City Loop Mafia

Kit Order 4.0

2012-02-11T13:19:00.001-05:00

Okay. So it looks like Option 2 was the most popular of the bunch. Whoever wants a kit please text me your size both top(race or club cut) and bottom. Instead of texting me you also have the option of posting in the comments section.

Thanks.

4 Designs to choose from

2012-02-08T13:05:00.001-05:00

My schedule has been a little hectic lately and we are obviously not going to get them ordered by Friday so I am shooting for next Friday the 17th as the new cut off. In the meantime I need everyone to vote on which is their favorite. You can either text me if you don't want your vote to be known or just put it in the comments.

And again. Duane's website address will be on the back of the bibs close to where the cityloopmafia address was last year.

1 vote for me. I like Option #2. Blue, black and white.

Check out doubleshot on the webs...

2012-02-08T12:56:00.001-05:00

http://carolinacyclingnews.com/

Front page. Nice job Erich and Barry. I have signed up for the race.

There is a shop competition, but let's see if there are enough people from the Mafia that we can give them a run for their money. Even though we are not a shop we can still see if we can beat them on paper, but it's gonna take more than just me.

Kit order

2012-01-30T10:08:00.001-05:00

Even though we have yet to decide on a final kit color combo from the previous post I need to start getting an idea of how many we need to order. If we meet the minimum of 10 then the cost will be about $150. If we don't get 10 then it will probably jump up to $25-$35, but I will need to confirm this.
Assuming I get them ordered by the end of next week (2-10) that would put them here mid April.

Kit 4.0

2012-01-25T19:24:00.004-05:00

Alright everybody, after some redesign and final patchwork take a look and see what you think of this latest one.

I know this one is different from the last go around. I wasn't crazy about the back being the same as last year. If you will notice on the middle rear pocket is Henderson Custom Homes. I am going to put his web address on the top of the back bib panel as well.

The color scheme has changed a bit from the last. Let me know what everyone thinks.

UPDATE: 9:50 I added some more options based on feedback. I am not trying to match my bike by the way, it just seems to have turned out that way based on some feedback for colors. Honest. Let me know a color combo if you want me to try it out.

Doubleshot Ride Postponed!

2012-01-20T15:14:00.002-05:00

Well, it looks like rain and you know what that can do to new mtb trails. Not good. We're moving the ride back to next weekend, the 28th. Same time, 10am. Hope to see you there!

Double Shot Pre-Ride

2012-01-17T20:25:00.001-05:00

Some of you may or may not know. This Saturday Erich and Barry are hosting a Doubleshot pre-ride opportunity of their race on March 10th.

The start time is 10 this Saturday and don't forget you will need your mountain bike AND road bike.

Scotty Party

2012-01-13T09:41:00.002-05:00

Come one and all! Kiddos are welcome!

We'll gather at 7 and roll for as long as anyone's listening to the Sage of Spain -- word is he has an amazing slide show -- so bring your popcorn!

Bring some drink if you want it -- or some desserty stuff if you want to -- but don't let bringing something stop you from coming -- just come -- we'll have some foodstuffs.

Address is:

462 Lockland Avenue 27103

See you there!

Scott comes back in town

2012-01-10T17:06:00.001-05:00

As most of you know by now our old buddy Scott is coming back to town to take care of some business. In between business dealings we are going to have a get together at Robs house on Friday. We still don't have a firm time or plans, but once those are solidified I will post it up for the world to see.

Hauser Road Time Trial - Winter Benchmark

2012-01-07T20:27:00.000-05:00

Wow, that's about all I can say after today's effort at the TT. I didn't set out on today's ride to go do Hauser Road, but it just ended up that way. I left around noon today from the house bound to take advantage of the day's weather. As nice as it was I was still having trouble getting motivated. Like what normally happens once I started riding I was glad to be out rolling on two wheels. I headed out towards Lewisville via Meadowlark and meandered around for a while and decided to get a benchmark time on Hauser. We all know the drill for the TT. This is just too embarrassing not to tell everybody. My time........6:55. Ouch. 0:58 worse than my time in October.

On a side note. I learned an important lesson today in bicycle maintenance. Among all the bikes that I go through and switching out components, changing out new cables, wheels, tires, etc the one important thing that I hardly ever change is the chain and cassette. My drivetrain has been making an annoying tick, tick, tick noise no matter how much I adjust it. It shifts just like it's supposed to however the ticking was driving me crazy because I could not figure it out. On my way back home from the ride today I stopped at Cycletherapy and had Mike give me a quick diagnosis. My diagnosis? My chain was stretched something awful and the cassette needed to be changed as well since they basically wear at the same rate. Before he installed the new chain he put the new chain next to the old chain and showed me how much the chain had stretched. It had stretched almost a full half link. I'll put this in the memory bank for routine maintenance from now on.

Trivia Contest

2012-01-02T21:59:00.001-05:00

Anybody recognize these brakes? They were having a flashback in the latest Switchback magazine and I got a little sentimental when I saw them. I had a set of them back in the day. The picture is from 1995.

Polar Bear Ride

2011-12-31T14:24:00.001-05:00

Anyone going to do the Polar Bear Ride tomorrow? Leaves at 9 from "Our House" on Country Club.

Shimano XTR 2 x 10 test and review

2011-12-28T11:17:00.000-05:00

This is the new to me XTR Crank. 40-28 - 170mm

Today I am going to give a test review of my new 2 x 10 setup. Coming from a mix of Sram X0, X9, X7 3x9 this was to say the least a major upgrade for me. I went to Cycletherapy asking how much an XT 2x10 sans disc brakes was going to cost me. Mike looked it up and said that his source had everything but the XT shifters and then he said hold on a minute. He had a magical box in the back with some XTR takeoff's from a bike that he bought for a customer. Long story short I ended up riding out of there with the following:
XTR cranks, shifters, brakes, shadow plus rear derailleur, XT chain, front derailleur and cassette. Whoops, but I have to say after a few rides I have no regrets in the additional cost.
I guess that I will start with the crank. Not much to say about it really other than it seems to shift really smooth, road bike like. Mike told me that the guys at Shimano finally wised up and went ahead and took the finish off the crank arms. Instead of your ankle rubbing the finish off over time they went ahead and did it for you. Mike went to a Shimano meeting / testing session close to Asheville recently and it was pretty interesting to hear the technology behind the chainrings.

The new shifters and brake levers attached
to their aluminum buddy.

To the left is the new Trail disc brake version of the XTR line. What makes it a trail version as opposed to the race version is the adjustability. With the trail version you can simply twist a knob at the end of the brake levers adjust the levers in and out. The knob is actually useful compared to other adjustable levers I have used. I think you can still adjust the levers with the race, but the knob is not there. To be honest I'm not quite sure of the main difference is between the two.

The new trail disc caliper has "finned" pads
that help keep the temperature at bay.

I am going to talk about the disc brakes a bit here. Over my mountain biking career since 1991 I have rarely used hydraulic brakes. I had a 1999 Cannondale with some Coda hydraulics that were absolutely awful. I didn't hold on to that bike for too long. Around that time Avid had come out with their BB line of mechanical disc brakes and me being a person who doesn't like things to have things break down all the time I opted for the simplicity of the mechanicals. I rode those happily for a long time and then the road bike bug bit me and I faded away from the MTB scene for quite some time. Maybe 3 years ago I started to dabble in mountain bikes again and bought a set of Hayes stroker disc brakes. Those were good brakes, but I just didn't ride them enough to get a good feel. I will say that I was not too impressed overall so much so that when I sold the bike I opted to keep my mechanicals from another bike that I bought just to keep things simple. The XTR's are absolutely incredible, not only in power, but in control as well. No longer are two fingers required for braking control. One finger is all that I need. To me the levers of the brakes are perfectly shaped and also a perfect length. My fingers are small so they work great for me, but I can not comment on somebody who has catcher's mitt size hands. To be fair if someone has hands that size they are probably riding a bike without a motor. So far I have yet to lockup either the front wheel or rear wheel around any high speed switchbacks on the trail. In a nutshell, I will not be going back to mechanicals.

Another view of the Shifter and Brake caliper.
You have the option to either attach the shifter directly
to the brake lever(my preference) or to mount using
a standard bar clamp.

I'm not crazy about the chrome finish of the new XTR. I would prefer that it be black, but I will take the performance over color I guess. That is a nice feature of the new XT is that you have the choice between black or silver.

A shot of the front caliper

The 36 tooth cog is the size of a small pizza pie.

Now let's talk about the gearing. I am running a

40-28 with an 11-36 cassette in the back. While this is a good setup around here with the type of riding that I do I have yet to really test it on any really steep climbs. I wish that I had this when I did the Dark Mountain Point to Point race in October. I

have a feeling that when I head towards Asheville

that I am going to be missing my granny gear on

my 3x9......a 22-33 low gear. While technically the

ratio is not that much different than the 28-36 the

granny will be missed when bonk time rolls around.

I will not go into detail about the Shadow Plus rear

derailleur since I already did a post about it's performance. Just in case you don't want to read that post suffice it to say that I would gladly have paid the extra $$ to have the Plus feature. It makes riding so much quieter.

To finish things up here I'll talk briefly about the overall shifting performance of 2x10 vs 3x9. While it's nice to have the small ring option for major climbing I very rarely used it on 99% of my riding. The front shifting is lightning quick and accurate and take a lot of the guesswork out of what gear you are in. While the rear shifting is great I could not tell a great deal of difference from the Sram setup to the XTR setup. That's not a knock on the rear shifting at all because I was running the X0 grip shift and it was nice to be able to dump multiple gears either way. Having said that I would not go back to the Sram.

My overall rating....

9.5 out of 10

-1.0 for the color and +0.5 for the Shadow Plus feature

X Mas

2011-12-25T08:52:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas CLM peeps!!!!

Merry Crossmas - Race 1 Re-cap

2011-12-17T15:44:00.001-05:00

I decided to race this race about 9:20 this morning once I got out of bed for the second time. With the rain yesterday it undoubtedly would be an interesting course and conditions might be suitable for the MTB. The decision to ride the mountain bike was an easy one since I don't own a cross bike. With the soggy conditions it was going to be a good test for the new 2x10 as well. I got out to Washington Park about 10:15 and with my race going off at 11 that was plenty of time for warmup and registration. I haven't really ridden hard this month at all. With my riding being limited to 1 road ride and some weekend Hobby Park rides this month it was time for my first hard physical test of the month. One thing about not riding much this time of year is that your legs never quite have that "heavy" feeling that you get during the season.

Before the my race started there was some unhappiness among the dog owners that were coming to the dog park to have their furry friends frolic in the mud. You see, they closed the greenway and the dog park for today and tomorrow and there was one particular gentleman who was none too happy. Just ask Jim Smalley.

