By Travis | 5/21/08 | 5:02 AM
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Everyone disagrees with me but truly I feel I ride a Single speed better. Better, not faster but better. Why? Well I believe that mentally its less fatiguing because there isn’t any thinking or debating required for gear choice. Your brain is like anything else, its limited to the amount of information it can store without deleting som
ething else. I just haven’t found the room in there for shifting efficiently therefore I feel that I ride the single speed better. That being said let me tell you about last Sundays race at “The Wilds” in the OMBC series. I had chosen the Superfly along with its plethora of gears because Ohio usually doesn’t have the longer climbs to separate the field. More »
By Veronique | 5/20/08 | 8:44 PM
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Last weekend was the first round of the Quebec Cup and Canada Cup series. Temperature was nice and course was dry. My race as senior expert was 5 laps of the 4.5km loop. the course was all about the 2 major steep climbs were we had to use the grany gear. It was also technical with the rocks and roots in the singletracks.
My strategy was to set a good pace just after the start and see how the other girls will react. After one lap I found myself with a 2 min advance!! My legs were very good that day. It was my day! I was really aggressive but careful for punctures. I was really surprise of my fitness as I ended 1st with a 10 min advance.
Now with that result, I don’t have the choice to pass to the top category(senior pro-elite) really soon. It will be a great challenge for me and the competition will be very strong. I never though one time I would be there in MTB. That is all about passion! Next weekend is Quebec/Canada Cup #2 at Mont Tremblant and maybe I will be at the start line with the best girls of the country. Oh yes…and the bike was perfect. I feel very comfortable on it.
By Dave | 5/20/08 | 11:37 AM
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With an 11:00 am start time and only a 2 hour drive, I was able to get a good nights rest and didn’t have to get up too early to make the race. I arrived at Tsali around 9:30, and dropped all my stuff off at the transition. This year the transition area was in the parking lot, which was a huge improvement over its former location. In previous years, getting things to the pit area required carrying everything a ¼ mile up a fireroad, which was not so much fun. As I was preparing my stuff, I noticed something quite odd. There was this strange blue stuff all over the sky. I didn’t know what to think, I’m only used to seeing grey and black. I brought the Rig and the Superfly, and wasted probably 10 minutes looking back and forth at them trying to decide which one to ride first. I’m not sure what I was thinking at the time, but I finally settled on rolling one lap on the singlespeed to see how muddy it was and decide if I wanted to do the whole race on it. More »
By Erik | 5/20/08 | 10:12 AM
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South Carolina State Championship
The sun was shining and the temperature was cool and comfortable. This was one hell of a change from just about every race this year. The rain held off and it look like it was going to be a great day of racing.
I decided after getting dressed to pre-ride the start some which turned out to be both good and bad. On the way back to the start I caught a water bar wrong and blew out my front tire in two places. I quickly hopped off the bike and tried to seal it up with the sealant in the tire. Apparently, I am about as smart as a two year old having not learned that stuff never works. With the start quickly approaching I finally broke down and put a new tube in it. More »
By Jason | 5/20/08 | 6:59 AM
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This past weekend was the kickoff to the New York State Endurance Racing Series (NYSERS). The 6 hour format kicked off with race #1 of 4, the Highland Hex. Held at the Highland Forest park, just south of Syracuse, NY.
The 29er Crew was well represented in the Solo categories, with Mark and Suzanne Hartman toeing the line along with myself.
The rain held off overnight, and the course conditions while wet, were still fast. Highland is know for it’s climbing and this time around the course wouldn’t disappoint.
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By Brandon | 5/20/08 | 12:08 AM
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Schools out, warm weather is here, and there is a race to be found every weekend. Does life get any better? So with a full tank of gas and coming off a much needed rest week I decided to head to Spartanburg, SC for the Stump Jump. After some 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishes I headed to SC with high hopes of a good shot at claiming that number 1 spot that has seemed to elude me so far this season. The course was covered in roots so i put the the big wheels to use to drop my little wheeled counterparts on the first lap. After maintaining a 1 to 2 minute gap on the second place rider for most of the race, I began to settle in and just hoped nothing catastrophic would happen to my bike. But by the end of the third lap I began to notice that I wasn’t sweating anymore and all that was coming out of my pores was salt and that my black shorts weren’t so black anymore. Digging deep I was able to make it to the feed zone before any kind of heat exhaustion set in. After sucking down some electrolyte replacement and a little sip of hammer gel out of the flask I was able to finish the last lap still holding on to first place. I never knew first place would hurt so good.
