Handlebar to Handlebar at 30mph

“Let me get the door for you Premium Rush,” my witty coworker greeted me as I wheeled my Niner mountain bike off the elevator and into my office.  I work at a radio station full of clever creatives.  I get it all the time.  I have to say, it made me chuckle.  He was the morning show host of our sister station.  After a day at work making commercials, in anticipation of a 6 hour race this weekend, I had planned to hit the dirt of Versailles State Park for a fast pre-ride yesterday.  Maybe his comment was a premonition, because I never made it to Versailles.  The day turned out to be a rush, but I rolled with it.

In bike racing things rarely go as planned.  Anywhere else it’s ugly old adversity, we call it the beauty of the sport.  Fitness, finesse, courage are balanced with luck, mechanics and nature.  We add grams to our side of the scale by learning, through experience, to put ourselves in the best possible position to succeed.  If that doesn’t work, there’s always a plan b.  We look ahead.  Calm, we find clear-headed serenity handlebar to handlebar at 30mph.  We note which wheels to trust, which to avoid.  We learn to read breakaways, counting the riders and teams up the road, anticipating who will attempt to bridge or bring them back.  We put wheels in the pit and pack a tube.  We pre-ride mountain bike courses to know ahead of time where we’ll need to lay down the power and where we can afford to coast and reach back into the jersey pocket for a GU.  Those same adaptive skills transfer into everyday life.  I’m convinced, athletes make better employees.

So between projects, with my mountain bike blurred out of focus in the shadow of my computer monitor, I checked the Hoosier Mountain Bike Assn. website waiting for a “green light” on the trails at Versailles State Park.  After a brief, but heavy rain the evening before, the trail status was a cautionary “yellow,” but with a warm less humid day to dry, I hoped it would change over 24 hours.  Plan B, was to make the 7pm mountain bike time-trail at England-Idlewild Park only 20 minutes from work.  Back and forth I went, mixdown Adobe Audition session to stereo 128Kbps 44100Hz mp3, check trail status.  “It’s pretty light commercial-wise here today,” I let slip to a coworker. 

Knocking on wood is bullshit paranoia.  What’s real and true is that if you ever let your lips slip out loud about how you haven’t had a flat tire in months; you will get a flat tire within the day.  Can a bike brotha get a “truth” high-five?  Smack!  A similar law applies at work.  Never mention how easy it is, a challenge demon lurks under the mixing board waiting to pounce at your words.

At 4:30pm the demon, or our chief engineer, crashed the computer.  Not my computer, THE COMPUTER.  The computer that holds every song, every commercial, and every jingle on every single one of four radio stations, took a big electronic demonic dump.  With no music or commercials, the DJ’s scrambled for words live on the air.  They filled with traffic, weather, and entertainment news, anything while someone grabbed some CDs. 

From the frantic rumble of voices in the hallway outside the main studio, my boss cracked the door to my studio directly across the hall.  “We’re going to miss some commercials,” she said.  As calm as if I were handlebar to handlebar at 30mph, I told her I had already notified the department that does the scheduling and was in the process of seeing if my system was operational.  Over the next 2 ½ hours we reverted to back up and re-did all the commercials since the last back-up on Monday. 

Right around the time the computer was restored, my wife texted that she was leaving for her ride, alone.  Bummed, I checked the HMBA website again.  Still yellow.  I looked at the clock, nearly 7pm.  It’d be fruitless to drive an hour only to be turned around by muddy trails.  Completely outfitted for a mountain bike ride, but too late to make the time trial, I rushed home by 7:20pm.  I left the Niner in the car, switched into my road shoes, jumped on my road bike and pedaled up to the local crit at Cincinnati's Ault Park.  A friend pinned the number on my back at 7:52pm, and by 8:01pm I was at peace at my first road race of the season, handlebar to handlebar at 30mph.

