Rough goings in May ...

So it's been a while since I posted anything here. Had some time off from racing (didn't do a single organized ride of race since my failed Rapha ride!) But I have been riding as much as I can just the same. I have to admit, though, that it hasn't been all smooth sailing. There have been a bunch of nagging injuries -- my left hand just refuses to feel 100% and the hit I took on my elbow and right side in my crash turned out to be a bit worse than I initially thought and then I took a pretty nasty stem-to-the-knee when my front tire slipped off a rock while I was riding in Philly. And just last week my left hip and lower back tightened up so bad that Dr. Craig, my chiropractor, thought I might have a bulging disc. That one was painful enough to keep me off the bike all last week. I was walking around my office at work hunched over and feeling like Quasimodo. (Luckily, between a few really great adjustments from the good doctor and a couple of yoga stretch classes, I'm feeling much better the last two days!)

But by far the worst thing I've been dealing with this month is asthma brought on by allergies. The pollen in this region has been absolutely ridiculous this year. Every morning, I walk outside to see my black car turned green overnight. Normally, rain does at least something to alleviate the pollen in the air, but not this year. Everyday it seems that it's just raining allergens. And I've had a really bad reaction to it this year. After a few weeks of just breathing it in every time I was outdoors, I started to have these really bad coughing fits that would hit three or four times a night. I went three days without sleeping more than two hours at a time last week. And my lungs were sounding like a broken engine. Now, I was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma last year, but before that I had never had to deal with any chronic issues. This year, it seemed to really escalate. I was using my rescue inhaler two or three times a day this month just to breathe. It finally came to a head this past Friday, when I ended up in the ER in the early evening after my second coughing fit of the day. I got two nebulizer treatments with Albuterol while I was there, and then I was released with prescriptions for a new HFA inhaler and some Prednisone. The nebulizer treatments did wonders on Friday -- I felt like I could breathe normally for the first time in weeks. And I felt pretty good Saturday morning, but I decided to bag a planned ride with Craig just to be on the safe side. Turns out that was probably a good call - I ended up doing my own ride on Sunday afternoon and afterward was coughing and wheezing again. The ER doc had warned me that I might have trouble the first time I exercised after the treatment, so I wasn't too surprised by that, but it kind of sucked. Luckily, it didn't become anything bigger than some wheezing and I was able to sleep okay last night.

One upside to sitting out the ride on Saturday morning was that I finally took the time to clean out the garage. Joanna and I have been living in this house for seven years now and this is probably the first time we've really cleaned out the garage in at least six years. So it was kind of dirty. And, it turns out, we had some squatters living in a few bins over that time -- I found mouse shit everywhere. (So much for the high frequency pest removal device I put in the garage last year.) It took the two of us most of the day, but I was really happy with the result:

The "after" shot - clean, lots of open space ... and absolutely no mouse shit!

The riding wasn't all bad this month -- I did have a few really great evening rides in Wissahickon and Belmont.

 And last Monday, I took the day off to go out to ride the Tussey Mountain Trail near State College. I had been wanting to get out there for along time now, and just decided the time was right for a day off and a road trip.

Early in the day, on the drive out, the weather was threatening and the sky opened up a couple of times in the three hours it took to get to State College

At the base of the Tussey Trail, gearing up for the long, rocky climb

The Tussey Ridge Trail ...

The NMBA beer stop!

At the bottom of the super fun descent off the Tussey Trail

Done and wasted ...

That was a great ride (even if it was kind of the start of my back issues!) I brought my Contour Roam and Canon HD cameras with me to do some filming. That's always a bit of a pain in the ass (especially the Canon) but if it yields decent footage, it can be worth the hassle of all the starts-and-stops. This isn't a great video, but I got some decent footage. I didn't get all that creative with angles or anything -- I basically just used helmet cam and standing camera shots. My favorite part is the descent through the switchbacks. It was such a fun section to ride!

Anyway, I had a great time out there and can't wait to head back and ride some of the other great trails in that region.

I did get out and ride today in Wiss again and felt really good for the first time in a few weeks. I'm still dealing with the effects of the asthma, so I think I'll maybe set up an appointment with my primary this week to see if I need more regular control meds. Until I can get this worked out, I may be out of racing for a bit. I was planning on doing the 12 Hours of Granogue, and I haven't completely decided not to yet, but if my lungs are still shitty I may have to bag that one. The next race I'm registered for isn't until the very end of June (The Six Pack), but I really would like to do Granogue or Stoopid 50 if I can. I'm hoping that I can get this lung thing worked out!