Race time. I decided to race the old man's fred category. CX4 (35+). I think there were 20 people in my category at the start line. Right before the race I saw a couple of friendly faces......Bicycle Spaniard (aka Kristin) and his offspring. It was nice to have people ready to shout for you when you pass by them. Plus a little insider information didn't hurt either. I didn't pre-ride the course, but there was quite a bridge that was setup and Kristin said the run up to the bridge was pretty tough, he had only seen a couple of people be able to ride it. The start of the race went off without a hitch and it was time to evaluate the fitness. The start was on a paved section of the greenway. After maybe 150 yards of asphalt and a slight turn to the right it was time for some grass action. There were plenty of quick turns at the start of the grass section with soggy corners that added to the fun. Once around the corner it was time for a quick steep hill......got it. At that point I had made it to 2nd place. Around the next corner I was able to overtake 1st place, but not for long. Soon after this my lungs started to ache because of the cold weather I was guessing. I thought I could ride out of it, but boy was I wrong. At this point I had started to fade a little while trying to figure what was going on. What was going on was that my chest was going in full lockdown with authority. My chest was killing me and after 1 lap I had to stop. I went and laid down in the grass to wait out the pain. After about 10 minutes of wondering if I was having a heart attack, I was back to normal. Quite honestly, it scared me because that has never happened, but it appears to have turned into a chest cold so that's good with me.
The course was long and absolutely awesome with a little bit of everything thrown in. The runup to the man made bridge made for some exciting spectating and watching the pros practice on it and make it up was cool.
Until next time.

Shimano XTR shadow plus rear derailleur review/test

2011-12-10T22:03:00.000-05:00

I upgraded this past week to Shimano 2 x 10 thanks to Mike at Cycletherapy. The shining star of the group to me is this little gem........

What is it you ask? What looks like a normal Shimano derailleur is just that with the addition of that little brass colored switch and some additional innards. It's called shadow plus and what it does is keep the derailleur cage from swinging forward like a traditional one. When the switch is off you can push the cage forward. When it is on, that is where the fun starts. In a nutshell it all but prevents chain slap on the chain stay. To most people that may not be a big thing, but it drives me crazy and I'm glad the engineers at Shimano came up with this simple idea. I used it today for the first time and could not be happier with the way it performed. I still had some chain slap, but it was front the top of the chain stay and not the bottom. My chain runs very close to the top of the chain stay so it is pretty much unavoidable when I'm coasting on the trail. The reduction of chain slap due to the shadow plus was substantial and made my ride more enjoyable. I have read that with the switch turned on the shifting requires a little more effort, but I have nothing to compare it to since I was riding X0 grip shifters. Whatever the case it's no deterrent to me.

You can always turn the switch "off". They recommend doing this when taking the wheel on and off and when working on it, but other than that I'm not sure why anyone would ever not want it on.

If anyone is considering upgrading to 10 speed give this rear derailleur some serious thought. It's worth the extra money.

2012 kit?

2011-12-09T14:24:00.001-05:00

Well people, after many attempts and redrawing and redrawing I finally have something for you people to think about.
This is a very rough drawing obviously and will look better when everything is cleaned up. Hopefully this will give you the overall idea. I just want to see what people think before I spend the time to finish it correctly. I plan on putting Henderson custom homes logo on one of the back pockets as well.

We will need to place an order of at least 5 kits to make an order.

Thoughts?

Sorry for the crappy picture.

Congrats

2011-12-03T21:06:00.001-05:00

Congrats to Duane and Kim in the addition to their family. Their son was born this week and Duane said things went well. The mafia keeps expanding.

Birthday boy

2011-11-24T19:39:00.001-05:00

Happy birthday to Chancey. One step closer to the 35+ class.

Hendersoville Cross Race Recap

2011-11-20T14:19:00.003-05:00

Ann and I ventured to the mountains of NC for the NCCX UCI Grand Prix weekend. We went up Friday night after work and Emmett went with us. Ann was excited to try her first true cross race of the season. This was my first cross race of the NCCX season. I truly have always enjoyed the Hendersonville races. The course is really long for cross - around 2 miles. The course is technical, hard, and long enough to lend itself toward power/dragrace style of racing. The are two really challenging hills with a short hill titled the "Wall". It is neat to see a lot of elite level pros come from all over the country to race. Adam Myerson, Jake Wells, Travis Livermon, and a guy from Belgium (Ben Berden) showed. The Belgian won the elite race Saturday.
I lined up Saturday morning in the Men's Cx4 race. There were around 50 racers for the 9am start time. With temps around 30-degrees it was cold! I didn't get a very good start and ended up near the back in the first corner. Heading into the third corner there was a crash and numerous racers went down. I ran into a guy and my bike got wedged between his and another bike. Once we pulled them apart and I jumped on my bike I soon realized I had no front brakes. COme to find out my front wheel was out of true, my front brakes were broken, and my rear derailleur was bent to the point that I had 3 working gears. I raced on and ended passing a few people and finished 38th/50+. Ann started at 9:50 in the Women's Cx3/4 race. There 34 racers in her field. The masters 35+ Cx4 and juniors were racing at the same time as well. Ann started at the back and was looking to finish her first race and "stay on two wheels". Doing this course for your first race was admirable and Ann did great. She attacked the "Wall" and almost made it up. She was one of the few Cx women in the 3/4 field even riding up the wall. She ended up finishing 30th/34 and had a blast. Afterwards she said she felt like "vomiting" so her first cross race was complete. I took my bike into the pits and a guy/local pro fixed my bike. He worked on it for awhile...so I would like to send out a huge thank you to Beer City Bicycles for your wrench support.

Sunday the temps were literally twice as warm with us waking up at 6am and temps hovering in the 50's. Once we started loading the bikes on the car in the hotel parking lot it began to rain. The rain didn't last too long but it made the course muddy and slick. They changed the course from Saturday's course and Sunday's version was much more technical. There was a lot of off-camber sections and slick corners. During warm-ups Ann crashed hard twice and her bike and R shoulder weren't the same. She decided (with me strongly encouraging her to rest) to not race and cheer me on. I lined up for Sunday's race and there were fewer racers in my field. I guess the rain and mud kept people away but a few people pulled out of my race before it began d/t crashes in warm-ups. They did call-ups before the race and that put me in the back again - which is fine for me because with the more technical course I was feeling a little shaky. I started in the back and picked people off. My shifting still wasn't right but it worked enough to get me through the race. I made it up the "wall" each time and ended up 23rd/40+. It was a lot of fun but it was harder than Saturdays. We loaded up the Rav4 and headed back to Lewisville. Emm dog reports he had a good time. Ann and I are sore from cross racing which implies we had fun.

2013 and 2014 US Pro Criterium Championships

2011-11-18T22:14:00.000-05:00

Just saw this on the interwebs. This is pretty exciting stuff. I think most of you have done the course or at least been to the venue for the High Point Crit races the past 2 years. It's a great place for crit racing and it going to be the host for the 2013 and 2014 US Pro Criterium Championships.

Chip Duckett is heading it up and is planning on coordinating it with the Hanes Park Classic and the Crossroads Classic.

Read the article for all the information.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/us-pro-criterium-championships-moves-to-north-carolina

Dixie Cross Race recap from 11/15/11

2011-11-15T21:08:00.002-05:00

Mitch, Ann, Dr Rob, and myself decided to give the cross race a shot tonight. As Mitch mentioned in the earlier post the weather was awesome...temps in the 70's. Mitch said there was a much better showing tonight. I think in the B race that Mitch and I were in there were 20+. Ann and Dr Rob lined up in the C race - both doing their first cross races (awesome - badge of honor for that).

We took off around 6:30pm. The race was heated from the beginning...as are all cross races. Mitch was in good position around 5th. I was a few spots behind him and doing everything I could to stay with him. Mitch stayed in the front the first few laps. I slowly reeled them in by the third lap I think. Sara Tussey passed me on the second lap and she and couple of other guys were gone. Mitch and I worked together for a lap or so. I had to use Mitch a little in the straights to draft behind. The finishing straight had a brutal headwind. I came around Mitch in an effort to let him draft and I think we made it one straight. There was a dude from Revolution Cycles with Mitch and I and he came around me. I tried to keep touch with him. This was pretty much the story the rest of the race. I think I ended up finishing in the top 10. Mitch finished right behind me. I rode my cross bike tonight and it made a huge difference.

Ann and Dr Rob did great as well. I think Dr Rob was 2nd in the C race on a mtn bike!! Ann did really well and easily finished her first cross attempt. She got stronger as the race went on and had a blast. As I write this post Ann is falling asleep - thus her first cross race is complete! We all had fun and the weather was great. Thanks to Dr Rob's kids and my mom for cheering.

Good times. Now on to Hendersonville this wk end for the UCI race.

Dixie cross race

2011-11-15T11:47:00.001-05:00

Weather is looking pretty good for tonight's race. Hard to believe it is November and the temps are in the 70's.

Myself, Chancey, Ann and Rob are doing it.

Come join the cross fun.

Local guy Thomas Craven to direct BMC development team

2011-11-06T08:50:00.000-05:00

This is pretty cool. I think that Thomas lives here in Winston.

Basically, BMC is having a new development team and he is going to be the director.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/craven-to-direct-new-bmc-hincapie-sportswear-development-team

One more time trial?

2011-11-02T13:37:00.001-04:00

Anybody interested in trying a one run time trial Thursday evening? Last chance to ride in daylight before time changes this weekend. If we meet at the square at 5:30 we could have time for a brief warmup and time trial run.

Dixie Cross Race

2011-11-01T20:20:00.002-04:00

Mitch and I decided to give Ken's Dixie Cross Race a go tonight. The course was very much a roadie/Cx bike course. Mitch and I both showed up on our mtn bikes and that made it interesting. The course was pretty much the Dixie crit course with three barrier sections and a grassy hill section around a tree. The hill was enough to put you further into the red zone. Other than that grass section and hill the rest of the course was flat and on the crit circuit (pavement).

I guess 20-30 people showed up for the B race which began at 6:30pm. The C race started about one minute after we took off. Mitch was up front from the start and I started at the back. I couldn't get clipped in (a recurring theme for my right foot all night) at the start and was further back. The first lap was heated and I was way into the pain cave at that point. Mitch looked to be way in front in the second group after the first lap. The second lap was hard for me because I expended so much energy on lap one to try and hang with the group. Things got spaced out and I was ~ 3 corners behind Mitch. Each subsequent lap I got further back. I ended up riding with Jim Conrad and Dwayne Hunter most of the race. THe fast peeps like Kelly Holmes and Mitch were long gone.

I finished near the back of the B group with Dwayne passing me before the finish. It was heated and hard like all cross races. I was definitely not on the right bike for this course but it was fun and good training. Mitch did great and finished somewhere near the front half of the field (prob better than that). Afterwards Mitch just kept saying "I feel bad. I really don't feel good". I knew we had finished a cross race after Mitch's perseverating comments.

Good times. The next three Tuesday's will again feature this course I think. It was fun to see Ann and Emmett out there cheering us on. Mitch brought Fletcher but he remained in the car :)

For sale

2011-10-31T18:59:00.003-04:00

I have some wheels for sale.

My Mavic Cosmic Carbone's.
$825

My Easton EC90 Aero tubulars with dura ace cassette and Schwalbe tires
$1000

Separately or sold as a combo for cheaper.

