Cleaning out the garage

Here's a bunch of stuff I'm looking to get rid of. Before I go the eBay route I thought I'd try the direct route. If you're interested in any of this stuff click the link on your right to email me. Reasonable counter offers will be considered. Costs don't include shipping.

Aerus CXC Carbon Flat Bar, new, $50

Brand new, still in box. Oversize (31.8), 580mm wide, 6 degree sweep, 132 grams. More info at Aerus.com.

Kenda Karma tire, new, $20

26.2.20, 580 grams, kevlar bead. More info at Kendausa.com.

Shimano XTR ceramic V-brake pads, new, $10 for 2 sets

I took them out of the cardboard display pack, but the plastic packaging has never been opened. Includes mounting pins.

SRAM PC-1 single speed chain, new but cut, $10

1/2 x 1/8", 330 grams, 108 links including Snap Lock connector, nickel plated. The box says it has 114 links. I believe I cut it down to 108 for a singlespeed experiment, but didn't use it because a 3/32" chain was recommended for my cog/ring. The chain has never been ridden.

Shimano CN-HG70 chain, new, $10

New, still in box, never shortened or mounted. 116 links, includes connecting pin. Great 3/32" single speed chain.

12 Hours of Dauset

My original end-of-season plan was to hit a couple of the races in the Florida State Championship Series. The first race was in Tallahassee Sept. 15-16 and Tom Brown Park is one of my favorite courses on the XC circuit. My parents came into town that weekend so instead of racing I spent some quality time with Mom & Dad. Throwing down with Eddie O for 12 hours sounded like a good plan B.

I went self-supported on this one again. I brought enough water bottles to sustain me for the entire race, set up a table with food and supplies and had both of my IF Deluxes tuned up and ready to go. Sure some support would've been nice, but it would only make a difference if I had mechanical issues. I gambled that if I needed anything it could wait until the 6-hour racers I knew were hanging around.

The LeMans start was thankfully very short. I made it to my bike within 30 seconds and in good position for the parade lap that went about a mile up a dirt road, then back down a singletrack to the start/finish. Eddie came up from behind on the road and started working his way up. I jumped on his wheel.

We rode together the entire first lap, doing our best to steer clear of the many 6-hour racers who were doing their best to leave it all out there on that first lap. It was hilarious. Some guy would come up behind, all impatient and ready to pass. I'd let him by and it would be obvious he was pounding it out like it was an XC race. Sometimes they'd pass Eddie, sometimes they wouldn't, but they'd always end up in the same spot: laying on the ground as we passed them back.

The traffic started lightening up a bit by the end of the lap and we rolled into the second lap together. It was looking like we'd keep doing this for a while until one of us decided to start attacking and/or one of us cracked. I couldn't have asked for a better script.

About half-way through the lap my chain started skipping on the cassette. I played with the barrel adjusters, to no avail. It was one of those skips that was indicative of a link about to break, so I stopped, looked, saw nothing and continued. I stopped for another look and finally saw that my chain was bent. Apparently the chain derailed off the outside of the big ring on a rough downhill and I unknowingly pedaled it back on, bending the chain in the process. I finished the lap, focusing on staying super-smooth, got to my pit and changed over to my backup bike. At this point everybody was racing so I just dropped the damaged bike at my pit and hoped I wouldn't need it again.

The stops to figure out what was going on cost me about 1 minute. The bike changeover cost me about 3 minutes. My pit was right before scoring and while rolling through they asked "what's your number?". I looked down and saw no number plate. #$%#@!!!!! I went back to my pit, changed the number plate over and tried again. That cost me another 2 minutes.

We were less than 2 hours in and I'd already spotted Eddie 6 minutes. To say I was pissed would be an understatement. It would've been easy to go off on a tear to reel him back in, but it was going to be a long hot day and going out too hard could be a recipe for disaster. I decided to keep to my pacing plan. Hopefully I could bring him back over the course of the day. Maybe he worked too hard attacking me after my mechanical and would pay for it later.

