Tahoe MTB trip.....in January.

Since Tahoe wasn't getting any snow yet, the wife and I packed up the 2 doggies and headed up. Cold and bit icy in spots, but for the most part, all the trails were rideable, even at the higher elevations. Got in 9hrs of great technical single-track mostly above 7000ft.

Closing out 2011

Been a while since my last post so I figured i'd better get caught up. My last post was about the first cross race of the year. Since then, I'd done only 2 others. The 2nd was on November 6th, and was last minute deal. I'd done a long MTB ride the day before so I didn't expect much. Just wanted to race and get more time on the cx bike, which I needed. The course at Stafford Lake in Novato, CA was really fun if you had good legs. Brutal if you didn't. Mine were a bit rubbery so I was more the later. Super steep and bumpy climbing and descending was a bit different for me, on a cross bike anyway. In general, the course here are really bumpy so I need to start preparing for that different next year. I've never really been into riding MTB trails on my cross bike, but a lot of people here do and I can see why. Anyway, got a good start just to avoid being burried in traffic. After the first couple laps, I was burried in traffic and going backwards. There was one long run up that really hurt. Tried to keep it a "run" up but the last lap or 2 might have been a "fast walk"-up.
Third race was a night race: Round #2 of the Bay Area Super Prestige Series. Rain left the course nice and tacky in some spots, and like greased ice in others. I got a call-up this time around which was nice. 3rd row I think. Descent start but didn't drill it. I'm still a bit timid on the skinny knobs. My fault for just not spending around time sliding around on that bike. Other than having my bars slip a bit in the stem and some nagging shift problems, I "raced" the whole hour and came in 21st, same as the first round, and the same as previous weekend. I could see at least 10 guys in front and 10 guys behind me so it's still pretty tightly packed, 11th place to 31st. Night racing is pretty fun. So 3 races down and I got 21st at all three. Not much to say other than it's exactly what I should be getting based on what i'd put into it. I could honestly say that if i'd prepared right (or at least they same as i'd down a couple years ago), I could have cut those 21st places in half, and been on the verge of top-10. Getting into the top 10 and at least in sight of the podium will take something special. Basically getting faster than I ever have been. Not sure my work/other schedules will allow that so I can't really plan for it, just need to play it by ear next year and see how she rolls.
So 3 races down and that was it for 2011. Came into December with the Flu and some lingering sinus issues so really couldn't do much more. Finally got heathly for Christmas so that was nice. Got a good block of riding in over the Holidays so at least i'll hit '12 somewhat fit.

Bay Area Super Prestige #1 - San Francisco

Finally got my CX season underway this weekend. I got in 2 small local races last season, but missed all the big races in the area. This time I ended up missing all the smaller races so far but got out for this one. The Bay Area Super Prestige Series is the largest series in NorCal. Today's race was so exception. The Masters 35+ A race was filled (55 rider limit) during pre-reg. They had a standby system for racers that want to get in but is determined by how many pre-reg'ed riders no-showed. 5 no-show'd and I was the 5th racer on the stand-by list. Lucked out. Otherwise I would have done the Elite race which had over 60 guys in it. The first 2 rows in the grid were call-ups based on last years series. I skipped taking one last lap of the course and got to the front of the staging area and ended up in row 3 on the inside. Start was OK, managed to avoid the first turn elbow-fest and settle into about 15th. A few big crashes in turns took a bunch of guys from the front to very back and I managed to avoid all the mayhem. The course was bone dry and super bumpy. Huge holes, dry grass, and big rocks everywhere. Super technical course with very few places to really get out and try to move up. This actually worked out great for me since I was getting through most turns better than most and the faster guys behind me couldn't really chase me down. During pre-riding I burped my rear tire bad and up'd the pressure for the race. With the super bumpy course, I was trying to find some traction and comfort with lower pressure and pushed it too far. With 5 laps to go I almost crashed in a turn and burped the front. Dropped to about 15 psi. Rode the whole lap like that and managed to not make it any worse. I pulled into the SRAM Neutral Support tent for a quick pump and got a great push off by the tech. A handful of guys went by, not sure how many were 35+ or 45+, but I think I passed all of them back in the closing laps. Felt pretty good considering I only did/attempted about 1 week of actual structured cx work.

Lake Tahoe - MTB epic weekend.

