Sandals Mountian Biking Adventures

Back on the Wagon

2009-06-19T15:13:00.002-05:00

I definately fell off for a while.

I went well over a month without riding the mountain bike and was not getting much time in before that. A few random road rides on the weekends is about all I could fit in.

Saturday I rode on the road with the Montevallo Riders. It ended up raining on us pretty good and near the end it poured so hard I was having trouble seeing the road because my glasses were fogging up. However it was nice that the temperatures stayed more in the 70-75 range instead of the 90+ they have been.

Last Tuesday I rode a lap of Oak Mountain Counter Clockwise by myself after work and rode a fast but comfortable lap. I did legs at the gym that day during lunch so I knew it was just going to be a casual ride. The temps were in the 90s so I know that wasn't helping either, but still managed a respecful (for me) 1:35.

Wednesday my legs were aching all day. Really makes me realize how long it has been since I have pushed myself at all. I was planning on trying again for Thursday but if they kept aching like this, there was no way I could ride.

Thursday came and the aches were gone. Once again work agreed with me and I was able to get out at a decent time and headed to Oak Mountain again. I headed Clockwise this time off by myself (even there was a group ride) so I could just ride. I have been so stressed with work and everything that riding has not really been fun lately. Riding by myself, I can just push myself and relax and not worry about anything. The only problem came while I was descending the hill after blood rock. I got a stick caught up in my back wheel wrapping itself around my hub by the brake rotor. I know I was pushing myself a bit, but apparantly my brain was not working as I put my thrmb on the rotor while trying to pull the stick out. Of course the rotor was still scalding and I have a burn line on my thumb. The rest of the ride went OK and I finshed with a 1:32.

I at least have a baseline for each direction and my goal is to try to ride every Tues and Thursday after work in addition to a something on the weekend.

Hopefully this will be me getting back into it.

T-Ville Thurs night

2009-02-12T22:00:00.000-06:00

Actually got out for a second night ride this week. I actually left the office at 4:15 and still managed to be late as we didn't arrive till a bit after 6 but everyone waited on me.

The ride did not start off well as I was trying to reset the bike computer in the parking lot and somehow fell over and bloodied my elbow as well as scratching a hole in my seat. I wish I could say I only wreck while going less than 1 mph, but that was not the case for tonight. We rode a lap clockwse and I was definately having trouble keeping up on the technical downhills. I need to ride out there more to get to know the trail better.
I actually met Eric Glidwell out there and he was in our group for the first lap. I have not really seen him since high school other than a brief encounter on the trail at Oak Mountain. We played soccer together growing up in Trussville (He was on my team almost every year from when I was probably 8 years old through highschool).

Most of the group took off after the first lap, but a couple of us decided to get one more in. This time we headed Counter-clockwise and things were going well untill I got to the new technical section. I couldn't make it up the rock and at the top I tried to jump back on and ride, but the next thing I knew I was in a nice endo. I though I could bring the back down, but I slowly went over and had to bail over the bars down the rocky hill. I must have missed the rock I was trying to put mu hand on because I have a bloody scratch from my wrist to my elbow. (I did not realize it was so bad till I got home and in the shower and it started burning pretty bad). We stopped to play in the camp area and I just didn't have it in me to do much. I tried to ride up onto the rock, but somehow bounced off and ended up with the front wheel in the air and my back against a tree. I decided to not try anything else at this point as apparantly my skills dissapear with the sunlight. We rode on out and I did make the slightly technical climb from the road to the top of the hill without dabbing. It was a nice ride and I definately want to get out there again for a Thurs night ride.

Night Ride at Oak Mountain

2009-02-09T22:00:00.001-06:00

I finally made one of the "Full Moon" night rides at Oak Mountain. The weather was beautiful being in the mid to low 60's. A couple of things I noticed from this ride: I know Oak mountain so well that even if I couldn't see very well I knew where the roots were. The headlight (which I kept on low except for the downhills) did seem to flatten the trail. It seemed like the climbs were not as long or steep as well as the downhills. I don't really know why this was. It may be that I was just riding slower so I was not as tired. Lastly, I freakin love riding at night. Hearing the sound of the stream beside the trail, but not necessarily seeing it; and seeing the city from the top of the mountain at night are two things I really liked.

Hopefully this went well and Oak can see the potential to make a little extra cash and open the park up in the future to more night rides.

Brian is now a roadie

2009-02-08T22:00:00.000-06:00

Last minute decision to head to Chief Ladiga had me rushing this morning to get ready and meet everyone in Anniston. I met Brian at his house and we headed to the trailhead. We met everyone there and had a nice ride heading for Georgia. The weather was about 70 degrees and was perfect for the ride. Everyone else decided to head back about 8 miles from the Ga Line, but me and Moran decided to ride the whole trail. We practiced drafting and generally just had an enjoyable ride. My legs were starting to burn near the end, and were much more sore than I thought they would be for such a flat ride.

However I looked at the Garmin after the ride (as I wore my heart rate meter) and it said we rode 66.5 miles and I burned over 4500 calories. Me and Steph went to Iguana Grill or dinner and I decided to try the Flan for dessert after Balliet talked about it the whole weekend before. I was a bit skeptical on the custard thing, but it was really good. It had a bit of bourbon splashed on it and reminded me of Christmas Egg Nog.

Another Great NC Trip

2009-02-04T22:18:00.002-06:00

Had a great trip. The riding was once again incredible and once again Jay's choice of trails was definately the best Pisgah had to offer. Hopefully I can give a brief rundown on the trails later, but pics are currently uploading.

Should be able to see the folders as they get done at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm

Still trying to catch up on sleep
Goodnight!

Trying to stay in Shape

2009-01-20T09:11:00.005-06:00

Well, I know this is not exactly in chronological order, but early this month I drug out my rollers to try to get in some riding and stay in shape. I have been consistently riding about 2 to 3 times during each week. I was riding one day and the belt for the headwind (resistance unit that blows air at you to keep you cool) broke. I would like to think it was from the massive amount of power I was generating, but more likely one of the cats decided it would be fun to chew on. I sort of like it because I have to put it in a much higher gear to get the resistance. that makes my mileage look better when I am done. The first few times I would get so tired I would usually fall off and that is when i knew to stop, but lately I have been getting a bit better even being able to stand and peddle and stay on (I can't just start hammering, or the surges will kick the bike off the front of the rollers). I have been turning the TV to one of the music video channels and cranking the music while I ride. It has actually been quite fun.

Also, in purchasing the replacement belt, I priced a set of rollers and I paid less than half of what they cost now (of course that was close to 10 years ago), but I think this is the first bike related item that has increased in value since I bought it.

I got this picture off of their website, and don't think this is for personal gain so hopefully they won't sue me for stealing their pictures.

Rough Day

2009-01-18T21:47:00.003-06:00

Well it seemed like it was a rough day for quite a few people, but I will start with my day.

Went to Oak Mtn. for the BUMP third Saturday ride. Started off well except it was a bit chilly. We rode a loop heading in the clockwise direction. It was a nice lap with Me, Chip, Mark, Jim, DeShazo, Micky, Dee, and Hambone. A change I noticed was that someone added another large log across the trail right before camp road. I was not expecting the this and didn't quite make it over. Didn't wreck, but my back tire started spinning and when I tried to hop it over I had to unclip a foot. I actually like this better as both logs are over a foot in diameter, but about a foot of space is between them. This stepped up the challenge a bit, which is what I needed.

We were actually moving at a slightly faster pace than normal and I took the lead on the "Cat, Dog, Snake" section right before the North trailhead. The second to last bridge before the North trailhead has a rooty section leading up and it is a sharp lefthand turn onto the bridge. I was moving through pretty good (just having a good time) and hit a root wrong and my front tire washed out a bit. Trying to not miss the bridge, I ran into a tree that was immediately to the left of the bridge. I didn't think anything about it at the time as nothing really hurt and I just remember putting my hand out and my shoulder hitting the tree (not very hard), so I just kept going. After cruising up to the top of the jeep trail and heading down toward blood rock, I tried to brake and noticed my left finger was a bit sore and I couldn't squeeze the brake easily.

Anyway, we started down quarry road and I was once again having a great time. At the rock jump at the bottom, I jumped it and noticed someone had piled a bunch of rocks in the trail where I wanted to land. I jerked the bike and managed to land on the side of the pile, but shortly afterwards my rear tire went flat. I tried to look at it, but due to the rain I couldn't really tell where the cuts were. I tried to put a CO2 cartridge in it and it wouldn't hold. I assumed there were a few cuts, so instead of putting a tube in it there as I no longer had enough CO2 to fill it, I just decided to walk it back to the car. It was only about a mile on the dirt road and I was meeting others to ride later, so I was not worried about it. I walked/jogged a ways and Mark had gone back and gotten his truck to pick me up. He gave me a ride back. Thanks Mark!

I took the wheel off and checked it out and it had a couple of cuts including a larger one on the sidewall (that I don't think Stan would have sealed) so I just put my spare tube in it. I didn't have another spare to carry with me, but I figured with the tubeless and the tube, I would be fine.

I met Jeremy and Mark and we rode a biot while waiting for Chase to get there. We rode aound and then rode the family trail a couple of times to stay close to the parking lot. Chase showed up and we headed down to the Trail starting across from the canoe rentals. We rode out and had about 2 hours before dark so we figured we would ride for about 45 minutes and turn around. On the double log crossing before camp road, I sucessfully made it over both logs this time (not the most gracefully, but stayed on the bike). We got to the top of the hill before Garrets gultch and Jeremy decided to head back. Chase wanted to keep going, so after chatting for a few minutes we headed on. At the bottom I jumped off the log and of course popped my back tire. I had only put about 45 lbs in and I should have put closer to 50. As that was my last spare I decided to once again walk back. I headed back and once again walked/jogged back to camp road and to the road. The front of my ankles started hurting so I had to walk (biking shoes were not made to do much hiking). I made it almost to the trailhead by the lake when Chase drove up. We threw my bike on the back of his car and he took me back. Thanks Chase!

Of course All this came at a price. When I got home and showered to warm back up my finger turned a nice purpke blue color and swole up. I guess being outside effectively kept it iced all day. I also had bruises on the front of my ankles from trying to run in the bike shoes. As well as being sore from hiking I guess. I feel like I am getting old!

Got back to Raccoon

2008-11-22T23:05:00.000-06:00

We finally got back to Raccoon Mountain. I rode up with Tommy and Moran after we decided to put one of my trays on the roof of Moran's car so we could all ride together. It was so cold this took much longer than it should have, but we still managed to stop by Chick-Fil-A and make it to Raccoon before everyone else. We tried to warn everyone that we were going to be doing a lot of playing, and I don't think they believed us, and decided to ride with us. We went clockwise from the visitor center lot as I like this direction better. The trail was so covered with dry leaves it made it really slick. I had to quickly learn to stay off the brakes in the turns or the wheels would wash out. We had a nice casual lap stopping to play in a few places and got some decent pictures. Tommy said he was going to jump off the rock.

This One: (it is not as high as it looks)

But decided this was not the day. Mark decided to have a go at it and made me look like a wrecking ball. I am not the most graceful and he definately landed with much more style than me.
We ended up splitting up with those of us who wanted to go ride the tree and those ready to head on. We went to the tree and rode across quite a few times. last time I was here, the tree was slick and I slid off a few times, this time I had a much easier time. On around to a nice jump in the trail for a few more pictures and then we headed back around the loop.