It was very difficult to go from gunning for the win to being in chase mode, especially not knowing if I was gaining or losing ground. I had some really tough moments out there when it got really hot, but I'd get through each lap and go out for "just one more". That's how I had to take it: One lap at a time. Finish, repeat.

When the 6-hour racers were off the course I started getting positioning updates and moral support. I was really close and was getting tons of encouragement, both of which got my motivation back up there. At one point Eddie left his pit only 30 seconds before I rolled into mine. I took off on that lap on a tear, put in a few hard efforts without breaking the bank, but still couldn't reel him in.

I admitted that this had become a race for second for me, but I had no idea how far back the next rider was. I got conflicting reports: One that I'd lapped him; one that he was a way back but on the same lap as me. No idea. All I could do is keep plugging out one lap at a time. For the last few laps I was doing lots of lap math. I was maintaining lap times in the low to mid 50s and could finish with 13 laps. The question was whether I would have to do that last lap. I finished my 12th 45 minutes before cutoff and there was no question that I was going out again. I had to salvage what I could out of this and I actually had fun on my last night lap. I had even more fun on that 13th lap because I knew it was over and cold beers and hot buffalo burgers were calling. I cranked out that lap 3 minutes faster than my 12th, finishing less than 5 minutes behind Eddie.

The mechanical cost me 6 minutes. I finished 5 minutes back even though I suffered severe motivational problems all day. It would've been a great battle if not for that early mechanical.


This was shot by Carl Mesta. It was my last lap before I put on lights. I saw him at that spot and just had to catch some air for the camera. Carl was nice enough to make his photos available to everybody for free. If you were there, check out his shots. Hopefully you'll want to buy one, 'cause they're that good.

SM100: The race

The crack of dawn start

The photo credit goes to directly to Lauren and indirectly to Fontana. Seems the pooch was a bit un-nerved that Daddy was up getting ready to ride his bike and wouldn't let Mommy sleep, so she got up and watched the start.

I was up about 10 minutes before the 5AM gong "alarm". This always happens without an alarm. I guess it's pre-race nervous energy. With a proper good night's sleep, I usually start sleeping pretty lightly around 3AM, looking at my watch every half-hour or so. I've always considered this a good thing since it gets me to the blue rooms before things start to pile up. Let your mind interpret that however it will.

Experience rocks. I have these early-morning starts dialed now that I've done so many of them. The routine is something like this: Wake-visit blue room-make coffee-make breakfast-eat-visit blue room-get dressed-roll to start-visit blue room on way-find spot on line-pee-go! I've also been simulating no warm-up starts by jumping right into my early morning training rides. I ride before work during the week and had gotten into the habit of spinning around for a half-hour or so before starting to "train". At hundies I'd always feel a bit sluggish for the first half-hour or so, so I started kicking it into gear sooner and it seemed to help. Once the neutral start was over and things started ramping up, I started working my way up and felt great.

As I was working my way up the first fireroad climb I was passed by Sue Haywood. She was keeping a nice pace and looked like a good wheel to jump on. I was already blowing by guys who'd started too hard; now we were really blowing by them. When we hit the first singletrack I got a taste of how my day would go. There were riders stumbling and bumbling up the first steep rocky pitch. It was short and would require a short effort, so why walk it? I blasted up it, taking bad lines around a few walkers and made it up easily. The legs were feeling great.

As I started the climb up to Wolf Ridge I found myself amongst a big group that included Sue and Jeff. She let a bunch of guys go around but they weren't really going anywhere, so when it was my turn and she asked, I declined. The girl's got some serious skills and her wheel was a great one to hang onto.

Somewhere on this climb we passed Chris Eatough. At the time he was trying to figure out what was going on (back wheel wouldn't spin), which turned out to be a broken axle. It sucks to see a fellow racer taken out early by a mechanical, especially somebody with Chris' meticulous preparation, but it goes to show that it happens to the best of us.

Shortly after that I bobbled on some rocks, Sue got a gap and I was alone. It was no biggie since I was near the top and pretty soon my lousy descending skills would've made sure I was alone anyway.

