A late 12 hour report.

Well, it's been more than a week since this race, but I've been kinda preoccupied, so my apologies for not getting the post up sooner. Enjoy...
At some point in your life (specifically related to cycling in this case), you have to be able to separate your performance from the quality of your day. It’s a good thing that I have already been able to do that, since I’ve had 2 not so good races in a row now. Along with what was possibly the largest Sycamore Cycles contingent ever assembled in one place, I went to Tsali to be on a 12 hour team. I always look forward to this race because of how much fun it is, and this year was no exception. We had 16 people racing for us, on a total of 4 teams. If you want to hear about those races, go check out the Sycamore race page for all the gory details. (http://www.sycamorecycles.com/bicycleracing.php)
I had gotten talked into doing the running start on the first lap, which I thought was OK at the time, but in retrospect, probably wasn’t all that good of an idea. I warmed up on the bike, and then went to the line about a quarter mile from where my bike was laying on the side of the trail. I’m not sure who came up with the idea to start a bike race out with running, but I’m sure that it had something to do with the hilarity of watching a bunch of people in lycra and uber stiff soled shoes doing something completely out of their element and suffering immensely. I’m sure that watching that spectacle was the reason. Anyway, I got to my bike with the leaders, and then tried to recover as we sped up the gravel road climb. I passed the guy I knew to be the fastest in the race as he was fixing a low tire, and proceeded to lead for about half a lap until he caught back on. I was riding in the lead group of 3 and feeling pretty good about myself when I hit a root wrong and burped all the air out of my tire. Being the super mechanic that I am, I managed to get it inflated again with my trusty CO2 inflate and got back to riding. I held the gap fairly close, and came in for the hand off to Tristan. After cooling down and having my first of many post-lap Dr. Peppers, I settled in for some good, old fashioned heckling. The problem with this race is the extremely short amount of time that you have between your laps. You never get enough time to just chill. Anyway, I got back on the trail and was feeling pretty good, and having a great time on the fast sections of the course. The good times quickly ended when I came back to the transition area and saw that my lap had gotten about 2 minutes slower. I rode cooling down, utterly dejected and crushed that my efforts were to no avail in maintaining speed. Just as I was feeling my lowest, the Skeletor galloped by on his Steed of Pestilence, clutching a scythe in one rotting hand, and shot a wretched grimace over his shoulder at me. I felt all my remaining traces of happiness and speed leach away into the dusty ground and I trembled, my skin suddenly cold as a sepulcher. I was hoping that my soul wasn’t about to be taken by the devil, when I realized that the cold skin was probably just from the person emptying their water bottle on me, and that my sudden fatigue was from the efforts of the previous 45 minutes. Time for another DP. The next two laps were similar… My legs got weaker and weaker, and my thoughts drifted more and more to the good points on the trail, rather than on the suffering that I was enduring for the team. I greatly enjoyed the day, and the first Sycamore team ended up in 2nd place… Not bad for 2 mechanicals and a horse that blew out his engine. I was super happy to have this girl with some crazy shoes there to support... She always makes races more fun. One of my favorite parts of the race experience is when we stop at the Huddle House for our traditional post-race dinner/breakfast, and I get to relive the day with the people who were there to experience it with me. By the time that we get done with eating, we ususally don't get back until around 2 or 3. By that time, I am suffering hardcore, and rarely can stay awake for more than 10 minutes out of the HH. Having Punky Brewster in the car with me really helped me out in that respect. Inspite of having raced super strong all day long, and having layed it down way better than I did (really, only a couple of minutes behind me every lap... and she didn't fade towards the end), she was strong enough to stay awake and keep me company so that we didn't die in the middle of the night. Thanks.
I am looking forward to getting in some really hard training this next month, and hopefully my next race will be better than my last two have been.

A dead Duck. Town.

