Saturday I took an nice rare February clearish dryish trail ride. Our winter has not been fierce enough for full on fat bike conditions, but the mess of snow-ice-mud-standing water has made it not ready for the unfat. But yesterday it was overcast, fifty and blowing juniper pollen everywhere, but the trails were kind of clear and sort of dry. I finally had some time between a pile of proposals to go for a real ride. I grabbed a fast twentyniner and off I went. I felt pretty good, flipped up some trails and down some others. Got greedy and hit a nice longer descent that ended up being a bit too muddy and icy to continue. I turned around and set to a brisk out of the saddle climb, enjoying the feeling of a responsive bike under me and leaning into the climb a bit.
Next thing you know I caught a pedal on a trail side rock and went over the bars. On the way over I slammed my knee so hard on the stem that I thought I might vomit. I made the sort of heroic gurgling sound that ballads were once writ, and then walked it off for a minute and got back on the bike and kept riding, determined to keep the good sensations flowing despite the rapidly swelling knee.
I had a plan for the ride, I was a bit peaked and sore, but I decided to keep on with it and hit the technical bits that lead to home. I felt OK for a bit, cleaning a few difficult sections, blowing more than a few, but rolling on just the same. Until one little rock step up, where the front wheel got up there, but I did not quite get the english to get the rear wheel up, so I slid off the saddle crushing the back of the stem into my pelvis. Missing the good bits, but still knocking the wind out of me and eliciting more gurgling the ancients wrote tunes about. I rolled off the bike leaving it in the middle of the trail and sat on the side of the trail for something like 10 minutes, watching ravens fly by and clouds blow over town toward the Sangres while I considered my lot. It was not a great day for sitting aside the trail, but I have had worse and sat until I felt more of a need to be home than to continue with the sitting.
I got on the bike after a bit and rolled on the quick way home, bowing out of pretty much every tiny technical bit there was just to be sure there were no more grievous bruising and impacts. Got home, tossed the bike in the bike hole and took a shower and watched my knee swell up for the rest of the afternoon. Later that night, inadvertent bending and flexing jolted me out of sleep, as did sleeping on the deep bruise on my pelvis.
Sunday dawned cold and snowy and blowing, never quite getting above 25F. Desperate to get out of the house, I went for a quick burrito coffee mailbox run on the big dummy, but was underdressed and my knee was not quite feeling it. Did some chores and such and finally decided, right before dark, to see about finishing the ride I started yesterday. I bundled up, grabbed some lights, hopped on the nimble bike and headed out into an increasingly strong blowing snowstorm. I meant to do a quick 3 mile loop from the house, just to get the knee moving, but despite the cold and the snow covered rocks and the inability to see any of the ice in the shadows due to the fresh coverage, I had a great ride. Cleaning some stuff I rarely clean, completely failing on others. Coming off the bike sideways and watching it skitter on ice down to the bottom of a wash a few times, but no stem induced carnage.
I felt good enough to keep going and dropped down into the canyons on fresh snow over old crusty ice and snow as the light left the sky. My way shown by a couple of inadequate LED's and sense of smell. I cleaned the whole damn canyon loop, well, maybe a dab here or there, but no carnage, no bruising, no gurgling. I felt good. I had not eaten enough to go too much further, my water bottle was completely frozen, temp was dropping and it was getting hard to see due to blowing snow. I climbed hard out of the canyon and sprinted up the road to home. Tossed the bike into the bike hole and ate the heck out of some dinner.
I will sleep well tonight. There was a good ride, there was a bad ride. My knee still hurts, but it will hurt less tomorrow. Onward we roll.
Or maybe a sauna. I was a bit sad to find out that this was not exactly a portahobbit home. Prestocked with hobbits. The next big thing, kind of like terrestrial hairy giant sea monkeys.
Seen in crested butte over thanksgiving.
Also, I tried to shove the old Kelly into the mountainbike hall of fame, but they would not let me. Bastards.
Man, that was the slowest build in the history of mankind. I watched the ronde ned flanderseses and then went out and hit all the trails within a 2 mile radius of the house. Maybe 7 miles total? Build details: Kelly 29er singlespeed frames, lots of Pauls bits.
It rolls and rolls good. Initial impressions: 1. Holy crap! are our trails dry for this time of year, the fires season is going to be a doozy. 2. Man! is it fun to ride. 3. Boy! am I out of shape.
