Don't Fight with Trees

Sunday's ride was interesting, first of all I swaped bikes with Josh so he could try out the full Squish ride and so I could try out a carbon hardtail for an actual ride not just a 5 minute loop.
Here is what I rode, really nice bike!
First of all I realized how much I have learned over the past 4 years of riding, I really noticed the little differences. This bike was much more nimble, as in I could move it under me much quicker, the steering was a lot quicker and easy to over steer. After some time on the bike and I started to loosen up on it I was amazed at how well this bike was to rip though the tight stuff. It also had some amazing acceleration out of the corners, especially anything with a slight berm, I found I could start pedaling out of the corner much earlier with the hardtail then I could with the FS. However I really don't see all the benefits of the hardtail, I found I had to hover over the saddle a lot more as well as I had a harder time pumping off of the backs of logs and big rocks the same way I do my FS bike. I do think that a hardtail would be great to own and go rip on to make the bike handling skills that much better but I still prefer the full squish. They are just that much more fun and long rides are that much easier on them.

I am also spoiled, the biggest thing I noticed with this bike was the coasting and pumping though flat sections, it seemed like I always had to be on the gas to keep this thing going, the wheels just didn't seem to roll as smooth or as fast as the ZTR's I have built up.

Now as far as the ride went, Copland has to be one of my favorite places to ride in Ontario! so many fun trails, a lot of big climbs wich result in a lot of fun long downhills. I think we were able to hit up all of my favorite sections in one ride without riding the same single track.


That is what happens when to try to get in a fight with a tree. I was going over a small skinny across a small wet spot on the trail just came off the edge of it and headed for a tree, I saw a broken off dead limb since it was too late and no way of saving the crash I tried to make my helmet take the blow but instead it was my ear that took it. It almost knocked me out but I was able to shake it off and finish the ride. I am pretty glad that it wasn't my eye.

All in all it was a good ride finished as always with some good company and some good beer.

A big ride followed by a good race

Tuesdays are days off for me right now so that usually results in me doing silly things like riding my bike for way to many hours in the day. This past Tuesday was no different. I decided that I need to get some good long training days in to prepaid for the fall 8 hour, and next week I am going to be down at Albion hills for a little riding of some fun bikes, but since it will be demoing bikes I figure I won't be able to get a good solid ride in. I have decided to bike to albion next Tuesday so to make it a bit easier and so I don't get lost on the way down I decided to make the round trip this week. It was a pretty good ride I put a little wider tire on the cross bike and planes out a route of road, rail trail and dirt road. I figured at least it would be an adventure. And that it was! Nothing overly exciting happened but I saw some good country side, a lot of birds flying out in front of me, I forget what they are called but they have white bums Jo told me about them not long ago so they kind of stood out to me. I also ran o dt a snake in a narrow section of trail.

The ride was good all the way out straight into the wind, and stoped to turn around at Rotary Park in Palgrave.
The way home I got a few calls and messages, aid I couldn't talk because I was on my way back from albion, which confused people since I don't have a car, then I would explain I rode there and back which results in the "you are crazy" response from some of my friends.

All in all a good day on the bike my longest road ride, I hope to do more of those soon.

On to the good race, Wednesday nights at hardwood, always a good night, rode hard and fast but still not able to break that elusive 40 minute time on Gnarly, put in a good effort but not quite there.

Tonight was fun started training Denver, pushed him hard enough to get a little pasta sauce on his jersey but he did well and I hope he learned something. The lesson I tried to teach was when doing interval  recovery go SLOW if you try and recover at 60% your next effort will only be 80% but if you recover at 30% your next effort can be at 100%.

My First Post

Here is my attempt at blogging, I don't know if I will keep it up but I will try...

My goal with this is to have some new type of motivation for riding, maybe start taking some pics of what I see on the trail and on the road, or at the vary least my parents can follow so they can see what I am up to on my bike. So I hope that I can learn to wright some good stories take some good pictures and get some followers along the way.

What better way to start a blog then with a race report.

Yesterday was a first for me, Hardwood was hosting an Xterra Duathlon. 3.8k run, 16.2k bike, 3.8k run. Going into the race I hadn't really been running much just jogging once every couple of weeks with Rudy (my dog), but I have been training pretty good for o-cup and 8 Hour races. My plan was to keep the leaders of the first run in site then get as much of a gap as possible on the bike so I could have some cusion for the last run.

Well the plan worked perfect, I was a min back from the leaders in the first run, started the bike and I couldn't believe how quickly I caught the runners. I put about a 4 to 5 min gap between myself and the runners, as well as a good minute and a half between me and the next MTB'er. The last run was quite slow for me mostly since I had no idea how fast to pace the run, so as a result I had a pretty slow 2nd run time, a lot slower then I wanted. But the gap I had put in during the bike was good enough to win the overall by 1:30.

For the first time ever I got to stand on the top of the podium and get a medal!! I was pretty happy about that.

Thanks to Hardwood for putting on another great event had a blast and a great BBQ after.