Finally, discounting my whining, Joanna and I had a really fun weekend. We discovered the Prism Brewery (less than a quarter mile from my office!) and then got out for a ride on the 202 Parkway Sunday morning.

The Prism Brewery Taproom!

They make a bunch of really cool beers here!

Finally, after my ride today, we spent some time together outside and then stopped by Molly Maguire's where I tried one of these:

Fruli Belgian Ale made with Strawberries!

Violating Man Law, sure, but this was one great beer!

Anyway, hope everyone had a great long weekend and got to take advantage of some rare awesome weather this year!

N+1 ... SS version!

So I mentioned a week ago in my SSAP post that there was something worth noting in my pre-ride photos.

For the past two years, I've pretty much ridden SS exclusively. It's not that I don't have other bikes. I just prefer the SS now. But the whole reason I've had more than one bike for the past few years was for continuity - mountainbikes break from time to time. It's the nature of the sport. And that includes singelspeeds (which, truth be told, don't break as often but they do break.) And when they do, if that's your preferred ride, it sucks if you have no back-up.

So, even though I've bought two other bikes in the last six months, when I had the chance to pick up a second SS this spring, I jumped at it.

I had it built up at Evolution Pro Bike in Buckingham. Scott built my road bike and my cross bike and I couldn't be happier with those. I knew he was a Niner dealer, and I'd had my eye on a Air 9 Carbon SS for a long time as a possible backup for the Misfit. But when I talked to Scott, he asked if I was hard sold on that or not. The reason, he said, was that even with the new two bolt eccentric bottom bracket, there were still possible issues with creaking (a chronic problem with the old BBs) because of the carbon surrounding the housing. He suggested I consider the steel Sir 9 instead.

Now, I've never had any interest in steel bikes. I hear "steel" and I think "heavy". But Scott hadn't steered me wrong yet, and he convinced me that he could build it up lighter than my current aluminum Misfit. So I went with it.

It took a little while to get the frame (Niner was back-ordered on them until the beginning of April.) In the meantime, we worked out the details on the build. I left a lot of it to Scott's discretion. The one thing  I did want was front squish on this one, so it got a Manitou Tower fork with a lockout (I'm too used to climbing without suspension feedback to go full squish all the time.) As far as the rest, here's the tale of the tape:

Wheels: ZTR Tubeless
Drivetrain: E-13 The Hive single crankset
Brakes: Avid XX HD
Bars: Niner Carbon
Seatpost: Niner Carbon


I went with wider handlebars and no bar ends this time which, coupled with the fork gives the ride a distinctly different feel than the Misfit. Otherwise, the geometry is not that different. One very important difference, though, has been that these wheels have a thru-axle. I never had that (or the tubeless tires, for that matter) before this bike.It really makes a difference you can notice. It's subtle, but it just feels like there's more stability. I would have never thought of asking for a thru-axle, but I'm really glad Scott decided to build it up this way.

So far, I really like the bike overall. It's a fast, snappy ride and the bike just wants to rip through singletrack (not to mention the fact that having the fork has been a blessing for my bad left hand.) I'm pretty much riding it exclusively on the trail for a little while my hand gets better.

So there it is -- my "backup" singlespeed. I'm sure it's the last bike I'll ever need!

Ups and downs at the Rapha Gentlemen's Race ...

Back in March, I got an IM on Facebook from my friend Gary:

Hello folks,
I am looking to put together a ramshackle group of people to do the Rapha Gentlemans Ride May 4th. I helped scope out some of the roads as they are in my neighborhood ... I also have to have a team of 6. I am looking to have a group of people that would be fun to ride with and have a good time on the bike. Information is attached.

Who wants to have some fun and explore the roads I bounce around on?

The idea intrigued me. I've never had any interest in racing on the road - and still don't - but this seemed more like a really fun, hard day in the saddle around some (more or less) local roads. I've known Gary for a long time - in fact, when I lived in Doylestown, he lived right down the road from me. He's a genuine bike guy through and through who knows how to keep it fun. So it didn't take me long to decide: I was in!

