Gonzo

This past weekend Kevin and I rode Gonzo Pass. Kevin mapped out a ride to mimic one stage of the cancelled Montreal to Boston pro tour. Our ride was mapped out at 87 miles starting in Ashland and riding north to Woodstock up and over Gonzo Pass and back down Rt. 25 and back into Ashland.

We hit the road at 9:30, it was a cold 39 degrees or so. I don't know why, but the night before when I was packing I convinced myself that all I would need was thick socks so I left my shoe covers at home. In retrospect this was probably not the best decision. Not only was it pretty cold but there were was also a near constant 15-20 mph headwind the whole ride north to Woodstock. This made it tough to warm up and neither one of us felt like we ever got a good pace going. When we hit Woodstock we took a quick brake before we started our climb. From Woodstock it is a 5 or 6 mile climb to the top of Rt. 118 with an average 8% grade.

As we pulled out of Woodstock it started to rain. I was already underdressed for the cold temperatures as it was, and now that I was riding in a cold rain I was border line miserable. However at this point we were half-way out so to turn around didn’t make much sense. About half way up the pass two riders coming down, yelled back “it’s snowing up there”. Perfect, now I can be cold, wet, rained on and snowed on, but again; half-way up a climb we were not going to turn around.

I reached the top a few minutes ahead of Kevin and pulled over and waited, this also was not a good idea, it just gave me time to cool down, but I took that time to take my shoes off and try and squeeze some life back into my painfully numb toes. At that point I really wish I had my shoe covers. When Kevin reached the top we both agreed to take the quickest way back, but at that point we were still and hour or two from Kevin’s place so there really was no “quick” way back. As we headed down the other side of Gonzo Pass the rain was coming down as sleet. The next 3 miles we were doing 40+ mph while on the brakes, the road was slick from rain and the sleet stung your face like some kind of acupuncture. This was probably the scariest descent I have ever done on my road bike.

At the bottom I couldn’t stop shaking, my hands and toes stung from the cold and my face felt raw from the sleet. We rode on into the town of Warren and hit the first convenience store we could find. I bought a cup of coffee (of course it was luke-warm at best) and some toe warmers. From here on out life was good, I had warm toes, the sun came out, and we had a good section of flat road to get the heart rate up and get warmed up again.

So I learned my lesson, always pack for the worst case scenario and hope for the best. I think this would have been a great ride if I had some warmer gloves and toes, even in a little rain. The foliage was peak, so the ride had many classic New England views. This was a fun climb and will definitely be on the list of road rides for next year, probably sometime in the summer or early fall.

Time: 3:56.24
Distance: 70.23 miles
Ave: 17.8
Max: 43.2

The Pinnacle Challenge

Sunday Team Blue Zoo; Kevin, Christina, Natalie and myself did the Pinnacle Challenge. This was a Multi-Sport adventure race or "Double Duathlon". We joined the Co-Ed category with Christina doing the road run, myself doing the Mountain Bike, Kevin doing the Road Bike and Natalie finishing the race with the trail run.

Team Blue Zoo did pretty good for our first team event and it was also the first time Christina or Natalie ever raced period. We finished with the 17th fastest time of the day out of 71 mixed and individual teams and we took 2nd place in the Co-Ed division. See all the results here. We were beat out of 1st place in the Co-Ed division by just 30 seconds!

On a individual level I took the fastest mountain bike time of the day with a time 34.21 for the almost 6 mile course that included a lot of climbing. Kevin had a strong 20th place finish on the road course, but he was racing against a lot of tri-athletes with some ridiculous bikes and tear drop helmets; for a 13 mile race some of the roadies really went all out. Christina and Natalie both finished strong in the middle of the pack.

The guys at the Pinnacle put on a really great event, pre-registration got us free syrup, and a wicking (not cotton) t-shirt that I will actually wear. Not to mention the excellent BBQ lunch after the race. Our 2nd place finished got us enough maple syrup to last the team until we can do it again next year.

Check out the photos, looks like the photographer missed Kevin:
Christina (bib # 217) on the right side of the photo

Me on one of the climbs

Me just a few hundred yards from the finish line/staging area

Natalie finishing strong

Me collecting my prize $ for having the fastest mountain bike time of the day

Team Blue Zoo collecting our awards:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmo/1515504706/in/set-72157602320116851/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmo/1515508942/in/set-72157602320116851/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmo/1514655695/in/set-72157602320116851/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hmo/1514659739/in/set-72157602320116851/

Bachelor St.

