So I was supposed to do the Pauls Dirty 100KM a few weeks ago. I had the best of intentions and even woke up at 4:45am to get ready. Unfortunately I woke up to rain and the forcast of thunderstorms. So I nixed the race and went back to bed!

Leaving tomorrow to head down to the 24 hr world solo championships in Conyers Geogia. Getting pretty excited, especially because it looks like they are filming a full on movie about the race and Chris Eatough trying to win his 7th title. Who knows, maybe I might make it into the movie. It's nice to dream anyways.

Race reports to follow a couple of weeks later cuz we're going to Florida afterwards for a holiday.

Steve

Epic Ride

I went for a an epic 5 hour ride this past weekend. I haven't had so much fun in a long time. I decided to do some exploration on trails I had never done before. To get there I had to ride for about an hour and then go to the trailhead. There were several cars parked but I never saw anyone. The trail started out as ATV double track which was pretty rutted up and full of puddles. Once past this section I came upon the technical track in the Niagara Escarpment. Now I am not one for extremely technical riding but I was committed now so kept going. Things started getting ridiculously rocky but to my amazement I was able to ride about 95% of it. It was liberating! I must have rode this type of trail for about an hour before I came to the section to descend the escarpment. It looked very daunting and I got off my bike to start walking down. Then I started noticing some lines down the steep, boulder strewn, with rocky dropoffs descent. I went back to the top and hopped on the bike and started going down. Much to my amazement I cleaned the whole thing. I was very happy and I owe most of the credit to riding the Asylum 29er. Throughout the whole trail I would just roll over the rocks without a hint of going over the bars or crashing. I am convinced I would have had problems on my old bike and walked much more. It was a real confidence booster. Once I exited that trail I went over to Kelso Conservation Area to check out the Ontario Cup Provincial Championships course but unfortunately it wasn't marked. I did my usual loop and was pretty tired plus I still had to ride home which took over an hour. Got home after the 5 hour ride and my legs were on fire!!! I couldn't even stand so I assume that is the feeling of cramping (never happened to me before). It was painful, but I figured it meant I put in a solid ride. I was supposed to race at the Durham Durango, but I sure am glad I decided to do this epic instead!

24 Hours of Albion Hills

Raced as a tag team at this past weekends 24 Hours of Albion Hills. It was a fairly large race with about 1400 riders in all catagories. Our goal was to do 20 laps which seemed quite achievable at the start of the race. My partner started out first and turned in a pretty fast 1 hour lap. I went out and suffered a little bit on my first lap. I always do as my body gets used to the riding (read: no warmup) but turned in a respectable 1:03. My partner did one more lap and then I went out for a double lap so he could watch his son in the kids race. The 2nd lap of the double was a bit crummy but I was looking forward to my 2 hour break to eat and rest for awhile. When my partner got back from his double he didn't look too good. He said he wasn't feeling good and was going to stop. I went out and did my next lap (1st night lap) and when I returned he wasn't at our transition area. I rode back to our pit to find him in his street clothes. He was done. I lost motivation after that and took a long break. I was on my own for the rest of the race so decided to wait until morning to go out again. I put in a few more laps and felt pretty good, finishing with a fairly strong last lap. Needless to say we didn't do well but I still had fun and felt good for most of the race. The course was very tough with a lot of climbing involved. The other big problem was it was very sandy due to no rain for a long time. It created really bad ruts on the tight switchback downhills which became difficult to manage at night as it was hard to see them well.

Next race is Pauls 100km in September. I hope to break 8 hours (would be record for me) so I better start working on my climbing again because there is a lot of it on this course.

Steve

24 hours of Albion Hills coming up

The next 24 hour is coming at Albion Hills on Aug 19/20. Doing this race as a tag team just to mix things up a little bit. Pre-rode the course today doing 2 laps to see what things were like. Pretty good, much different than the June course. Tons of climbing. Should be fun.

Haven't done much riding the past week due to a family camping trip but did a fair bit the weeks prior. My climbing on the road has gotten much better but for some reason it doesn't translate that well onto the trails. Not sure why....probably the style of climbing on the road which is long steady and smooth or short steeps with recovery at the end. MTBing just doesn't afford a lot of recovery like road riding. I guess I should start working on my climbing using the MTB on the trails. Maybe that will help.

Race recap coming after next weekend.

24 Hours of Summer Solstice wrap up

Another 24 hour race is in the books and while the course was primed and fast, my body unfortunately was not. We got up to Albion Hills around 9am to finish getting set up the remainder of our pit. We were fairly low key and I was fairly relaxed. The whole family but myself had a cold and I had been desperately fighting it so I would be healthy for the race. I had a sore throat for a couple of days but that was it and I felt okay on Saturday. The race start was uneventful except for the fools who think they have the right to pass you when it is a steady line of people in the singletrack. That is the way the 1st lap goes so people need to just settle down a little. I finished the first lap in the middle of the pack but I definitely didn't have the top end speed I would have liked. As the race progressed one thing I noticed was how improved my singletrack riding was. I was consistently catching and passing people in that area, only to be re-passed on the double track and climbs. I attribute much of this to the 29er and the increased confidence it has given me this year. I am taking corners much faster than I ever used to. Here are a few pics of the event:


Getting ready for the start of the race with my excellent support crew.

Coming into the pits

Heading out for another lap.

By the evening I had a full blown cold and no motivation to head out riding. I decided to get a good night sleep and ride again in the morning which I did. I ended up in 23rd place which isn't great (out of 31). I need to get better and then work on improving my speed on the double track sections where I was losing a lot of time.

I've been thinking about doing a 24 hour race in Vermont in July. More for a family getaway (the kids love going to these races!) than anything. I'll probably wait until the week before to make a decision on that.

Steve

Back from Palm Beach.....bloody hot, but a good time. The highlight had to be the deep sea fishing we did last Monday. We caught some Bonita's and used some of them for bait to catch Marlin or Sharks but didn't have any luck. That's me on the right.

Didn't get any riding in while I was away....finally got a couple of good rides in over the weekend. The upcoming 24 hour should be really interesting. I am going to ride my own race with the goal of no sleeping or major stops. If I can do that then everything else should fall in place. Going to pre-ride the course this weekend and take it easy next week. Full race report after that.

Steve

I feel fully recovered the 8 hour race now but won't be doing a lot of riding as I am heading to West Palm Beach on the weekend for a mini vacation. Going to do some deep sea fishing and hopefully will catch one of these:

Just a little more than 3 weeks to go until the 24 hours of Summer Solstice comes. I have mixed feelings about the race. I rode well (for me) at the 8 hour but I'm just not sure how the race will go. I had a lot of confidence at this point last but I don't feel very fast or like I have the stamina. I hope I suprise myself.

Here is a cool photo to show just how big the Summer Solstice race is.