Escape from Dark Mountain-Point to Point - 2011 - Race Review

2011-10-30T18:36:00.001-04:00

After much deliberation and radar watching Friday night and Saturday morning Duane and decided to give the Escape from Dark Mountain the green light. My problem was that I didn't want to start the race in the rain with it supposed to be pretty chilly in the morning. The forecast wasn't looking favorable either for the rain to get out of the area by race time. Since Amy and I were in Boone for the weekend I had the option of doing the cyclocross race in Boone this weekend if the mtb race didn't work out, but I really wanted to do the mtb race. One thing that was helping to sway my decision on Friday night was the director moved the start time from 10 to 12. The final piece that helped push me over the edge was on Saturday morning when I woke up and checked the radar. The rain storm had already moved its way over Greensboro. At that time it was time to start getting ready for the race. I texted Duane to see if he was game and with his green light from Kim it was time to meet Duane in Wilkesboro.

Duane called and said he was running a little bit behind so he was going to leave his vehicle at the start and I would give him a ride back after the race to pick up his truck. Simple enough right? Stay tuned. After unloading the bike at the start line at Dark Mountain it was time to fire up the Subaru and head to Warriors Creek to park the car at the finish. From there a shuttle drove us back down to the start line. So far, so good. As soon as the shuttle pulled in I saw Duane on the Jamis 29er. We went for a little warm up and decided that it wasn't really necessary to get fully winterized. We both wore bibs, undershirt and short sleeve jersey and at times during the race I was wishing I didn't have the undershirt on. On to the start.

With 105 people registered the race got off to a little bit of a delayed start because of the shuttling of people for the point to point setup. It was maybe 15-20 minutes behind, but I do not hold the promoter responsible for this because if people had gotten there in time like they were supposed to then there would not have been a problem to begin with. Being tardy bugs me. I digress. I think most people were in agreement that the time change really helped out. As much as it rained in Boone on Friday(all day) they said it only rained 0.15 inch in Wilkesboro and it was pretty evident it hadn't rained nearly as much as Boone. Finally to the start. We took our bikes out about 50 yards from the start line and everyone laid their bikes down. It was time for a lemans style start. It's always fun to see cyclist running the their cleated shoes. The horn went off and it was time to race.

I didn't get that great of a start because honestly with 35 miles to go I didn't see the need to kill myself at the start. After we made our way into the woods on the single track it was and endless single file line of overdressed bikers and I was quickly doubting my flawless strategy. There was a lot of stop and go and it didn't help that the first part of the single track headed uphill. That only added to the slinky effect of the bunch. At that point there was nothing I could do except fall in line and wait for it to work itself out. I think my initial thoughts would have worked a little better had there not been true single track at the beginning. Oh well. Having only ridden Dark Mountain and OVT 1 time and never ridden Warriors Creek it was all basically brand new. We may have gone the opposite way on Dark Mountain last time we did it because I don't' remember that much climbing first go around. I did manage to quickly wreck by hitting a root the wrong way, but no damage was done psychologically or physically so I pedaled on. The OVT was thankfully pretty much uneventful. Once out of OVT it was time to do some road riding. We turned right on 268 and pedaled for about 2.3 miles to the entrance of Warriors Creek. The road portion was pretty good for me since I was on a hard tail with a lock out on the Rock Shox(thanks Barry). We took a turn into the campground and were quickly routed into the woods. I was not riding with an odometer so I really have no idea when we hit our next asphalt section. Man what an unexpected climb. I think it must have been somewhere around mile 20-25 that I really started to feel bad. This was going to be my longest ride ever on an MTB without stopping so anything beyond 20 was not natural to my body. To have my body shutting down on me and then have to face this climb was not an ideal combination at the time. I would compare it to climbing the hard part of Pilot View next to the church in West End only much longer. When I made it to the top I was eating bananas, gels whatever I could. Thankfully the sugars started to kick in and bring me back to life. I felt really good for the last probably 10 miles or so. The only way I had to gauge how far we had been was asking a fellow biker at one point how far we had travelled. Warriors Creek was a lot of fun, but the berms were starting to wear me down and I was just hoping for the finish line to show it's beauty. We all know how fatigue and mountain biking do not go hand in hand so I was hoping that I would not do anything stupid to hurt myself before the finish line. Finally after 35+ miles I made it.

Here is where things went terribly wrong. I reached in my back pocket and realized that my KEYS were in Duanes truck with all my clothes. If you remember from earlier my car is at the finish and Duanes is at the start some 6 miles away. We kept asking people when they were headed back so we could catch a ride back to Duanes truck. They were grilling hamburgers and everybody was waiting for the awards ceremony. Suddenly mine and Duane's decision to dress conservatively was not helping us anymore. Quite simply, we froze for about 1. 5 hours before everything was over and Duane was able to catch a ride back to the truck. I sent Duane on his way with a couple of his cycle therapy peeps and hoped he didn't forget to come back and get me. He came back for me and I have never been so happy to see a maroon Toyota Tacoma. We had a lot of fun doing this race. It was definitely different and very well organized in my opinion especially for a first time race. The price was more than fair with food included.

In summary:

1. Good time

2. The trails were in really good shape. I know that it is hard to believe with as much rain was in the area, but for the most part the trails were dry with a few mud puddles in the corners.

3. Next year I will absolutely have an odometer hooked up so I can gauge my efforts a little.

4. I will be more aggressive at the start next year.

5. Food included

6. The point to point concept was a cool one because we didn't have to do multiple laps on the same loop.

7. Very reasonable cost for a race that long.

Until next year. I can't wait and I think Duane would concur.

Autodrop Kits

2011-10-26T18:05:00.003-04:00

Guys, Erich and I are looking at putting together an order for Autodrop Kits in December. We would like to order them in December, so we can get them early in the year. We're thinking of including the blue, green and black, and also the signature Lion. We'll be ordering through champion systems like the last Mafia kits. Send me an email if you are interested, when we are finished designing the kits, well send out another email asking for sizing information. my email is froth14 at yahoo dot com.

So So Close........

2011-10-24T23:12:00.000-04:00

Whitney comes in with a time of drum roll please......5:53. That's the difference of him getting a bad start, sitting up too much or at the wrong time, low air pressure. Could he have cut one of the turns a little sharper, perhaps shifted up 1 more gear at an opportune time? Alas, it was not to be other than to let us know that last week was a fluke. And that the wind was blowing.

Another Attempt

2011-10-23T14:44:00.002-04:00

Ann and I decided to try the Hauser Rd TT again today. We warmed up and rode down Concord Church Rd (which has some really nice pavement now) to williams and then to Hauser. I was hoping to beat my best time of 6:09 but it didn't pan out. I ended with a time of 6:14. Each time I've gone I've been slower - not good! Ann did 7:02 and didn't beat her best time of 6:53. It was a beautiful day to ride and we did a couple laps of Dull and headed back home. Think Im down with Hauser until I can consistently ride/train. Hope people got to enjoy the nice weather this weekend.

Time trial results

2011-10-18T20:07:00.001-04:00

We won't go through all the details, but Barry set the fastest time of the evening with a time of 6:02. If there was no headwind the 6:00 would have been broken and Whitney would no longer be alone in the sub 6:00 party.
Only Erich and I got 2 runs. Everyone else got stuck on the other side of the bridge because of the obamacade.
Hopefully the weather will cooperate next Monday so we will have one more weekday chance in 2011.

Escape from Dark Mountain

2011-10-16T21:56:00.002-04:00

Alright folks, I was thinking that it might be kind of cool to have the mafia showing in force at this first ever point-to-point mtb race out in Wilkesboro. The Escape from Dark Mountain! Erich and I are in, we definitely need Duane in on the action. Who will take care of sending him an official invite in the form of a wax-sealed envelope of old?

Chancey, you must take part! Curtis? come down from DC! Brad? there will be no babies born that day! Rob? I miss you!

I believe that Lis and I will be camping afterwards at Bandit's Roost, the more the merrier!

Hauser Road Time Trial

2011-10-16T14:56:00.002-04:00

The days are getting shorter and there are only 2 Monday left before the time changes. With tomorrow supposed to be 82 degrees and Sunny why not meet Barry, myself and Whitney at the Lewisville square at 5:30. That gives us just enough time for a warmup then a quick run at Hauser Road to see if 5:52 can be broken before the New Year.

Wilkesboro Brushy Mountain Ride

2011-10-15T19:56:00.000-04:00

This is going to be a photo tour. Barry, myself and Brian Porter met up this morning in Wilkesboro for a ride on the Ride Around Wilkes course. Suffice it to say that the course was awesome with plenty of scenery, flats, rollers and climbs. All in one 65 mile loop. I know we have said this about previous rides, but we need to include this ride at least once every month and half or so. It's really got it all plus it's only 45 minutes from Cycletherapy.

Here we go.

The bikes are ready, but are we? This would be my first 60+ mile ride since the 3 State 3 Mountain Ride in May. I have ridden a lot this summer, but most of my rides have been of the shorter variety.

First Climb of the day. The front side of Brushy. This climb kind of snuck up on Barry and myself not really expecting it to be as challenging as it was, but we made it.

So pro with the rolled down arm warmers.

Porter, the ride leader.

We had no idea we would have a rest stop at the famous "BAKERY". There were many other bikers out that way this morning as well. Barry and Brian snuck in a fresh apple pie and guess what I had.......a Mountain Dew.

Barry had no problem finding his way out of this corn maze.

Just a pretty shot.

An old mill along the route that had fresh water being piped out for us. That's a swinging' bridge in the background. Barry wanted to march in unison to take the bridge out, but Brian and I were having none of Ohioan ideas.

Shot down river at the mill.

Who knew Country Music legend Ronnie Millsap was a preacher now.

Barry having some fun, I think.

View from almost the top. If you look carefully you can see Stone Mountain in the distance.

Barry and I ate at Chick-fil-A afterwards and I think that was the best meal I ever did have. I didn't have enough food on the ride with me is why it tasted extra good.

Until next time people...........

TT -- Hauser Style

2011-10-11T18:25:00.002-04:00

Made it out to Hauser yesterday -- felt good just to be on the bike and the weather is about perfect for any kind of ride.

I missed WhiTTney and Mitchell -- the leaves were stirring and the wolves were howling, so it could be that I was there after the heat had abated a bit.

In any case -- I didn't have much time so I drove out to the square and started there. Hauser is closer than I thought, so warm-up time is not too much -- I just turned and stopped -- spoke to the ladies sitting in their chairs in the yard on the corner and hit the lap button.

It is interesting starting that from feet on the pavement -- but the pedals turn -- I did get clipped in -- and I was off. Wow -- it is a great stretch -- WhiTT burned it!

I was in at 6:11.

Felt whupped. Decided to try it again -- but went ahead and rode Williams to continue the warm-up. They are paving that -- or getting ready to -- and right now it is a shambles -- loose grinded gravel -- just what skinny tires were made for!

I got back to Hauser -- the ladies in the yard had decided to call it a night I guess.

Second run -- 6:07.

Done -- food in throat -- and I hadn't eaten any food.

On to another try!