I soldiered on alone and it would stay that way except for the road sections. I'd finish a singletrack or leave an aid station and I'd inevitably end up with a few other riders and we'd start pacelining. I never consciously tried to, but at some point I'd ride all of them off my wheel.

Good things started to happen on the way up Hankey Mountain, in the form of catching and dropping riders on the climbs. I've figured out that this flatlander can't descend, but I sure can climb if I'm having a good day. So far I was having a good day. I worked my way through 3 riders up that climb and none of them caught back up on the downhill.


This shot was taken in the ripping grassy singletrack around Braley Pond, right before aid station 4 and the race's defining climb that follows it. I actually wiped the scowl from my face and looked like I was having fun, instead of my normal racing look of twisted pain.

The good vibes continued on the climb up to Shenandoah Mountain. I kept a good tempo all the way up, with occasional surges to catch and drop other racers. I made my usual quick work of aid station 5, made even faster with the help of my teamie Mark who was up there volunteering. He lubed my squeaky pedals, helped top off my bottles and ran alongside me with a last piece of that heavenly watermelon as I scarfed down another. Thanks, Mark. You rock. Despite all that help I still got caught up in the desire to resume chasing down riders, forgetting to grab a fresh gel flask and can of Endurolytes. I took stock of what I had left (swig of gel and 3 Endurolytes), estimated the time I had left to the finish (2 hours) and decided it wasn't worth turning back.

The climb up to Chestnut Ridge was a highlight of the race for me. I was continuing to catch riders, but that wheel-sucking grassy singletrack was one of the most beautiful places I've been to recently. The air was cool, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and wildflowers were going off all around me. It would've been a perfect place to waste an afternoon, but I had business to attend to. Jeff later said this was a sign that I was in the zone. All he thought about was how much that climb sucked. I was definitely in the zone.

The racing started to get interesting near the top of Chestnut Ridge. I passed 2 more riders right before the top. I started the descent and shortly thereafter I heard a rider coming up from behind. I stopped to let him by, but it was the first rider I passed, not the second. Then I boogered a switchback and the first rider got me back. Rider #2 was gone for good (almost), but I played cat & mouse with rider #1 all the way past aid station 6. I got him on one of the short climbs, then my rear wheel popped out of the dropout on the next descent. He got me back and gapped me before I got rolling again. The gap was enough that he kept it all the way past aid station 6. Once we got to Hankey and started climbing again, I finally got rid of him for good. I knew I had less than 1 hour left and ramped the pace up as high as I could, keeping it pinned all the way to the top. Right before I got there I saw rider #2 from Chestnut just ahead. I pinned it but couldn't reel him in before the downhill.

I crossed the line in 8:22, knocking 50 minutes off last year's time and finishing 14th overall. I was shooting for 8:30 and figured the placing would take care of itself if I did my part. Wow. This was the race I was looking for at the Wilderness 101. I just needed to fine tune the chill plan.

SM 100: The journey

At the beginning of this year, The Shenandoah Mountain 100 was going to be the only hundie I did outside the southeast. I had so much fun last year, how could I not go back? I talked Lauren into joining me with the promise of a couple of days of good riding. "Good" to her means nothing too crazy.

I've noticed that my race performances this year have been directly proportional to the amount of quality chill time I've had before the race. We did the bulk of the driving Thursday, getting to Douthat State Park late that night. I stayed here on the way up to the Wilderness 101 and there's great riding is right out the back of the campground. We camped and rode up to Middle Mountain Friday morning. What a sweet ridgeline singletrack that was.

I'd delivered on one day of good riding but didn't know what to do next. My plan was to drive up to Harrisonburg, stop into Shenandoah Bicycle Company and see if they could steer me to some good intermediate, dog-friendly (no pavement) riding. Harrisonburg was less than 2 hours from Douthat; not a bad drive at all. Thomas at SBC delivered the goods, showing me a singletrack loop called Trimble Mountain that was only 4 miles from Stokesville. Perfect.

