Iceman Cometh 2015

Next up was a trip to Michigan for the Iceman Cometh mtb race in/around Traverse City.  I'd not done this one before but with it's size and how it looked like a good way to wrap up the mtb season I thought I should give it a shot.  I signed up way back in February I think, it's been a long while.

The race is point to point which is probably how I prefer to ride when possible, I like it more than loops of the same trail over and over.  The Mt. Borah Epic is similar in length to this one and I really enjoy that as well.  This one is about 30mi and a lot of double track with a bit of singletrack mixed in.  None of it is really difficult or technical compared to other stuff, the challenge is pushing hard and going as fast as you can.  For me, with rides only about 1x a week this year it was going to just be how fast I can go without cramping up and slowing down.

I decided to head over early enough to pre ride the final parts of the course, that is where there is some singletrack, and also the finish loops all over the place and back on itself so it was nice to know where the actual line was.  I ran into Ken, Mike, and Chuck when heading for my preride so I had some company.

After the preride I ended up figuring out where I was going to sleep for the night.  I'd come with a tent, a sleeping bag, and that's about it.  I figured at worst I'd just go to the national forest and get out somewhere and set up camp or even camp in the truck.  I ended up slightly better being in a State Forest campground only about 2.5mi from the Rasho Rd parking lot.  It was pretty much shut down for the season, I was one of only 3 people in camp.  I set up the tent then went to pick up my packet and check out the expo.  I grabbed firewood from a local place on the way back to camp.



 

Sleeping outside was great - I usually sleep pretty well when I camp.  The fresh air helps, and the fact that it was pitch black by about 7-8pm meant I went to bed earlier than normal.  It was cool, about 25-30 overnight but with my gear I was fine.

In the morning, I got up, went to the parking lot, geared up (in the warm truck), and then got on the shuttle to Kaskala.  It was a short wait for the shuttle then a 45min or so ride.  It worked out well to go this way as the truck now was at the finish so whenever I was done I could leave reasonably quickly (plan was to get home to GB that evening).

I was in wave 31, as you can imaine, starting with 30 waves of 150? riders ahead of you, many of which have done the race before means there were a lot of people to pass.  I am not crazy fast but I definitely don't anticipate being in wave 31 for my start next year as the people who were year 2 and beyond that were in my wave were not people I ever saw after the start.  I don't know how these people ride with all this gear on - jackets, hoodies, etc.  I was pretty hot in just an under armor and jersey over it.





The course was very fun actually, double track for most with rolling hills.  Not incredibly wide in most parts so while there were two tracks there was typically a "good" line and a "bad" one that was less traveled and usually covered in leaves.  I'd get into those when it was time for a pass but there were times where there were stuff in the "bad" line that I'd choose to wait a bit before passing.  I found that I was must faster down the hills than most people and that more often than not people were walking up all of the hills where I was able to ride them all minus one.  The hill I didn't ride was due to a wall of 4-5 people wide walking up the hill so there was no way to keep riding it.  I instantly cramped up when I got off the bike so it was excruciating to not be pedaling.  This is typical and I just know that if I want to get rid of the cramps I need to be back on the bike and running a higher cadence than typical to get ride of them.  That worked and I was back in business.

I ran my 1x10 setup with a 11-36 rear and 32t in the front.  I felt like that gearing was good for where I was at but a few of the tough climbs I wanted a shorter gear.  That's typically where I feel I am with the 11-36 in the back.  Short rides I just muscle up the tough stuff but as rides get longer pushing that taller 32-36 granny gear wears my legs down more than I'd like.  I will probably want/need to do something different before any longer stuff with big climbs.

I finished the race in a time under my goal of 3hrs, I was at 2:37.  Lots of room to get faster but I was very happy with where I was at in the end given my training.






At the finish I felt great - bike worked amazingly well and while I was pretty spent I felt OK.  I needed some cookies and I then headed back to the truck to get moving along towards home.

On my way home I stopped in Petoskey at Beards Brewery.  An old rally buddy and his friend started a brewery a few years ago and I'd never checked it out.  It was great, awesome brews, really good to catch up with Ben.  I really recommend that anybody in the area heads over there. 

Powertap customer service is awesome

Hey, just wanted to give a quick update - the power meter is working again.  I had some issues on a ride a few weeks ago where it all the sudden just stopped working.  I tried new batteries, then tried another set of new batteries.

Got ahold of customer service (who were awesome by the way), and they sent a new battery cradle.  Tried it out yesterday and it worked.  Fantastic!

Day trip to Marquette

I'm way overdue on writing this report up, but I wanted to get the pictures shared and also while I was at it just spew what I did.  What I'm talking about actually happened on Oct 30th.  It's been a heck of a year at work and I've not had much time to de-stress myself, so I decided that I'd take a vacation day and head somewhere to ride.  I'd done this one other time this year when I did a trip to the kettles, but I figured on doing somewhere different.  I considered Levis Mound but then did math and for only 15min more I could make it to Marquette.  Sorry Levis, you'll have to wait for another trip.

I decided on a Friday, waited for weather forecast to come in, then made the trip.  I loaded up for an early departure (5am I think) and headed up.  Until it was light out it was a heck of a trip - tired, questioning what the heck I was doing, etc.  Then, the sun came up as I was driving through the UP and I started to get happy.  Leaves were still changing, it was a beatiful day (but cold), and it was going to be great.

For bike, I brought the scalpel.  Loaded it up with a dropper post borrowed from DR, a Thomson.  I am eyeing them up and happened to mention it to him, he was nice enough to let me borrow it.  I loved it but more on that another time.