Hauser Road Time Trial

2011-10-10T21:01:00.000-04:00

Whitney and I decided to hit up the Hauser Road Time Trial tonight instead of the City Loop. Since no one was around to see that Whitney actually did get a 5:52 the first go around it was necessary for the don to be there to validate his time. We left the square and headed down Grapevine and turned right past the church and headed to Robinhood. Turned left and headed up Conrad Farm Road to Shallowford as a little warmup. I went first so I could get some video of Whit coming across the line.

The results:

Whitney: 5:56 (He would have done better, guess why? Hint. Very similar situation to Dixie. He didn't get clipped in.

Me: 6:02

Picture time:

The watch doesn't lie.

The climb up Williams awaits as we head back to the square.

Hauser Rd CLM TT TImes

2011-10-09T12:23:00.002-04:00

Ann and I decided to give the Hauser Rd TT a go today. We rode out and did Williams Rd loop as a warm-up. I was pleased with my time for the little amount I've been riding. Ann had a great time as well. It was a beautiful day with temps in the low 60s. I literally went to the point to where I threw up a little. My avg HR was 166 with a max of around 180 (yikes). Here are the times:

Chancey: 6:09 (25+ mph)

Ann: 6:53 (23+ mph)

We had a blast! Hope everyone is getting to ride/enjoy the outdoors.

New Hauser road time trial times

2011-10-08T12:05:00.001-04:00

Erich - 6:00
Barry - 6:05
Mitch - 6:20

Watch out Whitney. The heat is comin'

Thanks Rob

2011-10-03T19:49:00.001-04:00

You know how it is to get a new bike. You just can't not ride it. I got my frame on Friday, but with Mom and Dad coming to town this weekend to help rescue mine and Amy's yard, time for a bike build was not in the cards until late Sunday. I rode it around the neighborhood to make sure nothing would fall off and that was about it. I got home tonight with overcast skies and decided to take a quick spin. Long story short, it started to rain pretty steady and Rob passed me in the FJ on Country Club going the opposite way. He honked and I waved and deep down I was hoping he would turn around. Sure to Rob's kind heart he turned around and asked if I wanted a ride home. Of course I said yes. And as an added bonus to not getting soaked and chilled to the bone I got to catch up with Rob.

Thanks Rob

AutoDropped Like it was HOT!!!!

2011-10-02T09:34:00.004-04:00

Since Duane is strong in his dislike of all things Al Gore and therefore is still convinced the Internet is a fad and is inherently evil, I'll take it upon myself to do a write up of the ADI2011. Start time was 10:00 and in typical Duane and Whit fashion we pulled up at about 5 till 10. We had stopped to get a road map of Winston to make a final plan of attack. You know what they say, "the best laid plans...are completely forgotten once the race starts". It was a chilly morning and at the sign in table there was a small container of embrocation. Duane wanted to get the ol' knees warmed up so he took some, did a little rub rub, and then... decided he would take a visit to the restroom. Needless to say by the start of the race, Duane was Hot. HAUT!!! I think that really helped up our tempo at the start. We had decided on doing the local yokel route, a decision that was reconfirmed by the presence of a few pros who had packed for what looked like a summit of Everest. We had our passbook of checkpoints and started off from Bob's Restaurant a few minutes after 10. First stop, Camino Bakery by Mellow Mushroom. Small problem here, Winston Salem State Homecoming parade had 4th street blocked off. Duane and I were a late entry float and offered some diversity, you're welcome WSS. At the Camino Duane used his rugged good looks to get us a $1.00 worth of hot chocolate for the extra bonus points, those poor waitresses were putty in his hands. Next we headed to a cobble section (cobbles were 75 points for every unique cobble section we could find) down near Krankies coffee. After tagging the cobbles, wait I think we found some cobbles on one of the sidewalks near 4th street as well, we headed to the bakery in old winston, (more cobbles) to get a piece of sugar cake. Duane's mojo had run out, those moravians in period garb don't play when it comes to negotiating for sugar cake. Old salem was behind us in a flash as we headed to the water fountain on salem lake. The trail on Salem lake was not too bad considering the rain we've had over the recent weeks. We saw fellow autodroppers Kristin and his son on the way and again at the foutain, but they were headed back on the trail and Duane and I went to Reynolda House. We saw some parts of Winston we'd never seen before, not the most scenic parts mind you. Duane got stuck in a little rut in the road and had to pull his foot out quick in order to catch himself and ended up braking his pedal. I unclipped to see what happened and broke my clip. Despite our 1 footed handicaps we pushed on. From Reynolda we went to the quad at wake. We did this mostly off road, Duane the human homing pigeon found a sweet shortcut, we were doing 28mph downhill on grass on our road bikes, embrocation was in full effect. Wake was quick, then we made our way up university to bethabara. We were in Bethabara waiting to get across the 'one way, yeild to traffic' section of road and Duane's tire went out from underneath him in a patch of sand. He caught himself by putting his hand on the window of a car that was waiting. The lady driver was not happy with him borrowing her window in such a manner and jumped out and used some not lady like language, but was soon consoled by the fact that people on bikes are actually still people. Duane recovered from the tongue lashing and we headed up Reynolda to bethania. From bethania we headed to Rural Hall and took a long detour (we got lost a bit), but eventually made it to Frank's pizza. We ate a slice and planned out the rest of our journey. We decided to head to Yadkin River Park, then the mill in Lewisville and back to Bob's. The wind was brutal at this point, not too cold, but fairly windy. We swapped pulls and soon made it to Yadkin River Park, then up Grapevine, to the Mill, then up Country Club all the way back to Bob's. We had done all the checkpoints except for the Tanglewood mansion. We had also tagged quite a few cobble sections (more than what was mentioned above), so we felt pretty good about our chances of winning the local yokel prize. Sure enough, we had gathered enough to come out on top, which I'm pretty sure gives the CLM enough UCI points to take Astana's Licence, but I'm not positive, Pat McQuaid hasn't returned my calls. All in, 4 hours and 50 some odd minutes (we had planned on 3 hours), right at about 68 miles, and one heck of a lot of good memories. It was a great event and the only thing that would have made it better would have been the presence of more of the clmers, you were missed. Congrats to Dr. Brad's team as well for beating the pros and coming out on top of the full Monty version (again more uci points for CLM/Saddleblock...rumours of a merger).

New Ideas for bicycle frame Roundtails

2011-09-27T21:36:00.000-04:00

I saw this from a photo gallery on the Interbike show from this year. Pretty cool.

Check out their website for more pictures and details.

http://roundtail.us/

I got what you need!

2011-09-25T10:49:00.002-04:00

Well I'm coming back into town the day of the autodrop. Unfortunately I won't be able to participate but if all goes well, maybe show up for the after party. That being said I'm currently getting rid of a bunch of my bike inventory and wanted to give you guys the first shot at it before I throw it all on ebay. I haven't taken pictures of the stuff yet but a list will follow and if you want pics just e-mail me and I'll hook it up.

THE LIST:
2011 Zipp 404 Firecrest Tubulars with GP4000s tires glued up----$1800.00
(they are campy now but can be switched)
2010 Campy Chorus Group----$700.00
SRAM Red rear derailleur like new----$195.00
SRAM Red front derailleur braze on like new----$65.00
2011 Cervelo R3 Frameset size 58cm brand new never built up----$2300.00
2011 Cannondale CAAD10 Frameset size 60cm----$750.00
(has been ridden since my last visit)
That's about it right now. I have some brand new Rival parts on ebay right now, The auction on that stuff ends Tuesday. Whatever didn't sell will be added to the list. Since I'm coming it town soon I can just bring whatever down. Let me know if you guys are interested and I can't wait to hear all about the Autodrop. It sounds like so much fun.

CLM 100K 2011

2011-09-24T21:48:00.000-04:00

Putting some feelers out there to see what people think about October 15th for the CLM "oh so close to" 100K. The Autodrop is next weekend, October 1st and I have my 20th High School reunion on the 8th so hopefully the 15th will work out and it won't be too cold by then.

Thoughts?

line in the sand

2011-09-24T18:16:00.002-04:00

I decided to answer Mitch's call for the Hauser time trile. The result was 5:52.47,total distance of 2.62 miles, and average speed 26.7 mph. I wanted to make sure to get in the first time so I could be on top of the leader board at least until someone else gives it a try. So that's the deal, see you guys at the autodrop, i'm looking forward to it.

AUTODROP IS COMING

2011-09-23T07:35:00.001-04:00

Do you have your team yet? The last of the clues come out today.

www.autodropltd.blogspot.com

Next Saturday. October 1st, 10 am.

Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer Challenge

2011-09-18T15:52:00.001-04:00

I was out gallivanting around today on the bicycle and ended up on Hauser Road in Lewisville before heading home. I came from the Shallowford Road direction. About half way down the road I thought this might be a good place to have an open challenge to everybody. There are no prizes and no deadline to the ride.

It's a time trial from Shallowford Road to Williams Road that will take place on Hauser Road in Lewisville. The distance is 2.7 miles give or take a few. The finish line will be as shown in the photo, not the actual stop sign at Williams road, but the sign that points out the "stop ahead". The start will be from a standstill from Shallowford road with your back wheel touching the edge of Shallowford road (disclaimer: please make sure no traffic is coming when your wheel is on the edge of Shallowford)

Here is the link just in case you don't know where it is.
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5090646

I am going to make a page that will permanently be on the blog that will keep track of everyone's time. Please text me or email me your times and I will post them to the blog.

Here is my prediction for initial best time. Given the slight downhill and knowing that Whitney can motor on this type of terrain(not to mention the aero Cervelo) I am putting his name at the top.

Good luck.

Honeymoon Recap

2011-09-15T13:04:00.002-04:00

We are back!

Ann and I went to the Marion/Lake Lure area for our honeymoon. We rented a cabin at Springhouse Farms at it was absolutely beautiful. The cabin was dog-friendly so of course Emmett and Rudder came as well. The cabin is situated on something like 100 acres and there are 5 other cabins. You are secluded and won't see another cabin unless you hike to find them. The property also boasts a main house that the owners (Zee Ann and Arthur) reside in, multiple ponds/lakes, a 2.5 mile hiking trail up a private forest/mountain, a lilly pond equipped with hammocks/benches, a creek, bridges, croquet, and LOTS of privacy. You truly didn't hear anything else except for nature. We did stumble upon a lake and decided to go canoeing with the dogs...we made it and didn't even tip over. Emmett did fall into the lilly pond and got completely wet...at some point of each day he was wet either in the creek or ponds.
We would drive into Lake Lure (30 minutes +) and we hiked two of the days. One day we ventured to Chimney ROck and the pooches enjoyed that. Most days we relaxed and had a great time cooking meals together (grilling steak, barbeque chicken, and hamburgers.
The cabin was great and there was NO TV RECEPTION (Awesome). We had satellite radio but that was it. Our phones didn't even have reception so it was a nice change to unplug and unwind,
I highly recommend the cabins for relaxation and a great time. The roads around there would be great to bike on.

Autodrop Invitational Team?

2011-09-12T22:39:00.001-04:00

Yo peeps. The first ever Autodrop Invitational is comin up. We gotta rep a CLM team, even if it's a duo. Barry and I would love to see our brothers in orange and black line up. Wish I could do it, but someone has to yell 'Go!' and guard the beer.

