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13 janvier A Message To Roadies I have been training in the valley a lot lately and I am greatly disturbed with what I see happening on the multi-purpose trail I love to ride so much. Road bikers supposedly have an etiquette they live by   and that I think it is their excuse for being rude. Well that is all fine and dandy when their on the road but when they chose to ride where other people are I think it sucks! Just so everyone knows multi-purpose means exactly that, when you chose to ride it you have to deal with runners, walker, strollers, children, roller bladders, dogs leashed and unleashed, dogs with 60ft. leashes, other bikes, and mountain bikes, plus who knows what else. Since local roadies make rules governing public roadways I am making some rules over the multi-purpose trails and it doesn't ban anybody. It is really pretty simple " BE NICE" here are some examples       and try to enjoy what we have here instead of being rude to people even if it doesn't fit your so called etiquette. See ya on the trail. 7 janvier Snake Creek Gap So the Snake creek gap has been my first race for three years now! It is also one of the hardest races I do all year. The race is 34 miles and my gps showed 5000 ft. of climbing. The terrain is some of the most brutal I have ever encountered anywhere. You get to the halfway point and then that is when things start to get interesting. I went into this race with high expectations for myself. My goal was to do the race in under 3:10! Everything was going as planned at the 17 mile mark, my time was 1:17 leaving me 1:50 to finish the last 17 miles. The second half is a bit more difficult with some super tricky climbs due to all of the rocks that cludder them! With about 8 miles to go I am riding along feeling good the I-pod giving me good motivation in the techno variety, I tear a sidewall on my front tire and get a flat. Since I have converted to tubeless with stans I have only flated once before in a race. Going against my norm I went into this race prepared with a tube and air. Sweet!! Just as I finish fixing my flat Garth passes me I catch up to him and pass him but not for long. His strength is climbing and he does a great job at the end of this race to drop me and end up with a time of 3:14:30! My finishing time was my best ever 3:16 putting me into second place in the money class behind Thomas Turner(Pro Cannondale rider) his time was 2:50. That guy is an animal!!! This was my first race on the new Mongoose and my new wheelset. The new wheels are the new NoTubes ZTR race 7000 series. This wheelset weighs in at a hefty 1210 grams. To put that into perspective a xtr wheelset is 1530 grams and so is Mavics Crossmax slr, that is 320 grams lighter almost a pound! My Canaan as it sits right now is weighing in at a respectible 23.2 pounds with a full 4 inches of travel front and back. All I can say is that this bike is simply amazing. It climbs like a rocket and the new fox suspension is by far the best I have ever been on. Well all in all it was an awesome weekend with incredible weather, dry and almost 50 degrees. Ohio was representing once again Chip Meek and Rob Krantz both posted incredible times on single speeds to boot, 3:23 and 3:29 I believe first and second in single speed class! Brad Wilhelm and Dave Hall came down for there first ever run at the snake and ended up 5th and 6th in the money class with a 3:26 and a 3:29! John Davis ran his best run to with a 3:34! My girlfriend Lauren did the 17 mile race and ended up 2nd with a time of 2:44 which put her in the middle of all the men who did the 17 mile race, what a badass!! 30 décembre 2008 Canaan Team So my brand new 2008 Canaan Team arrived and boy am I excited! I went out for a 50 mile ride on it yesterday and suffered from the "new bike syndrome"! I averaged 20.2 mph for 48 miles! I am pretty confident that was the fastest time I ever turned on that training route. It is amazing how a new bike can motivate you. The new Canaan is very similar to last year with some great refinements to improve performance and it's durability. They changed the lower pivot by removing the bearings from it and placing them outboard in the frame. With this new design the gained lateral stiffness and bearing life due to a larger bearing, also access to the bearings for replacement is greatly improved. The light blue paint is gone from 07; in its place is a lighter, stronger ball burnished frame that looks amazing and feels better than ever! Helping with the great feel of the bike is the new F100 RLC fork, and the new RP23 shock. Fox has once again outdone themselves with these products! Well the bike showed up just in time for the Snake creek gap in Georgia this coming weekend, I will talk more about that later. We will see how it does in some real world racing. I am posting a couple pics so check them out! I think I am headed to Ray's to ride! 26 décembre Winter Time Well, I know I haven't wrote in a while, but our PC has been on a fritz and it finally died for good. So it's time for a new one. Not much worthy of writing about lately anyway! I have had a hard time staying motivated in the past couple weeks, but I have got out to do a couple good rides in the valley. So I have been running this winter to cross train, usually 5 miles or so. Let me tell you what running is harder than I remember in highschool! I used to run the mile in track and was an ok runner I guess, I think my best mile time was like a 4:54. We had a kid named Jim Zoldac that ran like a 4:20 mile in 10th grade so he repeatedly kicked my ass. Anyway, I give props to anyone who loves running cause they are tough a hell, it's ok but it seems like a very unnatural movement to me. Christmas has come and gone once again. My wonderful girlfriend has completely spoiled me with gifts. She got me a set of Stan's aluminum rotors, a new GIRO Zen helmet, and a bunch