I had one issue, though: my road miles for the year were really low. In fact, I think they're probably something on the order of a fifth of what I've done off-road. And since I ride SS, there is definitely a difference in riding one vs. the other. I don't think it's a huge problem - I'd already done a few long rides and races off-road - but as May 4th approached, I have to admit that I wasn't 100% certain how my body would hold up over the course of 130 miles with over 10,000 feet of climbing. But I wasn't about to let that stop me from having fun. 

And, as it turns out, my body wasn't the thing I had to worry about.

Ibis Silk SL

I talked to Gary the day before the ride and he suggested, given the amount of dirt road sections, that if I had access to a set of 25s, I should throw them on instead of my usual 23s. So I stopped by my LBS after work and picked up a set of Specialized Roubaix tires. I had the bike tuned up earlier in the week because I knew the cables were about due for replacement and I figured getting a once over couldn't hurt before a 130 miles anyway. At any rate, I was ready to go by Friday night.

So, bright and early Saturday morning, I was up and out the door to the Rambling Pines Summer Camp in Hopewell, NJ for the start.

One other really cool part of the day was that one of our team members, Josh Fonner, came through with team kits from Giant. That was unreal - as I've referenced a few times, I have a bit of an addiction when it comes to cycling gear. My Twin Six discount gets used pretty often. So I know that team kits aren't a trivial thing -- that kind of generosity is really cool and was very much appreciated.

Our team was set to start at around 8:24, and we started off nice and steady. We kind of rode in a pack for the first five miles, and then when we hit a busier road, we pretty seamlessly fell into a pace line. And on this point, I have to confess something: of all the unknowns of riding in this event, the only one that really worried me was this team element. And don't get me wrong. The other members of our team - Gary, Josh, Jake Davidson, Colin Williams and Scott Helvie - those guys were all really cool and really strong. My concern was with how I'd handle riding in a pack. As I mentioned, I've never been all that much of a roadie, so I can't say I really have much experience riding in a group wheel to wheel. In fact, I almost always ride alone - off-road and on. I was scared that in a group I'd do something stupid and hurt one of my fellow riders. It was definitely something that gave me pause. But in the couple sections where we rode pace together, I guess I either handled it or the other guys did a great job of hiding my ineptitude. Because I never took anyone out and I think I did okay with doing my turn and peeling off without causing too much disruption. 

And to that end, it seems all the things that made me worry before the ride turned out fine. At one point about 30 or so miles in, Gary rolled up next to me and asked how I was doing. As I always do, I replied that my legs felt crappy. They didn't feel great, but the truth is, that's just the kind of rider I am. I've spent the last decade or so turning myself into an endurance racer, and one of the outcomes of that is I don't really start to feel comfortable in the saddle until a good three or four hours in. I notice this on the road even more. So when Gary asked, I really hadn't broken myself in yet. In fact, the first time my legs started to feel opened up was after a really big climb about 45 miles in. I had hopped off the bike to walk a bit because I was concerned about burning as few matches as I could. But when I hopped back on, I oddly started to feel really good. We hit another incline and I was spinning easy and starting to look forward to what was coming up about 20 miles ahead -- the KOM climb. As tough as I figured it would be, I was curious to ride it and see if I could match it. The profile of the course made it look like a knife blade pointing upright, and I'd never ridden that road before. So I was curious to see how I'd do. 

But it wasn't meant to be ...

To understand what happened and why, I need to look back to the first twenty miles, when a seemingly mundane flat tire created a chain reaction that could have killed me if I didn't have one of the luckiest moments of my life.

About 15 miles into the day, I flatted on the first dirt road section. I didn't think that was any big deal. A road bike can flat on dirt roads. So I pulled over and fixed it as quickly as I could. Colin, a really experienced mechanic from Jersey, came back to help but I got it fixed fairly quickly and we were back at it. But then a mile or so later, on a short climb, I suddenly couldn't pedal. I looked at the wheel and couldn't figure out the problem - it seemed the wheel had fallen out of the drops. Colin took a look at it and diagnosed it pretty quickly. Somehow, my wheel was really bent. Maybe it had started out bent after I flatted, and the rest of the dirt road steadily made it worse, but by the time I stopped it was rubbing the stay enough to force the wheel out of the drop. Colin worked on it with a spoke tool to try to re-true it, but it wasn't working. So he decided to deal with it like a mountainbiker and bent it back with his hands and feet. Between that and the spoke wrench, he somehow took enough of the bend out to make it roll again, albeit with a wobble. The one catch was that I had to keep the rear brake dialed out. I figured that was a condition I could live with if it meant I could finish the ride. 