Green Light Night on the Monday ride

2011-09-12T21:51:00.001-04:00

What a night it was on the beloved City Loop. There were only 3 of us total. In no particular order......Whitney, Barry and myself. With the days getting shorter we had to be efficient with our pedal strokes tonight. We opted out of going up Petree and going to do some climbing in Westend. Once done climbing we turned left on Reynolda in front of Big Bobs. From there is where the magic started. We had a glory run most likely to never be repeated as long as humans continue to walk this earth. Up Reynolda past Stratford...green light. On past coliseum......green light. Reynolda Village....green. Turned left on polo..green light. We got stopped at Robinhood and at the stoplight down from old Paceline. Long story short. It was an impossible run of green lights tonight. I even made the right turn from Country Club all the way down Jonestown to my street without a single red light.

Here's to more green light nights in our future.

It is official...

2011-09-10T12:37:00.001-04:00

Chancey is married.

Congratulations to Chancey and Ann.

Newest Mafia Mistress joins the fold.

Gripshift returns

2011-09-09T19:28:00.001-04:00

http://www.bikerumor.com/2011/09/09/sram-10-speed-twist-shifters-spied-gripshift-is-back/

Gripshift looks to be making a return. Now people won't be making fun of me anymore. They will think I'm an early adopter of gripshift 2.0.

The Good Life

2011-09-09T12:21:00.001-04:00

It's time to bid farewell to our yearly tandem. Goodby tandem. We will miss you.

Blogger mobile

2011-09-08T17:43:00.001-04:00

Good news, good news. I know the blog has been kind of slllooooowwww lately, but maybe this will help out sometimes. Google finally released an app today(blogger) that allows you to take advantage fully from your phone to post to the blog. Title, pictures, etc. You used to could do this from text message, but not use all the functions. Now you can truly blog on the go. Now if you are out riding somewhere or racing you can do it real time.

2011 Village Volkswagen River Gorge Omnium review

2011-08-30T21:42:00.001-04:00

This past weekend I decided to try another omnium. This time it was back in my beloved Chattanooga. This was the 10th anniversary of the race and I had yet to participate. When I lived in Chattanooga I wasn't racing any so I never gave it a shot. I waited until the last day before registration ended to register to see what the weather was going to hold for the weekend. Luckily things were looking outstanding and before I knew it I was $80 lighter in the wallet. With the race in Chattanooga that gave me a chance to see some old friends and hang out for the weekend and do some bike racing in between lots of food. Not the best preparation for a weekend of racing.

The registration ended at 12 noon on Thursday and I promptly checked out the number of people that were registered. The numbers were big to say the least. There were 99 registered for the crit race, yes, 99. I have raced a couple this year with 70 or so, but 99? That made me a little bit leary, but what can you do?

On to the race. The TT was on Saturday morning. It was only 4.1 miles in length thankfully and I didn't think I would get beat that bad. I was wrestling in my mind whether or not to take Brad's TT bike because in looking at the course profile there was a decent sized climb about 1/2 mile in. Other than that I the course was flat or downhill. Not having any time of the bike I was not real confident in handling downhill, but I really thought the hill was going to be an equalizer between the road and TT bike. Man was I wrong. The climb looked much worse on paper than in person. It would have not been a problem on the TT bike at all. On the first 1/2 mile of flat I obviously wasn't spinning out the compact, but going downhill it would have been nice to have the TT bikes aero qualities and 53 ring. I still would not have come close to top 10, but maybe a little more respectable. I ended up with a 9:46 which landed me in 39th of 47. Ouch. The winning time was 8:16 which also would have won the Cat 3 TT. Next year I will know better.

The crit race was Saturday evening at 5:30 in downtown Chattanooga. After pre-riding the course between races in was pretty clear this was going to be a fast race. Basically a 3 turn course with WIDE open roads. If there was one race I wanted to do good in it was the crit race because I had a couple of friends come and watch that had never seen a crit race before. Too bad I couldn't deliver. I felt good at first, but the race never let up and having gone from the front to the back and hanging on for a while it got to be too much having to brake going in every corner and accelerate out of every corner. There were 77 that ended up starting so you can imagine how long the line was. I should have been closer to the front. Oh well, with 5 laps to go I called it a day. They were going to pull people anyway so I wasn't going to have the motorcycle ref tell me to get off the course. What stinks was that I haven't been dropped from a race since April when I was out of shape, so that pill was hard to swallow. HOWEVER, there is a silver lining to this story. While the race was still going on this guy comes up to me out of the blue and asked how my bike was holding up. I said fine and he asked again how it was holding up. I told him that I didn't really understand what he was talking about. He went straight to inspecting my seat stay and dropout junction on my rear triangle. Look, it's cracked right here. What looks like a paint crack is actually a crack in the frame he said. There were particular problems with that years frames. He was a rep for Cannondale and said that I could probably get a replacement if I took it to the dealer and have them send it back in for inspection. Both of the seat stays are like that so I will probably strip it down and take it in, but I am not hopeful for new frame. So it looks like I may get a new frame before I am 40. Not exactly the way I wanted to go about it.

On to the road race. Even though the frame is supposedly cracked I decided to race anyway. It's probably been like that for a while. The road race profile finally looked like a race for the weekend that I might have a chance to do good. There were 80 riders that lined up at the start and that is always fun with a centerline rule. There was a small neutral start and then it was time to race. The first 10 miles were pretty much rolling. After 10 miles came the first kicker and it really was pretty steep, but short. I never really looked back, but it seemed most people were still there after that hill. At some point we came to a narrow 2 lane road that took a lot of paying attention to with that many people. It was downhill, but not really steep just a nuisance really. The road had no centerline and the pavement was rough and with 79 people I was just ready to get off that road. Finally we arrived at what is referred to as the stair step climb. It's 2 miles in length and does exactly that just that.....stairsteps to the top. Although it was lengthy the pace wasn't really pushed going up and nothing really broke up. I would compare this race to Roan Groan, nobody wants to do anything until the end. We finally turned into Racoon Mountain towards the finish and there was a nasty downhill near the end that scared me to death. The guys at the front just took off and I got in a full tuck position and was still getting left for dead. To make matters worse I experienced the worse case of speed wobbles that I have ever had. I honestly didn't think I was going to get it to stop and thought I was going down. I was able to slow down enough to stop the wobble and made it to the bottom of the hill. The chase was on. I got caught back up with the group and then it was time to finally climb. The final climb is 3 1/2 miles to the top. It was a good climb. I didn't exactly light it up, but I didn't do bad either. I ended up 26th out of 80 to wrap up the season.

Next year it would be a great road trip for the mafia.

Over and out, I have some training to do.

We need to post something new.

2011-08-28T11:52:00.001-04:00

Any ideas?

Check this out!!

2011-08-12T21:46:00.001-04:00

How cool looking is this? This is the next generation Look mountain bike full suspension bike. Anybody want to buy a BMC?

Wednesday Night Ride

2011-08-09T22:05:00.001-04:00

I'm heading out to Clemmon's tomorrow for their Wednesday night ride if anyone wants to join me.

6:00 at Clemmon's bicycles

We all know the route.

Any ride plans for the weekend?

Angel Trialthlon

2011-08-07T14:14:00.000-04:00

Anyone interested in doing the Angels triathlon race this year? It is Sunday September 18th. I have never done a triathlon before and this one is short enough that it might be a good opportunity to give it a shot. I have not truly swam since 2o+years ago and the last time I ran a race was 2007. If I decide to do the race I plan on keeping up my aggressive swim and run training plan right up until race day.

Here is the rundown.

Swim: 300m. 6 laps of the pool
Run: 3.1 miles
Ride: 11 miles

Cost: $60
Team: $100

Capped at 300 participants and there are 128 spots left.

www.angelsfoundation.org

They say it usually fills up before labor day.

Triumphant Return

2011-07-31T19:48:00.002-04:00

Curtis' triumphant return for a City Loop tomorrow. Come on out, we are meeting at the old Paceline shop at 6:30.

2011-07-30T18:40:00.001-04:00

Check barry's blog for some bicycle liquidation items.

www.northstarcycles.blogspot.com

The race that almost was

2011-07-27T21:52:00.000-04:00

I decided that I was going to do the Triad MTB Series series finale at Bur-Mill State Park in Greensboro tonight. I had hoped to get some other people to join in. I have gotten to race only 2 times this year with someone else in attendance, Barry at Boone-Roubaix and Chancey in High Point. I texted Duane knowing that he has his new ride and he texted back that he was in. Sweet. Barry was trying to get his bike dismantled so he could fit it into the Civic and get over to my house. He was able to get it in the car and ready to go. Nice. Everything was set, except for one thing. Barry called me at 4:30 and said the race was next week. It was not to be.

We just rode one lap of Hobby Park and ate burgers at my place.

New Mafia Baby

2011-07-25T22:02:00.000-04:00

Everyone probably knows by now, but we have to make it official by putting it on the blog.

The CLM welcomes their newest member. Fischer Keaton Grant.

Congratulations Erich and Jill!

I haven't seen any pictures of his legs yet so it's too soon to know if he's going to lean towards being a sprinter or a climber.

Xterra Trail Race Report

2011-07-24T18:50:00.004-04:00

Mud, mountain, misery = Damn fun time...

So today I did my first 10k running event. I decided to do an Xterra Trail Run and it was held at Beech Mountain. Beech Mountain is famous for it's summitt finish in the Tour Du Pont from years past. There were probably ~100 people in the race. I had always wanted to do an Xterra event and this one was so close.

The race started at 8:30am so that meant us leaving Lewisville at 5:00 am (yuk). We made it to Beech and registered. The race was put on by Dirty Spokes Inc and those guys did a great job. The trail was well marked and there were 2 water stations on course. At the start we climbed for 1+ mile before we hit the woods. The climb sent me into the red zone (should've trained on some hills) and then the muddy, root-filled trails began. Once onto the trail it was filled with ankle deep mud the entire way. The roots were super slick as it had rained up on Beech the day before. Numerous racers hit the deck but I stayed on two feet throughout. The trails were beautiful and running on the mountain humbles you. There were multiple sections of long, steep climbs followed by rapid, quick descents. Many times you would come out of the wooded trails and be on the side of Beech - amazing views.

I eaded back into the town of Beech after the wooded trails and down the ski slope. The finish line banner was a welcome sight to see. My legs were burning but the blisters on my feet were killing me. It was the quick stepping, watching each foot placement, sliding in mud that did my feet in. Coming down the finishing straight Payton and Ann had made me a sign - too funny.

It was a blast. Highly recommend an Xterra events!

Triad MTB Series - Tanglewood Race #2 Report

2011-07-23T21:23:00.000-04:00

I am really enjoying these Wednesday night races that are being put on around the triad this year. So far I've only gotten to do the Hobby Park races since they are close. They are planning on doing it again next year so I am excited about that. Like I've said before it is a nice break from the road bike every now and then. Seems the only time I ever ride my mountain bike right now is when a race comes around.......I get done with a race hand up the bike and don't pick up the MTB until it's time for the next race. It's ben really hot lately to get on the MTB much and tonight was no exception.

