RickySilk

After trying out the 40 tooth big ring for a while I needed to investigate the 38. The only time I spun out the 40-11 was on long road downhills so I it seemed like I could go even lower and stay in the dog full time. I also wanted to try running only 2 rings using the granny and middle positions. I went with a 26/38 and kept the 11-34 on the back. I only lose a tiny bit on the ends of the gear range and with the 38 in the middle position I have a really good chainline with easy gear access from the 34 all the way down to the 11.

I’ve been riding it for a couple of weeks now and even when doing hard intervals up and down the hills out at phipps I haven’t spun it out yet. For most of the courses I race I think it could be the perfect setup. My only concern are the steep hills at the Thunderbolt course. I was in the granny for several of those. I think the 26 will be low enough though.

One thing is for sure though, after riding it at Tom Brown/Cadillac I know it will be perfect.

This bike came to me from Jimbo. I was over at his house picking up stakes to use at the Red Bug Challenge and he said he wanted to get the bike out of his garage. He suggested we raffle the bike at the race. Sounded good so I took it.

A couple days before the race the numbers looked like they would be low and bad weather was on the way. It seemed like a waste to raffle the bike for $10 so I decided I’d just hang on to it until next year.

Then I rode it down to the bus stop….. and fell in love. Her swept back handlebars, her wide seat with big springs, her fat tires, her coaster brake. I could go on and on.

So I’m going to ride her until the next race and if the numbers are right I’ll raffle her but she’s worth more than $10. She’s high class.

I figured it was time to put on a new chain. The old one is a little stretched but not too bad. Put on the new chain and all is good EXCEPT the 23 cog. That mother trucker wants to skip all over the place when it’s in on the 23. All 8 of the other cogs are ok. This is new to me. The chain rides up a little on the teeth then skips forward one tooth and drops back down where it should be. So I guess I spend an inordinate amount of time in the 23.

I’m gonna keep riding this chain and see if there’s some kind of break in period cause if this 5 month old XTR cassette is toast imma be irritated if not downright angry. If it doesn’t get better I’ll try my older XTR cassette that came on the Anthem.

That KMC chain that came on the bike was ok at first but it didn’t last very long and it hasn’t been shifting too good for quite a while.

I’ve got some Stan’s wheels coming in from bikechain. I’m pretty excited about that. According to Stan’s wheel weight calculator they should come in at right about 1400grams. Wooo boy. That’s 280grams less than my old Crossmax SL’s. Should be feeling that.

Man all this rain is working the ole Poprad over. That’s what I got it for but dadgum she’s taking a beating. I even had to start using the heavy wet “cross country” lube on the chain.

This morning wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. Getting the boy out of bed at 6:30 was a little challenging but not too bad. He was ready and out the door to the bus stop right on time. Lil E seemed excited to go to school but once we got there she did not want to stay. I had to do the old hug, kiss, goodbye then turn and walk out paying no attention to the devastation I was leaving behind. I can’t wait til they get home and tell me about their first day.

In-laws were in town this weekend which always means I get to ride my bike a lot. Rode down and did Chaires ride with Big Tim then did an MTB ride with Cliff on Sunday. I wasn’t feeling the Munson Hills so much on Sunday. Cliff has a new mountain bike and I can’t blame him for wanting to ride it but…. some clay roads on Sunday would have been preeeeeeeemo. I know because the parts of the ride that were offroad were so-so and the parts that were on the road were NICE and cool and breezy. Anyway… crammed in 7.5 hours of bike riding over the weekend and that feels good.

Cliff did get this cool pic though.

I need to get back in the habit of carrying the camera on rides. I’ve missed out on some good pics.

Good thing, less heat and rain. Bad thing, less daylight. In the mornings I’ve started to feel and smell just a little bit of fall in the air. Kids start school next week. Truth be told I can’t wait to get them out of the house. They’re going crazy… that’s no joke. I really think they’re going crazy.

We’ve been cramming in a whole bunch of mini-vacations here at the end. Mostly the beach. I love the beach. I’d like to live somewhere that has white sandy beaches and mountains all around. I don’t think that exists. The closest thing is probably Southern California.