So we continued on. I was trying to be as gentle as I could be on the dirt road sections, and it seemed to be working. I even rode through the creek section without a problem! It was making some noise whenever I'd drop to easier gears, like my 23t or 25t. My solution was to stay out of those gear as much as possible. It made a few of the climbs tough, but at least I was still rolling. After the 20% climb around 45 miles in, we hooked up with another team at a section where the course was blocked for a rider injury (he was being attended by the medics and they had blocked the entrance to the road.) Luckily, Gary knew a way to pick up the course ahead, so we continued on and the other team rode along with us. Once were back on course, we stayed together as we approached the steep descent into Milford NJ on the PA side of the river. I'd ridden up that hill years ago during the Nocamixon century, so maybe I should have been a little smarter about what happened next. As we started along the road leading to the descent, a few of our guys took off and I followed. I went around a few of the guys on the other team and started my descent in the drops. The last few years, I've been getting better at descending (or maybe I'm just heavier so I have more gravity on my side!) So I was flying along at a pretty good pace, and just as we hit the last part of the descent I looked down at my Garmin and saw that I was over 40 mph. But then I looked up and realized I had to slow down if I wanted to make the sharp left turn at the bottom, especially because there was a stone wall right in front of me if I kept going straight. 

And that's when I realized I was in real trouble.

Remember what I said earlier about how I was able to keep going as long as I dialed my brake off? Well, that worked great at speeds below 40. At the speed I was going, I just couldn't sow down enough to make the turn. I realized I was going to - at best - side swipe the wall, which would have certainly broken my leg, or - at worst - well, you can use your imagination there. The physics were against me either way. I'm 160 lbs at my heaviest and that wall was solid rock. Any collision wasn't going to work out in my favor. So I did the only thing I thought I could - I laid it down as I took the turn. But as I did this, I was pulling the brake pretty hard and before I went down I spun almost 180 degrees as my rear tire slid. I hit ground with my ass and elbow pretty hard, and slid a bit along the road and my bike pitched up and hit the wall flat on the non-drive side.

After it was over, I didn't move right away. I just took stock - I could feel my arm was pretty banged up, but my head never hit the ground and I felt okay otherwise. All of the riders who were behind me stopped to help and they hollered for my teammates to come back as well. Scott and Gary had been ahead, and they came back. Everyone asked me if I was okay - Gary noticed my arm and I told him it was fine (even though there was already a pretty big egg on the elbow.) Colin stopped and examined my bike. I asked him if the wheel was okay, and he said it was but that I had another problem: I'd cracked the frame on the non-drive side stay.

Since the frame is carbon, any break is catastrophic. And when I grab this, it has the squishy feeling laterally that always makes me sick. I've had a carbon frame break before, so I know that sound. In this case, it meant the end of my day.

But now you can see what I mean when I said I was lucky. I wish I had a picture of that turn and where I went down. This crash really could have been much, much worse. I hit the ground pretty hard, but I walked away from it with just a few bumps and scrapes. My elbow is pretty swollen and purple, but I don't think anything was broken other than my bike. And while that's annoying and inconvenient, I'd rather have that than a bike that works fine and broken legs or worse.

My elbow a day later

The total of my injuries were the elbow and a bunch of bruises all over my legs with some road rash. Not too bad all things considered. I was disappointed that I didn't get to finish the ride, but I did get to spend the rest of the day with Janine and Christine, Gary and Josh's significant others, so that was a nice consolation! And I did hang around to see our team finish the ride, too, which I really wanted to do.

For the time I was out there, I had a really great time with these guys. They're all really strong riders and fun guys to be around. They showed a stubborn old single speeder that hitting the road can be just as fun as riding off road if you surround yourself with really cool people! I can't thank Gary enough for letting me be a part of his team!

SSAP 2013: Knifing my way through a gun fight ...

Photo courtesy GT Luke

This weekend, I headed up to Newburgh, NY for the 5th annual Singlespeed-a-palooza. SSAP is one of my favorite events of the year. It's got everything you could want in a race: great vibe, great crowd, great course, great after-party and, of course, a mid-race beer stop. This would be the third time I'd line up for it and the first time I'd be in the open class. The last two years, I competed int he NJ & South division and finished 6th in 2011 and then 5th in 2012, so I figured it was time to try my luck in the open class.

