Got my new 29er single speed all built up and ready to go.  More on that one later once I get some pictures.  Anyway, I got everything built up on Sunday night so Monday was the day.  I had planned out about 2 hours of pedaling and all was going according to plan up to about an hour in the ride.  The legs felt great, but my arse was a little tender, but everything was going well.  That is until my new rigid fork (yes, first time I have ridden a rigid fork in quite some time) dug into a big mud puddle and sent me flying over the bars.  So there I was supermanning over the bars and hit the mud face first, sliding in it.  Not only did I land face first, I also got both hands stuck in the mud up to my elbows.  Great, just what I needed, more mud.   I got up and the first thought that went through my head was “Shit, I think I broke my collarbone.”  As I stood there trying to get my cell phone out of my pocket to call kelly to come get me, I just sat down and took a little break.  After a few minutes, I realized things weren’t broken and the initial shock was wearing off..  I got up, grabbed the bike and took the shortest path home.

Today I am taking a day off.  The legs don’t need it, but the mind and arm does.  I am not “afraid” to ride the bike, but I decided that it was best to clear my mind before I head out again.  Plus, now I get to sit at home, on the deck, drinking beer all night.  I think I made the right call on what to do.

I have made some decisions about my stellar racing career.  I am going to try and race the MillStone Grind race on Sept 7th, mostly because it is dirt cheap and I convinced the organizer to allow the single speeds to run the 35 miles instead of 17.  This will get me some good prep and put me in a good spot to race the Bradbury 12 race coming up Sept 20, 2 days before I head to Interbike.  I figure there is nothing better for standing around on concrete for 9 hours a day, 4 days straight than racing a 12 hour race right before you leave.  Why not??  I might be able to pull the “Michelin Card” and allow me to cut down on the already super low entry fees…

I took the office’s commuter bike around town today just to see how the legs feel.  Considering the effort I put out this past weekend, they felt great.  Am I going to go for a bike ride tonight??  Doubtful.  At this point, the legs feel good, its my ass that I think would cause a bit of problem.

The only time the legs felt strained or tired was when I had it in the big ring standing up pedaling hard.  They just felt fatigued, as they should.  Seems as if the body is on track to a good recovery…

The 14th annual 24 hours of Great Glen, all I can really say is, WOW…WOW. What an event. For those of you who aren’t from the northeast, it has been raining here, a lot, and that is an understatement.

I went up to the course on Friday to do a little scouting of the expo area, camping area and to preride the course. It was pretty much the same as last year so I was pretty familiar with the tricky sections. However, with all the rain, those tricky sections got just that bit trickier. I was quoted a couple times after the preride saying “someone is being taken off that course on a stretcher.” Yeah, it was that bad.

Saturday morning got here and everything went the way I planned. Up at six, everything loaded in the cars, belly full of food by 8:30 and at the venue by 9. We did the camp set up, pre race meeting and all of that good stuff all with enough time to spare to check the bikes over once more and prop the feet up for the last bit of quiet time I would have for the next 24 hours.

12 noon and BAM the cannon goes off.  I sat the first lap off so an extra hour of sitting around waiting to unleash that pent up excitement.  When it was my turn, I flew out of the gates.  With about 3/4 of the lap done and a ton of mud on the bike, I hear some clicking from the rear wheel.  Look down and shifting a bit helps but I just decided to back off the gas a bit.  After about 2 minutes of the easy pedaling, I heard a loud crunch and the rear wheel locked up.  A look down confirms it, the rear dérailleur is in the wheel.  How wonderful.  Time to pick up the bike, put it on the shoulder and time to start running.  15 minutes later I dropped the bike in the timing tent and walked disgusted back to the camp site.  After some looking and working on the bike, it was decided that the dérailleur boss rivet broke and it was time to to switch over to the back up bike.