Big thanks to the Team Tarik sponsors that helped make this bike happen and work: Mellow Velo bike shop in Santa Fe, Paul Components, and Kelly Bike. No thanks to me for completely freezing up when it came time to build the wheels and extending the build for at least 4 months. This is the first time in 3 years that I have a race ready mountain bike earlier than the night before tierra torture. I may actually race socorro this year! Although that is apparently in two weeks, so lets not be hasty here...
Hard to get the color photo'd. Picture forest service green with glow in the dark green mixed in.
That is the new Kelly Roshambo EBB 29'er singlespeed in Toothpaste color with lots and lots of tire clearance. Let the wheelbuilding, earnest part gathering and frantic building commence.
I think this is the 6th time I have lined up for this race. Probably have done 5 different version of the race. My best rememberance:
2003: I catted up to expert so I could do the stage race. Stage 1, friday night time trial on bridges trail, stage 2: started with the rodeo parade downtown over to perimeter, up pipeline over to the ski hill down canada bonita and then pajarito canyon to finish at the base of the ski hill, Stage 3: god awful circuit race on the ski hill trails. I did OK. I think I did OK in stage 1. Flatted in stage 2. Suffered in stage three, but I was the only single speeder period, and one of a couple dozen people that completed all three stages. I was likely DFL in my expert age category.
2004: Big loop, bridges to perimeter to up pipeline to canada bonita to ski hill to ?????? I can't remember because I had just moved back to town and was not acclimated yet and I made it to pipeline and about a half mile past that and tossed my cookies. I turned around and rode less than half a mile to the apartment I was renting and slept for a few hours. I think there was no single speed class, but may have been some other single speeders this year.
2005: two stage race. Stage one: Quemazon trail hill climb from the parking lot to the intersection with pipeline. Stage two: painful circuit race on the ski hill. A single speed class, maybe 2 single speeders on day one and 5-6 on day two. I won the hill climb and came in second on the circuit race which only three singlespeeders finished.
my best Hincapie impression in the 2005 race
2006: Big loop race. Ski lodge, over canada bonita, down guaje ridge and three bears, across perimeter, up pipeline back down canada bonita to the lodge. race report here. Crashed hard then bonked and then finished in a few ticks under 4 hours. Last of the single speeders who finished. But I did finish.
2006 post race, still wear scars from the crash on the pumice ball bearings on 3 bears
2007: Last year that the big loop happened. I was signed up but was violently ill race morning and did not race. Dammit.
2008: First of the current course, I was out of town that weekend.
2009: Current course. Start at ski hill parking lot, up canada bonita, back to lodge, mini loop on the left side of the ski hill and then either one or two loops up the single track on the right side of the ski hill all the way over the top and then back down the single track and fire roads on the left. They had the single speeders start with the pro/experts and do the full two loop course. course map here. 18 miles and 3200 feet climbing. Big single speed field. I started slow and then passed lots of single speeders who died horrible deaths on the first over the top loop and then more on the second over the top loop and ended up in third. Ha. My hands were bloody messes due to the really rough downhill from the top of the ski hill. I could barely brake my forearms were so pumped up. But I outlasted everyone else, except for those two fast guys who were way ahead of me.
The singlespeed-expert-pro profile in 2009
2010. This year they (presumably due to the attrition last year) started the single speeds with the sport and had us do only one top to bottom loop. So 12 miles and 2100 feet climbing. I was slightly bummed out because the only thing that kept me competitive last year was the sheer brutality of the second over the top lap. But I was mostly OK with it as I had not been doing my climbing rides this year. So I showed up in my new team kit and got my racing on. I was running my usual Pajarito Punishment gear of 32-20. My mom was visiting again this year so yet again I dragged her up the mountain to watch me flail about in a race. She took most of the pics here. Thanks ma.
Conditions were really dry and dusty, but the course was in good shape. there was a strong single speed field present. I started off pretty strong up canada bonita, passing people all the way up. the descent back to the lodge on the upper xc ski trails was way faster and rougher than I remember. I nearly double flatted once due to a bad high speed line.