Because I was going to be racing open, I knew it was going to be a hard race. I figured that if I could manage to finish near the top thirty (out of 112), I'd be over the moon. Coming in, I thought that was a conservative and reasonable goal to shoot for.

Turns out, my "conservative" goal was actually way beyond my reach. Well, maybe "way beyond" is a bit of an exaggeration. But not much. What really happened is that I learned a few things about racing this weekend.

On Saturday morning, I drove up to NY to pre-ride the course. This year, the guys from Darkhorse threw a curveball at us in the course design. The previous four editions were two lap races with each lap being 12 miles. This year, the lap was one 25 mile loop around Stewart Forest. Since I've raced here a few times now (twice at SSAP, twice at the Stewart Super Six Pack, and once in the Darkhorse 40), I knew the basic layout of the park. What I didn't know is which trails would be included this year, and that can be a big deal because Stewart has a little of everything to throw at you (and that's one of the reasons I love the venue.)

The course started with a couple miles of fire road, followed by a quick turn into the woods for a climb up a section called "Major Mike". Its actually a series of short climbs through a rocky and rooty section of singletrack. After that, the course alternated between fast and twisty singletrack, more fire roads, and a few short punchy climbs.

Almost the entire course was hard-packed and very fast

There were quite a few fire road sections, and these would ultimately be the death of me

Stewart is a beautiful park and the 2013 course 

The '46 Ford was the warning sign for the steepest climb of the day

Robertson was the last section before we hit the home stretch on the repeat fire road

I loved the course after the ride -- super fast and a little of everything -- but I was starting to worry about my choice of gear. The 32:18 I was running seemed a bit light given the amount of fire road and flat sections of trail. I was concerned that I was going to be spinning myself into oblivion from the start. Turns out that was anxiety well-placed.

After the pre-ride, I had a relaxing evening in my hotel with my feet up. I fell asleep pretty early, but then I had kind of a rough night. I woke up a few times with a bad stomach. It wasn't nerves -- I was really relaxed about the race this year since I wasn't planning on being all that competitive. I just think I was having some residual problems from the weak stomach I'd had earlier in the week. Eventually, i did get back to sleep, but when I woke up Sunday morning, I was feeling a bit weak and tired. I shook it off, ate a quick breakfast in the hotel and headed over to the venue.

A few minutes after I arrived, I ran into Mitch and Chris from NJ as I was spinning my legs out. We got together and headed out to pre-ride the finishing climb. I felt pretty good going up the Schofield climb, and figured maybe my gear and my body would be okay after all. Feeling pretty good, I lined up in the middle of the pack at the start line. The "mayor" gave us a few pre-race announcements and then told us to get ready to go.

And then we were off.

Holy shit. The open class was fast. Right off the start, we headed up the fire road at a ridiculous pace, and I almost instantly realized it was going to be a tough day. I was on the edge just trying to stay in contact. I was spinning my small gear at like 150 rpms. It was unsustainable. I prayed for the race to settle down into its natural order and that was lesson number one for the day: in the open class, it never settles down. The fire road turned upward, and everyone just kept moving at that same ridiculous pace. I was able to roll past a few because my gear was helpful on the steeper sections, but for the most part I was just trying to hold onto the reins of a runaway horse. Oh -- and I was also swallowing about a ton of road dust that was being kicked up by all the riders ahead of me. In previous years, I was lucky enough to get off the front early to stay clear of the dust and muck. This year? I sat in and ate all the dust from everyone else. And tried to stay fast while I did it. Not a great combination.

I managed to survive somewhere in the top half of the field as we hit the turn into Major Mike, and then I actually ended up reeling in a few riders on the climbs. But once the climbs ended, they took off and I started sliding backward. Mitch, Chris, and Norm from NJ all came around me and gapped me in short order on the flat. I just couldn't keep a cadence that would have been necessary to reel them back. I was not five miles into the race yet, and I knew already that I was in trouble. I actually felt really good physically -- my stomach seemed to settle, and my only real physical issue seemed to be that I was hacking up more soot and dust than a 19th century chimney sweep. But I was recovering my HR and breathing okay all things considered, and while my legs felt a little sluggish, I can't say that I was struggling physically. What I was doing was losing lots of ground despite feeling like I was moving pretty fast (for me.) And that's really the biggest lesson I learned all day -- having the right tools for the job is very important against really fast racers. My 32:18 works great in places like Wissahickon, where there's enough up to make it worthwhile to have a gear that can be turned over on climbs. But when the majority of the course is flat with long sections of fire road, to be respectable against a field like SSAP, I need to push that rear cog up at least a tooth or two. The fact is, speed hurts, and my top end speed, after years of focusing on endurance races, is not really that high. But if it's going to hurt to go fast, I might as well do it with a bigger gear and at least have a shot at being higher up in the field.

