After a week holed up in the basement successfully, but miserably, “running” on the treadmill, I finally made it out for a ride on dirt roads on Saturday. Woot.
Tag Archives | Gravel
A Fave
This past weekend was one of my favorite races: The Hilly Billy Roubaix near Morgantown, West Virginia (just about 45 minutes from my old home in Western PA). I’ve done the HBR twice in the past (2010 & 2012) but much as I wanted to head back home and race it again in 2014, it just wasn’t going to happen this year.
I’ve loved the concept of Ultra CX races for years now and have long championed the formant and the series. Some longtime blog readers may even remember the weekly raids I used to make in the mountains of PA where I would mix together 40 to 60 mile loops of forest roads, double track and singletrack that featured more climbing in one ride than I get here in half a season. Sigh, memories…
Like I said, I wasn’t there this year, but much to everyone’s surprise the race happened anyway. It looked like it was a mud fest in parts and as per usual– a damn fine race. Check out winner (and fellow Michigander) Mike Simonson’s blog and his race recap. Nice to see Mike get the win and show folks that Michigan flatlanders can hold their own in the big hills (not me, but at least SOME).
You can find more about the Hilly Billy on the race’s Facebook page.
Dirt Day II
Very fortunate to get out for another 2.5 hours on the bike today with very little pain. It’s been a pretty awesome weekend of riding after the long layoff. I’ll take it. However, between riding and the time I spent watching the U.S. NEARLY escape the “Group of Death” in the World Cup, I am out of time for blogging. Time for bed. So I will just post up some pics from today’s dirt road ride below…
Random Rides In Pictures
The past few days have been filled with random rides that featured varying degrees of misfortunes, aches, issues and minor successes, like forgetting to charge my Garmin 500 for weeks and having it die before I even made it to the dirt roads on Friday. If you do a ride and there’s nothing to record it, did it really happen? I’m joking of course, and in my case my ride, the stats are best left unknown.
A Variety
This weekend has contained a variety of riding. Some of it was good, some of it was bad and some of it was outstanding. The bad were my two mountain bike rides, I could go in to how frustrated I am and how shitty I feel on the bike right now, but I won’t. Partly because I don’t have time and partly because I may have narrowed it down to the saddle height on the Superfly being a bit lower than it should be. That still doesn’t take away from the fact that my back is a mess and my hip flexor continues to make a lovely popping sound when my leg is rotated. But I am still hopeful that I can get my knots worked out soon and my position on the Superfly re-dialed in.
Being Honest & Dirt Roads
Yesterday was all about getting some longish Weekday Ride road miles in. Today was all about doing an easy ride out on the dirt roads for an hour and a half in the wind and seeing how the Clement X’Plor USH 700 x 35 tires I bought WAY back in January, and finally installed this week, rolled.
Better Than The Last
To say that today’s 2.5 hour ride on gravel and dirt roads was better than Saturday’s 35 minute cluster-fornication would be an understatement. Even having to trail behind The Keeper of The Gravel for 5 minutes while they graded some fresh gravel, didn’t damper the joy of FINALLY getting out on the bike for a ride after a week of bad luck, a busy family schedule and suck weather.
A Long Time
Today’s short ride was a long time coming. Yikes! I hadn’t been on the bike since last Saturday’s Rust Shaker XC race. A combination of windy, cold, rainy, vile weather, B-Man’s soccer, strength training in the gym and general malaise (e.g.. laying in bed praying for the end of my days) from dealing with my continued unemployment and lack of societal contribution got in the way. Hey, this is what separates the Pros, neo-Pros, fast peeps and slow, depressive fat fucktards like me.
The Bad With The Good
Wifey and I finally found the title for our one old car, so we were able to get to the dealer Saturday morning and pick up our new ride. That was good. However we still need Pennsylvania to send us the title for the xB so that we can get to PA and replace or sell it and its toasted engine, that is bad. At least we have a safe, reliable vehicle to make the 6+ hour drive to Pennsylvania… that is good.
The 60/40 Ride
Started off my ride on Friday by hitting the dirt and gravel roads on my cross bike. Many of the roads received a fresh dump of gravel this week and are still in the process of being graded. Some of the roads (like the one above) were fine, but others had some pretty deep sandy gravel on them and the Jake’s 35c tires were not having a great time of it.
The fresh, deep gravel was slowing things down a bit and since I got a later than usual start, I ditched them and jumped on some paved roads that are part of my standard road ride.