Up the mini loop I did some great climbing and felt OK, but was a bit perturbed that I saw no other singlespeeders anywhere near me once we started climbing. I passed a bunch of sport riders here. The descent back to the ski lodge was high speed on loose fire roads. Probably my least favorite type of descending. I rode like a grandma on the descent losing a bunch of places I had gained earlier.
As we started the single track big climb, I felt pretty good. As I worked my way through the sport riders I did realize I was not as on it as I could be. Last year I just steadily passed people the whole way up, sprinting by them when I could pass and then easily dropping them as I moved on to the next rider. This year it seems it was all I could do to pass people without blowing up. I was still moving forward, but i was having lots of trouble recovering from passing people.
The climb goes on forever it seems criss crossing the ski slopes with little switchback bits between the runs. Occasionally i could look up course and see riders above me, but i could not see any single speeders anywhere. I just kept riding and churning the pedals up the course. I had some nice cyclocross action going toward the top of the course on some steep technical bits where I was able to pass people, but overall it was a meh climb instead of the power display I put on last year (with my legs of steel! boo yah! Is anyone still reading?).
After hitting the top of the climb we were treated to a gale blowing over the caldera and a welcome drink stand. I began the descent that was way steeper, more technical and rougher than I remembered. Before the race I could really focus on was how much climbing there was, but what really hurt me was the descending. Anyhow, I cleaned almost everything on the way down (except for that one stupid ramp and dropoff that is not worth me trying when I am tired) and took it safe and sane, but since the course was a bit looser this year due to the dry and I did not put the riders away like I did with my brilliant attacking as I did last year, I got passed by nearly EVERYONE I passed going up. Sheesh. I could tell I was descending terribly because my forearms still worked and I could still brake comfortably at the end of the race. I had hardly any blisters on my hands. Whuss.
I finished the race and noted still no singlespeeders near me. A whole lot of them at the finish line though. Turns out I finished 7th among 9 finishers. I think there were at least 10, perhaps 12 of us on the start line, but meh. I at least was sort of near the 4 people ahead of me. The next singlespeeder behind me was 25 minutes back. That sort of explains why I saw no one. Mellow Velo Dave was there enjoying fine adult beverages in cans.
It was a good race. I like this course, I miss the big loop, but I think lots of people hate those courses as they are too hard. I hope to be a steel legged attacking single geared assassin next year, but this year, as my buddy Denny told me, at least I won the tubby guy clydesdale single speed rigid 26er category. That I did.
Thanks to the sponsorship crew of Team Tarik, Paul Components, Mellow Velo and Kelly Bike. Your tubby singlespeeder carries the flag for you! Big thanks to the race organizers as well. I love local races and those who make em happen. This is a good painful race.
I am proud to be a founding member of Team Ed. Our namesake has an excellent profile this week in the Knoxie Paper: here. Note the terms "tortoise mentality" used in the article. I think that means Ed is sort of the kent of the southeast.
Make sure you watch the video:
Well done Ed and G.
Also note that shorter fellers that ride more than you and live in super twisty rooty muddy knoxville are all about the 29'ers. Probably a lesson in there somewhere...
I was able to find a nice photo from the initial race of Team Ed at the 2002 edition of the 12 hours of Haw ridge race: We were all on single speeds. That is Ed, Eric, Tarik and Gary from left to right. Ed is the one we are talking about, Gary is featured in the video and article as well. Eric has the sweet vanagon and was serving hot soup and cold beers to go with his laps. I think we were attempting to grow Ed like mustaches on short notice. Good times.
Team Ed still races actively. Check out their tales here
Normally I don't do this kind of blog post, but I have been out of the loop for a while whats new in the 29'er world. Someone out there reading probably has some experience with this and I need some help.
I am imminently going to receive my new 29'er rigid single speed from Kelly. First bike in the line is mine, look at those stays
It is designed to fit huge freaking 29er tires. Hopefully it will fit 29x2.75" tires when someone makes a set.
My current plan is to have two sets of wheels. A race wheel built on 32 hole disk hubs and 28-30mm rims using wtb weirwolf 29x2.55race tires. My thoughts are either Salsa Semi Rims, Velocity Blunt or WTB speed disc.
The second wheelset will be more all mountainy and will be built on 36 hole disc hubs, 35mm rims and fatter tires. Probably WTB kodiak tires, or maybe Conti Mountain King 29 x 2.4 My thoughts here are for the Salsa Gordo or Velocity P35 rims.
