Wow, the Michigan weather has been even more psycho this spring than usual and today was no exception.
Archive | Mountain Biking
A Saturday of Racing
I don’t consider myself much of a mountain bike racer anymore. I no longer worry about planning a season, sponsorship proposals, race nutrition or how many hours I’m getting in on the bike. I’m also finding that where I once gravitated towards races of six to twenty-four hours in length, I am now drawn towards shorter marathon races (in the 50 mile range) and cross-country racing.
There is a variety of reasons for this: some burnout, some “been there, done that” attitude (seriously, there is no need for me to EVER do another 24 hour race in this lifetime), increased parental responsibilities and demands, and of course my recent history of DVTs and being on blood thinning medication. If I am going to crash and potentially have a bleeding issue, I would rather do it on a 10 mile loop with easy access to help, rather than in the middle of nowhere during a 100 mile race.
Still, no matter the length, I enjoy racing and continue to do it just as unsuccessfully as I did five years ago, This time making sure that I don’t take it too seriously.
With that lengthy, un-needed introduction out of the way, I now move on to yet another un-needed race recap that truly did not need to be written, this time from Saturday’s MMCC Rust Shaker XC race in Harrison, Michigan.
Back To Racing (Sort of)
As I drank a couple of beers late last Saturday afternoon I somehow convinced myself to go ahead and enter the Barry-Roubaix’s 36 mile race, a distance– at the time of entering–roughly 15 miles longer than any ride I had done in 2014 due to the relentless and brutal winter we’ve had. It would also be only my second ride not to be completed on fat bike this calendar year. “This could be bad for me, but other than a few out-of-staters, everyone else will be in the same frigid, snow, ice and shit filled boat as me,” I thought as entered my credit card information and took the final draw from my pint of Founder’s Imperial Stout. So let it be done… it’s God’s will… it is what it is. Pffft! Whatever, it’s just bike ridin’.
And with that, I now give you yet another race ride report, in a long history of Soiled Chamois race reports, that didn’t need to be written…
Another Go At Winter
Winter is slowly letting go of its icy grip on central Michigan. Still, I wouldn’t quite call it ideal weather for big base mile road and gravel riding, but it’s becoming more doable every day.
As you may or may not have seen in my last post, up north a bit winter is still rolling along, so today I took advantage of some extra time, shot up for another fat bike ride on the nordic ski trails at Hanson Hills and had another go at winter before it’s gone. [To reiterate, Hanson is done grooming for the 2013/14 season and the trails are open to all traffic, including fat bikes, riding these trails was done legally].
The ski and tubing hills are still covered with snow, yet were void of people, the small lake was frozen over and my car was the only one in the entire lot. It was sort of eerie and a bit like I had 35 km of trails as my personal winter playground (one of the few benefits of being an active non-contributing member of society.. sigh).
Fat-ish… Spring-ish?
It seems like forever since there’s been a legit blog post about me actually riding my bike (probably for the best as far as readers are concerned). There were a couple of days here and there that I may have been able to squeeze a ride in, but scheduling conflicts and/or weather fronts jacked my chances.
Neat To Do
I’m pretty against the whole “bucket list” thing. Mostly because I already lie awake most nights obsessing about the life I’ve wasted and its inevitable demise, I don’t need to add in a list of unattainable things I want to do before I die to all that self loathing and mental drama. I prefer just to say “yeah, it would be neat to do that.”
Case in point: The Sudety Mountain Bike Challenge. This is a race that I think would be really “neat to do.” I’ve talked about it before here and on the late xxcmag.com but that won’t stop me from briefly doing so again.
Ridin’ Bikes is Swell
After mentally cracking for what may have been the 84th time in my life last week and vowing to spend the rest of this godforsaken endless winter under beer fueled fart smelling blankets in a curtains closed bedroom, I pulled up my grown fat man bibs and forced myself out into the snow to ride today. I have to say it was worth every second of the 21 minutes it took me to stuff my fat ass into three layers of cycling and cold weather gear.
Sir Bart
Bart Brentjens: 1995 UCI Mountain Bike World Champion, gold medal winner at the first ever Olympic mountain bike event in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996 and bronze medal winner at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. I don’t know how you say “bad ass” in Dutch (slecht aars?), but I am sure he has been called it more than a few times.
The Non-Tourist
The following post was originally published in XXC Magazine No. 5 (late fall 2009) and is reprinted with permission from the author (which is me). While I no longer have goals geared towards ultra endurance racing (dwindling fitness and a series of blood clots now have me pursuing races 50 miles and under) the sentiment and my love of mountain biking remains.
Loss For Words (So There’s Pics)
Lately, blogging has been pretty easy and my mind has been pretty generous with topics. Sadly, that ended today. Feel free to read on but I can’t promise much (except a bunch of photos and that the blog is even more lackluster than usual)….