It was early afternoon and we had time to kill, so we strolled around town a bit then grabbed dinner at this place next to SBC called Dave's. The food was good (Greek/American fusion) and the beer was cheap ($3.50 24 oz Sierria Nevada!).

After dinner all we had to do was head to Stokesville and set up camp for the rest of the weekend. When we were walking out the door of Dave's, I swore I saw Floyd walk out of the bike shop and right by us into the restaurant. Mike and Lloyd later confirmed it was him when they mentioned they spent the evening there drinking with him and Chris Scott. After my first brush with cycling fame, we got to the Stokesville campground with plenty of daylight and chill time left.

I slept long and hard Friday night (I love sleeping in the woods). Saturday we drove up to Trimble Mountain. It would've been perfect to ride the 4 miles up the road to the trail, ride the trail then ride back, but pavement was out of the question with Fontana. The trail was great, perfect for opening the legs up. It was a 2 mile climb up to a short ridge with great views, then 2 miles down. Lauren crashed on a technical section and didn't want to do it again, so I spun down the road back to camp while she followed in the car with a whimpering Fontana, not understanding why he couldn't be out there running next to me. It had something to do with it being a road and me hauling down it at 40 MPH.

It was early afternoon and all I had to do was pack my drop bags. The chill plan was in full effect.

I really was at the Fool's Gold

Here's a shot of me leaving aid station 4 on the 2nd lap. I'd just put the hardest part of the course behind me, knew I had only 1 hour to go and nobody was close behind. I was the happiest I'd been in hours. Little did I know that a potential win was so close...

The photo credit goes to The Tomato. He was manning aid station 4 after racing the 50. He also went out after dark and many beers to help find lost riders. Way to go, Tomato, and it's always putting a face to a name/blog. Thanks for sending me the photo. I almost never get pictures unless Lauren is with me.

Fool's Gold 100

I'd been looking forward to this one all year for a number of reasons. It's the realization of two good friends' dream. It's something I helped scout routes for last fall. It's another backcountry endurance race in the Southeast.

It turned out to be probably one of the toughest hundies out there.

Nuccio and I rolled out of Tampa late Thursday morning, took care of a few errands for a frazzled race director, made it to Dahlonega for dinner, then retreated to the secret pre-race headquarters of 55nine Performance. Friday we left civilization for Camp Wahsega and went for a ride. I'd originally planned to ride Bull Mountain, but since I knew that trail well I thought we'd scout some of the other trails in the course. We'd spin down the gravel road, jump into the last half of the course, then ride until we felt like quitting. 25 miles later, we were back at camp. It wasn't bad for me, but poor Nuccio, fresh off recovering from a major knee gash, was cooked.

We cleaned up, checked in and checked out our accommodations for the weekend. Despite the stifling heat, the a/c-less cabins weren't too bad since they were shaded and near a creek. Still, they were a bit warm. There were 2 fans in the cabin and I'd brought one from home, so once all the windows and doors were opened and the gale-force vortex was set up, it was quite nice.

We got a spaghetti and meatball dinner and washed it down with Sweetwater 420. We hung out with the low-key crowd and turned in around 9:30 for the 5AM wake-up call.

While the fields were kind of small, there was plenty of competition: Sam Koerber, Peter Joski, Garth Prosser, Chris Janiszewski, and Dicky and Trish Stevenson waiting in the wings for me to have a bad day. Just making it to the podium would be tough.

The race started at 6:35 AM. The pitch-black sky had just started to get a hint of blueness to it when we started. It was light enough to see the fireroad that would be our friend for the next 12 miles, so it was fine. What was missing was the rolling start. We shot across a grassy field, up a hump and onto the gravel climb. As I was vocally lobbying for a racer-created neutral start, Chris jumped up the road and a bunch of others followed. I started to go, but my legs and lungs still weren't awake. I let Sam, Peter, Garth and Rich chase Chris and spun to warm up. I was soon joined by Trish and another rider. After about 15 minutes I felt awake and upped the pace, shedding my early companions. I caught Rich on the ridge and left him once the ridge started pointing down.