Let’s fast forward to about 4am.  Why?  Simple, nothing too exciting to talk about besides me riding around in a circle every other hour.  We just kept switching laps, each of about 55-60 minutes long, all with no major problems or interesting stories.  Then around 4am when working my way up to “the shoot” I caught up to the rider ahead of me.  I began to yell ahead to warn him I was riding down it, as it was clear he was walking, I thought he would just step out of the way to let me through, the proper thing to do.  But instead, no, he started to walk down this muddy path and began to slide down it on his ass while holding his bike.  I turned the corner and there was nothing I could have done but just “let the good times roll” and fly down that sucker.  Of course the moron was still laying there, and gave a horrible effort to get out of the way.  Fine, I am the better rider, so I work my way around him a tad and BAM!!!!  It sounded like a cannon going off.  I picked myself out of the mud while the moron sat there staring at me.  I shook my head and ran back up the hill to grab my bike thinking “crap, I need to change a tire”.  No big deal.  I work in the tire industry so no worries.  I grab the thing and notice the wheel has exploded, hence the noise, and completely folded in half.  WHAT!?!?!?  A tacoed wheel??  What the hell??  Fug….Time to grab the bike, throw it on the shoulder, again, and run it another 20 minutes.  I got it into the pits again and time to work some magic.  We grabbed the wheel off of Kelly’s bike, switched up the rotors, and was back in business.

The rest of the laps up until the finish were all status quo.  We finished the day with 24 laps (12 each) in 24 hours 27 minutes.  Good enough for 2nd place.  Nothing wrong with that.

Let’s fast forward to today.  Legs are a little sore, but nothing major.  I feel like I was just on a hard “weekend warrior” ride.  Nothing major.  I think I could go for a ride in the next day or so if I had a working bike.  Maybe I need to get that Pugsley back up and running while the other 2 bikes are getting fixed.

What is next on the horizon??  No idea.  Tons of riding that is for sure.  It would be a shame to lose some of this good fitness I have going for me.  I will scout around the area and see if anything is coming up, but I haven’t given it much thought.  There has been a few races that are coming up that I would like to do, but I will be traveling for work.  Damn you Interbike.  I have wanted to attend you for so long and now that I have to attend, I don’t want to go.  Funny how things work like that.

I can say a new bike is on the way to replace the broken hunk of junk Vassago.  Should be a good time.  The bike should be here sometime before the weekend.  I can’t wait.

A full write up on the bike, when I get it, and hopefully a bunch of pictures from the 24 hour race will be coming in the next day or so…

2 days left until the 24 hour race.  It is supposed to be pouring rain the entire time.  Should be an epic day of riding.

Am I ready for it?? To be honest, I am not sure, but I will soon find out.  Even if I am not, nothing I can do about it now….

Back home from the trip up north to Quebec and Mount Saint Anne for North America World Cup round #1.  A great weekend for Michelin and some American athletes with Adam Craig getting one of his best world cup finishes in 4th place.  Way to go Adam!!!

No matter how many races I see, it is always mind boggling just how fast they go.  I go watch a local race and thing, I might be able to hang with these fast guys.  Then I head to a national level event, norba or the Us champsionship, and think, man, these guys rip.  No way I can keep up with them.  I think there is no way people can go faster.  Then I go to a world cup and see the absolute best in the business and they completely blow my mind at how fast they can go through some of the most technical terrain I have ever ridden.  It is just unreal.

With that in mind, I really don’t want to travel again to Canada for another world cup, however, I do want to see these “machines” just pedal their bikes as fast as they can.  I can’t wait……

All I can say is that I have been busy. With many trips all over the east coast from Tennessee to Mt. Snow now to Mount Saint Anne, Quebec followed by a week in Bromont Canada all while trying to get my 24 hour race training in.  Yeah, I’ve been busy.

I haven’t been posting, a lot due to lack of internet connection and I am not sure how my internet will be for the next 2 weeks as I am still traveling.  I have decided to take my helmet cam with me to Canada so hopefully I will have some sweet video of the trails up there as there certainly is some quality riding.

