Bikes are born!

Rolled sleeveless on the commute yesterday and felt the sun's radiation like I was a cold piece of pizza being nuked in a microwave. 95 degrees and humid as a wet sock..summer riding rocks, with enough H2O on board that is.. I witnessed my pail left shoulder change to tan-brown while looking through my rear-view helmet mounted mirror (I know, way geeky). It was blazing hot, the baking asphalt melted the +'s and -'s off my kenda karma rear tire. Not kidding. No commute today. Powerful T-storms rolling through later. Got a good SS ride in w Kerry this morning. Pushing my commute gear through BP was fun stuff. Too lazy to change out for a more spin-friendly trail gear..42-17, gotta wind'er up and keep her going!

Getting ready for the 29'er SS..It's Born! As always Igleheart has done an incredibly detailed job with the frame. Adorn with loads of stainless bits and accessories like a cool hand hammered quick release seat binder, stainless head rings, star braze-ons, not to mention the welding, fit and craftsmanship is exemplary.

Excited to get'er back but won't be till the end of July. Boxed up & went to paint yesterday down to Vicious Cycles, they do an outstanding job with paint and they got a cool logo too. Of course We'll be flying the Igleheart flag on the downtube..and western cycle stickers on the seat tube! Thanks to Christopher and Jamie for setting me up with this new ride!Now who knows how to install wood floors?

just riding along

If practice makes perfect
I am out of practice..
my elbow hurts
but I wore my knee pads!
Had some laughs and a decent ride
with a stellar group
on a beautiful day.
It's always the way,
we call it JRA.

Kingdom Trails

Well, they lived up to the hype, the Kingdom trails rocked. Met up with Daren on Sunday to experience an epic day of twisty singletrack in Northeast Kingdom VT. The trails are extremely well marked and layed out, and fun as hell. Spontaneous hoots of joy, wide eyed and beaming smiles describe our day. Four hours into our ride the skies opened up and sheets of water blew across the hilly landscape, but the rain failed to foil our merriment, instead making the experience more epic.Looking back at Burke mountain I asked Daren, "did we climb that?" Not realizing we had. The rising switchbacks elevate gradually as you forget climbing, instead the trail continuity, flow and groove take hold & have a hypnotising effect. (Que the uncontrolled hoots of joy I spoke of last paragraph.)Kerry, you were right. Single speed was the perfect way to experience the Kingdom trails. One gear on longer climbs allowed me to develop my new 'dog breathing technique'. Tongue out, mouth wide open, panting like Gus my German short hair pointer - no joke. I let Daren know about D.B.T. (dog breathing technique) but he thought I was joking.
Gus (back right) next to his sisters Taz, and Blue with Tripp (his Mom) down front..all displaying D.B.T.

Sunday was also Father's day. Thanks for a big camp breakfast big Pete.
Six hours in the saddle barely scratched the surface..lets assemble the posse and plan a weekend.

Here's the song that was stuck in my head all day as we tore around NEK.

epic knee pain

Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe my knees don't recover from blunt trauma as quickly as in years past. Pads on every ride..kinda lame. Ice and heat treatment is more lame, but seems to be doing the job of relieving the pressure build up on my left knee. Maybe a veggi wrap will help?
Sunday's ride was epic. 6 hours of technical single track with Barry and Christopher...yes, Christopher came out for an all-day granny gear adventure..Lots of Cliff bars and water consumed, miles and Miles of trails covered.

Mohican '07

Jam them pockets full boys! it's gonna be a long day!

My stay with the IF mafia was a good one, as always. We occupied one of the corner dorms at camp Nuhop, near Funk Ohio! Imagine that, life in Funk. Anyway, thanks to Harvey for setting up the accommodations..they were piss'a. The race took on a different feel than I was accustomed to with almost everyone under one roof the night before the race. One big happy family...together we totally destroyed the bathrooms in no time flat!

Race morning was upon us, woke up a little late at 5:30am..wanted to wake at 4:30 to get some oats and eggs going but chose to lay in bed and waste that precious hour snoozing when I should have been digesting my breakfast. Spent the first hour of the race gasping for air as I burped up maple & brown sugar and banana oatmeal.

So much for the neutral start at the damn. Was a repeat of last years rolling fiasco. Jeff said something before the race that proved to be true, "it'll all get sorted out". Meaning the race it self..It was obvious that the neutral start had been abandoned and the race was under way, the elbow throwing on the double track had subsided, I concentrated on getting into a groove and focused on the thin ribbon of flowing off-chamber Ohio buff single track that went on for 23 miles. Perfect for some middle ring spin action, the single speeders must have been in heaven on this stuff. We spent the better part of three hours on the twisting trails, small climbs were abundant.

I was having a good race now that I had digested my breakfast, so it was clearly time to eat more. The aid stations were stocked with race fuel and the food of choice for me was fruit and hammer gel. Each aid station I'd try to be polite as I rolled in like a tornado and grabbed bananas, orange half's and watermelon. The PB&J's just didn't appeal to me, maybe that's cause I'd eaten so many on the 12 hour journey to Mohican country the day before. Stuffing my shorts with three or four hammer gels every sag kept me spinning between stops and I was drinking massive amounts of water... had enough bonk last month in Tennessee, thanks.

Jeff had gotten a good start to the day, I hadn't seen him since the first hour of the race, maybe I'd bump into him at mile 90..maybe not. My strategy was to hang back and give it 80% and eat lots of food, and enjoy the ride. I didn't drive 12 hours to bonk. Jeff went on to give it 90%, eat lots of food and enjoy the ride. Good show coming in top ten bro, next up is top 5. Somewhere between Jeff and myself was Harvey, and five other guys. I knew Harvey was out there somewhere but couldn't catch him...good racing Harvey, he went on to grab 12th.

At mile 88, blasting through a camp I was almost a victim of certain blunt force trauma. As I approached a cpl good 'ol boys on the side of the road, one with a fishing rod takes a cast over the asphalt on front of me..? I'm thinking, wtf buddy..I just ride 88 miles with out a puncture and now I'll get a fishing hook in my tire? I swerve left (should have just applied the brakes) and look up to a full-dressed goldwing that's hurling toward me with two on board. The dude driving is NOT happy with my antics to avoid the fishing rod fool. No one hurt, no collision..I rolled on shaking my head.

I had saved extra energy for what was last year's final 11 miles, but this year's course avoided the technical and rolling single track and substituted the flat and muddy river trail in it's place. I met up with Jeff at the finish and congratulated him on his 8th place and realized that Harlan had torn that race apart! Way to go..6:35 off Eatough to grab 2nd place. good times.

results are up on cycling news

Carey Lowery , Dannielle Musto

Singlespeeder's - Tim Dougherty,Robert Elam,Dejay Birtch

Micheal Siumonson,Shawn Adams,Harlan Price,Chris Eatough