I was all alone for the next 60 miles. I knew the hard stuff was in the rollers in the second half of the course, so I took it easy on the long climbs. At the end of the lap there was a short section of gravel road that we rode down, then back up to start the next lap. I saw Garth and Peter heading up as I was going down and timed them to be 8-9 minutes ahead of me. When I went through scoring Eddie O confirmed that Sam was way up the road, with Peter and Garth 8 minutes ahead of me, and Chris was at his car trying to fix a front chainring problem. I was in 4th and had a pretty big gap to try to bring back, but I felt good.

I felt good, that is, until I hit that gravel road climb for the second time. This time it was pushing 90 degrees without a cloud in the sky. It was sandy and dusty. I wasn't having fun. I'd decided to leave my full Camelback at the car and do the second lap with bottles. I'd drained them by the time I hit the first aid station. I stopped, grabbed bottles of Gatorade and what I thought was water, chugged a Burn, and started the mostly downhill miles to the base of Bull Mountain.

I took a swig of that "water" and it had a minty flavor. It was kind of nice, even refreshing, and made the hot water seem not-so-hot. I found out that it was something called "Rapid Recovery" that Dedicated Athlete is testing. A lot of people hated it, but I loved it. I drank lots of it for the rest of the race.

When I pulled into the aid station at the bottom of Bull, Peter was rolling out. I asked how he was doing and got a sarcastic "fantastic" for a reply, so I knew he was hurting. There was no reason to get excited and hurried, so I went about my business of topping off bottles and forgetting to lube my chain.

About 3.5 miles long, Bull Mountain was the second major climb of the day. I started up, keeping my pace in check. Pretty soon I saw him, only it wasn't him. It was Garth, going backwards. I was gaining on him rapidly. In my excitement, I let it go a bit too much on a short downhill, washing out in a sandy turn. I slid across the ground, ripping a brand-new pair of shorts. I saw blood under there, but there wasn't time to worry about that. I jumped back on and resumed reeling Garth in. This time I passed him, only to realize shortly thereafter that my front tire was almost flat. I must've burped air when I crashed, or I was getting a flat before the crash and low air was the culprit. I decided to try shooting some CO2 into the tire first. When I was doing that I noticed that the tire bead was unseated from the rim, confirming the burp-while-crashing theory. The air did the trick, re-seating the tire, and I was rolling again, this time passing Garth for the last time.

I knew Peter couldn't be far ahead and kept pushing. I'd see him, but he was proving to be a bit harder to reel in. I caught him on the last steep pitch before the top of the Bare Hare trail. He was walking it. I rode it and he let me by, but he was right back on me after a bit of downhill. It went like that all the way down Bull Mountain. I'd open a gap on a climb, he'd close it on a downhill, repeat.

I got to the aid station and took my time. I had to re-arrange the contents of my jersey pockets to fit a third bottle for the next long section. Peter rolled in as I was doing my thing, but he walked over to a cooler and sat down, not willing to continue challenging at that point.

The squeaking of my neglecting chain was getting unbearable (I forgot to lube it at the aid station again), so I attempted the "apply lube while rolling" trick, only to dump half the contents of my jersey pocket all over the gravel road.

I made it to the final aid station without incident. I was pretty sure that nobody was closing in on me. One of aid station volunteers optimistically told me Sam was maybe 10 minutes ahead of me, but the other guy sounded a bit more realistic and it sounded like it would be difficult at best to chase him down. I kept at it in my survival pace - hard enough to feel it, but leaving enough that I'd have something in the tank if I really needed it.

The big creek crossings were great in the last section. It was well into the 90s by now and I'd felt like my head was going to explode from the heat more than once. Those creek crossings were about hub-deep and had lines that allowed them to be hit really fast. I hit them as fast as possible for maximum soaking effect. I was as giddy as a kid playing in a rainstorm.