On another note, I had a great time at the US Mountain Bike Nationals this past weekend.  There is nothing like some good riding, quality racing and hanging out afterwards with some friends.  I have been thinking about some races I want to do next year and after attending the nationals, I have decided that I want to take a crack at the beginner national championship next year.  Even though I have been riding for years and have a few races under my belt, I have raced in races that do not require a license, I have never gotten one, making me one.  The great thing about this is that I can qualify for the race on the east coast, keeping my traveling to a minimum, then head out to Sol Vista Colorado and take my stab at the stars and bars jersey.  For now, that is my thought, but then again, that might change in a week or so…

I have to admit.  I get lazy about writing on this blog.  I certainly go in spurts.  Sometimes, I feel like I have 5 posts a day to write.  Then there are times, like now, where I have to force myself to write something.  Its times like these that I feel like shutting this whole sucker down.  But I won’t.  Not really sure why.  Guess because it isn’t costing me a thing.

Either way, I have been riding just about every day in preparation for the 24 hour race that is coming up in a little over a month and the days that I do not ride (I always ride M-F because of commuting to work) after work, I am usually taking the dog for a run after work  Usually this is about 2-3 time a week I am running her.  Sometimes I ride and run depending on how much time I have.  I feel like I have the right amount of fitness for what I want to accomplish at the race.  However, the biggest thing that concerns me is that I will be traveling for 3 weeks before the race and with most events, I won’t have the time to ride like I need that close to the race.  I am not sure what to do, but I am thinking that running might be a viable option. Not sure yet because of my distaste for running.

One other exciting thing is that I just got my economy stimulus check from ‘W”.  The question now is what to spend it on?  Kelly wants me to pay bills with it but seriously, what fun is that?

Just making sure this is still working.  It has been a long since I have posted anything.  There is a good reason for that.  I have been busy and lazy.  Plain and simple.  I have been riding about 5 days a week, plus the commuting to work via single track, and hiking the dog the other 2 days, plus the days I have been riding.  I feel like I am in a good fitness level for this time of the year.

I am headed to Tennessee next week for some work and will end up riding a few days down there.  I guess I will see how “in shape” I am when I get to ride with people who do not have a hard core winter like I do.  I would guess they don’t loose much fitness over their winter like people in the northeast tend to.

In my quest to hopefully get a few endurance races in, I worked hard to get the Dart-Nuun endurance adventure racing team under the Michelin sponsorship.  Ever since I helped to broker this deal, they certainly have not let us down.  The team has racked up another win in the preparation for the Primal Quest race coming up in June.  Every time I get their Team updates, I wish I was out there doing battle with them..

This weekend certainly kept me busy.

On Friday, because of rain, I canned the recovery ride because of what looked to be like rain rolling in.  So I went home quickly and took the dog for our little run.  I can do without the hour recovery, but I can’t deal with a dog that has all of her energy pent up, so letting her burn off some steam is a must.

On Saturday, I got everything all geared up for a killer ride and off I went.  After about an hourish of climbing (some pushing some pedaling) I felt something very weird happen to my hard tail, single speed 29er.  I felt it go VERY squishy.  I thought, “hrm, this bike doesn’t have any rear suspension.  Something much have happened to my seat or seat post”.  When I looked down, it was much worse.  I broke the frame where the seat tube, top tube and seat stays come together.  SON OF A……  I pointed the bike back down hill and road the 10 miles back home standing on a single speed.  Not all that much fun, in case anyone wondered.

On Sunday, after a bunch of chores around the house, I grabbed the roadie and went for a spin.  The plan was up and down Bear Notch Road and up and down the Kanc.  Mission completed.  Neither hill was that tough (remember, most hills are as 215lb people don’t work well going AGAINST gravity) and they were certainly easier to climb than last year.  I feel as if my fitness is worse off compared to last year, but I must be wrong.  Either way, it was 65 miles of pure goodness.

Today, first thing first, I called up Vassago to get my Jabberwocky warrantied and they will gladly do it.  They are sending a call tag to get the bike so they can inspect it and all that good stuff.  They will get me a size 18″ one out as soon as they can.  Ohh, and they mentioned that “as soon as they can” would probably be “MONTHS” because they are out of stock of this current years model and they are switching manufactures.  What does that mean??  It means I will be riding my full suspension gear 26″ bike.  Ohh the horror.  I love the bike I will be riding, I really do, as it is my custom Vicious Cycles, but I would rather ride a single speed 29er at this point in the year.  Ohh well.