an ass out of myself for the amusement and encouragement of the racers.  Highlights of my day included:
- Making Tinker Juarez smile with my "Levers" dance
- Getting a fist bump from Ricky McDonald
- Probably annoying Rebecca Rusch with my sideline antics (I didn't cause problems or get in anyone's way, so no scolding)
- Getting numerous fist bumps and high fives from the racers
- Getting thanked by so many racers for the encouragement and laughs
- Having Deb stop by with some desperately needed water
- "Bringing the party" to Zach and my camping neighbor who's name I forgot.
- Finding out Zach earned his belt buckle on a rigid singlespeed
- Getting some help for an hour or so from another pair of "cheerleaders" (I was the only one there for a large portion of the day)
- Just making so many racers smile at the end of a grueling day

After Zach went by and we found out Don had pulled the plug, we made our way back to the campsite, finished packing and started back home.  Stayed overnight at a hotel in Nebraska.

Sunday:
Hit the road around 10am, got home around 7 or 8, cleaned up, vacation over.

Again, it was a good trip overall.  Got to see Zach and Don again, which is always good.  Got to meet more of their friends and family, which is also good.  Rides and rafting went well and I ended up having a lot of fun cheering at the race.  I'll try to get in next year, but if I don't you can count on me being in the same spot next year, trying to lift spirits and generally make an ass out of myself.

One final note:  I have a new found respect for competitive cheerleaders.  I was more sore the following day than I have been after any race I've done this year.

The first "R" is for "ride"

On R&R, will post pics when the interwebs are available. Now to enjoy this train ride through the mountains.

My spoon is too big

My coworker calls this comedic diamond encrusted gold.  I say it's all that plus smothered in gravy.

Race Report: Farmhouse Classic

This weekend I headed down to Lathrop, MO to take part in the Farmhouse Classic gravel race.  Or it could have been the clear cut jungles of Guam.  Or possibly the outer lip of a volcano at high noon.  I don't know for sure.  My point is it was friggin' hot.

I met up with my buddy Don and a couple of his friends (DK co-winner Barbie and DK finisher John) for 90+ miles of rolling hills and gravel.  This was my first race since my conversion to single speed and I was planning on just taking it easy, having fun and meeting some new people.  After some pre-race preparation and breakfast (graciously provided by race organizer Joe Fox) we started our neutral roll out at 9am.  Before long we settled into a nice sustainable pace near the back of the pack.  After 5-10 miles we were getting spread out enough that I picked up navigation duties for our group.  Back at DK I had been the navigator for about 100 miles and it worked out well, so I dug right into it here.  Unfortunately, it seems like it's not a gravel race unless we get lost and 17 miles in I made our first wrong turn.  Up to that point the cues and my GPS were off my 3/10ths of a mile and I had been correcting for that.  However, they chose just the right spot to synch back up and we made two wrong turns (that lined up with the corrected mileage) before we noticed that there were no tire tracks in front of us.  We checked the map and found a reroute, screwed that up, corrected again, missed our turn and finally backtracked to the proper road.  Yup, my nav skills are rockin'.

Six wasted miles later, we were back on course and cruising again.  We ended up going back to our DK navigation formula where Don reset his computer after every cue and I calculated mileage between points.  With two of us involved it worked a lot better.  Well, three really since John was also verifying our call outs. From there things were pretty uneventful for a while.  We were cruising along the gently rolling hills, trying to keep cool and avoid the ever present dogs, one of which took out Don at one point (he was ok, but mad).  Barbie had a bee sting, I crashed on a rut, and John felt like a "petrified slug" for a while.  Otherwise things were going well and we were having a good time.

Until around mile 75 anyway.  That's about the time the heat started getting to me.  We pulled into the final service town a few miles later and spent some extra time inside to cool off.  There we met up with another racer (Kevin, maybe?) and the five of us took off 15-20 minutes later.  It didn't take long before I was suffering again.  I was more than happy to hand off navigation duties to our new member so I could just focus on keeping the pedals moving.  It didn't help that the hills got considerably steeper and more frequent at this point and I was really having a hard time.  I fought off a few bouts of cramps and had to walk a pair of hills.  I dumped two bottles of water over my head in a desperate attempt to cool off.  I questioned whether my (frequent) goosebumps were a sign of heat exhaustion or an impending bonk.  I secretly hoped that goat that was chasing after us was not a hallucination. 

With 8 or 9 miles to go, we met up with another rider who had already finished and was back out on the course getting some extra miles.  He rode the rest of the way with us, taking over navigation duties.  A little less than nine hours after taking off, the six of us finally rolled in to the finish.  Don and John called me up to the front and us three single speeders lead our group up the driveway and to the finish.  Damn I was happy to be done with that. At the finish someone kindly pointed me to the water faucet and I spent the next partial eternity filling my bottle and dumping it over my head.

I'm pretty sure we were the last group in, but that doesn't bother me.  In spite of the heat and last chunk of suffering it was a good ride and a lot of fun.  It was a very informal race with no entry fee, a free breakfast and a potluck post race meal.  If they didn't record the final results, you'd have thought it was just a large group ride and I liked that.  We hung out and chitted the chat for a while before it was time to pack it in.  99.2 miles on the day, plus at least point eight worth of warmup to qualify this for the Cup O' Dirt.  More friends made, more people met.  A good day all in all.

What's new?

Lunch ride to Club Deli.  I was on the Huffy cruiser with the coaster brake.  Those steel rims didn't handle my powerslides all that well...

It's been a while since I've really posted much.  Here's a little bit of what I've been up to since Dirty Kanza.

• A couple months ago I started organizing group rides with my coworkers for fun and RAGBRAI training and it's had a much better turnout than I had expected.  We do a lunch ride (2-4 miles) every week to a different restaurant and an evening ride (10-25 miles) to a pub for dinner.  These rides have been pretty casual and usually have 4-6 riders, many of which just started riding within the last few months.
• I've also been organizing bi-weekly weekend rides for those that want a longer, more serious ride.  The intention has been RAGBRAI training and the rides have run 25-40 miles over rolling terrain.  We have breakfast before the ride while I wrench on anyone's bike who needs it, and we have lunch afterwards while we relax and recuperate.
• I've been wanting to do some high intensity group rides that would really push my limits, so lately I've been doing a Thursday night ride hosted by a local race team.  It basically involves me getting run through the wringer until I'm ready to pull over and start crying in a ditch.  I've done it four times now and last week was the first time I didn't get dropped or pull out early.  I even managed to chase down some attacks and contest a few sprints.  I hope that means I'm getting stronger.
• Project Backroads has seen some updates, but I'm working behind the scenes to improve the mapping and media.  Sadly my Script Fu is weak, so it's taking me longer than I'd like.  Taking a look at my schedule over the next month, it might make more sense for me to job out the coding to someone else.  We'll see how it goes.
• I'm now riding gravel single speed.  I converted the Cross Check after Dirty Kanza and have since done a full century and two metrics.  I've got a (near) century coming up this weekend in Missouri, The Farmhouse Classic, so we'll see how I perform at a race pace.  Beyond that I haven't done much gravel since DK.  I've been pretty much sticking to the road for the last month or so.  The change of pace actually isn't that bad.
• I've got two new projects in the pipeline.  Project Thunderbutt is currently in progress and Project Stormtrooper will follow up in late August.  More info on those as they unfold.  It's gonna be exciting...