I wanted to explore some of the new trails they had opened, but Moran started having bike problems and I think everyone was getting ready to head back. We rode on and near the end I starteed cramping pretty badly. I realized I had not been drinking enough water and at this point it was too late. I tried to use some hammer gel and jelly bellys, but nothing would make them go away. Fighting throught the pain I climbed the final hill out and going up the last dirt section my legs said no. I tried to step off the bike and that was a huge mistake. My leg cramped and I crumpled to the ground. I had to sit and recover a bit before going the last 50 yards to the end. It looked like I had been in a wreck because I was all dirty. It was a fun ride and I will definately pay better attention to staying hydrated.

All the Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/RaccoonMtn2008_11_22#

No Riding but took a big step

2008-11-17T17:21:00.002-06:00

Well, it seems I am slowly moving farther and farther from Mountain bike riding in my posts (moving to the road bike and now this) but I think I will be back on track shortly. I have not been posting lately and wanted to offer a brief explanation.

I got married on November 8. It was incredible how much stress this put on me. I realize I was probably pretty snappy for a few weeks leading up to this and apologize to everyone. I just got back from the Honeymoon on Sunday and am feeling much better. I was not planning on taking a honeymoon immediately but some friends offered us a condo in Rosemary Beach for the week and we jumped on it. I really needed the week to just relax and I think this really helped me get my sanity back and I believe things will be getting back to normal soon.

I missed quite a few rides lately (including a night ride they had at Oak Mountain) and now am really wanting to get back into it. I think I am going to build me a small "skills" park with a few skinnies, a see-saw, and a few other items to help me with my technical riding here at the office. I just need to keep my bike here so I can play at lunch or whenever I need a break from staring at the computer.

Red Lizard at Monte Sano

2008-11-02T10:29:00.003-06:00

A couple of us packed up to go to Monte Sano. A couple of us had ridden there last year after the 24 hours of Conyers race and we got slightly lost and ended up on the Red Lizard Trail. Jay had heard about the trail that was "unridable" and had been talking about going up there ever since. Lately I seem to enjoy the challenge of a technical trail than just riding a smooth flat trail as quickly as possible.
We met up at Cracker Barrell (I forgot about the time change, so I got there in time to have a nice big breakfast) and we headed up. We played on the rock wall in the parking lot to warm up before hitting the trail. We cruised down the family trail an went down Warpath to get to the desired trail. Warpath was a fun littel section also and I have some movies of Lee and Joe riding down one of the rocky sections. We ended up on Red Lizard and spent a good bit of time trying to clean each obstacle. There were some that only 1 or two people cleared and only about 2 that nobody was able to make. Both me and Jay ended up with jacked up derailleurs. I just bent mine bad and was able to bend it back enough to keep riding. Jay broke his hanger completely off (along with a piece of his bike), but he had a spare hanger and we were able to continue.
The rest of the trail was just the flatrock trail that was much more smooth (still makes Oak mountain look like a road bike would be more at home). We ended up cutting up through a powerline trail due to time and rode back on mountain mist just to avoid the road. It was a really good time and I was supprised at how much we were able to ride. It is unique to see how different riding styles allowed some people to clear certain obstacles while others could not do it.

I keep saying it, but I relly need to practice my hopping/trials skills as they would have been really helpful on a few of these things.

Pictures (Yes I finally got the pictures up!) at http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/MonteSano2008_11_2

Helen Octoberfest Trip

2008-10-20T23:00:00.001-05:00

Went to Helen GA for Oktoberfest/Biking weekend. We drove up Friday and settled in by trying a few of the German brews. We went out and had a few drinks before retiring back to bed (I think we were home by 10, such party people!).

The next morning we headed up to the Unocoi Lodge to eat breakfast. It was a breakfast buffet, so we all got our fill. I even resisted the urge to eat a biscuit, however I could not say no to the french toast. We got back to the townhouse and got ready to ride.
We had scoped out the trail head from town so we would not have to ride around and on the road this time. We took the Helen-Unocoi trail and got on the Unocoi Mountain bike trail. We rode this around and eventually got over to the field (the real start of the trail). We played in that area a bit as there was a small drop by one of the bridges that we jumped off of a few times. We rode around the bridges and tried to ride the railroad ties before heading back onto the trail. Finishing up there were some nice downhills and some short, but steep climbs. It was a decent short course. We headed back into town and stopped at Big Daddy's bar and sat out on the porch and had some Hopdevil while the sun started to set. There was a woman a few tables over with the most tattoos I have ever seen. She was wearing a tank top and had angel wings on her shoulders and a HUGE tramp stamp. She was there with her baby (at a bar!) so yes... Anyway, it started getting cold when we were in the shade so we headed back to the townhouse to go out for the evening. I sat in the hot tub for a few minutes and it felt great as it was a bit chilly outside. I was a bit tired so we decided to rest and go to the fest hall at about 9. I fell asleep and woke up about time to go. Moran decided to skip this time so he dropped us off and we went inside. This was definitely the place to be as it was packed. We got a couple of pitchers of Erdinger Octoberfest and enjoyed the music/dancing/people watching. Tommy actually got on stage and did the chicken dance with everyone. The fest hall closed and Tommy decided we needed to go to Huddle House. Of course this was the most packed place in town and we finally got to eat. While we we eating I got up to go to the restroom and I missed a fight right by our table. They said that the Huddle house ladies broke it up and threw the guys outside (don't mess with the hh ladies!). We walked home and went to bed.

The next day we tried to eat at Hoffers, but they made us wait 45 minutes for a table (when there were a couple of empty tables) and then said it was too late to order breakfast. I was a bit mad, but Grumpy Grund was not going to make an appearance this weekend so I just ordered lunch. Tommy was not feeling well and Murf was a little sore, so me and Moran decided to ride the Unocoi again as we couldn't really find anything else close. We rode a quick lap and called Tommy and Murf and they were riding around town. We met them and rode around some of the back streets and explored a little before heading back. We went back out, ate dinner (Tommy actually tried some German food and liked it!) and then looked for a place to hang out for a while. Pretty much every place in town was smoky and after last night at the fest hall I had all the cigarette smoke I could handle so we just went back to the townhouse and hung out.

The next morning we got up and packed to go home. Murf was trying to make it back to work a half day and I think Tommy was missing his Baby so me and Moran tried to find somewhere nice to eat. We ended up not waiting as all the local places we looked were covered up and hit the road. On the way, Tommy called and told us there was a place in Gainsville. As a last minute decision we looked it up on Moran's phone and somehow with the phone and 2 GPSs made it there. It was called Chicopee and we changed and got ready to ride.
We were looking at a map and started talking to one of the locals (Randy) and he offered to let us tag along. He was a pretty good rider and helped us tie the trails together to ride most of them. These trails were AWESOME! The place was a SORBA/IMBA trail and all the trails were just a lot of fun. I am definitely going to make it back there again. We headed on home afterwards and it was definitely a great weekend.

I will try to update the pictures as soon as I get them uploaded.

My First Century

2008-10-18T23:00:00.001-05:00

I decided to ride in the BBC Century just to see if I could do it. I had a couple of 90 mile weeks when I was biking to and from work as well as mountain biking on the weekends but had never hit the magic 100mile number. Last weekend I had met at Cahaba desiring to get in a 50 mile ride to see how I felt. I got there at 7 and only 1 other person showed up he only showed up last minute and I was going to be a little upset if I had gotten up early and no one else showed up. He was sick and not feeling well so we just did a slow 20 mile loop through oak mountain. We got back and I was told the ride time had moved to 9:00 so I hung around and figured I would hang with the beginner group and do another 30 or so. Unfortunately there was only about 7 people riding so it was decided that there would be one group. There was talk of a 50 mile ride and some of these guys looked pretty serious. I asked what the pace would be and I was assured no one would be dropped. They said they were riding to Vandover and I had no idea where that was so we headed out. I was feeling pretty good after my warmup and managed to stay with them while they had their "slow" pace. Vandover ended up being about 29 miles away and I got dropped a bit before we got there. Brian? (hope that is correct) from Cahaba, hung with me and the other rider till we got there. After a short rest we headed back and I was not ready to hang with them this time, so us slower ones and Brian (decided to keep us company) rode back. It was a good ride and I had ridden over 77 miles. I actually fely pretty good so I was determined to do the century the following weekend.

I had to get up early to be in Springville by 7, but registered to do the "easy" (bypassed a few of the bigger climbs) century. I ran into Lee and Joe C. and they said they were doing the mountain goat century and I should join them. I was not keen on this Idea at first, as I still don't really know what a steep hill is on a road bike but they assured me they were going to ride at a casual pace so I joined them. It started off really nice as it was pretty flat and we had a nice pace going, until the first big hill (walker's gap). I started off good, but as the hill kept going I started falling behind. As I was pushed closer and closer to my limits, my only goal was not to put a foot down. Lee and Joe pulled away, but I kept chugging along mostly having to stand during all the steeper sections. As I crested the top I managed to push it a bit and catch back up to them (It helped that they were waiting on me). This climb had a nice long descent down the other side and I played a bit drafting Lee and letting the wind slow me back down. I have only gone this fast on the Mtn Bike once (40mph) and I felt really uncomfortable then. The road bike however was much more stable feeling and I quickly felt comfortable going so fast.
Almost immediately we started the second climb (horse pens 40). As once again I began to struggle I had plenty of time to contemplate a few things such as: Why do I have to stand up? Why is he peddling so much faster than me? WTF, his front chainring has a much smaller gear than mine does! Why did I not research this? I will not put a foot down!.. Wait a minute, wasn't there supposed to be a rest stop between these hills..... We took a wrong turn! Is it getting steeper? I WILL NOT put a foot down! Is that the top? Thank the lord! What is wrong with my vision? After I recovered I caught up with them (as they peddled slowly waiting on me). And mentioned we missed the rest stop. This second hill had a better descent (it had a few slight turns and was not just one long downhill, but had sections. We continued on and finally after more than 50 miles we reached the rest stop. I still had a bit if drink left which I knew was bad. I was not drinking enough water so I knew I would have to start drinking more or I was going to have problems later. I think I was pushing a bit too hard through some sections and forgot to hydrate. The next section was pretty flat and we had a nice ride to the covered Bridge rest stop. A really nice lady there gave me a ziplock bag for my camera as I was starting to get it sweaty. The weather was just incredible. it was cool and overcast which kept the sun off us and I am sure helped my ride. I filled up my bottles and ate a snack and we once again set off. This part had the climb everyone had to do, but it was in sections of a bit of climb and then flat and then climb again. I handlesd this much better as I could power my way up the short hills and then recover on the flats for the next one. I must have gotten my second wind around here because I was really feeling great on this section.
At the very top was the last rest stop. It was at a small church and I decide to eat something. I am not usually a big fan of tomatoes (i will eat them but don't usually ask for them on my food) I ate a tomato sandwhich (tomatoes, salt, and bread) and it was perfect, just what I needed. I think we hung out here a bit too long as I was a bit slow feeling when getting back on the bike (or it could be that I had ridden about 90 miles). We were told it was mostly downhill to the end and I seem to remember that not really feeling true. I finally started to cramp a bit with about 5 miles to go. As long as I kept spinning I could keep them at bay. After a bit they started to pass. I got back to the end and my computer only said 98.5. Since we missed a bit on the rest stop I decided to get my 100 in so I continued up the road and went to the intersection of the first turn of the route. I figured this would be far enough and turned around. Somehow the small hill at the beginning had turned into a mountain. I rode back up it starting to feel the cramps again, but managed to make it to the top. Finally heading back in, I had right under 101 miles on the odometer. I was pleased and grabbed a beer to celebrate. There was a bluegrass band and I sat and listened to them while eating a Chick-Fil-A sandwhich or two.