So, I forgot to update my blog after this past weekend, but it was fairly uneventful anyway, so whatever. Julia and I went over to Ducktown Tennessee for the SERC race that they were holding at the Olympic whitewater center. This was Julia’s first race after she had gotten back, and was forced (without much effort) to race a rental bike since hers was out of commission. We were driving over to meet Tristan and his sister at the course and then planned to drive over to the house where we were staying. We ended up getting a later start than we had anticipated, and a mid-trip Subway stop ensured that we would miss riding with everyone else. After driving for what seemed like forever on narrow curvy roads, and then on larger straight roads that didn’t seem to go anywhere and took forever, we finally got to the race. It was being held at the Olympic Whitewater Center, where, I presume, they held the Whitewater Olympic events. The flags and rings and torch helped my reach that conclusion, but it’s still just a guess.
The course was one that was super fun to ride, but not so much fun to race. It had a steep and long climb right out of the gate, and then eventually headed downhill on a tight, twisty, smooth singletrack trail. After rolling up and down for several miles, you got dumped out onto a false flat road about a mile from the finish. It was fun, but not really my style of racecourse. We rode on Saturday, had a great time, got some dinner, and went to bed for our pre-race beauty sleep.
Race day dawned, and I was not feeling my best. My stomach was all not happy, and I had a whole lot of trouble keeping food down at all. Needless to say, I wasn’t really looking forward to the race at all. We got there and started warm up, and went to the line. There were 9 riders in my field, and I was pretty confident that I would be able to beat all but 2 of them. I got about 1.2 hard pedal strokes in off the line, and realized that this was not going to be a good day. I quickly had a 10ft gap open up in the first 10 yards, and was giving it all that my legs had to latch back on. We hit the climb, and I was able to get the last wheel, but didn’t have the legs to move up. I managed to keep the leaders in sight for the first climb, and I was hoping that everything would magically start working after the descent. No such luck. I quickly lost sight of everyone, and couldn’t seem to keep my bike going in the direction that I was pointing it. This was definitely one of those days that NOTHING was working even remotely right for me, and I couldn’t seem to pull it together. I figured that since I was entirely sucking, I would work on mental toughness in the face of utter breakdown. That worked for a little while… until I hit a little climb that I normally wouldn’t have had any trouble making in the big dog, but today had to shift down to my granny and had a lot of trouble turning the pedals over. At that point, mental toughness went out the window, and I started laughing at how bad I was sucking.
I rolled up to the start/finish, and saw Tristan moving at a walking pace. He had totally flatted, and had already dropped out. We stopped and talked to his parents for a while, watched everyone come by, and then went out for a slow person’s lap. My only goal was to be back before Julia finished, and I was pretty sure that she was moving faster than we were. We ended up seeing her on the road section before the finish, and I decided to ride with her to the line. I struggled to keep her wheel as she was easily putting down more power than I could match. She ended up dominating the competition (no surprise there), and having a great time in the process. I guess her result made it worth the trip, but it sucks to go that far and, well, suck.
I’m just about done with exams, which means that summer is about here, and I can devote myself to riding my bike and getting ready for nationals.
12 Hours of Tsali is up next, and I am really excited to get to race with the super Sycamore team. I’m pretty sure that the shop is sending 4 teams out to do the event, and we should come up with at least one win. Stay posted!

Gotta love the mud

You know what I hate the most about racing in the mud? The clean up. I mean really, the racing isn’t all that bad, you just kinda get used to it. But the clean up is never easy. Even after you scrub yourself clean, you keep finding mud hidden on your body for days. And mud is almost impossible to get completely out of your shoes. Yeah, it’s stupid.
We rode the course yesterday, and it was muddy, but not all that bad. However, it rained over an inch and a half last night, and yeah, that doesn’t really do good things to race courses.
I started warming up, and my legs were feeling pretty good. There were a lot of people there though, and I started freaking out because of all the competition. I got to the line, and there were about 30 people in my class alone. The pro, semi-pro, pro women, jr expert men AND women, all started in front of us on a very short course. I got a pretty good start, and ended up going into the woods in 3rd position. I passed two guys, got passed by another, noticed that he was sketchy on pretty much everything, and then passed him right before a gnarly rock downhill section. I put about 10 seconds on the field on that one section alone, and knew that it was going to be a good day. One guy, who I had been talking to on the line, came around me, and straight took off up a stupid steep climb. I tried to keep him in sight while also keeping my heart rate down, but that didn’t work out so well. The 3rd place rider ended up catching me on the second lap, and we rode together for the next lap. I could just barely see the leader every once in a while, and the two of us were working together to bring him back. There was a moment that I was straight struggling to keep up with him, and almost dropped off, but decided to put in a little more effort to keep on his wheel. I ended up dropping the guy I was riding with on the third lap without any effort, which made my job a whole lot easier. I rode that lap chasing the leader, and pulling him ever closer as we hit some serious lap traffic. I finally caught up to 1st on the first climb of the final lap, and settled in behind him to recover from the chase.
I noticed that I was riding the descents a little faster than him, so I figured that I would use that to my advantage on the final downhill. I attacked with 3k to go (usually I would measure in miles, but there was a sign right there that said 3k, so that’s all I know), right at the top of the mountain. I pushed the descent for all it was worth, passed a whole bunch of riders, and had a clean run down the rooted out downhill just before the flat to the finish. The final section of the course ran around a lake, which was fine yesterday, but today was covered in water from the rain. It was run on a little walking path, and there were people fishing and picnicking right in the middle of the course. It was awesome. Anyway, I pretty much sprinted for the final mile, and ended up winning my first expert race by around 10 seconds. I was pretty stoked. We were driving back to Brevard that night, and as it was, we weren’t going to get back to town until around 2 Monday morning. To add to the insult of the late night, it started pouring about an hour into the trip. We ended up stopping at a hotel for the night, which, when coupled with pizza and Family Guy, was a really good call. So yeah, back to class tomorrow for the final week of classes. I am really really really really looking forward to this next weekend, and then the end of classes after that. Stay tuned! Oh, you should go look at my Facebook to see the pictures from this weekend…