I chose to ride Marquette south for a few reasons - one is I haven't ridden there in summer, and two was it was the best spot I felt to ride all day, tire myself out, and then head home with a great variety of terrain to mess around with.  I had ridden some of the trails in the winter during the 906 Polar Roll - actually quite a bit of it once I figured that out.

Trails I took were Carp Eh Diem, then Pioneer Loop, then did some Benson climbing to Eh Line and back up to Down Dogger.  After that I took a quick break at the truck then did some of the blue loop.  That was pretty challenging with the rocky terrain and being covered by leaves for most of the trail, but it was absolutely beautiful.  I got a bit goofed up on the loop there but it was fun.  I did the Grom loop too.

All in all, it was about 20mi, 2,300' of climbing.  Great day and a good warmup for Iceman for my legs which have really not ridden more than 1x per week all summer long.  I'm obviously not as fit as I have been in the past but I'm trying when I do ride to get longer rides in to keep endurance there.

Hibernator 100

I should have done a better job capturing pictures from Saturday's ride, but I was too busy just enjoying the day on the bike.

I rode the 100k version of the Hibernator 100, based out of Laona, WI.  Small gravel grinder ride put on by some locals.  It was friggin fantastic.

The route was all gravel/dirt, forest road type roads.  I chose to ride the scalpel - I hemmed and hawwed back and forth between the caadx with 35c Sammy Slicks and the Scalpel in normal MTB setup (2.25 Ardent Front and 2.1 Racing Ralph rear).  I'm glad I chose what I did as the gravel was not super packed for most of the course.  It would've been quite doable on the caadx but would have required a bit more concentration and line choice.  I wanted to just go and ride.

The scalpel is a great bike.  It's light, obviously I would've preferred at least a hardtail but with the lockout on for both shocks it was fine.  Plenty comfortable for the 61mi I ended up with an no issues keeping up for speeds I was wanting to go.

I think for my next ride like this though I'm going to put some wider tires on the caadx. I'm thinking something in the 40-42c range would be great, probably I'd set them up tubeless also.  I've gotta do some research on what tire size could fit in to my frame and then within that size what tires to choose.  I found myself missing the extra hand positions the woodchipper bars would give me and the efficiency of the cross bike versus the FS 29er would be helpful.

Next up my plan is to just get as much time on the bike as I can the next few weeks. Iceman is in about a month and I want to be able to hammer as hard as I can for the whole 30mi.  I don't know how well it'll go being in one of the later waves (my first Iceman) but I'm going to give it my best shot.  That'll be another one to wonder about bike choice but I'm 95% sure I'll end up on the scalpel again.

Riding as therapy

For any of you that I know closely, you know work has been tough lately.  It's been rough and time has been scarce to ride at all.  I have been lucky to get out one day a week lately and when I do get out it's a squeeze.  I was able to do one Friday night urban ride with a couple buds a couple weeks ago, then on Saturday I was fortunate enough to have Kris watch the kids so I could go on a ride down at the John Muir trails.

I haven't ridden down there for years, I was trying to figure out how long it's been and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it's probably been 10 years.

The trails were great.  I got up super early to get on the road in time to ride and then drive back before dinner.  I rode blue loop first, then came back and grabbed the fatbike for a loop on Orange then on Red(Brown?).  After that, I exchanged the fatbike for the scalpel again, headed down the road to the Emma Carlin connector trail and rode that up and back.  There was a race going on at Carlin so I didn't go around those loops, I'll save that for another trip.

It was one of those days where it's humid enough it feels like it could storm at any minute, but never does.  It was wet - sticky, and hot enough for me.  I left the trails pretty tired but mentally refreshed after a couple real ass kicker weeks at work.

What I need to do is keep finding ways to carve out that time to ride as it definitely lets me clear my head up quite a bit.  Short rides help, trail rides help, commuting helps, anything.  What I find is that riding a bike just does that for me.  I just need to find more time to make that work out for me.

Red Earth Classic 2015

So, the last race I did was the Red Earth Classic, up in Negaunee, MI on July 18th.  I had signed up for the "Beast" 32mi race but ended up swapping mid-week the week prior to the 20mi "Loader" race.  Two reasons - one is I haven't trained a ton, and two is my family vacation the week prior meant the family was going to be waiting for me to race.  Instead of doing a race starting at noon that would take 3-4 hours I did one starting at 10 that took <2ish (can't remember my time already).

The race was great, the start was in the same park that I remember being around/near for the Ore2Shore start a couple years ago, and started immediately up a big hill of two-track dirt atv trail.  Not enough roll-out to get the pack separated enough unfortunately but I guess that's how it goes.  Basically, about 50% of the climing in the race came in the first 5 miles on two track that honestly was not too fun.  Then we started alternating between singletrack and doubletrack for the remainder of the race.

My race went well, I was mid-pack as I'd expected but felt pretty good.  I was happy to have gotten out there.  I think the singletrack was fun, a bit tighter and not a ton of flowy sections like I'd hope for but it was mostly OK. 

Wow, I forgot to post a Mt. Borah Epic race report

I'll get back to that a bit later, I have been in a riding lull recently with a good ride about once per week happening.  Some have been able to be a hair longer but mostly they are short one loop type rides.  I've been happy to see my speed coming up but my endurance has obviously suffered from a lack of total time on the bike.

Next race is the Red Earth Classic on July 18th.

So many things to prep and get ready, I need to get to work on the bike, get some rides in, and on top of that the week of the race I'm up in the UP for vacation.  I hope to ride some up there but I will have to see what I can pull off.