I had a great time and am glad they talked me into the harder route. I don't think I would have been as chalanged on the easier one. I headed home with a smile on my face (probably from deleria) and knew I would sleep well.

BBC Century

2008-10-11T21:09:00.004-05:00

For now: Could those calories be correct???? All data (Age, Sex, Weight, Max HR) is correct.

I think I may have lost 1mm of backfat!

First Time at Tsali

2008-09-19T22:00:00.000-05:00

We headed to Tsali and found the Left and Right loop was open so we planned a route which included a loop around the outside of the penensula starting with the left loop, senic overlook and then back on the right loop. This was to be about a 20 mile ride so I assumed it would take a while.
The trail was relatively flat and flowed pretty well. It skirted around the edge overlooking the lake. The water was down a good bit, but it was still a nice view of the water. The left loop was a fun trail. We headed up to the overlook. There was a small bit of climbing, but still just a smooth fun ride. We stopped at the top to grab a snack and enjoy the view. We cruised back down and got to the Right trail.

I think I liked this part best as it was cool in the trees and the trail had a really fun flow to it. We found a spot with a side trail and a jump and of course had to stop and play for a minute or two. We headed on and I think this was the part with some nice climbs and some really nice downhills. We finished up the trail and stopped by the Nantahala center on the way back. I really wanted to get into the water, but it was quite chilly when i put my hand in. I decided I must come back and canoe/kayak this river as it looked really fun.

We headed back to the cabin and I got some good pictures of the view off the back porch. Karl and Mark wanted to hike over to the nearby hill, so we headed down the road to see if we could get there. This road was a bit more than I was expecting and pretty steep, but we eventually got to the crest of the hill. I tried to take a picture of the cabin from the hill, but they didn't come out too great because of the trees. We hiked back and got back right as the sun was setting. I got a few shots of this and you really had to be there to appreciate how incredible it looked.

We played a few games of pool and then headed to bed.

Pictures Here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/MontySTripDay29192008#

Jackrabbit

2008-09-18T23:00:00.001-05:00

I ended up staying up prettylate trying to wash clothes and get ready for the trip. I had a broken spoke and didn't have time to get it fixed, so I tried to cary it by Cahaba Cycle at Trussville on my way. I knew this would make me a bit late, but I didn't know what we were going to be riding and I didn't want to mess up my wheel. I got to Cahaba about 9:30 and luckily Parker got there early. He said they didn't have any spokes but he offered to look at it and saw the nipple was broken and the spoke was still ok. He managed to fix it for me (even though he had to rob a nipple off another wheel). I cannot say enough good stuff about Cahaba.

I headed on my way and finally got there about 3:00. The cabin Monty had choosen had a better view off the back deck than most senic overlooks I have seen. We headed out quickly and went to Jackrabbit to ride. This was a relatively new little trail system that was mostly level and very flowy. It was covered by lots of small berms that made this trail trememdously fun to ride. It kept begging to be ridden just a bit faster than I could go. The trail allowed one to carry so much speed, but was curvy enough to really be fun. There was one trail (I think Orange) that went up and over the hill. This was a bit technical and had a small rockly climb and even a relatively narrow bridge at the top to ride over. This was followed by a quick descent back down to meet the Blue trail.

We ran into Robert (A local) and he joined us as I think he was happy to have someone to ride with. We rode out to the beach area and this trail was much more winding and we had to go a little slower through the trees but it was built up on a raised path so it was interesting to ride. We got back as thsi was an out and back and Robert wanted to ride the new section of trail. I don't think everyone was up to it, so me and Robert took off. I mentioned we could just hammer through it before we started and he took this literally. I managed to keep up for a bit but he started pulling away from me. I actually just couldn't get through the trees fast enough. We kept going with him having to slow perodically to let me catch back up. Eventaully we came to the small hill at the end and this got me. I was huffing and puffing when we came back out and I stopped to rest a minute or two before riding the Yellow loop. We cruised around this and back to the parking lot. We stopped on the way home and picked up a pizza, and got back in time to catch the sunset. I was exhausted and went to bed early.

Pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/MontySTripDay19182008#

A Few Rides

2008-09-17T23:00:00.000-05:00

Once again I am getting behind. It seems like all I have time for these days is one ride a week.

Sunday September 7
Met Tommy and Brian at Oak Mountain for a lap. We went clockwise and enjoyed the nice weather. Tommy had a bit of trouble relating to his recent clipping. He decided to turn around because he was in a lot of pain. Once again at the bottom of the Jeep trail I put the bike in 2-5 to try to ride up. For some reason it really seems like I use less energy doing this. I think Oak's hill is nice because it has a few steep sections followed by flat areas that we can rest. Gives me time to recover after the steep areas. We rode on around and finshed up. I am pretty sure I went to McAllisters for a sweet tea and something to eat afterwards.

Saturday September 13
I had to be home to take care of some wedding stuff today so I met Randall of the Montevallo riders for a road ride from Montevallo. We rode a loop out towards Maylene circled around and went out to the airport exit before heading back. It was about 30 miles and really felt good due to the nice weather and just sitting on the bike and peddaling. Afterwards we went to Eclipse and I got me a smoothie and enjoyed sitting on the porch for a few minutes and relaxing before heading home. The rest of the weekend I got caught up on a lot of the wedding stuff and went into work for a bit to try to catch up on stuff I was behind on. I was looking forward to riding to work a few days the following week.

Well, I carried clothes to work and my bike monday in hopes of riding home. The week got really busy at work and I did at least get to look at my bike in my office. Wednesday I had had enough and called Monty and asked if there was still room to join him for the weekend. I decided that night to leave the next day. Saturday is my Birthday and I needed to get away, so I am going .

Last Day at Dupont

2008-09-01T21:14:00.001-05:00

We got up relatively early so we could eat then be at the tailhead by 9 to meet Woody. We made it right on time (which was a small miracle for us). Jay had a route planned out and Woody took that and added a bit onto it. We started out and headed out and towards the power lines. Unfortunately I was at the rear of the group and someone must have run over a yellow jacket because I got stung a couple of times. Of course I quickly moved to the front of the pack so it wouldn't happen again. We cruised up the power line trail and it had a few steep climbs that I could not ride up. We came out and rode up cedar rock and stopped at the top to enjoy the view. We then headed down the steeper side which was a lot of fun. There were a few nice drops in the trail that really make it interesting. We took Shole river trail (this may be right) and made a loop out so we could ride burnt mountian. This trail was incredible! It flowed incredibly well and had some perfectly spaced hills that you could jump. Woody told us a bit about the changes they had made when redoing the trail and it really opened my eyes to the a few of the subtlties of the trail. There was a climb up an old road that had been turned into singletrack. It was amazing how well it was routed to shead water, but still flow well enough to allow a fast pace but nowhere near a straight line. Jay had said how much he liked the downhill of this trail, so I was pretty excited when we reached the top. We started down the trail after a warning to be careful (I actually like hearing a warning because I know I am going to enjoy myself). The downhill was excellent with a lot of rock armoring and a few nice drops. it kept getting progressivly more difficult untill we got to the bottom.
At the base Joe said he had no brakes. Since he had a spare set of pads he changed them and we headed on our way. We rode back around to Cedar rock to climb back up the steep way. I started up and made it to the technical rocky section. Joe was in front and he hit a big step up and almost lost it. Soemhow he hopped the bike around and got up it. I tried to go a different route and it did not work out for me. I had to put a foot down. I remembered the rest of the climb being pretty tough, so I just continued on up the hill. However this time the climb seemed much easier adn I had no trouble making it the rest of the way. I kindof regretted not going back down to see if I could clear the whole climb. Once again we rested at the top and when we were about to take off Joel realized he had a flat. He quickly changed it and we took Big rock back down to the parking area.
We headed back to camp, packed everything up and showered before heading home. Once again it was a great trip and I am already lookng forward to coming back.

Pictures Here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/DupontNC2008_9_1#

Dupont Day 1

2008-08-31T23:00:00.001-05:00

The second day of our trip we hit Grammys on our way to Dupont. We made a loop around Reasonover Creek Trail around to Lake Juliard. I remembered to snap a picture of the lodge this time as I thought it was pretty cool. We headed on up to the old runway on top of the hill so we could take airstrip trail down. This section had recently been redone as it was very soft soil down near the bottom. At the base there were a couple of logs that we tried to ride. I don't think I made it without dabbing a foot when trying to switch logs.
We then rode down the trail to the base of the waterfall. We parked the bikes and walked out on the rocks at the base of the falls. We caught site of a snake and I almost jumped on a wasp so I took a few pictures. There was a short log ride on the trail back up from the falls that was neatly integrated with the rock. We then rode up to the stream via Shoals trail and stopped to check it out. A couple of riders waded over from the other side while we were there. We headed back up and took Laurel Ridge to Mine Mountain. At this intersection there is a log up of the ground about 4-5 feet. Jay got up on it and contemplated riding it. I am still not that confident with my balance and since we still had a whole day of riding I did not ride it for fear of falling off and not getting to enjoy the rest of the trip. We rode mine mountain and rode back to the parking lot. We really wanted to get a few more miles in so headed up mine mountain backwards with the intention of looping back around the lake. When we got to the other side we decided to go back over mine mountain again instead of riding the road out. This last time it was much easier and I even got to stop and snap this picture of a turtle crossing the trail. As there were some horses coming Joel helped it off the trail. We got back to the parking lot and ran into Woody Keen. He runs the company in charge of the Dupont trails and I believe is one of the most knowledgeable trail builders around. We talked to him for a while and he offered to be our guide for our ride tomorrow. We agreed to meet him tomorrow morning and headed back to camp to get cleaned up. We ate dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. It was very interesting as they could not serve alcohol because it was a dry county, but they allowed you to bring in your own "drink" for a dollar and even mix it with a virgin margarita. Something was wrong in the kitchen because we were wondering if we were going to get any food, but it finally came out after we ate about 10 baskets of chips. We headed back and had a few drinks before turnng in for the night.

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/DupontNC2008_8_31#

Squirrel Gap at Pisgah

2008-08-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

Joined Jay for a trip up to NC for a weekend of riding. We drove up yesterday night and decided to hit Pisgah today as this was to be our most difficult ride. We started with a breakfast at Grammy's and I got the Big Cedar Mtn Breakfast. It had a bit of everyhting and was just what I needed to get me through the ride. We started at the parking area by the creek and rode up the road, down 476 and into the trails. We were following the book, but due to the poor markings on the trails, we ended up taking a wrong trail. It was very overgrown but ended up having a nice little descent down to the creek that was a lot of fun. Somehow we managed to get back to where we should have been, but didn't realize it and ended up backtracking the trail (South mills river) we should have come down. about 50-100 yards from where we origionally took the wrong turn we realized our mistake and turned around. This actually worked out well as the part we went the wrong direction was all uphill so we got to take the nicely flowing trail back down to the swinging bridge. This section had a few nicely bermed turns and had great flow. It was a lot of fun, but Jay had derailleur problems and we stopped briefly to get it fixed before heading on.

