sonomas

Ahhh. Lake Sonoma.
My buddy Ryan told me this would be a good one... and the race at Sonomas delivered. The course kinda reminded me of riding in Auburn and Santa Cruz. A bit more climbing in the beginning, but some fun "roller coaster" style trail in the later stages. I would've liked some more rocks... but then again, I'll probably always say that about a race course.


My strategy of keeping my heart rate below 160 was immediately thrown into a tailspin. I was running closer to 170 just to stay in the main pack going up the start road.... and we were still behind the pace car! Things would get even more desperate once the pace car pulled over and the promoter yelled GO!! I changed my plan of attack to not attack and just try to keep the leaders in sight and stay in the front group being pulled along by some guy named Levi. I could see the first few swithcbacks of singletrack as the course turned right off the pave' and I started counting back to my place in a long line of riders filing into the singletrack.... I was sitting in 23rd. Ideally I would've been up a bit further in the pack, but what's done is done and now it's time to try and settle into a pace that I think I can sustain for the next 3.5hrs.

Over the next hour I'd pass 10 riders putting me in the lucky #13th position. It would take me two more hours to catch the next three riders. Once the course started its way along the south shore of the lake, the longer climbs were over with and all that remained were many, many, many short, steep, punchy climbs. Very east coasty... if you will. I tried to stay in bigger gears and talk my legs into the theory of "the faster you climb this, the sooner you'll be able to take another break" .

In the end, I'd come across the line 10th. Some guy named Levi managed to win the thing giving me a 20 minute beating in the process. Meh. Could've been worse.
I was ridin' good. Couldn't have done much better. I'm probably kinda glad I didn't pre-ride any of the course. I wouldn't have remembered enough to make any sort of discernible difference in the outcome of things. Sure, I got into a few corners a bit too hot, but I'll bet everyone else did as well.

I got to thinking. I was talking to some guy named Levi afterwards and he was saying his bike weighed 22lbs. Hmm. Lets see. My bike weighs27 lbs. That's a difference of 5 lbs (or a 22.73% weight difference). Some guy named Levi beat me by 20 minutes in a 3ish hour race. That's a difference of roughly 10.7%. I think the writing is on the wall here kids. Do the math. If my bike would've been 2.5lbs lighter, I would've been sprinting for the line with some guy named Levi. If my bike was 5lbs lighter I would've crushed the guy!! I might have just missed my 15 minutes of fame by a mere 2.5lbs! Meh. Or I still would've got 10th. Who knows.

But hey, I didn't go down there by myself. I had some great company. First off, meet Sako (in the gray shirt). Sako had a great race. He even won a sprint to the end of the parking lot with a guy that was in his class (guy in the red shirt). Too bad for Sako, the official finish line was 30 meters further into the grass of the park. No worries Sako, there's only 364 more days until next year to try again.

Then there's Daryn, (aka D-Man) my co-pilot for this trip. It took me all week to talk D-Man into coming to this race. In typical fashion he registered the night before the race, hadn't ridden in weeks, showed up confused with two bikes at my house and crashed in a creek during the race drawing blood from most of his appendages, but hey... a hundred bucks for 3rd place isn't too shabby.




Last but not least, mad props to the promoter (in the red beside some guy named Levi). As well, mad props to some guy named Levi who donated all of his winnings ($750.00) to the Lake Sonoma Trails foundation. I've already marked the race on the calendar for next year.

temp trail closures

I received an email the other day about some temporary trail closures in our area. I guess the woods are getting a "make over" in the Sawtooth ridge area. The following is quoted from the email I received.

"wanted to give you a heads up about some temporary trail closures. During the month of September Bill Banka (our forester) will have crews doing fire hazard reduction work in the areas of the 2 Bridges and 2 Beavers and a Bear trails. Who named those anyways? Nice trail signs by the way, I don't get out there too often. The plan is to not disturb the trail too much but it is likely that there will be some timber across them from time to time. I thought I would give you a heads up and ask for any help you can provide getting the word out to the xc community. The closure signs were put in place today and two beavers was poached within 5 minutes. I wasn't surprised."

Otherwise, I had an interesting time the other morning while riding the nature trail in Tahoe Donner where I managed to tear a hole in the sidewall of my rear tire. Before I rolled to a stop, I remembered that my pump was taped to the top of my cross bike.... miles away from where I was at the moment. Meh. After a nice walk in my super comfortable cycling shoes (I'm kidding here people) I made it out to the rec center and happened across 3 lads gearing up for an epic ride and borrowed their floor pump. Thanx guys! Hope you found the connector to Hole in The Ground ok.

Other-otherwise, If you see this guy anywhere in you travels.....

..... ask him if he's registered for the race yet? Remind him of how much fun he had at that race (sswc05) and how much fun this race will be.

geez....

So much going on right now. It seems like only a few weeks ago that Downieville happened, but upon looking at a calendar the reality is that it's been a while. As the days come and go summer moves forward like a freight train coming off Donner Summit with a full load and an engineer that has a cavalier attitude coupled with a hatred for the brake pedal (which I'm only guessing that in a train it's more than just a pedal... probably a big lever or something).

Things at Might Mobile are good. Although I still find myself hunched over in the back of the van doing projects that have nothing to do with bikes, my program gets a little more streamlined with each and every hole drilled, hook put up, this put over here, that put over there....it's a labor of love i guess.... or madness??

Work isn't the only thing I've been doing. I've been gettin' after it on the bike. Ridin' like crazy. Doin' some racin' too. Don't know what got into me this year, but I've had the desire to plunk my hard earned $$ on the registration table, zip tie a number plate on the front of my bike and go like hell at the sound of the gun. It's been working out pretty good too. With one more race to go at the Northstar XC series, I'm pretty sure I've got the points to win the overall. I'm also winning the points battle in the Nevada State Championship series with one more round to go. I heard that if you win the series, you're rewarded with a fanny pack, some cigarettes and a stack of poker chips! Can't wait. Later this week, I'll be heading to Lake Sonoma to do battle on a course that's listed as having 8,000ft of climbing in 35 miles! I've seen the elevation profile for this race and it looks more like a readout from an EKG machine than something you should be riding a bicycle over. There are literally NO flat spots on the chart. Meh. I think I'll run some gears for this one.

Otherwise, I've got my dad in town this week. Ya know how cyclist always seem to know about the neat stuff on YouTube? Well, my Dad's a carpenter, so he knows about stuff like this. Interesting.

Also, I did this a while ago but will didn't go public with it until now. I scanned some older pics from way back when and put them up on my online photo gallery. Quite the blast from the past. I'll leave you with that for now.

Enjoy and keep the rubber side down.

hello

I swear that I'm going to post some meaningful material. Soon. Really. Just hang in there.
In the meantime, check out this video. Make sure you have the sound on. It's in Italian, but still totally worth it.