Most people treat Christmas as a time to rest, relax and pig-out. This year for me has been the opposite. Sure winter night riding is fun - getting out and clocking some miles when everyone around is sat in front of the TV, but a chance to ride in daylight, during the week, in the middle of winter couldn’t be wasted… More »
Looking back, 2008 was a pretty good year to be on the bike. I started January off by getting a Soho S to commute around on and run errands. It turned into one of my favorite bikes, and ended the year with nearly 2000 miles of commuting and greenway riding on it. If you don’t have a cheaper bike to just commute around on, get one! You will not regret it! Road riding was good as well, with tons of miles, and lots of new routes explored around Knoxville.
New bits to start the last week of the year. The dirt is covered by too much snow up high in Colorado, I have been told Fort Collins is clearing, maybe soon I’ll get to ride it. 2 hours and 5000 feet from clear dirt. I can’t wait, that might be my Xmas present, singletrack, can you beat that? The fly is ready for a trip. Fruita???
Went out a few weeks ago in Wallingford, CT for some singletrack riding and just had a great time. Found this small pile of dirt/jump and watched some others do it but they all kept moving before we could get some photos of them.
I have a new video posted. It is on my other blog at http://bikefiend.blogspot.com/ My videos will end up there due to that program is easier for me to use.
The weather here in Colorado is quite different than back home in NY. There are huge fluctuations in temps. One Day I’m riding in the snow, the next in shorts and back on the trails and ripping it up with Sarah.
I’ve even gotten out the xc skis this week. But this weekend was one to not let pass by.
Saturday, Sarah and I rode together again and rolled out the cross bike for the dirt Road climb up Sunshine Canyon to Gold Hill.
Originally, I did have some thoughts of racing the Colorado Cross championships, but the allure of exploring the mountains in warm weather was much greater than suffering for 60 minutes
Today, I headed out to do some more climbing on the road bike.
This was a fun event, I chose the “open” 50 miler rather than the pro class 25 miler. Title was “open” due to no points were recieved while racing this one as it was a “once only” in the series. Funny, there were a few other pro riders in it who also wanted to do the extended version of a great course.
Age groups were 12-34 and 35-99, I did the younger figuring it would have the most guys that I usally race with in our local pro class. Funny thing at the start was promoters trying trying to stick me in the 35-99 due to my age. (43)
Start was crazy, Chris Gagnon along with Thom Parson(singlespeed) and others just hammered out and after a few minutes we all broke up into a few groups, I followed Thom for while then we relaxed a bit. Two-three minutes later Mark McCormack caught us and it was another all out “keep up” trial for a bit until we let him go, different class along with too early to go crazy.
Thom and i rode together all of first lap and I did not drink even with the camelback on me, started to pay going into lap two so GU 2/0 was consumed to bring back legs. Thom had slowly been riding away when my legs came back and the chase was on, it was at that point also his front sprocket got a little bent. Too bad as he was riding great, the new strength may not have been enough without his mechanical. Took off hard as I knew how fast he can go after a repair, watched McCormack cross the line approaching the finish area.
It was a great win but hope to have a non-mechanichal with Thom in ‘09.
After some initial slacking, I finally got around to beginning the arduous task of converting the SuperFly to cross mode. This pretty much consisted of swapping my fat and grippy 2.25 acx tires for some skinny 35c cross tires and congratulating myself on another job well done. Although, I’m not really sure what to call it. CrossFly? SuperCross? Take the easy way out and just add “CX” to the end of it? Meh, who knows…
Today was the “official” first day of my 2009 racing season. After a great week off, and spending loads of time with my new fiance Bridget (we got engaged this past week), it’s time to chamois up and get ready for the program.
I’m really psyched for this off-season. Much more so than the past few years. Last year was quite abnormal and I really didn’t get the engine going until February/March. I even skipped the gym last year! This year though, I’m back in the gym and utilizing the tried and true FasCat program. I think 09 will be a great year. My CTL is at 60 to kick off the season, whereas last year it was at 9! That’s equivalent to a good 10-12 weeks of hard training. It also means my base fitness is quite higher this time around than last season. I was off the bike nearly 2 solid months last Fall, but not so this time around, I haven’t had this much desire or drive to excel in a few years, so I’m going to harness all that energy and focus on a few larger season goals. Racing kicks off again (well road) in only a few months!
Got fresh tracks in the mountains of VIRGINIA yesterday morning where we have 3-4″ at 3000′ and up. One of the earlier times for snow up in these here parts. I even got out to West by GOD Virginia to go cross country skiing at the most exciting skiing in the EAST whitegrass.
Fresh tracks on RED Diamond west of Harrisonburg, a true elevator shaft drop
The Gary Fisher 29er Crew is a grassroots team of mountain bike racers from all over the country and world. Be it endurance, cross-country or XTerra events, they all share a common passion for standing on podiums and the 29ers that put them there. About the 29er crew
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