I spent most of the day moving backwards through the field despite keeping the hammer down, Honestly, as opposed to some other days when I've been disappointed by how I performed physically, Sunday felt like a pretty good day. I just didn't have the top end speed that a lot of other guys had. Part of that was the gear, and part of it is just that I have a lot of improvement needed to be competitive in that kind of event against that kind of competition. And that's cool. I know where I stand and there's plenty of room for improvement. I tip my helmet to the guys who ran sub 1:45 on the day.  That's fast as hell for 25 miles. I thought I moved pretty well and finished in under two hours. I finished right around 65 or so out of 112, which is nowhere near where I'd hoped, but considering just how big a difference there is between the sport and the open class, I think it's less a disappointment than a recognition that my eyes were bigger than my legs coming into this weekend.

And besides, based on the finishes, if I had shaved about 6 minutes or so off my time, I'd be in the 30's. It was that close between those spots. I think that is a realistic goal for next year. And I most certainly will be back for next year, too. This race is just too much fun and I just enjoy riding with these folks way too much to miss it.

One more thing before I sign off: keen eyes may notice something worth noting in my photos. I'll get to that in my next post because it really deserves its own recognition ...

Leesburg Bakers Dozen: Chainless Days, Flat tires and so ... much ... cow poo ... (Part III)

Photo Credit: Jim Smith

Part I
Part II

So 3 laps into the day, I was feeling really good. I'd gotten a mechanical out of the way after repairing my rear flat and I was pushing the pace without feeling like I was burning myself out at all. Everything seemed to be moving pretty well and I was feeling like my legs were barely working.

To be clear, I was definitely burning a lot of effort and while I was feeling pretty strong, it was pretty apparent to me that I was going to have to stay on top of everything to keep it that way. My nutrition plan seemed to be working pretty well. I'd decided to alternate with a three scoop bottle of Perpetuem one lap and a bottle of water the next, and take in 5 Endurolytes every two hours. If I got hungry, I had a whole bunch of Chocolate Brownie Clif Bars for more solid food and a dozen or so gels. So I felt like I had enough food and fuel to keep me going for the whole day. But the day itself was pretty hot so I was sweating a lot. In fact, at one point around 3 or 4 pm I reached up to wipe my eyes under my sunglasses and my face felt gritty. When I looked at my glove, there were white streaks on it from the salt that I was sweating out and my jerseys had white streaks all over it. And once or twice I felt little twinges in my legs as the effort started to wear on me. I specifically recall lap eight and lap ten being more difficult. I was taking some Alleve for my hand every five hours or so, and I think that also helped stave off cramps. But aside from those few very minor aches, I really had no physical issues all day. And that's very rare for me.

What I did have was mechanicals.  Or I should say "flats". Five of them to be exact. All the rear tire. And I know - the first thing that comes to mind at the idea of five flats is that I must have missed something stuck in the tire. But I really didn't. I just had some bad luck with pinch flats all day. I thoroughly checked the tire each time. And there really was nothing I could find in there. It was kind of a pain in the ass, because, like I said, it was the rear tire every time, which meant I had to pull out my hex wrench and remove it each time rather than pop a quick release. I was able to change the tire pretty quickly each time, but re-setting the wheel and then pumping it up ended up taking some time after a few flats. This was because I had 3 CO2 cartridges and four tubes for the day (who plans on more than four flats? Who plans on even four flats?) When I got the second flat, I realized I'd forgotten to replace the CO2 in my saddle bag, which meant I had to use my hand pump. You don't realize how much time you save using CO2 until you don't have it. Using a hand pump felt like I'd gone back to the stone age. It easily took me an extra five minutes to pump up the tire on that lap.

I'd say that this was a very frustrating part of the day, but to be honest, I just kind of took it as it came. I was really just enjoying the day our there, and given that I was feeling really good when I was actually riding, I wasn't feeling a ton of pressure to fix each one super fast. Of course, I'd have been happier to have no flats at all, or if each one took only seconds to fix, but since that wasn't an option, I just took what came and tried to get going as soon as possible again without stressing it.