Spent another amazing weekend in Lake Tahoe. Got out on Saturday with an old MTB buddy from way back Mark Roberts. We had an epic battle in the mens sport class at the '88 MTB World Championships in Mammoth Lakes. He's basically a Tahoe local so he knows the trails there like the back of his hand. He took me on a bunch of stuff I hadn't seen before north of Tahoe City. We got in a solid 3hrs of singletrack with another hr of misc pavement at the end riding back from Squaw to Tahoe City and I got in another hr riding before/after for about 5 on the day. I had brought my road bike up with the intension of doing a lap of the lake on Sunday. Given the amount of traffic up there this weekend, I chose to stay off-road (mostly). Did the ever-popular Tahoe Rim Trail from the Rose Summit/Tahoe Meadows trail head to Tunnel Creek, then took the Flume Trail south to Marlette Lake and back, then Tunnel Creek down into Incline Village. Amazing single track with spectacular views of the lake from mostly above 8000 ft. This is one of the most popular "shuttle" rides in the area. Must have been 50 vehicles at the Mt. Rose Summit trailhead and another 40 at the bottem to take riders back up. It's only an 8.5 mile/2800 vertical feet road climb between the two. I started in Carnelian Bay (north shore) and rode the 8 miles over the Incline Village, NV. Then did the 8.5 mile road climb (averages 5.5 %) to the 8900 feet Mt. Rose Summit. The Rim Trail starts just below the summit at Tahoe Meadows. This section of the Rim Trail climbs up a few 100 feet in the first mile or 2, then gets super fun and flowy for the next 8 miles or so to Tunnel Creek rd. A quick descent down Tunnel Creek brings you to the north end of the Flume Trail. Took that south to Marlette Lake. Super fun single-track trail with some cool sections cut into the rock. Lake Tahoe is on your right, and straight down. This secion of the Flume is almost completely flat so it was mosly big-ring seated stuff. I turned around at Marlette Lake and rode came back to Tunnel Creek Rd, which was a wide dirt road downhill all the way down to Incline Village. Mostly deep powdery sand so i'd hate to climb up this way. Once back in Incline, it was a rolling paved ride back to Carnelian Bay. Ended up just under 5hrs total, 27 total paved miles and 22 dirt miles. Close to 10hrs of mtb riding over two days. Feeling it today for sure. Pics coming.

Howell Mountain Challenge - Angwin, Ca

I had this race on the schedule for a while but sorta waited till the eleveth hour to make the commitment. Angwin is just north of Napa Valley, so it's a beautiful area. The race was 3 laps of a 10-mile loop. 30 miles off-road is a solid effort no matter how hard the terrain is. Couldn't preride much of the course since it went out a few miles before hitting the actual loop, so I only saw the first 1/2 mile and last half mile. The start was on pavement, uphill, to a wide gravel path and eventually onto some dirt roads. I sorta assumed that single track was out there somewhere beyond where I prerode so I attempted to get a good start. The lack of proper warm-up combined with NOT having down a hard start like that in a while KILLED me. I hit the dirt in 4th with completely gassed with ruined legs. I lot of guys blew by me while I tried to re-start the system. Took a few minutes and a good 1/2 mile but I "seemed" to be going good. Started catching back up to the guys that killed me off the start and actually started catching riders from the wave 2min ahead. The course was all dirt roads for at least the first full mile or 2 before hitting singletrack. The singletrack was supper fun and technical. I had never ridden this stuff before but I was at least staying with the guys in front. Got by a couple guys and seems to check out a bit. I was catching guys and the guys I passed seemed to fall away. The course alternated between single track and wide open dirt stuff. All middle-ring climbing until we hit the BIG ONE. 1/8 mile granny gear climb straight up. I generally don't do well on these but I caught back on to the front group the first time up this. Over the top they got a little gap on me again. The course rolled along some more with fun singletrack and middle-ring climbs. Towards the end of the lap was a 3 pack of rollers. Each had a crazy rocky ledge sections leading down so you couldn't hit the uphill part with much speed. Each uphill was middle-ring 'able but definately a handfull to clean. By the 3rd one I was wrecked. Some fun fast rolling stuff finished out the lap. This is around the time I decided that that only way I was going to make it 2 more times around that thing was to put it into conservation mode. Still rode hard and agressive but couldn't do much more than that without risking a DNF.
Got caught by a lot of guys as expected, not sure which were in my age group or not. That 3rd lap was a killer for sure but managed to keep it together and at least finish. Had this been an 1:45 or 2 hour race, I think I could have faked it along better, but 2.5 hours is a bit different. Didn't quite have the breakfast for it. The race was held at a college so we could use the showers in the gym after the race. That is a huge luxary since Kristine and I were planning on wine tasting in Napa after the race. Not sure what place I got since they hadn't posted results when we left. Wasn't top 3. Did win a WTB Mutanorapter 2.4 tire in the raffle so that was nice. No, a 2.4 tire isn't exactly a cross-country race tire, but it will work perfectly for the majority of the stuff i'm doing. Having not raced much over the last year definately became obvious yesterday but that's how it goes. I get in plenty of riding. Good riding, solid efforts both mtb and road, but no amount of hard training can replace actual race efforts. Other than that, the Tomac bike worked flawlessly. A bit more bike than a lot of guys were on out there. If I was really serious about getting back on the podium at every race, i'd probably do a more race-specific bike, but I like a bike I can go beat up in Tahoe without getting destroying or beating me up. I've got that so i'll leave the podium spots to those guys that are simple WAY faster than me for now.