I have built alot of wheels around velocities and I really like them. Anyone have any experience with either the Salsa or the WTB rims? Are the Salsa rims worth the extra cost? Any others that I am missing? WTB rims seem to be much cheaper. Any thoughts?
Any other fat tires in the 29'er size I should be looking at? I have been running the 26" weirwolfs for years and love them, so I am looking forward to the 29'er version.
So I can get on with the writing about the weather and my mighty harvest, here is the race report from last weekend.
Elena, Aida and I left the house Friday morning at the scheduled hour of 9:00am 10:30am to head up to the race. But first we got hella breakfast burritos to sustain us for the 4 hour trip up to Durango. After one hour of baby napping and much screeching we finally arrived around three. We checked in, I rode downtown and picked up my race packet, bought a t-shirt, ran into bike zoo Jay from Tennessee and his wife Jen and then I headed back to the Holiday Inn and collected Aida and Elena and we walked over to steamworks for an early dinner. It was early enough that they were pouring 1 dollar 10 oz draughts and I had three different ones with my burger. Yum. Aida was perturbed we did not let her throw the beer glasses upon the ground.
Then it was to bed for the ladies and I rode up the hill a bit for the big pre race party. It was cold and rainy, but there was beer food and peoples and after a while I was having a good time. I met new people and ran into old people I knew, such as Ned, alleged internet stalker "gas sucks":
Jay from TN again:
and my old pal Jeff Lockwood fresh in from belgium:
There were some good bands and a pretty silly karaoke contest for the first round of the SSWC10 hosting contest. Italy killed it though. Somehow more beers were consumed and I ended up riding a 36" black sheep mtb, not crashing it and ended up rolling to wendy's with what I presume was lockwood and some dirtrag homies. Biggy fries please:
Most people got cheese burgers, I got some trailmix from a nearby convenience store and Karen Brooks (?) and I nearly got flying west nile avian pig flu from a death rattling convenience store worker who should be nominated for co-parents of the year with her baby daddy for leaving their sleeping children in a running car parked out front while they closed the shop. After that horror, I rolled back into town and sort of slept.
Thankfully the race did not start until 11 and thankfully Elena and Aida woke up early and went for a walk and brough me espresso and muffins for breakfast. I got ready for the race and rolled downtown, not feeling all that hot, but excited for the race.
I got to the start line with about 15 minuted to spare and was wowed by the mass of single speed humanity. I took a bunch of photos and videos to give you the feel.
After a bit of photo taking, I noticed Jacquie Phelan had coalesced next to me:
I introduced myself and explained that I was a big fan and we both are lapsed bloggers on veloquent. After that she was even more friendly. It was great to finally meet her for real. A big biking hero of mine wearing a beard sewn from her own dreads.
Also check out her excellent bike made by her husband Charlie Cunningham:
Anyhow, the race rolled out and I was solidly in the smack dab middle of a billion singlespeeders.
We rolled through town and up into the hills on progressively steeper streets leading to steep bikepaths and then to singletrack and double track and then to a conga line of walking cyclists and then to a steep hikabike. I went pretty fast up this, but was not feeling great still, but having fun just rolling along. We had a nice break in start and stop traffic which allowed me to take lots of photos and recover a bit, but it was pretty hot and my camelback contents were not sitting well with me.
The conga line up the slope with the stunning views across the valley:
Cycling legends were just behind me, here is Greg Herbold:
There is something special about the two photos above, first correct answer in the comments gets a sponsored blog post and a pile of crapped up single speed freewheels. Answer is not Greg Herbold, although he is pretty special.
Anyhow, as we passed from scrub oak to pine at the top of the ridge we began to ride.
Using my tiny 32-20 gear I spun around a whole bunch of people, got a nice beer feed from the crowd at the top, blew the log pile obstacle and continued onto the ridge.