On Saturday my Dad and I went out to the Holyoke Mt. Range and rode the "Bachelor St." trails. This place is epic, and no doubt it is some of the best trails in Mass and maybe even New England. IMBA, has even built an awesome smooth, flowy trail that is as much fun up as it is down; the funny thing is the IMBA trail is probably the easiest trail in the whole place.

We put in 3+ hours of ride time and covered 15+ miles. That's not a lot of distance, but we basically climbed to the top of the range 4 times and each climb is insanely technical. The type of riding that wears out your whole body, not just your legs. My technical riding was pretty on, and I cleaned a few lines that I previously thought impossible. This may be a bit of a haul for most people but it is well worth the drive. Favorite trails of the day were Jacobs Ladder, Serpent God, Far East and Far Out, Missing Persons, Pete's Wicked Trail, Technical Trail and Twister. We definitely need to plan a group trip out here.

Check out the map here.

TNTT

Tuesday Night Time Trial

I ran into the guys from Team Bums a year or two ago, but it wasn't until last night that I finally made it a point to show up and race. They laid out a great course on some trails that I ride pretty regularly at Mt. Pisgah in Northborough. In fact, it was my Dad that built most of the single track we rode last night, so to say that I know the trails pretty well may be a bit of an understatement.

The course starts with a long slightly downhill double track that flows into some fun single track. It then bottoms out and you turn around and start climbing; about halfway up Mt. Pisgah you begin traversing to give your legs a little rest. The last mile or so is double track / fire road; uphill at first but then it turns into some fast rocky downhill to the finish line.

They generally start racing around 5, but I didn't get out of work until 5:00 so when I showed up at 5:45 I was one of the last to go off. I rode in straight from the parking lot to the start line, no warm up at all. I had a rough idea of the trails we would be on and they did a good job raking them so it was easy to stay on course even with the light fading. I never raced this short of an event, so I pretty much just hammered off the line. With no warm up that strategy did catch up with me as soon as I started to climb; but I knew it was a short race so I ignored the burning in my legs and kept trying to gain speed.

I did pretty good, winning the day with a time of 22:11. That time seemed to impress most of the crew and I started to get a lot of questions about where I race and how I like my Racer-X ect. I even let one of the guys borrow my bike for a quick demo ride. He is in the market for a new bike and was currently demo’ing a Blur. He definitely liked the Racer-X saying it accelerated much better than the Blur.

Anyway, it was a fun event with some really cool people; I will definitely try to hook up with these guys for next year. It will be a good thing to work into my training.

Here are the results:

1. Adam 22:11 (this guys Dad built the trails and
he placed 4th in the EFTA Expert series this year, yeah……he flies)
2. Brett 24:42 (on a demo Santa Cruz Blur LT, he
flatted again on his hardtail)
3. John 25:04
4. Scott 25:14 (sorry about Colin getting stung,
he was a good sport about it)
5. Laura 26:54 (thanks for helping out with the
scoring)
6. Mary 27:32 (probably would have been faster if
she hadn’t raked 3.6 miles of trail before the TT)
7. Nate 27:41
8. Mike L 28:46
9. Mike T 29:32
10. Doug U 30:22 (finished with a flat rear tire)
11. Chris Jackson 32:42
12. Liana Jackson 35:20
13. Linda U 36:11

Rodman Ride for Kids

About two weeks ago I was approached at work by another bike commuter. Apparently a few Staples employees put together a team for the Rodman Ride for Kids; one of the original four riders couldn't make it now and they needed one more rider to complete the team. I was told we would be doing the century ride and that the money was already raised so all I had to do was say yes.

Then at the last minute we were told that Susan's (one of the original riders) weekend was freed up so she could join us for the ride. However this meant that we now needed to raise and additional $750 for the fifth member of our team. Susan came up with a great idea of "donuts for dollars" and with just a dozen donuts raised over $250. The rest of us reached out to co-workers and others and altogether we raised another $1,000; this put the team Staples total contribution at over $5,000!

The ride itself was much slower than my normal pace which was a little hard for me to deal with at first; but it was a nice day, I was on my bike, and we raised a lot of money for a good charity. How hard could it really be? The Rodman team knows how to support their riders; the century had 5 water stops at the 20, 40, 60, 80 and 90 mile marks; each with tons of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit, Gatorade, water and more. The volunteers were all very enthusiastic and helpful and the route was well thought out with a lot of nice views.

So our ride time for the day was 6:06, not too bad since we were riding with some novice riders on "comfort" bikes. However they did require a lot of time at each stop, so our total time for the event was over 8 hours.

The only complaint for the day was that by time we got in, the BBQ had packed up and left! I guess that's ok, I didn't really need the ribs anyway...