After crossing the bridge, we finally came to the whole reason for the ride... Squirrel Gap. This section was rated one of the more difficult rides so that certainly got Jays attention. This trail was really nice. It had a few water crossings (one of which I stopped to refill my water bladder (Thanks to Ted for allowing me to bring his water pump so I did not have to carry 2 bladders of water). I generally only last about 2.5-3 hours max on my 70oz bladder so I knew it was going to be a problem since this was to be a 5-6 hour ride. The pump weighed much less than an extra bladder so it worked out well. Squirrel gap also had a few sections that were rocky and rooty right on the edge of the mountain. It definately had me concentrating on my line.

Our next trail was Pounding Hill. It was not nearly as punishing as the name implied. However this started our series of encounters with the local wildlife. We came to a huge tree across the trail and had to hand the bikes over as it was about shoulder high. It took a bit to crawl over it and not slid down off the side of the hill. Everyone had climbed across except for Joel, and as he was crawling across he got stung by yellowjackets. Ted was holding his bike and got stung also. We all started running and I had mine and Ted's bike and Ted was running with Joel's untill he got frustrated with me for struggling with the 2 bike and dropped Joels and grabbed his so we could run. Somehow only Ted and Joel got stung and Joel had to make a detour up through the woods to get around them. We headed on our way.

We decided to take a shortcut from the suggested trail in the book and take Bradley creek instead of the fireroads. It looked a bit shorter and more importantly was singletrack which I prefer. We started to realize why this was not suggested in the book as there were probably close to 10 creek crossings that could only be done by wading through. Most of them were not any deeper than the knee, but riding with wet shoes was a bit awkward. Also, on one of the crossings as I was heading down the bank toward the water I got stung. As I was realizing what was happening I got hit again. I started running through the creek and gotr stung one more time. I was yelling at Joel so he would not get into them and waited as he had to go around that area of trail and meet back up. As we finally got back to the road by the car, everyone (well at least me) was pretty exhausted. We got back and had riden just over 25 miles in right at 6 hours. I was filthy and were going to stop on the way back, so I headed a little ways upstream and stripped down and sat in the creek to wash off. It was cool, but not cold and felt great. We had a beer and headed to a Bar in town so Joe could watch the Alabama game. We hung out for a bit and headed back to camp. I was so tired I went to bed before the game was even over.

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/PisgahSquirrelGap2008_8_30#

Bad Blogging: Time to play catchup

2008-08-19T20:22:00.002-05:00

Well I am going to try to play a little catchup. Work has been pretty bad and just getting time to ride has been a struggle.

Started out on Friday the 8th when the weather was so nice I just decided to head to Oak after work. I got there a bit late to do a whole lap but met Mitch and Corb in the parking lot. We rode up to Blood rock CCW and back to the South Trailhead. The weather was so incredible that this ride really made me want to get on the bike more.

Saturday the 9th I went to Trussville for the workday and after a good day of working on the big mountain section we decided to test out our work. We rode 1 lap doing an out and back on the new section before riding a lap clockwise. I have not ridden Trussville since right before the Dead Dog last year and really liked Trussville. It is a really fun trail when just out for a casual ride. Jay showed us a tree near the camping area (I don't know how else to describe this spot) It gets high enough off the ground to not be able to drop a tire. I tried many times to ride it, but was unsuccessful. Jay made it across after just a couple tries. We also stopped at the parking area by the baseball fields and we rode the poles that were laying on the ground as well as down and up (yes up) the stairs. Finally there was a rock on the edge of the pavement that we jumped off of a few times. The landing was very soft on the grass and was a fun place to play. Finally we finished up with the difficult new sections. I was able to clear them on the first try with only a bit of trouble on one of the rocky turns, but was able to hop the bike back into motion. I was a bit dissapointed as I was expecting to have to study the triail and learn how to ride it before doing so succesfully. This is a difficult section, but another trail may have to be built to really give people something they have to work hard to be able to successfully clear.

Sunday the 11th I found a few people going to Ladiga. I had been wanting to plan a trip and mentioned it to a few people and they said they were going tomorrow. I was excited about going and we met at Joe's house and carpooled there. We headed out and the road bike is a completely different experience on this trail. Last time I rode it, it was not paved all the way so I had to ride the Mtn bike (the GF Sugar). I got some practice pacelining and we scooted down the trail at a pretty good pace. We stopped at the visitor center. It was not open last time and it is a pretty nice little place. Continuing on we actaully went a littel way past the line as I don't think everyone was ready to turn around immediately. On the ride back we once again stopped at the visitor center for a rest. This time the guy that rant he place was there wnd we chatted with him a bit. We rode on back and I really didn't have as many aches and pains as last time. The only thing i remember is a bit of hand numbness near the end. I was pretty pleased as I was also nto as tired as before. On the mnt bike I was so sore I walked funny for a few days but I really got nothing on the road bike. I had been considering buying a better seat (as it has a really cheap one), but I was pleased and now I am not in so much of a rush.

On Sat 8/16 I met Bump for the 3rd Sat club ride. We rode a lap CW of Oak mountain and I played around a bit and practiced riding the logs more than usual. This was a nice casual ride and felt nice after the week at work.

Tuesday 8/19 James told me to bring my bike to work so we could ride afterwards. There was some drama that kept me at work late, but we decided to go anyway. We got there around 6 and headed off CW. We were expecting to turn around as James had not ben in so long, but he just kept going. We realized the darkness was going to be a problem during the climb up the Jeep. It started getting dark as we got to the descent down to the BUMP trail. by the time we got to blood rock I had to take off my glasses to see. It was actually really fun as I could barely see down quary road down to the road. We got off on the road and it was almost completely dark. Other than almost getting hit by a car on this road (the car came off the road after me) this part was awsome. The lightning bugs were all in the trees and down the road adn we could just make out the gravel to stay on the road. I was expeccting to get repremanded at our vehicles for being out late, but no one was there so we took off quickly.

Thanks to the weather there was no riding the weekend of the 23rd. But I am soon going to NC for some serious riding. I am really looking forward to this and hop my lack of riding is not going to hurt me too much.

Four laps of Oak. OK maybe just 2

2008-08-02T15:43:00.003-05:00

I carried my bike to the bike shop yesterday evening to schedule getting the rear hub fixed. They scheduled me for Monday, so I took my bike with me so I could ride for the weekend. I will have to get it back to them Sunday before they close, but I did manage to get a ride in today. At the bike shop I ran into Brendan and he said a few people were meeting Sun morning at 7:00 to ride. This is one reason I took the bike back. I was actually planning on meeting the Montevallo riders for a road ride as I though I would be without the Motolite. I am glad I kept it as I was wanting to ride at Oak.

I was a few minutes late but met Brendan, Lee, Jay and Ted. Lee was talking crazy talk about doing 4 laps, and I thought I might be good for 3 so I said I would try to hang with him for as many as I could do. We rode a lap Clockwise and moved at a pretty good pace. We stopped to ride on or over just about every fallen tree near the trail. As we didn't start till almost 7:30, Brendan had to take off when we hit the Jeep trail to make it to work at 9. (I don't think he could have made it iin time unless he was flying. I wonder if he bailed out on the road or was late.) There was a fallen tree across the road near the green trail intersection on the top of the ridge. Lee was trying to cross it at a pretty high point and got caught in his pedals. He gouged his palm and I am sure was in pain the remainder of the ride. Ted showed me the hip jump coming down from bump where you can jump up on the wall to set you up for the turn. I attempted this and managed to get on the wall a bit. Definately something I can look forward to practicing going this direction. Ted had also set up a new log ride in foreplay that we tried to ride. I was only able to ride it successfully in one direction, so I will have to try again next time. At the parking lot, Lee's bike was not shifting well and we were unable to fix it, so he ran it by the bike shop.

Me and Ted decided to do another lap as I was feeling pretty good at this point. We headed Counter-clockwise for this lap and he set set a good pace at the start. I started to lag behind climbing up quary road but pushed myself a bit harder than I should. I had to rest at the base of Blood rock but luckilly Mark came by and we chatted with him for a few minutes. This gave me a chance to rest and we headed on . I was feeling a bit better for a while and enjoyed the ride down the jeep trail. Ted picked up the pace and I started struggling a bit to keep up. He kept up the pace and I tried to keep up as best as could, but I could tell I was holding him back. I really started struggling on the Garret's Gulch climb but kept going and finally made it back to the parking lot. I really don't like being the slow one, but appreciated the ride and the motivation to push myself to ride faster. I definately need to do this more often and hopefuly I can get a it faster.

I went to McAlisters after the ride as usual and met Steph for lunch. My legs (Hams) tried to cramp a few times while I was siting there so I had to keep my legs stretched out. I drank 3 glasses of tea trying to rehydrate. I got home and took a cool shower and feel much better now. I think three laps would have killed me, and am happy I quit at 2.

Also: I put links to the pictures of the rides for the past few (that I had forgotten). All my public galleries can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm

Ocoee Brush Creek Trail

2008-07-27T22:00:00.001-05:00

We woke up this morning and headed to the Ocoee Campground area so we could ride the Brush creek trail. This time I remembered to pack some energy bars and we headed out. We took the trail beside the river up the Rafting center. Then we took the old copper trail which also paralleled the river. There were a lot of people rafting and kayaking as it was a beautiful day. This part of the tail was nice and cool as the wind was cooled as it blew across the water. The next section was a short but steep climb. This part of the trail was a bit overgrown and I got my arms slightly torn up as some of the briers were crossing the trail and got me as I was leading the way. The top was a nice view and we stopped to catch out breath for a few minutes. The next part was a roller coaster of a trail. It was about 7 miles of rolling, twisting fun. The tail finally ended up near a bridge crossing brush creek. There were some blackberries at the trail head and we enjoyed a few as we sat in the shade and relaxed for a few minutes. I figured that we had a climb ahead of us as it seemed like we had been going downhill for most of the time. I took the lead and was cruising through the woods pretty good. I kept expecting a hill, but somehow it never came. I actually think the trail flowed a bit better this direction than the other. There was a small climb at the end, but this is definitely a trail I would recommend to others. We scooted down the section we had to climb earlier and rode back to the Whitewater Center. Mitch and Monty went in the gift shop and I payed around on some of the stairs and rocks. I found a short section of 4 sets of stairs that I was able to ride up which I haven't tried to do since college. Made me feel good that I could still do it. The ride back to the campground was nice and I got to watch some of the rafters going down the river as was riding beside it.

When we got back Monty told us there was a shower and I decided I would make use of it instead of riding the 3 hours home in wet bike shorts. The shower was actually pretty cool as there was two shower heads. One was normal height and the other was waist high. Perverted thoughts aside, it worked great as I was able to get the dirt and grime off my legs much easier. I would really like to have a shower in my house with multiple shower heads. Maybe someday I can afford such luxuries. The drive home ended with a stop at McAlisters where I met Stephanie for dinner.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/BrushCreekTrail2008_7_27

Racoon in the Rain

2008-07-26T22:20:00.005-05:00

Went up to Raccoon for Mitch's weekend trip. We met at Cracker Barrel in Trussville and it was raining pretty hard on the way there. I was pretty worried it would rain out our ride, but when we got to Chattanooga it did not look too bad. We starter riding and went counter-clockwise from the visitor's center. It stated sprinkling on us, but only stayed a sprinkle the whole time we rode. I carried my camera, but it as so wet out I was afraid to get it out of the zip-lock bag. I had a pretty good ride as I didn't have any wrecks this trip and successfully dropped off the 3' rock on the one way section. I landed the slightest bit sideways and burped the air out of my tire. I was running pretty low pressure so I decided to put a bit more in it for the rest of the ride. I was shaking as I did this and it made me realize how I am still not completely comfortable jumping off stuff yet. I guess I will have to keep it up till it doesn't bother me anymore. We took a nice slow lap and stopped to play on a lot of stuff. We did swing by the log ride and rode across a few times, I rode across successfully and then started getting sloppy and had to jump off. I don't know what was wrong with me, but when I was trying to stop on the log and start back up again and locked the back tire and slid off and landed on my butt. I guess it was a little too wet to try that.