I'll keep this post short. After my crash filled race from 3 weeks ago I figured things couldn't get much worse, injury wise anyway. I have never ridden Tanglewood before and sometimes it's better that way, but other times it would be nice to know what's around the bend. You know what the highlight of the race was again for me.........I was the first person into the woods and again things went south from there. I was in the lead for a while, but instead of getting a gap this time the entire crew was breathing down my neck. At Hobby the derby hill really creates some gaps at the start, but at Tanglewood it was simply a sprint to the woods. When there are so many people that are right on your back wheel all they need to do is wait for a mistake or a small opening to put their front wheel in. There was one section going up a small incline next to a tree where I lost a little traction, slowed down ever so slightly and that is all it took. I got a Mitch sandwich. Guy came to my right and another to my left and with only enough room for 2 bikes I hit the ground, softly this time. In the meantime there were about 4 guys that got stopped. We all got up and pedaled ourselves along through the woods. I will say this about Tanglewood. It is really not hilly at all, but it was somewhat technical. Some reason or another this course tooks it's toll on my upper body a lot more than Hobby does and the constant turns and working the bike was not making my predominantly roadie upper body feel good. By the start of the second lap I was already feeling it. My legs were fine, but my body was not.

Total damage not including physical and mental:

8th out of 11....Ouch....And I was not even close.

Oh well, mama always said there would be days like this.

2011-07-23T14:38:00.001-04:00

CLM finally wins a race today. Thing is that it's nobody that you all have met. It's that time of year for the Kingsport Fun Fest. They have a bike ride named the White Lightning with 2 options 18 mile and 45 mile. My brother in law Marc and our friend Kevin finished 1st and 2nd in the 18 miler wearing the newest CLM kits. Our first official victory.

Monday Night Recovery Race!

2011-07-22T18:02:00.002-04:00

Monday, August 1st I'll be back in town for a few days and wanted to get together with everyone for a good ol' City Loop. We can meet at Paceline at 6:30 and hit it up. I'd love to do just the traditional route with maybe a few hill repeats in West End. I'm really excited, it'll be the first time I've done the city loop since 2009. Hopefully as many of the Mafia as possible can come ride. I'd love to catch up with everyone. I'll see you guys in a week!

-Curtis

Product Review: Boon Inc. Bottle Drying Rack (Grass/White)

2011-07-17T12:46:00.000-04:00

I'm an opportunist, so when I noticed all sorts of 'baby things' taking over my usual 'man spaces' in the casa, I decided to see what use I could make of them. My good buddy Jay Lowe and his wife Courtney gave us this baby bottle drying rack as a very kind gift. It sat on the counter for a few days before the epiphany hit me....it's perfect for bike bottles too!

This has casused some consternation on Jill's part, but I deftly suggested that we get a grass rack for me and one for little Jens and all will be well. The current plan is for her to 'get back to me' on that one, so I'll patiently wait.

Here's the rundown:

Price $17.99
From the manufacturer: "And it's got a sweet, natural presence, like a meadow full of baby deer. Only smaller. And without the deer."
Pros: Minimalist. Green. You don't have to mow it.
Cons: Could get crowded if you're sharing with a newborn. Apparently they use a lot of bottles too.

Running Weekend

2011-07-17T12:26:00.002-04:00

Saturday Night I did Beat the Heat 5k. I tend to run this 5k annually, since alot of people from work do it. I hadn't done any speed work but was hoping to run around 24 minutes. Last year I ran it in 24:00 flat. This year the weather was PERFECT - slightly cool and cloudy. They changed the course slightly and there didn't seem to be as many people. I ended up running the 5K in 24:15 - not too bad but I wish I could have broken the 24 minute mark. Ann ran with me and this was really her first 5k. After her hip surgery of a few years ago she hasn't embarked on too much wt bearing activities so this was a good challenge. She did great and we had a blast.

This morning I ran 5.5 miles at the greenway. Ann did some biking on the greenway and I ran slowly to get some miles in. I am doing an XTERRA 10K trail run up Beech Mountain next weekend. Had a good weekend. Hope everyone got in some biking/running/exercising/stress relief.

Later peeps....

Thursday L'ville Ride.

2011-07-13T21:57:00.001-04:00

Who shall bring it? Post up!

Spy Vid.

2011-07-11T22:03:00.002-04:00

I received this video from distant CLM member Scotty. The note contained within the envelope simply stated, "my friends in Spain helped me launch my music career."

New Race October 1st

2011-07-11T21:30:00.000-04:00

CLM'ers Barry and Erich have taken it upon themselves to put together a new kind of bike race so check it out below.

October 1st, 2011

http://autodropltd.blogspot.com/

Birthday Boy

2011-07-11T21:24:00.000-04:00

A very happy birthday to Brad Jacobs today. If I am not mistaken this is his 40th today. If I am mistaken, please accept my apologies Brad.

I'll hopefully see that number in a couple of years.

Piedmont Triad Omnium 2011 Crit Race and RR

2011-07-10T21:01:00.000-04:00

Crit Race.

So my race on Saturday was at 2:20, the second race of the day. It was set to be 30 minutes long. Having only done this course in the dark it was going to be a welcome change to have it in the day because a few of those corners are quite sketchy. The field size was 69. I don't think I have ever started a race with that many people so I knew that I had to get on the front of the start line so I would not start the race in a hole. The whistle was blown and off went 69 people hoping that they wouldn't wreck and maybe even make a little money. The first few laps were uneventful enough, but crit racing is such a balancing act it's hard to decide exactly where the best place to be is. I ended up pulling a couple of times and no doubt the peloton speed was greatly reduced when I got stuck up front. Going into the 3rd turn pretty early in the race there was a pretty nasty sounding wreck behind me. First I heard the grinding of metal against the asphalt and then the tube blow out. I turned around and looked and saw 2 people going over the curb. Shew!!!! There ended up being 3 wrecks in our race which is kind of strange because I don't ever remember that many when it was dark. Maybe the light was making people to overconfident. Long story short. I was positioned good crossing the line on the last lap and then it happened again.....a swarm of lycra clad, smooth legged men all started to bunch up on the last lap. When it came time to sprint I in fact did not sprint. My legs would not cooperate so I just put my head down and pedaled and hoped for the best. The result was 27th. So far my total point for the omnium sits at 0.

Road Race.

Today's race started at 1:50 under the sun's full force which is always better than the rain. It was going to be a 55 mile affair. I'm not sure how many people were in today's race, but I think the cap was 75 and I'm pretty sure it had to be full. What have we learned from the previous post? Get a good starting spot! I grabbed a good starting spot and off we went. The group was neutral for the first mile then it was game on. As soon as we turned left the hammer was put down and the field was strung out immediately. No double pacelineing here......one long line of 75 people, at least I assume it was I was too afraid to look back. Lap 1 was just like crit racing. Hard for the first 15 minutes to get the field down to a manageable size and then things calmed down a little. The course profile looked worse than actually was. Could be the fact that there were people all around to tow me around. At the start of the 2nd lap I got in with a few guys for a little bit. We were maybe out front for 2 miles or so, then I started following a fellow racer up a hill and before I knew it we were all alone. Not somewhere I want to be with 38 miles to go. I tried to take a water bottle in the feed zone, but couldn't make the grab so I of course reached for the Mountain Dew. Sip, sip, gulp, gulp.....aaahhhhh. I told the other guy good luck and that I was done so I slowed up and waited for the group. They came by and I hooked on with them again. There were several attempts at breakaways, but most were futile. One guy was solo for a long time and was eventually caught and he even was able to stay with the group. We caught him on a climb so I thought he was done for so good job to him. Later on the final lap 2 guys were able to stay away and the rest of us chumps were left for 3rd place. With 1K to go the road was open for double wide sprinting. Only problem was that hardly anybody got in the left lane to give it a go, I suppose it is against our nature to venture in the oncoming lane. I was boxed in on the right, but when the finish line was in site thankfully it opened up a little and so I gave it the ol' Mitch try and sprinted for the line. I think I ended up somewhere around 15th if I were guessing.

I was pleased with the weekend for no other reason than I was able to get out and compete with some like minded people and come home without incident. And that in itself makes it fun.

Good times.

Time Trial - The morning after

2011-07-09T07:15:00.002-04:00

My legs are still aching..........

UPDATE: 9:12 am

Just as I suspected, not good. 29th out of 38 with a time of 38:29. The winner beat me by 4:25 with a time of 34:02.

With no points scored towards the overall omnium I have my work cut out for me.

Piedmont Triad Omnium - Time Trial Review

2011-07-08T21:48:00.000-04:00

Oh......my........goodness. That was hard. As you know I picked up Brad's bike last night and got the wheels on and had it all good to go for tonight's race. When I made it to Davidson County Community College for the start the clouds were looking ominous. And by ominous I mean big time lightning bolts and no rain, but it was coming. I ran up to the tent to get my packet and was greeted by a really long line. Hello long line I said. Then it proceeded to rain, slowly at first, then the big drops. I decided to not be a hero and stand in the rain. My start time was 6:41 so I had about an hour before that. I made it back to the car with minimal water damage and browsed the interwebs on my fancy phone. The rain finally let up and off I went to the registration tent. Once all was said and done it was about 6:05 so I wasn't going to feel pressured to get everything ready like I had previously anticipated. Number pinned, official City Loop Mafia team gear, helmet, glasses, peppermint pattie.......check.

Timet to warm up. I still had not officially ridden the TT bike. It was 6:12 and I decided to put the bike on my trainer and warm up for 10 minutes. Everything was shifting smoothly and so here I was set for my first TT experience. By the time I started the rain was done for about 30 minutes and no threat of anymore. The start went smoothly except when my countdown was at 5 seconds to go. The ref asked if I wanted my glasses out of my helmet. Ahhh man. I grabbed them really quick out of the helment holes and put them into my hand until I got going. Glasses in place on my nose and on top of my ears and it was time to get in the the classic time trail position. I was surprised, it was really quite comfortable. I didn't have an odometer hooked up so I was just going to be judging my effort by time gone by on the watch. They for some reason added another 1.5 miles to the total so I figured it was going to take me 35-40 minutes. Starting out for the first 5 minutes I could tell it was going to be a long race. We were separated by 30 second intervals and I was just hoping no one would catch me. It only took 8 minutes and it was a junior who passed me. Dern. Oh well. Hopefully no more. At first I thought it was going to be a somewhat flat ride, but it was quite the opposite. There were some annoying climbs that were really painful. I just kept telling myself that all I needed to ride was 40 minutes. I would occasionally look behind me to see if anyone else was catching up.....nope. That's good. I would wait until I could see a long way behind me to get a good feel if someone was close. Still nobody, so I was feeling good.
Getting close to the end I was passed by 2 guys seemingly out of nowhere. I still don't know where they came from. Oh well, that was a blow to the head. Finally the 1K to go sign showed itself to my eyes and a welcome site it was. I crossed the line in about 40 minutes or so. Nothing to write home about, but in a way I guess I did because my dad reads the blog. I was hoping to get a top 10 at least, but I'm afraid I was nowhere close. I overheard someone that got a time of 32 minutes I think. I hope I misunderstood because if that's the case I'm in for a long weekend of racing. I will know the official results in the morning.