Found myself feeling a little bored with riding this summer but salvaged it with the Tuesday Night Crits. That ride broke up the mundane with good hard 60 minute efforts. I found that if I really wanted a solid 60 though I had to get in a break otherwise there was too much cat and mouse stuff early in the ride. Those roadies are funny, they’ll just sit up and stop pedaling whenever they feel like it. Messes up the flow.

I’ve got my eyes on the first three FSC mtb races. Gainesville, Fernandina Beach and Tallahassee. After that the races go south and I start doing the good long autumn mtb soul riding. Can’t wait for that. Last race of the year will be the state cyclocross champs here in Tallahassee Dec 5th I think. I’m gonna try and be in top 1 hour form this year. I’m also gonna bring a boom box out there and have a dance party on the sidelines during the other races. It’ll be sweet.

Went up to Thomaston, GA with Chris, Jim and Darren saturday morning to recapture my youth at one of my favorite race courses in the southeast. We met our insulin challenged friend Phil at the race course and thus commenced a classic boys weekend of camping, story telling, eating, drinking and racing.

I’ve been trying to go over in my mind what the course looked like. On a course this demanding the really hard parts stick out and everything else, while still hard, tends to get forgotten. There are several 100ft ascents that on any other course would be memorable but on this one with a 500ft, 400ft and and a couple of 200ft climbs they are forgettable.

I was worried the turnout would be very low and it was but the competition was pretty good since both Andy Johnston and Peter Joski showed up.

Everyone rolled off the line real easy. It was the easiest XC start I think I can remember. Phil and I took the front all the way down the flat, rocky, sandy and sometimes muddy double track along the flint river. I can’t remember if Phil or I was first into the singletrack but I remember Phil saying, “I can’t get out of my big ring”. That’s a big problem since the singletrack immediately goes up a technical switchback climb of nearly 500ft in less than a mile. He stops to take care of the problem. So I’m at the front and just try to keep in mind that I’ve got to do this 3 times and kept the pace under control. The climb takes about 8:45 and then it’s all the way down the other side on a slightly sketchy loose singletrack downhill. There was a couple spots where you come around a little curve and the trail splits around a tree but my bike always wanted to go right at the tree. I hit one of them on the preride but managed to avoid them on race day.

Once I was at the bottom the course doubled back along a creek and I could see up the downhill and saw Andy J coming. This was a soft muddy false flat with slick roots and a few logs to hop. After crossing the creek the second big climb came. It was a little technical at the bottom just because it was muddy but after that it was a pretty steady and non-technical 400ft gain in about 3/4 of a mile. This is about a 5:45 – 6 minute climb which dumped out onto a fast slightly downhill doubletrack. This is where Andy J made contact with me.

We say our hello’s and hit the second downhill singletrack section. Super fun seat-of-your pants kind of stuff. There’s a fine line between going fast/low risk and faster/dangerous on this stuff. I opt for the former and since Andy isn’t all up in my hind parts I figure it’s a good enough pace.

We dump out onto a smooth gravel road that climbs a little but nothing too crazy. We chit chat a bit. Mostly about KHS dropping the Cycle Youth team and why. Good to hear that GT has stepped in to help this junior devo team. I guess we slowed a little too much cause I look back and here comes Joski.

The three of us ride along together mostly silent now. It seems that Joski is rolling the flats and mellow grades good but suffers a little on the steep stuff. He’s a nice guy but decided I would try to shed him on the 3rd big steep climb that comes at about the 7 mile mark. I hit it pretty hard with Andy on my wheel. It’s about 300ft but less than 1/2 mile so it’s very steep. I get the gap and keep the gas on to the last memorable climb. It’s a short but very steep little leg burner with lots and lots of baby head rocks all over it. The key is holding momentum and picking a good line so you can keep traction. After that it’s a fast 30 mph rutted clay road to the last short section of singletrack that dumps out at the start/finish.

Andy takes the lead to begin our second lap. All is good except when we get to the switchback climb I bung the first switchback. He gets about 20 feet on me then I bung the next one too. I end up bunging 2 more after that. I don’t know if my rhythm was thrown off or what but I lost 45 seconds up that climb. I’m able to hold that gap the rest of the second lap.