We then moved on the lower chunky section. This section was more difficult and being wet only made it more fun. I stopped to jump off one of the rocks a few times, but could not convince anyone else to try it. I thought for sure Jay would at least try it. We finished up this section and decided to lap the intestine section in the opposite direction we were going. This direction seemed to be much faster and have a better flow. I was scooting through pretty fast just trying to keep up with Jay and at one point came to a small drop with a stream going through it. I just jumped without thinking about it and cleared the water and almost cleared the whole dip. This is definitely something to look for next time I am there. Finally we finished out the loop with the climb up and then coasted down to the parking lot.

We headed to the hotel and after checking in and taking a nice cool shower we headed out to get dinner. We decided on Big River Brewery and sampled a few of their beers while waiting for our food. I ended up getting a steak and it was quite tasty after a long day of riding. We headed out, but stopped at Sticky Fingers for another beer before heading back to the hotel. I tried a Sweetwater Blue (it was a Blueberry beer) and thought it was pretty good.

Unfortunately, these are all the pictures I took.

Hot at Hurricane

2008-07-20T21:12:00.001-05:00

We met at hurricane creek at 1:00 to check out the new stuff that they had built. It was only me, Tommy, Lee, and Monty. We started into the trail and I heard a terrible sound behind me. I knew someone had crashed and immediately turned around and went back. Monty was about 30 feet down the hill. I sat in shock as he got up and said he though the was ok. It appeared he only had some minor scratches. After a little time to recover we headed on and went to the mountain bike race course. We rode up around and found the new 5' drop that he had built. I was not feeling it this early into the ride and decided I might come back to it later. A short ride later we found the new structure right next to the wooden berm. It was pretty interesting to ride as it was pretty high even though it was plenty wide. We started off slow and finally after Lee rode the skinny I decided to try it. It is about 3' off the ground and is 12" wide. It is really intimidating just because of the height. I managed to make it even though I was really shakey. Another thing that made it difficult is that it is at a right angle off the wide part so you couldn't get lined up before going across. The second time I hit my helmet on the wood above it as I didn't duck enough. I still managed to make it without falling. I decided to ride around some and found a 3' drop on the course right up the trail. It had a ramp up and a short level section before ending. I jumped off the first time and came down on the front wheel a bit more than I wanted. It scared me a bit, but I didn't crash. I went back as there was a short gap jump that I really wanted to do. I looked at it quite a while before deciding to try it. I was told to be careful and not pull up to hard because the bike could kick out due to the angle of the ramp. I gathered my nerves and headed down the ramp. I didn't pull up at all and was not really going as fast as I should have been. Anyway my back tire came down right on the edge of the landing ramp. If I had come up a inch or two shorter it would have been bad, but I did land it and stay on the bike. I checked to see if John (the guy who runs the place) had gotten a good picture and he said he was waiting to get a picture of me crashing. I somehow felt insulted, but didn't mind that I had let him down. We finally headed on around the rest of the race course. I jumped off the 3' drop again and this time landed correctly. We circled on around and headed out to the top of the Gauntlet run. I went second as me and Lee wanted to ride the whole thing without dabbing. I made it all the way to the start of the woden section. I made it around the rock , but was going a bit fast and tried to hit the wood instead of hanging to the right. My front wheel dropped off the outside of the wood pathway and I had to put a foot down. I hiked back up to take pictures of everyone else coming down. We tried to stop at the dirt jump section. but it was soft dirt and we couldn't really play on it. We rode across the skinny bridge and hiked the bikes up to the short loop on the other side of the valley. I ran out of water at this point, so I knew I wasn't going to last for much longer. We rode a lap and headed back down the mountain. I passed the rock as I decided I was doing to well and didn't want to wreck now. I rode back across the bridge again. I actually made it both directions over this bridge. I was unable to make it last time I came. I think having Lee there to set the bar helped encourage me. I had to try after I saw him make it. Lastly we rode across the normal bridge (about 18-24" wide) and rested at the picnic area before trying the hill. We finally headed to the hill and I locked out my shocks as well as dialing my front down to 110. I went ahead and put it in a low gear and followed Lee up the hill. He made it about 3/4 of the way before wheelieing off the side of the trail. Somehow I made it to where he was and was so tired I was about to quit, but he was yelling encouragement and I managed to make it all the way to the top. It took me about 10m minutes to recover afterwards, but I actually made it. Lee went back down to the bottom to try again and I couldn't believe he had the energy to even try. He rode all the way to the top this time. I definately owe him a beer as I promised anyone who could ride it a beer. We went on back to the entrance and watched some helmet cam videos that some of the other riders took while we cooled off. After a nice beverage in the parking lot we headed back home. I don't know if I want to ride there again till it cools down a bit. Most of the time my clothes were so wet it looked like I had just gotten out of a pool. my clothes were so saturated they were dripping. I weighed when I got back home and I had lost over 5 pounds. Me and Steph decided to go to Longhorn and get a steak to help me recover.

Check out Tommy's blog as I know he has some video's up of a few things. I am going to have to see if he got any other videos. I wil have to get picture up later as this is the first chance I have even got to Blog about it.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/HurricaneCreek2008_7_20

Like a kid again

2008-07-19T23:59:00.001-05:00

The day started out nice as I was able to get up early enough to meet some of the other BUMP folks at Oak mountain. I got there only a few minutes after 7 and they waited on me to get started. We rode a lap clockwise and I was feeling pretty good. We got back to the parking lot a little late and missed the group that was meeting at 9. I talked them into going the reverse direction for the second lap (counter-clockwise). We headed up johnson's mountain and I could feel the heat getting to me a little. I actually noticed a bit of difference as I came to the rocky section leading up to Blood rock. I climbed this in a bigger gear than I have in a while. I don't know if this was just due to not riding Oak in a while, or the road biking making a slight difference. Once again I tried to climb blood rock. I am going to try Joe's method some day of getting enough speed to carry you up the first section, but today I just tried to use technique to climb it. I almost got to the tree, but once again I got stuck. We got to the top of the mountain and met up with the 9:00 riders. After a short rest we headed down the hill and finished out the lap. I was slightly debating doing a third as I was feeling ok. I didn't really want to ride by myself so I sat and had a tasty beverage out of a plastic cup in the parking lot. Joe pulled up and was going to ride a lap, but I knew I would just slow him down so I headed to McAlisters to get some food. I sat outside as I was pretty sweaty so as not to disgust any of their other customers.

I talked to Joel and decided to meet him at his house to head to Bottle Tree. I had never been to his house before and he lives on the mountain beside downtown Bham. He collects old bicycles and I spent a good bit of time just looking at all the bikes he had. He also gave me some of the beer he made and it was really good. The only other person I know who made beer was in college and it was not the best. We waited for one of his friends and headed down to the bar. I took the IndyFab and I have to say I was not very comfortable. They would haul ass down the hills and through the intersection and I was so busy trying to pick a line to avoid the bad road I kept falling behind. I was still a little uncomfortable on the road bike. We got there and had a beer and ate. I was really impressed by how good the food was. they had Cajun sweet potato fries that were really good. I will probably go back just for those. We hung around for a few give aways (they were giving away shirts, and bike stuff) before deciding to head out. It was pretty late(for me that is past 10) and we put the lights on the bikes. I wanted to ride around some and everyone else wanted to also. We followed Joel around downtown and just had fun. He took us on a tour of some of the art as well as riding up a ramp and through a parking deck. I started feeling much more comfortable on the bike and started hopping on and off the curb (this sounds crazy as 3' drops don't bother me on the mountain bike). We finally headed up 20th street to Vulcan. This was a pretty steep hill and I used granny gear on my bike for the first time. We rode down Vulcan trail that is on the edge of the mountain overlooking the city. It was awesome and the moon was near full, so I turned my light out and rode for a short time by moonlight. We headed back to Joel's house and I headed home. I really enjoyed this ride and would definitely do it again.

Never going to be fast

2008-07-15T21:19:00.003-05:00

After a few really rough weeks at work I finally was able to start commuting again. Today I only had to work an 11 hour day, so I got to ride to and was "forced" to leave early enough si I wouldn't be in the dark on the way home. I was feeling pretty rough after the ride in, but after riding home I am feeling much better. It has been about 2 weeks since I have been on the bike. I think I am just going to have to give up on ever getting faster. I just can't seem to get on the bike enough to improve.

On a sidenote: We went to Charleston SC the weekend of the 4th to visit some of Stephanie's friends. I have been there before, but I have not really noticed how much bikes are respected there. As you drive down the streets, almost every porch has a bike on it as well as every bar, grocery store, or pretty much any store has a bike rack, an if not there were a few bikes chained to a nearby fence or pole. I watched and motorists seemed to actually not completely despise the cyclists and gave them equal use of the road. I thought it was pretty cool.

I am going to try to get in a few more rides this week while the weather is nice.

Slow Lap

2008-06-28T22:00:00.002-05:00

Went to Oak Mountain with Moran and ran a lap. I just did not feel great today. Moran had a hard time keeping his heart rate down and we stopped to rest a few times which was fine with me. I don't think I successfully rode any of the log rides but we did make the whole loop without any flats (lately my biggest problem). I recently put some Panracer Fire UST tires on (I just wanted to try something different than the Nevegals) and have been relatively pleased. I rode with them at Lurleen last weekend and now at Oak Mountain. I am not sure they are better, especially in the sand, but they seem to do well everywhere else. I just need to try them in the wet to see how they do, but they are less expensive and I was going through the old ones too fast.

Also, Tommy had mentioned the Gnomes had been multiplying. I managed to snap a picture of them and will try to get it up soon.

After our ride we went to McAlisters. It has been a little while since I have gone since being introduced to Chipotle. It was nice sitting outside in the shade and drinking the sweet tea. I really like people watching there, but not many people came to eat that day. My only complaint is that the little blond that looks like Elisha Cuthbert (I have no idea how to spell her name) was not working that day.

I looked back and only made about 93 miles this week. I had about 95 last week, so I am very close, but unfortunately my hundred mile week will have to be later. I am hoping all this road riding is going to help my mountain biking, but currently it is just making me too tired to ride hard.

First case of road rage (unfortunately not me)

2008-06-27T22:00:00.000-05:00

Rode to and from work today and it was very enjoyable except for a lady in a white SUV laid on the horn as she passed me (as well as not moving over). Of course she was speeding as the speed limit is only 30 and 45 on these roads. I can only imagine it is such a nusiance to have to wait a maximum of 30 seconds to find a break in the cars to go around me. I ride on or over the line when a car is coming so most people only have to touch the far line with their wheel to give me a couple feet clearance. I know I have seen this car around Montevallo and next time I find a "I heart bikers" sticker or something similar I am going to buy it. I am pretty sure I will recognize the car and next time I see it, they are getting a sticker on their rear window.