Thanks again to Brad for letting my borrow his bike. I told him that although the bike didn't turn me into Fabian I am sure it helped me take at least 2 minutes or more off my time.

Crit race tomorrow.

2011-07-07T21:17:00.001-04:00

Brad was kind enough to loan me his tt bike for tomorrow's race. Now I really don't have any excuses. It is the perfect size for me. The only thing I needed to adjust was the right rear brake pad.

Should be a fun experience. I've never ridden a tt bike and I still haven't ridden this one.

Good times.

Piedmont Triad Omnium

2011-07-06T21:58:00.000-04:00

Anyone interested in doing some racing this weekend?

I'm planning on doing the entire omnium this weekend.

The time trial is Friday and I will be leaving about 4:30 if anyone wants to go. The crit race is at 2 or so on Saturday and the Road Race is Sunday about 2 as well.

Let me know if anyone wants to go.

Product Review - Giro LTZ glove

2011-07-04T17:33:00.000-04:00

I bought these gloves a couple of months ago after deciding that the orange CLM gloves were not going to match the new kit. It's all about how you look after all. I like to ride with gloves and I have noticed that there are quite a few people that don't ride with gloves. I have gone down on the road enough times to convince myself that gloves are a good thing. Not only do they give you something to wipe the sweat away from your brow, they provide you with some protection from road rash should a rabid raccoon run out in front of the peloton and destroy a perfectly good day on the bike.

Typically I ride with gloves that have a fair amount of padding on the palms. I decided with my next pair of gloves that I would take the minimalist approach and look for some thin lightweight gloves. Enter the Giro LTZ gloves. The LTZ stands for "Less Than Zero". I absolutely love these gloves. The provide just enough cushioning to take the sting out of barehanding the bars and they still have a brow wiper on the thumbs. I highly recommend to anyone who wants a thin, light glove.

The don's overview:

Positives:

1. lightweight

2. good sweat wiper

3. just enough cushioning

4. snug fit

5. look good

6. price - $29.99

Negatives:

1. snug fit - I suggest buying a size larger than normal if you don't want your wife helping you out of these gloves.

2. The stitching where the band meets the wrist is starting to come unravelled a little. It doesn't affect the palm area at all, but I do wonder how much longer it can hold on. This could be attributed to the glove being so small and the way that I pull it off.

Hobby Park Wednesday Night Training Race

2011-07-01T20:02:00.000-04:00

Wednesday night I decided to head out to Hobby Park to try my hand at racing again. The summer training series they are having this year is a good alternative to the road routine. Unfortunately, the only one that I have been able to attend has been the 2 Hobby Park races. I plan on doing the Tanglewood and final Bur-Mill Park race if anyone wants to attend them with me.

On to the report. The race starts at the end of the model airplane runway and heads up the derby hill. This time around they were offering a hole shot award for the first one to the top. I have been feeling pretty good lately so I was wondering whether it would be worth it to try for the hole shot or save it for the race. It was kind of like going for a prime in a crit race....what to do, what to do? The one good thing about the hole shot it was there was actually a prize. If you won the race all you get is a medal. The race started uneventful enough and I was at the front of the group because I figured if I the opportunity presented itself I might try for the hole shot. 5...4...3...2..1....go. Off we went. One guy took off like his life depended on it. He had the lead until the about 1/3 of the way up the hill. I was in good position and decided to give it a go because no one was coming around. Before I knew it I was the first to the pole....yee-haw. The report should end here because the rest of the race was not pretty. It was all down hill from there.

I was in first place for a while and was feeling pretty good, but was suffering so I didn't know how long I could hold it. I held it for about 40% of the first lap and then a root reared it's ugly head and knocked me over. Boy did it ever. I fell hard on my right side. Mud under my glasses too. I got up, got my bearings about me and mounted up again. Too bad my handlebars were turned on the stem. Unmounted voluntarily this time. Straightened the handlebars again. In the meantime I was getting freight trained by racers. Finally I was rolling again. I was starting to get back in the groove again and it happened again. Down I went and this time hard on my left side. This was all still on the first lap. What gives? At this point it was time to just ride it in with the holiday weekend coming up.

Fortunately I didn't get hurt and I am looking forward to the next race at Tanglewood. Come join me.

A few parting pictures. I will spare you the images of the strawberry's on both sides of my quads.

A $10 Salsarita's gift card made it all worth while.

Monday Night Ride

2011-06-27T21:53:00.000-04:00

Tonight's ride was a good one. We have changed things up a little the past 2 weeks. This week we decided to do the route the old way. Down Peacehaven first and the finish up down the home stretch on Country Club towards Southfork from Downtown. We took it pretty easy until we reached Petree, this was a special request on Cisco's behalf. After all, who can say no to a guy who's leaving us in a month? The pace up Petree was a good one. Our fastest up it all year, oh wait. This was our first time up Petree on the Monday ride this year so by default it was the fastest.

After that we took it easy until we got to West End to do our climbing routine. Cisco again was the instigator. Most of us seem to save ourselves for a couple of climbs, but Cisco doesn't believe in that. He attacks them all with a zest as only the young can do. He absolutely laid the hammer down on the way up Broad and left my legs on fire. Not just a starter fire, but a bonfire. We did a few more climbs in West End and decided to take a new route home. We rode up Hawthorne past the hospital and to Miller Street. Down Miller Street to the stop light past Panera. All but 2 of us waited at the stop light. Jim Martin and Whitney waited at the top of hill for the light to change. Guess what happened? They blew by us on the way back up Miller towards the Animal Shelter. At this point Cisco said his goodbye's.

Barry, Erich, Whitney, Scott Morris, Jim Martin and myself headed down Country Club in a 5 man paceline. With this group I knew it was not going to be easy. I know we have had some fast runs coming down Peacehaven this year, but I think this was the hardest of the year so far.

Anyway, I think a good time was had by all and we all made it home safely.

NoSpeed Pilot Mtn Time Trial Report

2011-06-23T18:07:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday night, MOB hosted (at least as far as I know) the first organized TT up Pilot Mountain. I hemmed and hawed on this one for a few days but finally signed up on Tuesday afternoon. 15 riders were on the ledger, which was ok as the park limited the field to 30 over traffic concerns. Thunderclouds loomed in the distance as we approached, and rain was a definite possibility.

Jill dropped me off at Pinnacle so I could ride over to Pilot as a warm up for my 6:40pm start. The start was set for the park gate (at the very bottom) with the finish at the parking lot gate near the top. I really like to start from the ranger station, but they weren't having any of that.

In no time, it was time to hit it. As Zach counted off the seconds, I did begin to wonder what in the world I was doing - did I really want to suffer like a dog for a little less than 20 minutes after a long day at work?

Yes.

Off we go and within no time my heartrate is nearly maxed. I moved pretty quickly to the first steep section and then just tried to keep the needle pinned. All the while, the skies darkened. Just as I hit the steepest section (you know the right turn I'm talking about) the skies opened up. I have to say it was welcome relief from the the heat and hey, if you're going to have that much humidity you might was well get some rain.

Thus cooled, I motored on to the flattish last 3rd of the ride. Here I was up and out of the saddle quite a bit, trying to squeeze every bit of speed I could out of my burning legs. From somewhere down deep I received a note of concern form my heart, asking me if I was sure about this...

Into the last corner and I was just begging to see the finish line. My Garmin clicked past 15 minutes as I entered that last corner, so I scrambled out of the saddle and in the drops to get across the line.

Official time is 15:18, which landed me 2nd in the B group and is definitely my best time up the hill by about 2 minutes. Kudos to MOB for putting on a cool TT on our local icon. I hope they'll do that again next year in connection with their TT series.

Weekend wrap up

2011-06-21T21:44:00.000-04:00

Well after having to drive to New Jersey on Monday and do a few store installs up there it was time to head back to North Carolina on Thursday. We drove part way back on Wednesday night and stayed the night in Mechanicsburg, PA. Left Thursday morning at 6:30 and got back to Winston about 2. Had to unload things at work and catch up on some stuff. Then it was home to hang out with Amy for a couple of hours before heading to Kingsport to my parents. Finally got home to mom and dads around 11:00. Total damage. 6 states in 1 day and one very tired Mitch.

Friday Mom, Dad and myself were going hiking in the smokies to spend the night on Mt. Leconte. There was a group of 14 including us from my parents church that spend the night up there. This was my mom and dad's 25th year of doing this and mine and my sister's first. I have hiked it once, but never spent the night. There are several trails up to the top of Mt. Leconte. We took the shorter one, but it is also the steepest and rockiest. Alum Cave trail. Below are some pictures.

Made it to the top. 6500 ft.

Saturday Morning.

The Cave.

Sunset

Now on to Rob's wedding day. This was the moment that has been coming for a long time and it seemed like it would never get here. I'm sure it has been a longer time coming for Rob. I have to say that never in my life have I been to a wedding where the bride and groom seemed to be truly enjoying themselves in the moment. Rob's kids sang a song during the ceremony that was awesome. We were up in the balcony waiting on the bride to come down the aisle and lo and behold she popped out right next to us. Talk about priority seating.

Erich had the responsibility of getting the tandem to the wedding and do you think that he and Barry could resist and quick spin on it?

Poor Amy, she was dateless.

Cake time.

The wedding and reception were great. My only regret was not seeing them ride off on the tandem.

Monday Night Ride.

Everyone seemed to have something going on except for Barry, Erich and myself. We left from Southfork and set out a path on our own. We headed old school and went to Lewisville, then left on Dull, then the old Monday route. Then Concord church road, back to Shallowford, then towards Grapevine. Loaded up on water bottles at the square and then down towards Cycletherapy and closed it out with a run up Alamo. We need to duplicate this route one Monday to shake things up.

Until next week.

TNPMTT

2011-06-19T22:06:00.002-04:00

Of course I am referring to the MOB-sponsored event which is now less than 48 hours away. I've never actually tried to go full gas up that serpentine road, so it should be interesting. Anybody else wanna pay homage to our local landmark? Break out the CLM kits and represent at the tuesday night pilot mtn time trial (I think they are calling it something else though).

2011-06-19T19:36:00.001-04:00

Rob is officially married. Congratulations.

Friday Ride?

2011-06-15T20:10:00.003-04:00

Gents, and Ladies. Porter and I are going to meet up at Traphill Elementary on Friday morning at 8AM. We will be riding the new Hurt, Pain, and Agony route that is 73 miles with about 7k feet of climbing. More company would be helpful, and appreciated, especially since 73 miles seems like a lofty goal right now. Post up, and we can share a ride!

And...just for good measure, Rob and Erich from a preride last year:

What a family!

2011-06-14T07:44:00.002-04:00

It was the start of a great MNR! What a great thing to set out with you fellas on two wheels of pain.

And it was not to be.