My second flat occurred after I bounced over some roots on lap 4. The third one was more subtle -- a slow leak I noticed when the tire started feeling soft after the technical root section one lap later. The fourth occurred in the short rocky climb after the first boulder crossing about 3 miles into lap 10, and then my last one was the only non-pinch flat of the day, when I caught a thorn coming out of the woods into the pasture section that led to the finish line on lap 14.  I was riding along at a good pace and just as I came out of the woods I heard that unmistakable "pfft ... pfft ... pfft ..." of a tire steadily losing air as it rolled. That one was annoying, because my first thought was that my day was done. I was out of tubes, and my saddle bag had opened a lap or two earlier and I'd lost my hex wrench, tire levers and a chain tool somewhere on the course. I rode the flat across the pasture (earning a few "Oh, that sucks!" from a the riders who came around me) and was all set to shut it down when I reached my pit area when my neighbor in the pit next to me offered me an extra tube they had. I started to say that it didn't matter because I couldn't remove the wheel without my hex wrench, but then I remembered that I'd brought my big set of 48 wrenches with me. I dug into my tool kit and found the right size and suddenly I was back in business. As much as the flat was the low point of my day, finding that wrench was probably a high point. I was so happy to be able to go back out and finish what I'd started. I peeled the tire off with my fingers, swapped out the tube as quickly as I could, pumped it up with the floor pump in my pit and headed out for another lap in the dark.

The laps between the flats were pretty awesome. Between the 5th and 10th lap, I felt like I was really cruising. My lap times were pretty consistent at below 50 minutes and my feeds were going well. I passed a bunch of riders during that time, but had no idea where I was in my field. In fact, until the very end of the race, I never knew where I was. I didn't really want to know until late. I know some riders can draw motivation from knowing where they are and who they are chasing, but I'd rather not know. I like to stay within myself and most of the time when I've ever had success, it was because I just stuck to my own pace and let the cards fall where they may. But I think I probably made up quite a bit of time during those middle laps because I was really moving without going into the red. And even in the later laps, when the flat tires were costing me substantial time as I struggled to fix them with the bare-bones tools I had left, I was still moving very well when I was on the bike.

In fact, the biggest challenge I faced late in the day other than mechanicals was probably the setting sun. It was pretty tough to see in the pine tree grove with my glasses on, but if I took them off, then I'd be blinded for the rest of the course. I figured out pretty quickly that I needed to keep my head down any time I was riding in a westerly direction.

The further I went into the day, the more it dawned on me that I was going to have a decision to make near the end. The rule was that you could start any lap before 10 pm, and the closer I got to that time, the more I realized that even with all the flat tires, I was going to make my 15 laps, and there was a really good chance I'd get 16. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't had to deal with all those mechanicals, I'd have had the option to do a 17th. It would have been close, and most of that lap would have been completed after the 10 pm cutoff, but I'm pretty sure I'd have pulled it off. The one thing I was sure would have a huge impact on my day -- my broken hand -- hadn't really been a factor at all. Sure, there were sections on the course where I had to be careful, like the drop off.

The 1 1/2 foot drop-off was one of the spots I had to be careful given my hand injury
Photo credit: Jon Schneider

But to be honest, the hand never really bothered me all day. It was fatigued afterward, and I was certainly happy to get rid of the wrap I had on it, but during the race it was never an issue.

Anyway, having fixed my last flat after lap 14, I stopped at the scoring tent and asked for the first time all day where I was. I was surprised when the guy said I was in fifth place. I asked how far behind fourth I was and he told me that I was about 10 minutes back. That seemed a tall order to run down in one lap, so I kind of figured that I was going to finish fifth at best (as long as I didn't get passed on that lap.) I started the lap around 9:05 or so, and figured I was going to be pretty close to the 10 o'clock cutoff by the time I finished.