The ride home was a bit of a gamble as Stephanie took the truck home at 4 and I knew I would have to work late. It started raining around 5, but cleared up a bit by the time I was ready to leave. I was afraid I would get caught in the rain, but other than getting a few sprinkles while in downtown Montevallo, the rain held off. It was nice and cool and smelled like rain (I hope everyone knows what I mean as I love that smell). This was probably one of the most enjoyable rides yet.

Good Start, but can I follow through?

2008-06-25T17:00:00.002-05:00

I started this week pretty well by commuting both Monday and Tuesday to and from work. Yesterday before the ride home, I was thinking that I could get in a 100 mile week. Looking back, I don't think I have ever ridden that much in a single week before. However; after I got home last night my legs were aching a bit, but I assumed it would be better by the morning. (I don't know if I have mentioned, but the ride is 12.25 miles and for some reason is much easier to ride to work than riding back home from the office.) I was planning on going to Oak Mountain this afternoon, however Wednesdays are leg day at the gym and I was struggling there (even though I have dropped weight and do sets of 20 reps). I got back to the office and realized that if I rode; it would not be pretty. I was supposed to meet someone there and I felt bad cancelling, but I think I am going to have to work my way up to riding so much. I am going to see how I feel tomorrow and try to ride again. But by skipping today, I am going to have to ride two laps of Oak this weekend to make the 100 mark if I can make the ride to and from tomorrow.

On a good note (for me): it is thundering and cloudy outside. I need a better excuse than me being lazy.

Quite an adventure

2008-06-22T22:00:00.003-05:00

Today Stephanie and her dad went with me to Oak Mountain to ride. I really didn't know what to expect as far as skill level since her dad informed me he had not been on a bike in over 30 years. Moran was kind enough to let me borrow his bike (The green regions machine) since I only have one spare. We met at the Waffle House so he could follow us in since he had also not been to the park in over 25 years.

We parked in the back parking lot near the South Trailhed and I tried to get my bike set up for him first so he could ride around and get a feel for it. I got it close and he took off while I swapped pedals on Moran's for Stephanie to ride. Once I had finished airing up all the tires and checking over everything he seemed pretty comfortable riding around. We quickly realized the Moran's seat would not go low enough for Steph so I was able to get my seat lower than previous attempts (I don't know why it finally lowered, I hope I didn't force it past the bottom stop).

Since Steph could not reach the pedals on Brian's I had to swap them and I put her on my old one and her dad on Brian's. They seemed to be comfortable so we worked our way up into the field above the parking lot. They both had no problems whatsoever riding around up there so I decided it was time to hit the trail. One thing as we were leaving the field, they both seemed hesitant to ride through the opening in the gate (about 4' wide). I knew they would get over this fear very quickly on the trail.

We rode up the road to peavine to the top of Mr. Toads. I was hoping that a slightly downhill ride would be a bit easier. I might should have chosen the family trail as I think it is a bit wider and has fewer roots. It is interesting how you do not realize things that could be potential problems. The first little section is quite thin and has a few roots that are not perpendicular to the trail. This was probably not the best place to start for the first time, but they did fine. Steph like going slower and her dad seemed to want to go a bit faster. When they swapped and he started leading, things went more smoothly. However I was a bit worried he would get going to fast around a blind turn, but he did fine.

There was also a bridge on this section that I had not even thought about. Steph's dad went over it fine and I shouted congratulations to him right as Steph was heading for it. Unfortunately, I think I made her nervous about crossing it because she locked up the brakes and slid off the bank to the side of the bridge. Unfortunately I could not get my camera out quick enough as she quickly jumped up and scurried across the bridge in hopes I wouldn't catch her. We rode the rest of the way out and they were both doing pretty good near the end. We stopped back at the trucks for a rest. After getting some water we did a few more laps around the parking lot before packing up.

They both did well for their first trip and I think there will be another in the future. We will wait till tomorrow when the saddle soreness kicks in to know for sure.

Edit: I finally got the pictures added.

All the pictures are here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/OakMountain2008_6_22

Joined the Club at Lurleen

2008-06-21T22:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday evening in anticipation of today's ride I went by and picked me up some stuff to make Spaghetti. I was too lazy to make my own meatballs so I picked up some frozen ones also. I try to pasta before longer rides as I always seem to feel better during the ride if I do. (This could be all mental, but I really just wanted some spaghetti and meatballs so it was a good excuse).

I woke up and got ready. Moran was going to meet me at my house and ride with me. I was running a bit behind, so we didn't leave until close to 7. He decided to drive separately as he was on call and I don't think he was wanting to spend the whole day there. I was originally going to have to leave by 3 to get back home for dinner with friends, but that was postponed till next weekend, so I was given the go ahead to stay as long as I wanted. On the way I realized that I had forgotten the camera. I hate I was not going to be able to get any pictures of the event.

We arrived at about 8:30 and probably hit the trail close to 9. We went counter-clockwise as was suggested by some of the other riders showing up the same time we did (however these riders ended up riding clockwise). We definitely were going the opposite direction of everyone else, but I thought it was a really nice ride. I have only gone this direction once before and it seemed to be the easier way to go. We passed most of the BUMP folks and they told me where they were parked. We finished up and swung by their campsite. I couldn't talk Chris S. into riding another lap immediately, but found Mitch lounging in the AC and he decided to try to get another lap in before lunch with me.

Moran decided to sit this one out and I though the might stick around and do a second after lunch as he was hanging out at the car when we left. I ate a snack and refilled my camelback before heading back out. Mitch wanted to go Counter Clockwise so we headed off. He set a perfect pace on this lap that kept me moving a bit faster that I would have gone by myself, but I was relatively comfortable and recovering quickly after the climbs. This lap was a bit more hot and humid than the first. The first one was perfect weather and I stayed pretty comfortable. The trail definitely seems easier this way as there is a lot of downhill on the second half. We finished somewhere after 1:15. I swung by my truck and noticed that Moran had headed back home. We went up to the pavilion to get lunch.

They had BBQ (I forget where they said they got it) that was quite good. and Mitch had brought some watermelon. I didn't want to gorge myself because I was still debating on the number of laps I was going to try and ride. After we ate and relaxed a few minutes (quite a few minutes to let the food settle) we went to try to find everyone else. It appeared they had already left, so I refilled the camelback and we decided to head Clockwise for the next one (because I had not been that way yet). I have to say that Clockwise is definitely harder, but much more fun. There were a few jumps over water pipes going this way at the beginning and I was able to clear all the trees going across the trail as well as some off to the sides. There was one tree that I believe was slightly larger than the one near the base of Camp road at Oak that I made it over (this is the first lap I tried). I would ballpark the height at 16-18". I had tightened my pedals but I still hopped out of one of them trying to hop the back wheel up, but I managed to still stay on the bike and somewhat ungracefully clear it. There were a few more log piles that I rode. one was about 5 smaller logs piled up loosely that was not too difficult (someone had laid these out pretty nice). There was also 2 roughly 12" logs that almost got me. I got my front wheel over, but right as my front was coming down, the back tire was in between them and it brought me to a stop. I had to do a small hop to get the back moving and thought I was going to go over the handlebars, but somehow recovered. The last thing I found was at the top right on the ridge right before heading back down. There was a short skinny that was propped on a log so there was a small drop off the other end before heading down. I had not noticed this before as going the other direction I just never saw it. I was a bit nervous as the drop was just enough that I needed to keep the front wheel up but it was quite fun. Somewhere around the midpoint I started feeling the hills. I knew this was not a good sign as I knew a fourth lap would be quite a struggle. We finished it out and there were a few climbs at the end. I was not cramping at all, but was just running out of energy.

Right as we were getting back to the parking lot, there was another rider stopped in the road. Mitch was ahead and I heard the other rider say snake. Mitch must have just seen it because he locked up the back tire and slid sideways to a stop. Of course that got a comment from Monty who was standing not too far away at the campsite. He came down to look and it was a rattlesnake (probably 2.5' long). We watched it slither across the road and went up to the campsite. Everyone was sitting around and we joined them. Jim had some cantaloupe and honeydew and I ate quite a bit. This got me feeling better and I was considering riding another lap but no one else really wanted to. I was at a good point and one more lap probably left me struggling with stairs the next day. This was all I needed to talk me out of doing another one. It was already after 4:00 so we hung out at the pavilion for a while and then headed home.

BUMP had a great showing at this event with 9 riders (Me, Mitch, Moran, Strayner, Allen, Monty, Linda, DeShazo, and Jim). I had a good time and think we should do something similar at Oak Mountain. It would be nice to have some sort of 48 club (or whatever 3 laps is) that will give people a goal to reach. I would probably never had ridden Lake Lurleen more than twice without someone setting the goal to reach. However, I think LL now has quite a few with 4 and even 5 laps under their belt in a day. I was hoping for a commemorative pint glass to honor the occasion, but I may have to settle for the self satisfaction of doing it.

First True Commute

2008-06-19T21:55:00.000-05:00

Today I truly commuted to work on the bike. The previous trips were a ride home after driving in and then riding in and driving home. Today I actually rode in and rode home. I wanted to take Friday off to rest up a bit for the Saturday ride (hopefully I will get 3 laps in of Lake Lurleen in before I have to get home). It is getting much easier and really helps me relax after a rough day at the office.

I got a return authorization for the Garmin, so I am once again going to be without it for a week or two. I think I am going to hang onto it for Lurleen and just send it back Monday.

I am also taking Stephanie's dad biking for the first time on Sunday. He has lost over 60 lbs so far for the wedding and he said he was going to ride with me when he hit the 50 lb mark. I think Stephanie may go also, so this could be quite an adventure.

Commuting but at least I am on the bike.

2008-06-18T11:55:00.003-05:00

I finally gave up on trying to make it to any organized rides during the week. And after not riding this weekend I was getting desperate. Things are starting to slow down a bit here at work, but I still seem to get caught having to get a quote out or something on the days I want to leave early (or on-time, I forget what that is).

Monday I rode the bike home from the office after driving in that morning. I ended up leaving about 6 so traffic was not too bad. I also took 17-15 home instead of 119 which I feel a lot more safe. There are very few large trucks and the rode is more hilly and winding so the drivers are forced to pay a bit better better attention. It was a pleasent ride, but I am out of shape or something. I ended up with roughly 12.3 miles in 45 minutes. This is faster than I ever rode it on the mtn bike, but I still felt like I was going pretty slow.

Tuesday I decided to just ride in that morning also as I was able to wake up early enough to have time. I duplicated my ride with just under 46 minutes, so I assume both directions are about the same (climbing wise). I though tmy legs would be killing me, but I felt pretty good throughout the day.

I do have a grump. My Garmin has once again stopped working properly. This time it is turning off whenever I hit a bump. It seems to be only sudden shocks that do it as it has been only happening randomly when I am on the Mtn Bike (I think the shock dampens most of the trail chatter). But on the road bike it turns off very often. I got mad and just took it off the bar mount and threw it in my jersey. It stayed on when I did this, but I can not see my speed or heartrate or anything that would probably make me ride harder. (Maybe this is not such a bad thing). I have contacted Garmin, but I am guessing I am going to be witout it again for a couple of weeks while they repair it. I haven't had a lot of luck with this thing.

Road Ride from Helena

2008-06-01T22:47:00.001-05:00

First off I finally got a new keyboard. Part of my poor spelling was due to a number of keys on the keyboard not working very well. Now I have no excuse.

I found that the Montevallo riders were riding from Joe Tucker Park in Helena to 280 and back on Highway 11. I was a bit scared as I knew that there is a moderate hill starting on 52 up to cross the highway. One of my biggest problems is warming up quickly so hitting this hill at the beginning was worrying me a bit.