of cool clothes. I ate enough food to support my body for at least a month I think. There is always incredible food at Laurens parents house.Yum! 13 décembre Road Trip to AshevilleIt was a cold and snowy day in Cleveland,Oh so we packed up the Element and headed south. As we drive south the snow changes to a steady rain. yuk! We get on 26 towards Asheville and steady turns to pouring. yee haw ! So up the mountain we go, the Element by the way is the ultimate road trip vehicle it has a ton of power. You almost never have to downshift in the mountains and will cruise 80 mph no prob. Well, we get to the top of the mountain and guess what! The rain just stops like I threw a switch. Lauren's two friends from college live right next to the hospital downtown where they are both nurses. We get to their house and get out of the car to 58 degrees and a sky full of stars. Does it really get any better in December? So we head out for some grub at the local Friday's where we get ignored buy the bartender,"so much for southern hospitality". Back to John and Kelly's to get whooped on in Mario cart and several different Wii games. Wow that Wii is super cool! Anyway we get up in the morning to pouring rain, not what the weather man said was gonna happen! WTF? I decide to head for the trail anyway. When we get there we are rewarded with perfect conditions and almost 70 degree temps. We decided to ride in Pisgah on a trail called Trace ridge it was 2.5 miles and 1200ft. of vertical! Hell of a warm up, at the top we missed a turn do to the amount of leaf cover and rode up to the Blue ridge parkway instead. We did a couple miles before we realized we had gone the wrong way. We headed back and found another trail to check out and ended up doing an out and back. My garmin showed over 3000ft. in 8.5 miles. So Sunday night I give my buddy Bruce a call. He works part time at Bio-wheels and owns Pisgahworks.com. We set up a time to meet and ride on Monday and decide on an 4-5 hour ride in Pisgah. Lauren and I head to I-Hop on Monday morning for some breakfast then meet Bruce at his place in downtown Asheville. Bruce pulls out what he will be riding: a full rigid, single speed, 69'er . It's a Jamis dragon with a carbon fork and weighs like 21 pounds. Lightweight or not I think he is a nut! Well, we decide to start out on South Mills River trail and make it only about 3 miles before Bruce gets a flat. He has all the necessary stuff to fix his bike but now we don't have any more air in case something else goes wrong. I know what your thinking , Carson where is your gear? In fine Tim form I did not take anything with me so we have to go back to the car. This time I grab some CO 2 and a tube and then off we go. Back down the shortcut we took to get back to the car, thank god for good trail guides! We get back to Mullinax where Bruce flatted and continue on with our ride. The climbs on this trail system are steep and technical, with tons of big steps and a lot of big rocks to climb over and up. From Mullinax we got on to Squirrel Gap and the trail got really hairy! Steep off camber climbs and decents with roots and rocks galore! Next is Horses Gap and this one is all down hill, thank god cause it was so messed up from horses I don't think we could have rode it up. It was steep and fast and dumped us out by the river trail. The first couple miles by the river were super fun with small rideable creek crossings and rock strewn trails. The last four miles was smooth double track and a really nasty climb back out of the valley to our car. All in all we were on our bikes for about 4 hours, 14.8 miles, and did 3400 ft. of climbing. What a great day on the bike! 7 décembre Snow Tires Rule!! For all you out there that don't believe in how good snow tires work I
am here to tell you otherwise! I recently purchased a set of
Bridgestone Blizzaks and let me tell you what they are down right
amazing! We just recently had our first significant snowfall and I got
to test them on my way to work through rush hour. They have traction on
everything even on ice though it's very limited. I think the traction
in stopping is what surprised me the most it was super impressive. My
car is just front wheel drive, I can hardly imagine what they would do
on allwheel drive vehicles. Any way if you are looking for a set check
out Tirerack.com they have amazing prices on winter tires. I got all 4
tires for under 200 buck delivered to my door!! Let it snow 30 novembre valley ride So work has grinded to a halt for the most part and my day's have been free so I decided to do some mileage yesterday. I pull out of the homestead on Wyandotte and head for the valley strait into a nasty headwind, the weather said 18 degrees with the windchill. yee haw! Well the valley offers some protection so it was better when I got down there. I was pleased with how many people were out in the cold it inspired me to go as farther than I planned. Berea and back was my plan but it turned into an almost 50 mile ride. I think my power output was like 1000 watts the whole ride!!! Just kidding I have know idea what it was but I do know I was tired afterward and at the end I killed hogsback and could still peg my heartrate so thats a good thing. I did have some fun with some roadies on a tandem halfway back though. I am quite sure they thought they were gonna smoke me but I just couldn't let that happen. So much for base miles!! 26 novembre Mohican state forestSo yesterday we headed for Mohican state forest which in my opinion is one of the best trails in the flippin country! The trail totally rocks. Lauren and I meet up with Kelly & Larry and Brad & Christina for an epic sunday ride. It was a little chilly at the start but we warmed up quick. The trail was littered with leaves and lead to mutiple crashes for I think at least the majority. But all in all was a super fun late season ride! |
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