#Strava Segment Creators Shitting Bricks

In a whirlwind of poop, riders across the world who have created Strava segments are shitting bricks.  In the slipstream of a lawsuit surrounding a segment in Berkeley California’s Tilden Park where a rider died allegedly trying to capture the Strava KOM virtual crown prize, riders who have ever created a Strava segment are replacing the chamois in their bike shorts with adult diapers.  They are remarkably super cushy.

A Velo News article states, “Two years ago, William “Kim” Flint lost his life descending a hill in Berkeley’s Tilden Park, braking suddenly to avoid a car and losing control of his bike.  According to his family, Flint was chasing a new fastest time on the popular cycling website Strava.”  People commenting on the story who only wish to be identified by made up names and silly looking avatars contend Flint’s family are a bunch of stupid heads for suing Strava.

KOMDOOD

The family and the lawyer should both be ashamed.

The state should take down all county line signs because they may cause bike riders to sprint and crash.

Cyclists who use Strava now fear it’s only a matter of time before lawyers figure out that segments are not created by mysterious evil genies.  No doubt, riders listed in the top 10 on leaderboards are also totally freaking out and feeling like total douches at the thought that their good fortune from a mother of a tailwind, a car-free day or the draft of fast group ride could goad others into riding beyond their physical and environmental limitations. 

The people who left the app running on their phone while traveling in their car and accidentally posting personal bests from San Francisco to San Diego haven't slept in two years and were last seen huddled together rocking in the fetal position under a tree.

Video: Cyclocross Pain Face

I thought I was the uncontested all time king of Cyclocross Pain Face, then I saw you race at OVCX John Bryan this past weekend.  The images captured by Jeffery Jakucyk (link here) and the Farmer Family give my mug a run for the money.  No matter what you look like when your heart rate is 195, I know your much more attractive when you're not in spandex trying to navigate a sand pit at 25mph.  Thanks for a great season. 

101 Reasons I'm Looking Forward To Mohican 100

(The following is more or less a re-run from an earlier post, but riding comes before blogging.  I've got three days to squeeze in 5 days of work and to pack and finish cleaning/tweaking my bike for Mohican 100 '09 this weekend.  Enjoy and thanks for reading.)

I shared a beer with Floyd Landis last year at the Mohican 100 in Loudonville Ohio. There’s the picture to prove it. Still kick myself for not putting on a team jersey, mainly because my baggy shirt makes my 162 pounds look like 210 next to him. I zip tied devil horns from a Viking helmet I bought at a rummage sale to my helmet and the photo at the header of this blog appeared in Cycling News because of it. I peed on trees. Hundreds of tricked out bikes surrounded me all weekend. A buddy spent at least an hour and a half debating his tire choice while Trek’s Jeremiah Bishop and his teammates rode past our cabin for a pre-ride. My team, friends from all around Cincinnati, Louisville and Columbus shared tools, tweaked bikes and drank dark beers till well past sundown. We piled 4 guys into the truck at dawn and drove to the start. A black cat crossed the road in front of us entering Loudonville. I made the road rollout lead group split with the pros. I got a pint glass filled with Sierra Nevada at the finish line. Despite the trough of free food in the lodge, someone had a deep dish Chicago style pizza delivered to the venue. As for the race, like everyone else I spent the day covered in mud in what turned out to be the first sticky hot and humid day of the summer. I overheated between rest stops, slogged up shoe stealing mucky hills, cleaned my bike, took water cooler paper towel baths, nearly dropped out, got encouragement to continue from teammates, felt good for 5 miles, only to repeat the process over and over again for the next eight and a half hours. You could wait and watch the weather radar and make a last minute call on registration on Friday night, but truthfully there's really nothing that can happen between now and Saturday night that'll make the Mohican 100 more or less fun.

Link to confirmed riders of Mohican 100 here.

Screamy Holler Complete – Update Covington’s Devou Park Trail Build

While I was swinging the Rhino, I wondered what this section of trail at Devou would be called.  Running adjacent to Sleepy Hollow Road, Screamy Holler seemed to fit the dirt.  Quads scream on the way up.  You holler on the way down.  Woo hoo Devou!