I met the guys and everyone was nice and welcomed me on the ride. One thing that bothered me a bit is that as we were leaving everyone was checking to make sure they had ID. I asked if this was in case they were pulled over, but I was informed it was so they could quickly identify the body. After this nice bit of information I grabbed my license and we headed out.

Luckily they chose to ride to Alabaster to hit the end of 11. This road was pretty level and I was feeling OK as I fell in line at the second to back. I quickly realized that I was pretty bad at keeping in line properly. We got to the 31-119-11 intersection and headed across. My heart rate was staying low but my legs were burning a bit.

One thing that was annoying is that my Garmin appears to be damaged again. Every time I hit a bump (especially when crossing the railroad tracks) it would switch off. I kept having to turn it back on and restart it which is hard to do and keep in line.

We got to 280 and stopped to rest at the gas station. I ate the nutrigrain bar I brought and stood in the shade. I stretched a bit and by the time we were ready to head back, my legs were feeling better. We headed off and I decided to bring up the rear of the pack. I noticed that I felt better coasting down the hills (in which I would fall back a bit) but when climbing the hills I would catch back up with everyone. I seemed to be able to climb easier, but they never stopped pedaling whereas I enjoyed the rest while coasting down the hills.

The only problem we had with cars is a truck that displayed his displeasure of having to go around us by flooring the gas and only clearing us by a foot (he only missed the leader by few inches). I have terrible luck with riding on the road, but other than that it was a great experience. We got back to the park and they invited me to the Depot to relax after the ride, but I had a wedding to go to that afternoon, so I packed up and headed on home.

I will definitely try to ride with these guys again as I had a good time. I ended up riding about 36 miles and for the rest of the day my legs were burning. I really struggled with stairs and sitting for the better part of the day. Hopefully I can start riding a day or so a week on the road and see if it gets easier.

What did I beak now?

2008-05-30T22:00:00.002-05:00

I checked my bike over before the raccoon ride and found the source of the rattling. It seems my rear cassette had come loose. This is where the rattling was coming from. I decided to take it off to clean it and had a bit of difficulty getting the third gear off. I found the following when I got it off:

I put it back on and tightened it up and assumed it would be OK. Well, at the end of the ride at Raccoon it stated rattling again. Apparently it is going to keep coming loose, so I called up Cahaba and asked them to order me a new hub outer shell. I may need to get a new cassette also just to be on the safe side.

Since the BUMP n Grind race is this weeked, I am probably not going to get much riding in. I am going to try and make a short road ride tomorow morning (since i have plans for most of the day Satuday and Sunday is pretty much out also) so I can at least get a few miles in this weekend.

Raccoon with BUMP

2008-05-26T22:00:00.000-05:00

I made a few calls last night in hopes I could find a ride to go on today. I was thinking I would be heading to Chief Ladaga to ride today. I was pleased to find out a few people were going to Raccoon Mountain. Mitch had expressed interest in riding today, so I called him last night and he was going to meet me to ride up there. We headed up and met Joe and Joel on the way. After a quick stop to get an early lunch at Wendys we met with everyone at the visitor’s center about 11:00. After we got ready we hit the trail and headed Counter Clockwise. This direction had us immediately go down a steep slope and climb back out. I was struggling at this point as I was not warmed up yet. Once we made it back up to the level section of the trail I started feeling much better.
We continued on and had some nice downhill down to the bottom of the dam. We stopped temporarily to jump off one of the dirt mounds there. There were a few sections that looked like they had been improved and the trail was in great shape. We came to the little one-way section and Monty managed to get a flat tire. While he fixed it, Joe jumped off of a nearby log. I goofed up the camera and all my pictures of this came out blurry. They had removed the gap jump, however that had a bridge that was half-built. Jay successfully rode the 4x4 skinny halfway across before riding over the bridge. I now had wished I had gone back and tried to do it again, or at least taken a picture of him riding it. There was a drop shortly after of about 2.5-3’ I decided I was going to ride it this time (As this is where I wrecked last time I was here). I once again somehow went over the handlebars after I landed. I managed to catch myself before going all the way over, but I got a little tangled in the bike. I got up and decided to try it again. I think I was heading too far to the right and getting in the soft dirt so this time I swerved far right and came back to the left. I managed to land it successfully this time, so we headed on. I should have given my camera to someone and you could be looking at great crash pictures instead of just reading about it, but I didn’t.
We rode on around and came to the Lower Chunky section. I didn’t want to miss either section so I suggested we ride around and come back up Chunky and then backtrack to we could get the best direction on both trails. We stopped to play on the log ride for a few seconds as we went around and then rode up through Chunky. It was pretty challenging and a LOT of fun. Joe and Joel decided to take the road back as he was worried about getting back in time to pick up his wife. We headed back through and I stopped briefly to jump off one of the rocks. I gave Jay my camera this time so we could have a picture. We rode on out and rode lower intestine in the reverse direction. Jay said it flowed better in this direction and I would have to agree. We scooted through here pretty quickly and at the overlook we rode down the rocks. It is relatively steep but not too difficult. Everyone rode down it and I got a few pictures. We rode the rest of the trail on out and after a bit of a climb, enjoyed the nice downhill back to the parking lot.
We headed back and stopped at a Mexican restaurant for dinner. I got the Fajita Steak Nachos and they were really good. Today was a great ride and I made it out with only a slight rash from something on my arms, legs, and neck. I think hitting all the foliage did something my skin didn’t like. Jay gave me some Benedryl and it seemed to clear it up, so I will assume it was nothing.

Humid day at Swayback

2008-05-24T21:22:00.003-05:00

I found out Mitch was planning a trip to Swayback and called him to verify he was still going as it appeared there was not much interest. He said he was and I met YetiGuy (Scott) and Shane at the airport exit. We headed down to Swayback and got ready to ride. We headed out following the Black trail. We followed the trail around and the first part flowed pretty well. We continued on around and came out on the power line trail. I think Scott and Shane were not liking our pace, so we decided to split up. We continued on around and it was a nice ride until we got to the back corner near the swayback bridge. I don’t know what happened, but this section wiped me out a lot more than usual. I think the humidity was affecting me a lot. We finished on up and sat in the parking lot talking to the group from Pensicola while eating a snack and refilling our camelbacks. We headed out to ride the black trail backwards this time. We figured we would run into Scott and Shane this way to make sure they were ok. This first section had the most elevation change and I was once again panting. We finally made it through and somehow I was making the correct turns and we were successfully riding it backwards. Once we got a bit into it it eased up and we were moving at a good pace. I almost took a wrong turn off one of the power line trails but we figured it out and made it around successfully. I had intended to do 3 laps, but after 2 I was satisfied. I probably could have ridden one of the short loops, but I think a whole one would have been more than I should have done. As long as I get another ride in this weekend, I will be satisfied.

Granny Gear, Conyors GA 2008

2008-05-18T21:12:00.000-05:00

I started off the trip by swinging by Cahaba Cycles to pick up the Titus. I was supprised to see they had put the 2008 stickers on it when they fixed it. Titus did an excellent job with the weld and it is impossible to tell it was repaired. I was a bit worried that there would be a giant weld over where the crack was, but it appears they cut off the piece and rewelded a new one on and it looks like new.

Anyway, I headed toward Atlanta and a 3.5 hour drive turned into a 5 hour drive. First I got stuck in traffic because of a wreck, then there were a couple of places where road construction narrowed the road to one lane. The worst part is that it was also rush hour. I was hoping to get to Conyors around 5:30-6, but it was a little after 7 when I finally got there. I really wanted to preride the course (the whole reason for leaving work early) so I got ready quickly and took off with Jay and Brendan. They had arrived a bit before me and Brendan had borrowed one of the Ellsworths to ride. We rode the first half of the course and I was pleasantly supprised. It was relatively fast and not very rooty. This part was a lot of fun but had one shorter uphill that was pretty steep and a second that was longer but not as steep. We got back to the campsite (it was very close to the midpoint of the ride) and Brendan decided to take the bike back as I think they told him he could only borrow it for 30 minutes today. Me and Jay continued on and I was amazed at the change of terrain by crossing the road. We immediately rode out on a huge slickrock section. There was a constant climb that kept getting more steep towards the top. I had to put it in granny near the top to make it without dabbing and I knew my legs would be hating this section during the race. The trail immediately turned down and after a quick descent down the rock, the trail went into the trees. This section of trail has a number of steep descents followed by relatively short but steep climbs. This finally came to a brutal climb that kept getting more and more steep and technical near the top. I had to walk the top bit of this even though we were doing a casual pace. This would definitely be a walk (hopefully a fast walk) during the race. After this, the trail was relatively level and fast through the woods. There were a few spots in the trail that would toss your bike in the air and I thought this would have been a great spot to get some cool pictures. The trail crossed back over onto the slickrock for a bit of technical rocky and rooty sections with some high speed bumpy descents before crossing the road and heading to the finish line.

We got back, changed and headed to get dinner. I was told we were going to go to a buffet and I was a bit uncomfortable when I saw it was a Golden Corral. I have not eaten at one in quite a few years as I generally try to avoid any place where the average person who eats there is very overweight. I know that this is a stupid reason, but I don’t eat at McDonalds or pretty much any buffet (Chinese and pizza are at the top of the list). Back to dinner: I started off with some steak, bourbon chicken, buffalo chicken, mashed potatoes and a few other items. I was pretty full after this plate, but watched everyone else finish 2 or 3. After a rest I got some fruit and Ice cream. I friggin love Ice cream! I think I ate the least out of everyone with Joe slightly edgeing out Brendan for the most. I was probably the only one who did not get my money’s worth. We swung by Walmart where I picked up some tent stakes and earplugs as I forgot to get them at home. Lastly we swung by Brown’s (similar to Green’s) before heading back to camp for the evening. I headed to bed as I wanted to get a decent nights sleep as I figured I wouldn’t get as much tomorrow night.

We got up and got ready for the race. Joel showed up and unloaded tons of food. He borrowed an Ellsworth and him and Brendan rode at least the second half of the course as Brendan did not get to the night before. We came up with our running order: Lee, Joe, Brendan, Me, and Jay.