My Father-in-law had an 11 y/o kid run out in front of him on I-40 business -- right near Lowery street. John (my 10 y/o) was in the car with them and saw the kid hit the windshield and then the pavement -- he was talking about it non-stop -- which is good.

So far we know that the 11y/o has no life threatening injuries! So that is terrific -- John said he started praying immediately and was so glad to hear the boy talk before he got in the ambulance.

So, that turned out OK and traumatic.

But I thank you brothers for supporting me right where I am.

I can't wait to ride with you again.

2011-06-13T23:28:00.001-04:00

My Monday night ride.

Rob's Ride tomorrow

2011-06-12T19:57:00.001-04:00

I texted Rob and he said that he will be on the ride tomorrow so long as the weather holds out. Tomorrow should be good according to Austin from Wxii12. I know that I was planning on having everybody over afterwards to have a little pizza and general banter with the soon to be newlywed, but alas work calls and I will not be able to do it. I have to go to New Jersey tomorrow through Thursday for work so unless you fellers want to come to Jersey after the ride.........anyway. I hate I'm going to miss it because I was looking forward to this since Rob said June 13th for Papa John's Monday Mania.

So ride hard tomorrow and send him off in style for his last Monday ride as a single man.

Salem Lake Info

2011-06-12T13:37:00.002-04:00

They are going to be working on the trail around Salem lake beginning Monday. Trail work will be Mon-thurs. You can call Salem Lake's office and see which portion of the trail will be closed. The trail should be open on wk ends.

FYI.

Are those Bell's I hear?

2011-06-08T00:31:00.002-04:00

The bells are rapidly approaching! I am somewhat lamenting missing that Pilot Mountain TT -- but I will be with my bride at that point -- and I won't be thinking of you guys riding your bikes -- so good luck for then NOW.

In any case -- I am needing some help from my brothers! Mostly on the day of the party -- June 18th!

I truly hope all can come -- and I hope you can help me out with manpower!

I have to get tables and chairs set up -- they come from my church -- I think 30 tables and the chairs to go with them -- so I'll need trucks and hands!

There are also some creative ways to hang lights there -- I need to come up with some idea for poles for the lights to hang from -- but that detail I'll get more solid after I talk with the planner we know.

I know it sounds vague -- I don't want it to interfere with any riding plans anyone has! But I hope anyone who can can help me!

If you can't -- I still want you there!

Pilot Mountain Hill Climb time trial - Tuesday June 21st

2011-06-07T13:01:00.000-04:00

Just got and email from Mock Orange. On Tuesday June 21st (just so happens to be the longest day of the year as far as daylight is concerned) they are having a one time timed time trial up Pilot Mountain.. What a way to celebrate the first day of summer.

The first rider goes off at 6:30 from the gate at the entrance. There is an A, B and women's category. You can go ahead and register online.

All hands on deck people.

Happy Birthday to Cameron

2011-06-07T12:55:00.002-04:00

Not sure how old he is today, but I'm sure it's somewhere between 30 and 40.

Happy Birthday.

Roan Groan 2011 Road Race and Crit - Review

2011-06-05T22:05:00.000-04:00

So this weekend was my annual trip home to do the Roan Groan Road Race and crit. Every year while I am climbing Roan Mountain I ask myself why I do it. Then a couple of hours later as is usual, I am looking forward to next years. With Erich not doing a return trip this year I thought that Barry was going to partake in the festivities with me. No dice. He headed to Charlotte to see Lisa for a poolside retreat.

On to the race report. Not a whole lot to report on really. With this race there are really not any breakaways to speak of because it seems most people want to save their energy for the final climb. And for good reason, it goes on for 7-8 miles. There are a couple of climbs worth noting before you reach Roan and those do whittle the crowd down a little, but for the most part everyone gets to the base of climb together. I was feeling really good this year when we hit the base of the climb. I soon realized it was not to be.......again. The first little pitch is the most difficult to me because everyone is anxious and some people take off. Same thing every year for me. I try my best to hang on at the start, but they always end up riding away from me. I'm sure I could put in a little more effort to stay with them, but I'm pretty sure in the long run I would have paid for it. So I just settle in at my own pace and hope to catch some people who drop off. The climb this year went a lot better than last. Not as far as passing people, but felt stronger. Long story short. I finished 24th out of 44, my usual mid pack finish.

The Cannondale ready for action.

If you look closely, you can see Fletcher in his safe place. It was his first trip to the race and probably his last if he has his way.

Hurting here......

And here.....

......but feeling better here.

If you look closely you can spot my niece.

My mom got a pinata or my early birthday celebration. I couldn't break it. It took an 8 year to do it.

Crit race time. I was looking forward to this crit race because there are 8 turns on this 1K course. I tend to do better on courses with more turns. Here I am testing the turns on the 3rd or 4th lap. I wanted to get out front to test the corners. It lasted until about the finish line, but I had no intention of a breakaway quite simply because I am not a breakaway artist and never will be until I start using the EPO that I bought from Lance Armstrong in the early 2000's.

They were giving out cowbells today. My nephew found it easier to attach it to the back of his hat and shake his head.

My new SPAM cycling socks. My sister and brother in law just got back from Hawaii and this was my gift. Awesome. Look for them at a bike ride near you.

Cade was cowbelling it up.

I knew with this race it was going to be important to stay near the front because of the multiple turns. I did a really good job of positioning myself today which is unusual for me. The laps started to tick down and before I knew it there were 2 laps to go. I was worried that at the start/finish line the swarm would begin. Luckily it must have been strung out enough where that didn't happen. I came to the the line with 1 lap to go in 3rd place and feeling pretty good. I was in perfect position for a good finish. Right before I started to turn left in turn 4...........KA BOOM.....My back tube blew out. Even though my tube blew out I was truly thankful I hadn't started the turn yet AND that I remained upright. Oh well, it was fun. On to the next one.

XTERRA Trail Run

2011-06-05T11:53:00.002-04:00

July 24th is an XTERRA Trail Run at Beech Mtn. It is 10k trail run/race that starts in the town of Beech Mtn but quickly turns into a challenging trail run. The course includes single-track, double-track, obstacles, etc. It looks to be fun and something different. I have been wanting to try an XTERRA type race and this looks cool. Eventually I would like to try the entire XTERRA tri but the trail run would be a good start.

Let me know if anyone is interested.

Powerline...Yo

2011-06-04T12:24:00.004-04:00

Decided to ride Powerline today with Ann and the weather was awesome. We rode from Lewisville and ended riding 38 miles. It was nice to be back on the bike and do a distance over 20 miles. We ended up averaging around 19mph, which isn't too bad with the climbing and lack of road miles in our legs. We saw plenty of cyclists out on the road enjoying a beautiful June weekend.

On the way back in we rode to Cycle Therapy to say hi to Mike and John. The bike shop was slammed and they now carry Focus Bikes...very nice. Hope everyone gets to ride this weekend. Good luck to Mitch at the Roan Groan.

See ya at the MNRR.

2011-05-29T19:08:00.001-04:00

HP Crits Day 2

2011-05-28T22:46:00.002-04:00

Mitchell posted day 1 so here goes for day 2:

Today Mitch and I toed the line for the HP Crits Cat 4 Men's Race. The races today were for the NC State Crit Championships. Our race took place at 5:55PM and we had around 35+ people. The weather was great today and the course was fast. The course was technical and had 6 corners. There really wasn't a hill so the course lent itself to be very fast. We didn't have the wind of Friday night either (not to mention NO RAIN).

I was hoping for a much better performance than Friday's but in all honesty I just want to: stay on two wheels, enjoy the race, try to hang on the back, and maybe help Mitch if I could. Once the race took off I knew I was in trouble, I haven't been riding much at all (1x/week if that) and not really doing any intensity. The race was fast from the gun but I hung on for 5+ laps. I dropped off with 12 laps remaining I think. I regrouped with another cyclist and we took turns pulling. Mitch was riding great and stayed with the group. With 2-3 laps remaining it was evident the group was going to lap us. Once lapped I jumped back on with the group and hung on for the remaining laps. Going into the last corner I backed off cause I didn't want to impede the group plus I was cooked. I saw Mitch and I saw him motioning there was a crash ahead. I heard that awful noise every cyclist hates - bike meeting road. Four cyclist hit the deck. They all looked ok except for bruises, road rash, and messed up equipment. Mitch cruised in with the group and I made it in safely and down a lap.

It was a lot of fun. Despite me not performing well at all this weekend I had a great time. I honestly rode better than I thought I would. It was great to have Ann, the kids, and Amy cheering for us. The course was great and I averaged 24.3mph per my Garmin.

Good times...

2 Race Reports in one post

2011-05-28T07:34:00.000-04:00

Wednesday: Hobby Park Triad MTB Training Series Race 1

With the BMC finally built up and zero rides on it what better way to break a new bike in other than to go enter a race. This would be my second MTB race of the year with the first one ending in a bent chain and only 15 minutes of racing I figured how could it get much worse. I have been looking forward to this series for a while. One, because most of the races are local and two, because they are cheap ($15). It was pretty much the same course that was used for the race back in March so this time I at least knew the race was going to start UP the soap box derby hill. All of the classes started in 2 minute intervals. I was racing sport 35-44 and the 19-44 sport and women started with us as well. We all did 2 laps. On to the start. I knew I was in better shape than for southern cross so why not start a little farther up this time? He said go and before I knew it I was 3rd to the top of the hill and first one in the woods. I remember from the other race that you have to get a good position going into the woods otherwise you are going to be a boxcar hooked to a train for a while. There was a guy behind me for a while and he asked if I was in the 19-34 class. After I got done blushing I said no of course and he went around me. As time went by my legs were feeling good, but my lack of mtb time was starting to catch up with my muscular upper body. My hands hurt, my arms hurt, my shoulder hurt and my lower back was killing me. I did what I could as people started to pick me off. I just kind of settled into a rhythm and knew that if I was hurting they were too. The second lap was better than the first lap. I started to figure out my shifting a little better and just generally figured out the bike. It was making some strange noises towards the end of the race so I better get that checked out. I ended up 3rd in my class so I was happy. If I learned one thing about mountain bike racing it is to get a good start.

Friday: High Point Crit Cat 4/5

The rains came early in the day so for our race it was dry. Chancey came down to race too. That was pleasant surprise to see ol' Chester out displaying his 2011 CLM kit and especially back in the saddle racing again. Our field was pretty good sized field. The course was a long 6 turn course with plenty of wide turns. For how safe the turns were the wind made up for the course being safe. The wind was howling on the course and I know the saying about the wind being in your face no matter which direction you were going and that was definitely true for this race. The only time there was no wind was under the start finish line. There was a long straight on the back and then a 90 degree turn towards the finish. The finish straight was pretty difficult. It was a long drag up a hill then a flat run to the finish. The race was not going to lend itself to a breakaway because of the wind so we will fast forward to the finish. We were all together coming out of the last turn and a huge number of people took off. I didn't think that most of them could hold a sprint for that long, but they sure did. I had nothing for the final sprint and ended up 24th out of 44. Chester finished in 28th. Good times.

Now it's time for the race tonight.

HP

2011-05-27T15:18:00.001-04:00

Who's going down?