The ridge! It was technical, exposed and had great views and severe consequences if you actually watched the view while riding. There was also a hug thunderstorm on the next ridge over that convinced me to be expedient on getting the hell off the ridge. I took no pictures here, but I was pretty pleased with how much I cleaned, and when I did not clean it, I was pretty smoothly crossing on and off and making good progress. Greg Herbold passed me easily and I passed a bunch of crashed and cramped racers, but I was pretty much riding on my own for most of the ridgeline. It was pretty sweet, especially after the long lines to get there. After what seemed like half an hour of technical descent we transitioned into an area of really really steep descents with tricky bits thrown in. I rode it all, but not that fast, lots of people were passing me at this point. I did see a bunch of good crashes which steeled my resolve to finish the race without hurting myself! I was feeling a little ill at this point, none of the liquid I had been drinking was processing, just sloshing around in my stomach. Stupid pre race party. I was also periodically eating gummy clish shot squares which usually are my go to race candy energy food, but again they were just sitting there. Yet still I pressed on. After a bit more riding I could hear loud crowds screaming and music apumping.
It took me about 5 minutes from first audible evidence of the crowd to hit the start finish line. It was great. I was grinning like an idiot, the crowds were packed and screaming and it was really loud. They routed us through some fun loose chicanes and I got another extremely tasty beer handup and quickly quaffed it and took off for the second part of the course. I was very amped for the rest of the race for about 5 minutes and then I realized I was pretty much feeling like crap and probably would bonk soon. 9 miles or so to go.
The second half of the course was a blast, especially if you had not done the first half. Technical short descents mixed in with rolling smooth singletrack and steady climbs. It was almost all singletrack and it went by reasonably fast. I had pretty much drained my camelback but alas, I was still bonking hard. Lots of people were passing me, but still I pressed on. Actually I rode this pretty well and was having fun, but was dreading cramping up. There was a last demoralizing hike-a-bike and I got some fresh bacon and whisky feeds that were actually pretty welcome before heading on the last few miles of descending. The last bit was sandy twisty singletrack with no sight lines due to scrub oak tight around the trails. Almost immediately I started making pretty bad descisions on lines and speed and weight distribution so I shut down my already slow pace and survived my way to the finish, I think it took me somewhere around 3:15 of riding time for the 21 ish miles of the race, but I am not really sure how long I was out there.
When I got to the finish, I noticed piles of beer cans everywhere, lots of loud music, lots of partiers, lots of racers, yet no actual beer. Alas, I had ridden slower than the party. I was pretty cooked, so I sat in the shade, snapped some pictures and met a flickr/blog friend Lauren Haughey and her husband morgan, I would have loved to talk to them some more, but I was almost incoherent with the bonk. Next time.
Me with salt stained jersey, look closely, you can see the face of the jesus in it:
Gratuitous crowd shot:
I think I have made it clear that I was not feeling so hot, so I rolled on into town, found Elena and the baby, had a shower, failed at napping and headed to a nice dinner where Aida impressed with the mad spaghetti skillz.
I finally felt better and ate two dinners worth of food including a plate of olives, delicious salty salty olives, and drank about 2 gallons of water. We headed back to the hotel and I was feeling good and left Elena and Aida for the evening and hoped on the bike again and rolled a couple of miles up the nice Animas river trail system to the huge party at Ska Brewing company. There was quite a crowd there including pretty much everyone in durango who knew what a bicycle looked like. There was also lots of food and beer at reasonable prices. I got some hoppy beer and third dinner from an airstream based Zia taquaria and settled in for the festivities.
I watched the atrociously played but well uniformed Italy vs NZ match for SSWC10.
I ran into Curtis Inglis and spoke with him for a while:
I checked out the color contest/art show, which was actually pretty well done:
"I spend them all on the goats" no really, click through and read it:
And finally I watched the impressively sunburned Heather Irmiger get her SSWC09 winners tattoo for a bit. Go on, click through for the cheesecake. With that I was getting sleepy and was pretty much all partied out, so I rolled back on to the hotel and slept like a rock. Until 7 the next morning when Aida convinced me that it was time to go for a walk.
It was a pretty fun weekend indeed. I wish I had been able to digest on race day, but that was my own fault probably. Other than that, it was pretty much all good. This was the fourth SSWC I had attended, Rancho Cucamunga in 1999, Minneapolis in 2000 and Downieville in 2002, they were all pretty much different. I think I still enjoyed the one in Minnesota the best, but overall they were all really fun. I did 1999, 2000 and this year on the same Kelly Singlespeed Cruiser. I might actually get a new bike now, 10 years is long enough. I think I might be getting too old for the shenanigans part, but NZ would be a nice place to visit next year, we will see. Huzzah bicycles and silly races.