I love riding in the dark, and since I do it so often, my pace doesn't usually slow down too much when the sun goes down. And, without suffering an mechanicals on that last lap, I came in at 51 minutes, not too bad considering I'd been riding for over 120 miles at that point. In fact, as I came out of the woods, I saw two riders in the distance and decided to chase them down. I caught them both in the pasture and noticed that one was a single speeder! I started to think that I had really run down another place in my lat lap, which made me go faster once I passed him by. I raced to the finish line and crossed at 9:58. The promoter told me I could go back out for another lap if I wanted, but figuring I would probably be chasing a ghost trying to run down third, I decided instead to wait for the guy behind me to see what he did. So I sat just past the finish line and watched while he came across. He didn't even consider another lap, pulling off into the pits. At that point, knowing I still had another half hour of breaking down my pit area ahead of me, I decided to shut it down having hit my original goal of 15 laps on the day.

It turns out that the guy I passed was actually further back and I was lapping him when I came around him. The actual fourth place rider had come in a bit before, but he had opted not to do a 16th lap as well. Had I gone back out, I could have taken my time and would have locked up fourth. And if I hadn't had all the flats, I had an outside chance of being on the podium. But I didn't head out again, and I did have all the flats, and I wouldn't know I had a shot at even fourth until the official results were posted two days later. And to be honest, at the time I was really happy to get 15 laps in before the actual cutoff and after 13 hours, I was happy to just stop and break down my pit.

And for the first time all day, I felt like I was ready to sit down.

Epilogue

I sat down and talked with my neighbors in the pit area for a few minutes after I was done. Turns out they had a pretty great day, finishing fourth in a very competitive duo field. After a brief chat about the course and how the day went for each of us, one of them asked me how I could still sit there in my jersey and shorts in the cold. I hadn't noticed, but as soon as he mentioned it, I started to shiver.  I quickly changed into my sweats and broke down my pit areas as quickly as I could, and then I went to see if there was any of the pizzas they'd ordered for everyone were still around, and noticed a guy in a Domino's uniform carrying some pies toward the far end of the pit areas. Seeing a whole bunch of folks converging on his area, I decided to forget about pizza and wait to get something after I got back to my hotel. I wandered over to the finish line to look at the latest printouts but the latest one was form an hour before. I chatted with the winner of my class, Patrick Blair, for a few minutes. It turns out we both ran the same setup - right down to our tires (Maxxis Ikon EXOs) except he ran them tubeless and had no problems and I ... well, didn't. The funny thing about that is that just a few days earlier, I'd had a discussion about how I really never found a compelling enough reason to go tubeless. I guess now I can say I have.

My priorities after the race were (1) a shower and (2) as much food as I could fit down my throat and (3) a tall ice cold hoppy beverage. I took the shower at the hotel, learning that I was pretty badly sunburned on my arms after the full day in the sun. Then I headed out to the Friday's down the street from my hotel and assaulted a double cheeseburger and a 24 ounce Blue Moon. As I ate, I looked around the crowded bar and wondered if any of my fellow patrons had just spent an entire day riding on one gear. I wouldn't find out because there was meat on a bun and beer  in front of me that required my full and undivided attention. I think I ate it all in about two minutes. And after that, I was ready to sleep.

The next morning, I took my time waking up, and then got another terrible breakfast at the hotel before leaving Virginia and heading home. The drive home was pretty long (about 3 hours) and gave me time to process the day before.

Heading home ...

I had an awesome time in Virginia, but something struck me as I was driving -- I was kind of feeling the a bit of a letdown post-race. I wasn't disappointed in the LBD by any stretch, and at the time I wasn't really sure why I was feeling anything other than happy because I definitely was looking forward to getting home and seeing Joanna and The Krame.

"What, you were gone all weekend? I hadn't noticed ..."

But the more I think about it, the more I think it's probably about the sudden, unceremonious end to something I've anxiously anticipated for a long time. As cyclists, we spend a lot of time prepping and building up to these events, and then for most of us, they seem to go by so quickly and then suddenly we're on the other side looking back at them without a plan for what to do next. One solution, I suppose, would be to keep going to races every weekend so we never have that letdown. I guess that could work for a while, but eventually that has to end. And I'm past that point now. So instead, I do something else -- I relive it in places like this blog, and switch my focus from anticipation to appreciation for every opportunity I have to get out and ride, whether they're part of the prep for some coming event or they're a post-race spin at my favorite local trail when I feel no pressure to ride all the time and can stop and chat with a couple of friends I come across while I'm out there.

In the end, LBD was a great experience and I will go back as often as I can. I had an awesome day and rode my singlespeed further than I ever have at one time (almost 130 miles) and I came away happy, tired, and with a bunch of great new cycling memories. And that's about as good as a weekend gets!