On the previous trail day I attended, the flowers under the railroad trestle had yet to bloom.  Saturday the yellow flowers were almost surreal.

With the help of well over one hundred Give Back Cincinnati volunteers, CORA tackled the deepest bench cut sections to date at Covington’s Devou Park Mountain Bike Trail.  Some sections ended up being two feet deep on the steep ravine-side roughly two-thirds of the way up to the first vista point.  Section #5 was the toughest.  At the end of the day, it was all hands on dirt, to bench the last of it.

So far, the completed trail section is officially long enough to question whether you really want to hike all-the-way up or take your bike instead.  It’s an hour round trip on foot; at the tipping point to where riding a bike (and all the prep that goes along with it) might be the more logical choice. 

No doubt, Cincinnati’s longest sustained mountain bike climb, or downhill, depending on which way you see it, is complete.  

To learn more and take part in the next trail building day, visit the CORA website here.

A previous post about the first big trail day at Devou is here.

Wou Hou Devou - Devou Park Mountain Bike Trail Building

His chat turned to complaint.  Finally, the poor kid who wore sneakers to the Cincinnati Off Road Alliance (CORA) trail building day Saturday at Devou Park said he had to rest.  In a pair of big hikers I plodded on, initially to deliver empty buckets to the U-Give Cincinnati volunteers picking up garbage.  I soon realized I had passed the last trail group around section nine.  “Well, might as well see where this trail tops out,” I thought.  I put my bucket down to pick up on the way back and kept up a stiff pace.  A half hour and sections 10 through 19 passed quickly. 

From the trail head at the ball fields at the bottom of Sleepy Hollow Road, It was an hour round trip to the vista.  My hike of what will become the first mountain bike trails in Covington, KY’s Devou Park made me think more of Bent Creek in Asheville, NC or Brown County in Nashville, IN than local trails like Tower Park, Harbin Park or Mitchell Memorial. The trail is located on the west side of Sleepy Hollow Road.  While the amount of available land in Devou won’t match that of Bent Creek or Brown County, the topography certainly does.  I lost count of the switchbacks that crisscross the beginning of the climb.  Unlike most area trails, the switchbacks at Devou don’t end at the top.  That made me smile.  About 2/3’s up the first hill, the trail wraps around the south side and into a pretty valley with flowering

 trees.  Eventually there will be some Bent Creek-esque deep bench cuts in this steep valley.  After crossing a bridge-worthy creek which dropped nearly 6-7 feet from the trail markers above, a handful of switchbacks take you to the first real vista of the west side Cincinnati skyline.  Looking at my watch, then at the green trail flags wrapping around the bend, I shook my head in disbelief.  Just like the kid in sneakers, I had to turn back. 

This is going to be big.  Cincinnati is about to have its first trail system with a sustained mountain bike climb that will top out at what?  Nearly a mile and a half I guess.  I’m a strong hiker.  It took me a half hour to reach the top on foot.  On a bike, I’d hedge a guess that expert riders will be looking at a 12-15 minute climb and novices may be knocking on that half hour door.  There’s nothing within 20 miles of Cincinnati with a climb of more than a few minutes.  This is just to get to the top.  The trail keeps going around the 2^nd hill and on and on.  This is just the warm-up.  There’s enough land here for 15-18 miles of trail.  There are plenty of trail days ahead, plenty of time to learn that a Pulaski is a tool and Pulaski is a historic Chicago figure.  We’ll see you at the next Devou Park trail day. 

 POST SCRIPT-TRAILSIDE TREASURES:

While picking up trash, debris and relics along the path of the new trail at Devou Park, I came across this unusual apparatus.  At first I thought it might be a spur of sorts for horseback riding, but upon further inspection it appears to be some sort of tool that would hang from a chain or maybe some sort of candle sconce.  Any ideas?  Leave a comment below.

Cincinnati Harbin OVCX Masters 1-2-3 CX Race Video