Riders with an eating problem

So guys, I am up in Maryland with the BC team with the intent of racing at Greenbrier State Park. It’s my first UCI race, and so far, it’s been pretty sick. We got up here late last night, and hung out a bit before going to bed. We are staying at Tim’s house, about an hour from the course, and his parents have been really cool, feeding us and putting us up and all. The one issue that we had with the house was the jungle that they apparently have growing outside their house at night. I mean, during the day, everything seems cool. Other than some slightly longer-than-usual grass in the backyard, nothing was really out of the ordinary. But man, once the sun goes down, something crazy happens. First, the house doesn’t get any cooler, and it starts out really hot to begin with. Second, there are some massively noisy birds that start going off. There was a woodpecker (not really a jungle type bird, but still, it was there. It must have been a mutant or something) who insisted on banging on the window, and a chorus of his friends screaming at the top of their lungs. And if that wasn’t enough, there was a wild fire truck that decided to start his mating calls at around 4. Man, when those guys start sounding off, it gets crazy loud.
Anyway, Wells, Tristan, and myself ended up waking really early, which after going to bed late, kinda defeated the idea of getting a long night of sleep on the most important night to get a good night of sleep. We headed to the grocery store for some Luck Charms and Doughnuts, and then came back to the house to get ready to go ride. Some people may be under the impression that as serious athletes, cyclists are good about their diet. Let me assure you, THIS IS NOT TRUE. Tristan is addicted to candy, Wells eats more than a horse, Ethan eats pretty much anything you put in front of him, edible or not, and I pretty much eat way too much sugar. It’s a good thing that we ride bikes a whole lot, because if we didn’t, we would be some fat bastards.
Moving on to this actual riding, we got to the course, and it was about 900 degrees out. We got into our superhero kits, and headed out for some pre-race laps. The course is really intense, and pretty much the most full suspension friendly thing that I have ever ridden. There is not a single section that isn’t covered by rocks, climb or descent. You have to pick your lines really well going uphill, or you aren’t going to make it up these super steep climbs. The descents are fast and rocky, and there is one fairly substantial rock garden that will mix things up right at the start of the race. All in all, it is just over a 5 mile lap, and I’m hoping to end up with about 25 minute laps.
After we rode, I went to the amazingly convenient lake that the race goes around, and cleaned myself off. I talked bikes with this chick while I was cleaning up, which slowed the process down a little, but hey, it’s cool. I got to go to a Chipotle Burrito place for the first time ever, and let me tell you, it was amazing. Although I don’t think that it was as good as Moe’s or Pescado’s, so I’m not too beat up about us not having one near our house. It’s pouring right now, so I’m not sure what the course will be like tomorrow. It will certainly be interesting, and I’m hoping to do pretty well. So yeah. I’ll let you know. Looking back over this post, I can’t help but notice that it has been really long. Sorry about that, but hey, I had to make sure that you know all the details of my life. So yeah, now you know. Peace!