As I rolled toward the finish line, I saw Sam heading toward his campsite. I finished in 10:16, 4 minutes (!) behind Sam and 2nd overall. My biggest need was to be cool, so I went straight to my gear bag, grabbed a towel and headed to the small waterfall tucked into a sweet creek that rolled out of the hills into camp. I sat in and around that water for almost an hour.

The after-party was great! They had a live band, and plenty of food and beer. Watching the people rolling in after dark, with and without lights, was inspiring as always. Eddie and Namrita put on one hell of race, and this was only their first year. That makes it a don't miss race in my book, because I'm sure they'll make it even better.

What made this race so hard? The first 15 miles were gravel road, then the rest of the course was almost all singletrack. There would be a section of gravel here and there, but probably no more than 5 miles over the rest of the course. I turned out that a lap was around 55 miles, not 50. It was August in Georgia, during the mother of all heat waves. I'd like to think that if I'd known how close I was to Sam, I coud've dug deeper and reeled him in. As I'm sitting here Monday afternoon typing this after calling in sick and sleeping half the day, I think I left it all out there.

Wilderness 101

I didn't know it at the time, but the tone for this race would be set a week before it. Saturday morning I was getting ready to head up to Razorback. There was a wasp nest going strong above my garage door that I decided to do something about. I grabbed the can of bug spray, aimed it at the nest and fired. The dribble that came out of the can did nothing but piss the wasps off. I felt one land on my back and retreated across the loose rock walkway leading to the back deck and house. I lost my footing (I was wearing flip-flops) and slid across the rocks and into the deck, banging up both knees in the process. Danielle would've been proud.

It didn't hamper my riding, but all my rides last week were with a dull ache in my left knee. I believe in knowing how my body really feels and not taking drugs unless I really need them, so I'm not one to pop vitamin I on a regular basis. I thought it would be a good idea pre-load my system with it before the 101, but constantly forgot. I started with a few Friday, a few more before the race Saturday and a few more during the race. I actually think I ate 6 during the race. Dimwit.

My goal was for an 8:30 finish time, about 40 minutes faster than last year. I planned to do this by not going so hard in the first half so I didn't bonk during the technical second half. That was where I would make up my time, being able to attack the technical sections instead of barely surviving them.

The plan was going well. I let the lead group go when we started climbing and settled into my own pace. I rolled through aid stations 1 and 2 with about the same times as I did last year and felt good. I made it down Croyle's without flatting. Man, that trail rocks. It's probably the best section of trail in the race.

The plan was going into effect by the time I reached aid station 3. I didn't know it at the time, but I beat my 2-3 split from last year by 15 minutes. I took care of business and started up Sassafras, where the real work was to begin with the most demanding part of the race. I rolled through all the rocky goodness, still feeling pretty good, and hit aid station 4 10 minutes faster than last year. I was now 30 minutes up on last year with about 25 miles to go. I ran into Jeff there, who had just busted his seatpost and was out of the race. Jeff was having one hell of a ride, too.

I rolled out of aid station 4 and started up the loose gravel climb. Then it started. Stomach cramps. Anything over a recovery effort resulted in twisting cramps. I would've puked if I could, but nothing would come up. Eating was out of the question. I got in a few calories through my drink mix, but it wasn't enough as I had to rely primarily on plain water. I walked up a lot of that climb, asking everybody who passed me for a gun so I could put myself out of my misery.

I limped into aid station 5, having given up something like a gazillion spots in the overall. Pringles looked appetizing, so I ate a handful, topped off bottles and set out to try to salvage my race. I was able to finally pick up the pace up the rail grade, through the first tunnel and starting up the climb. Then my stomach started turning somersaults again, so I shut it down and gave up another gazillion spots. I was finally able to open it up again thanks to some big guy in baggy shorts who was wearing a huge pack. When he passed me I had to salvage some dignity, so I dug in, flew throught the last tunnel and pinned it to the finish.

The end result was a 9:00 finish, 11 minutes better than last year. I was right on pace to meet my race goal before the gastric implosion. I'm boycotting Ibuprofen.

The 2800 mile adventure that was getting to this race is a story in itself, and one that I've decided to give its own blog entry, which will be up soon.