Starting the third lap Andy was out of site. Thankfully I get my groove back and clean the switchbacks this time. I’m told at the top of the second big climb he has 1:15 on me. I saw Don Davis from the HG crew and said, “EMBRACE THE PAIN!!!!!”. Hah, I thought it was funny. I decide to take a gel 30 minutes into the last lap to avoid a meltdown on the last climb. Unfortunately it hadn’t kicked in yet when I got there and I was hurting bad. I see Darren on the climb and yells encouragement and tells me Andy just passed him. I’m hurting so bad though. Then I get a stick in the rear wheel and have to get off. I top the hill and I’m at the point that getting my bike to go where I want it to has become a chore. I bung a critical drop into a gully. It’s one of those momentum things where you have to make it or you’re losing substantial time getting up the other side. I went into survival mode just trying to concentrate on the trail and make my bike go where it needs to go. Suddenly I’m feeling good again. The expresso gel has kicked in. Hooray!!! I knew the race for 1st was over but I was really dreading going up the steep baby head climb all blown up so being able to finish out the lap strong was cause for celebration.

Lesson learned…. it takes me about 20 minutes for a gel to kick in… not the 10 minutes I thought. Not that I would have caught Andy anyway. I pretty much lost the race on the second lap when I messed up those switchbacks.

This is a must do for any mtb racer in the southeast. There really is nothing else like it around these parts. It kind of feels like I’m in an abusive relationship though because it just beat the crap out of me but I want to go back.

All of us got rocks for our efforts. Chris was 1st c-dale, Darren 2nd SS, Phil 1st Ex 19-29 and Jim 1st Most Loved. Don Davis ended up 1st Sport 19-29. That’s Jim’s rock on the left. It’s a little smaller. Official results here.

This race was about half as exciting as East Macon. My class having only 6 guys was disappointing to say the least. I’ll choose to believe the threat of rain was the reason for the low turnout. Any other reason would be depressing.

The course was fun with a good combination of short hills, tight singletrack and fast open singletrack. It was a little muddy and slick in the second section of singletrack but I enjoyed it as it was a good test of skill. I didn’t enjoy the bike cleanup though.

At the start I fell in at 3rd wheel with one other guy on my wheel. The four us separated from the other two (haha) immediately. Unfortunately a bio-mechanical came on only minutes into the race. I rode with it for maybe 5 minutes hoping it would stop but reality sunk and and I had to get off and do the ole squat and breathe. Lost about a minute but managed to chase back on to the leading duo who had dropped the other guy along the way. Rode with them through the second section of swoopy singletrack and started the 2nd lap riding 2nd wheel.

Not long after starting the 2nd lap I pushed the pace and got the pass just before the rocky switchback climb. I cleaned it and the crowd went wild. I think that was the highlight of the race. I kept the gas on but when I got into that first section of singletrack another bio-mechanical. I bring the pace down to barely pedaling and doing some breathing tricks. It lasts 4 minutes but at least I didn’t have to get off the bike. I get back up to speed and finish out the race. At one point I was easing the pace back but then I saw the top two 40+ guys dualing hard and coming up on me. My pride could not have handled getting caught by those guys so I picked the pace back up.

I’ve been running the shock a tad soft with some floodgate so the bike takes the big hits but doesn’t bob on seated sustained climbs. On this relatively flat course I kept the fork and shock both wide open with no floodgate at all. I was able to stay in the saddle and pedal through the bumpy stuff and really flow through the muddy and rooty sections. I did add about 5 psi to the shock to make up for not using the floodgate.

The Rocket Ron up front was hooking up real nice. I hadn’t ridden the tire too much before the race so I gained confidence in it throughout the race and by the end was throwing it into the corners pretty hard.

So the most memorable thing about this race is the bio-mechanicals… without a doubt. Very disappointing. I thought the diet changes I made had it under control. I’m positive I ate and drank the exact same stuff as I did before East Macon. The only difference might be that I drank a cup of coffee late saturday morning. I can’t imagine that caffeine would stay in my system that long though.

Funny I had my 1 year checkup with the cardiologist on the tuesday following the race. She wasn’t concerned and said for me it’s not life threatening because of my good health. As long as I can get it to stop it’s ok, but if I want to stop them permanently I’ll have to have surgery again. Ugh. Doesn’t seem like it’s been a year since the first time. Like my sister, I must have had two or more accessory pathways and one did not get ablated in the first procedure. Which is why I have these bio-mechanical’s less often than I used to. Maybe in the fall I’ll give surgery another try.