Tiger Rad

So, I started this blog earlier in the week, and I was almost done with it, and then it got deleted, and I was mad, and so I haven’t started it again. Until now. So anyway, Tiger Rag. It's rad. It’s a bike race. That I went to. And raced.
I wasn’t all that excited about racing, cause I didn’t really think that my legs would be all that good, but hey, I went anyway. I was kinda happy about some changes that they had made to the course, taking out the long climb and sketchy sections by the lake. I’ve never like those parts, and was glad not to have to race them. The course ended up being about a 25 minute 5 mile loop that was super spectator friendly and fun to race. Anyway, after having a super fun drive down the mountain, I got registered, got a timing chip, and found some ear muffs on the ground. Since it was about 80 degrees outside, I decided that I didn’t want them, but since I didn’t want to put them to waste, I gave them to Tim instead. He didn’t want them either. Bummer. I then noticed that I had a new voicemail, and being the phone junkie that I am, I had to listen to it, despite being ready to start warming up. Sometimes all it takes is just a tiny little thing to push you over the edge of wanting to race, and this voicemail did it for me. I got some encouragement, a couple of laughs, and then was ready to get it on.
The start was going to be super important, but since I was trying to start slower, I didn’t really care. I gave Tristan the front spot on the line that I had been saving, mostly because I knew that I couldn’t run with those guys anyway, and started in the middle of the pack. I ended up going into the woods somewhere around 10th position, and settled in behind a sketchy guy that I know from back in Brevard. I was feeling pretty good, so I passed a bunch of guys on the first climb, and then didn’t see anyone else from my class for the rest of the race. The leader of the older age group caught up to me on the third lap, and I rode with him for most of the rest of the race, so I at least had some company, even if it was an old dude. I tried to keep it slow and consistant, and managed to keep my lap times to within 30 seconds of each other for all 5 laps. I managed a 5th place finish on the day, about 2 minutes off of 2nd. Of course, Tristan destroyed the field by like 4 minutes, so I wasn’t super close to him, but still, for a combined Pro/Expert field, I’m pretty happy.
I’m up in Maryland this weekend writing this now, and we are about to go ride the course. I’ll tell you all about my day later on…

Goodbyes

Sooo, I just got done riding the seasonal trails for the final time this year, and I had an interesting experience while doing so... I felt as though I was saying goodbye to someone that I love, as to a girlfriend, knowing that I wouldn't see them again for a long time. This kind of goodbye sucks, and it is impossible to savor it in the way it deserves. I rode much slower than I usually would, taking time to study every curve and every line and every feature. Looking deep into the heart of the trail, the eyes of the girl, trying to burn the image into my waking mind, hoping that I will be able to remember every detail until our next meeting. The only solace that can be taken is the knowledge that, at some point, you will be reunited. Every time that we see each other, there is an understanding that, eventually, this piece of bliss must end, and life must go back to the mundane. All that is left to do is to count down to the time when we get to say hello again, and try to enjoy life in the present.

Matt

PS. I am not high, nor do I smoke weed; and, as a rule, I don't associate with people who do. I just felt like getting a little deep and into "the soul" of our sport. Don't hate.

Bikes are like a drug.

This has been an, uhh, interesting week. I was really really really tired after this past weekend's race, and so Monday was spent lethargically going around campus. Tuesday we went and rode with a new roadie recruit. Good times except for the whole climbing to the Parkway with no legs thing. Actually, it wasn't all that bad. I mean, we did get to do the Parkway ride, and I know from first hand experience that there are people out there who would give anything to ride in our mountains. (To all of you out there like that, just hold on, you will get to really soon, I'm sure). So anyway, we did that, and it was longer than I wanted to ride. My next ride was on Thursday on the group mountain ride with my new Epic. Let me tell you... it was SICK. Trust me, if you ever get a chance, buy a carbon Epic. It rides better than just about anything, and it looks good to boot.
Anyway, leading up to today, I really haven't wanted to ride my bike. I worked on Friday and Saturday, and have been really tired and on the verge of being close to being almost kinda depressed. Today was so nice though that I just had to ride. So I got on my road bike for the second time since the Assault, and went up towards the Parkway (considering my other ride this week was going the same way, maybe not the most original thing to do, but whatever). In spite of my saddle being too low, my shifting not working right (my bike fell over in the parking lot and I'm pretty sure that I bent the hanger. So don't start doubting my wrenching skills), and my tire having a little hop in it, I had an amazing ride. I was so happy to be out riding my bike, and I realized that just going for an hour long ride made my entire outlook on the day better. I guess there is a reason that I ride bikes for a living. Or maybe not a living. But still, there is a reason.
What I want to convey to everyone is this. GO RIDE YOUR BIKE. You will love yourself and your life that much more. Even better if you can go ride with someone else fun.