By Jesse | 5/19/08 | 9:13 PM
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These races are quite simple. Not simple in the sense that it’s easy to race but simple in the way it works. The guidelines are laid out for you, course marked, and competitors revved. Passing lapped traffic can be a test alone but in the grand scheme of things it’s the least of my worries. Climbing faster than the next guy is always tricky as is maneuvering through the thick intestinal single track. My superfly single speed tends to balance my worries with mind as Marko keeps my climbing in check.
It was great to get back under the tent of the WORS dirt circus in Lake Geneva and let it rip. With the signature Goooooooo! Don let us loose as I muscled towards the front with the regulars in tow. With the taste of blood in my throat I released the throttle and caught a glimpse of the gap. Four of us had broken free of the pack within a mile of the the start. This seems to be the consistency of mtb racing whether local or international. I continued to push the pain train into the end of lap one where I took a wrong turn and was shelled into fourth.
It wasn’t long before the gap diminished and a second wind shot through my veins like gasoline. I went to the front and steadily increased the pace until the gaps fell into my hands. For a brief moment it appeared that some “team work” was on the horizon but I fell into a solo trance that consisted of keeping a 15-30 seconds on my own blood. Glimpses of a tattooed arm through switchback sections kept the motor going as did my super-fan section that consisted of some WORS first timers. Needless to say they were stoked on chamois as I was satisfied to find yet another corner of the pain cave!
FISHER 29 = PODIUM PRIDE
By Steve | 5/19/08 | 9:03 PM
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This past wednesday my friend Barry and I headed up to Old Fort for some epic mountain riding. We were planning on doing 60+ miles but disaster struck part way in, but details on that later. The day was a great day for a long ride, there was just a little nip in the air that made it quite comfortable when putting in a harder effort. We ended up riding the 9 mile curtis creek climb up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and continuing on up the Parkway to Heartbreak Ridge to make a good 14 mile climb. I was very surprised at the pace we held, it was a good confidence builder. Here is a very cliche pic of us on the Parkway.
Coming down heart break was fun and very beautiful. We ended up spending a lot of time clearing windfall but it was still good riding. Here are some pics of the Rododendrums and Laurel in bloom!
On the way down heartbreak at the Star Gap section Barry face-planted and caught an eyeful of dirt. This was the aforementioned disaster. We rinsed all of the debris out of his eye but he still had trouble keeping it open. We went and rode Kitsuma but his eye just kept getting worse so we called it a day. We still got about 40 miles in and a good amount of climbing, not to mention lots of good fun!
By Aaron | 5/19/08 | 11:29 AM
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The 1st mistake happened last Friday, over-thinking and under-prepairing (mechanically) for this weekend’s race… Against my better judgement I switched rear cogs on Friday evening without a hard shake-down ride on Saturday. 19t was the call, but not having a single specific cog was a big mistake. No shake-down ride an even bigger mistake. The Mrs. tells me the course was sweet (we’ll get to her ride in a second)… Temps good for racing. We’re off… At least everyone else was. 1st power-stroke and Ka-ching. My chain’s hanging around my pedal. Get it back on… Ka-ching dangling again, check the tension ok.. Last attempt up the long climb (soft pedaling) Ka-ching… That’s it… I’m chalking it up to lessons learned. My 1st DNF on a bike ever… On the bright side! More »
Everyone disagrees with me but truly I feel I ride a Single speed better. Better, not faster but better. Why? Well I believe that mentally its less fatiguing because there isn’t any thinking or debating required for gear choice. Your brain is like anything else, its limited to the amount of information it can store without deleting som
ething else. I just haven’t found the room in there for shifting efficiently therefore I feel that I ride the single speed better. That being said let me tell you about last Sundays race at “The Wilds” in the OMBC series. I had chosen the Superfly along with its plethora of gears because Ohio usually doesn’t have the longer climbs to separate the field. More »