The start was a running start (I can’t spell Lem???) and Joe took off onto the trail. We headed back to our campsite to see him pass. He came flying by somewhere in the mid to low 20 minutes. At this point we didn’t know exactly how long it would take to finish from this point, but Lee was nearer the front of the pack. We headed back to see him finish and Joe head out on his lap. Lee managed a 50 minute lap even with the run. Joe took off and we slowly figured out we were pretty much exactly in the middle of the course (timewise). Brendan went next and of course I was getting nervous during this time. I don’t know why, but I am always nervous before my first lap. He finished up and I took off. The course was pretty brutal when racing, and I did a bit of walking but still finished with a mid 49 minute. When I got back to the tent, Joel had made some chicken kabobs and I grabbed one off the grill. We continued rotating out and I got my second lap that afternoon. I figured this would be my fastest lap, so I pushed myself a bit more than I should have and ended up with a 48 minute. Somewhere around this time we realized we were in 3rd place in our division. We were scooting away from the team in 4th, but the team in second was relatively close. Joel cooked some incredible steaks and I ate half after I had recovered for about 30 minutes after this lap. I think Jay finished right before dark and Lee got to do the first night lap. I decided to try to get a little sleep before my next lap, but at 8:00 it was too early and I could not sleep. My first night lap was at about 11:00. This is only the second time I have ridden at night, but I felt pretty good and it is so much fun in the dark. There was something pretty cool about coming out of the woods and being able to see by the light of the moon (it was close to a full moon) and the rock was slightly illuminated but swinging back into the trees it was like going into a tunnel, this course was really like a rollercoaster at night, and going a bit slower (due to the limited sight distance) I enjoyed this lap a lot. My bike started making a rattling noise from the rear near the end of the ride, but it seemed to be OK so I decided to check it once I got back. When I got back I checked out the rear suspension and could not find anything. I also checked the brake and shifter lines and couldn’t really find anything there either. I rode it around in the field and could not get it to duplicate the noise, so I thought it was either the chain slapping the chainstay or one of the brake lines bouncing against the frame. I prepared everything for my next lap and tried to get some sleep, but I only ended up getting about an hour before waking up for my next night lap. I had not planned for this as well as I should have and did not bring but one long sleeve jersey. This second lap I had to put on wet clothes and was pretty cold. It took me a bit longer than it should have to warm up and I could tell I was tired as I was riding a bit sloppy. I still managed to duplicate the time of my first night lap and it was really nice once I got warm. It was really quiet in the woods and I was finally learning the trail well enough to remember what the trail was about to do. My bike was making the rattling noise again, but I realized it was only doing this in the highest gears in the back. I assumed (my mistake) it was just chainslap since the chain had the most slack here. I once again tried to duplicate it when I got back but could not. I thought it must just be because the slickrock was so bumpy (this is where I noticed it most). I had some slight chainsuck but was able to deal with it as it was not bad. I was just going to oil my chain when I got back and figured it would go away. I got back to the tent somewhere around 4:00. Joel was awake and offered to make me some Miso Soup. I have not had any in a while and it was just what I needed to refuel. I went back to sleep and slept for an hour and a half before I woke up. I think I was worried about oversleeping and somehow woke up before I had to. I had decided to wait till light to work on my bike as it would be easier and hopefully would finally dry.
On my last lap I almost immediately was having trouble with the bike. I was having chainsuck every time I tried to downshift to quickly spin up the hills. This killed my momentum and by the time I backpeddled to unkink it I had come to a stop and then had to start from a stop. Also, all of a sudden the low gears in the back started popping between gears. I flipped the bike and tried to adjust the shifter, and it seemed to be lined up over the gears and work correctly, however as soon as I got on and put some weight on the pedals, it would pop and not stay in gear. I was pretty pissed and was trying to run up the hills when this happened and keep going as I did not want to stop in the woods since there was not much room to get off the trail. Right before the midpoint I flipped the bike again and realized the shifter was pulling to the side when I put some tension on the chain. I tried to bend it back straight and got it close. I jumped on again and headed on my way. At the top of the first climb (before going over the second street), I just bent it back as hard as I could (I was a bit gentle before as I didn’t want to break it). I think I finally got it pretty straight and the rest of the ride I only had minor chainsuck. I had intended this to be my fastest lap when I took off as I though I knew the trail well enough to make up for my diminished strength. However I ended up with about the same time as my night loops. I had really thought I would not be able to do another lap so I had a beer and ate a good bit of food to celebrate. Jay, then Lee ran good laps and we realized that if Joe could run his fastest lap of the day, we could send someone out on one more lap. There was not really a point to this as it would not change our standing, but it would give us the same number of laps as the Columbians (the second place team that we were barely holding off from lapping us). Joe said he was going to have a fun lap and actually enjoy the course, but I decided to wait before taking a shower just in case. Joe flew by the campsite right about 22 minutes. I had no idea if he was trying to make it or not, so I was going to be ready in case he did it. He was on pace for finishing right under the cutoff and I felt that if he killed himself to make it in time, I was going to be ready to do a last lap. We were all waiting on him at the finish and watching the clock count down. Right as the clock clicked to 12, we saw him off in the distance. He ended up only finishing a bit over a minute late. I was a bit relieved as I knew my last lap would have been terrible as beer and a lot of food do not improve my riding.

I finally headed over and took a shower. My shower door did not latch very well and a big wind gust blew my clothes off the side as well as the door open. I was torn between picking up the clothes that were now getting wet and closing the door back. I decided to shut the door and ended up with slightly wet “drawers” but it was all good. It felt good to finally get clean. I left my shirt off while packing trying to lessen my farmer (I think I shall refer to it as a biker from the jersey) tan. We packed up and headed over to the awards ceremony. They had a great pasta dinner with meatballs before the ceremony. We won 3rd place in the 5-Man team and all got a medal and each won a set of tires. This was a nice surprise as I didn’t think we would get anything.

One last thing to mention: If you are going to do one of these races, it makes a world of difference having someone as a pit crew. Joel volunteered to do this for us and kept the whole team fed (with better food than I usually eat at home during the week). I believe this had a lot to do with our results as we were able to spend more time relaxing between laps than worrying about which energy bar we were going to eat (As I would have survived off of energy bars and bananas only if he was not there). A big thanks to him.

Here is a link to the results of the race. Our team name was BUMP n Uglies.

http://www.grannygear.com/realtime/public/class.php?display_standings_flag=1&class=5M

Here is the link to my pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/GrannyGearConyersGA2008

12 Hours of Dirt, Sweat, and Gears

2008-05-03T23:50:00.000-05:00

We all met after work Friday at Brookwood all to head up to Tennessee to camp out before the race. We took a slight detour to get some dinner and it ended up being a pretty good BBQ. We went on and got there a bit late. We set up the tents and had a beer before going to sleep. It began raining at about 3AM and rained until about 7:30AM

The next morning we got up and got ready for the race. It started at 9:00AM and went until 9:00pm. I got registered and was the 3rd in line after Lee and Corb so I grabbed my camera and tried to get a few shots of the start.

Lee took off and we all went back to the campsite as the tail went right past. As all the racers started going by we kept looking for Lee. After about 1:45 hours we started worrying that he had had a wreck. The trail was really sloppy and we saw at least 7-8 broken derailleurs and everyone was caked in mud. Everyone else went to go check to see if there had been any injuries and I stayed at the trail. He finally showed up carrying his bike because the chain had sucked into the spokes on the rear wheel and would not even roll. I offered to swap bikes so he could ride the rest of the way out, but he declined and kept on going. I don't think he realized how far he still had to go. He finally finished it up and Corb took off. He told us he had broken a bit before the halfway point so he had carried the bike 6 miles.

Corb had also had to deal with some mud on the trail, but managed to come out without breaking. I was getting a bit nervous while waiting for him and took off to the start without my gloves. I had time and ran back to get them.

When Corb came in, I took off on my lap. I think I got really lucky as the trail was finally getting dry. For some reason I thought the big climb was near the middle of the trail, but it ended up being near the beginning and I realized I had pushed a bit too hard because I didn't have it in me to make it up without shifting down to granny. I realized this was a mistake in the mud because I ended up spinning the back tire and then I had to walk it because there was no way to get back started again as it was really slick. This happened a couple times and I was getting a bit mad. It really bothers me when I have to walk something. It is a huge sign that I am not in good enough shape. About halfway through I finally started feeling better as the hills were more "rolling" and I was able to keep my speed and enjoy the trail. It was actually a pretty nice trail through this part with a few rocky sections and some short, but nice downhills. I came out on the trail by the campsites and didn't see anyone at our tent as I rode by. I knew the last section was not too long, so I pushed to tr to finish with everything I had. Things were going well until I got to Lucy's trail. This little rocky climb beat me and I had to walk up it as I had no energy for a technical climb at this point. I finally made it to the top and it was a nice ride through the field back to the finish. I made it and thought I had run a high 1:08 according to the Garmin. (I later found it was a 1:10). I was feeling a little nauseous and went back and sat under the tent to recover.

Brannon took off next and ran his lap. I knew we shouldn't have invited a single speed guy as they are so freaking slow. Pokey pokerson finally finished with an annoyingly slow time of 1:05 (this happened to be the best lap for our team). At this point I was almost feeling like standing up again ad getting something to drink and eat.

Mitch was next and after his ride we realized we were in 4th place. Lee ran his second lap and cut his time by over 1/2. I guess it helps to ride the bike instead of carry it. Corb took off on his second lap and I stated getting ready to ride. I knew he would be finishing right about dark, so I was getting my light mounted and ready.

I was pretty excited as this was going to be my first night ride. Corb finished right at about 7:30 so I knew I had 1:30 to finish. I didn't know how much the dark would slow me down but I was pretty sure I could make it. I set off and made it to the trees before having to turn on the light. I just left it on high as I saw no reason to dim it. There was a bit of light at first but I noticed thee were small reflectors on the trees (which was pretty cool). I paced myself much better and saved my energy to take 911 Hill. I made it up and looked at my Garmin and saw the mileage was 3.something. I thought this odd as I thought I was closer to 5, but just kept going. It was pretty dark at this point and I was learning to look with my whole head instead of just my eyes and also to just let the bike handle the trail as some of the roots and rocks were a bit larger than the appeared. I adjusted my light a few times and finally got it where I liked it. I could see other riders off in the woods with their lights which was a little strange, but night riding was pretty relaxing. As I got near the back of the trail and couldn't hear the announcer, It was really quiet and the cool air was feeling nice. One thing a little strange was the intensity of the light as I looked out on the descents. Bouncing down the rocks, the light seemed to be changing intensity as I was looking down the trail. I got back to the trail b the camping and looked at my mileage. It was still 3.something. I must have hit the stop button by accident, so I started it again. I was a bit mad as I lost most of this lap, but I at least have one good map of the trail. I saw the time was about 8:27 so I pushed it a bit as I realized I was on almost the same pace as last time. I once again hit Lucy's loop and I decided Lucy is not my favorite person as once again the hill beat me. I had a bit of energy left and tried to jog up the hill this time. I finished up around 8:40 and felt pretty good this time.

Mitch also rode a night lap. His lap didn't count, but he wanted to get in a night lap since he had also never ridden at night. When he finished, we went ad grabbed some dinner (BBQ) and got ready for the awards ceremony. and Swag giveaway Lee won something right off (I think it was a gift certificate of some sort).

We won 3rd place in the "Here for the Beer" category. We got cool little awards and a bag of a few goodies. We stood around and they gave away a lot of nice stuff. Finally they just stated throwing stuff into the crowd. I caught a jersey and will check it out later (it is a bit dark out). We grabbed a few beers and went to sit by the fire and relax before bed. We were trying to decide where to go ride tomorrow and didn't really make a decision before we went to bed.

Here is a link to the Website for the race:
http://www.dirtsweatandgears.com/

And here is a link to the results, you can click on our name ("BUMP" under the Here for the beer category) to see the lap times:
http://mylaps.com/results/newResults.jsp?id=790350

Also my laptop crashed (motherboard failure) so I am going to have to get the pictures on here later.

Fast Lap

2008-04-30T20:54:00.002-05:00

Well, I just got home from a ride to set up the Fish for the race this weekend. The Bike is a Gary Fisher HiFi Carbon that Cahaba let me borrow while mine is being fixed. I seriously doubt I will have mine back by Friday, and I wanted to at least get a rough tune on the suspension before I end up in a pack of people trying to descend a technical section. I roughly set up the rear at 150psi and the front at 90 psi. I took off into the trail heading counter clockwise and don't know exactly what got into me, but I set off on a pretty good pace. The front was bouncing everywhere so I kept decreasing the rebound. I was relatively happy with the rear (a bit stiff but ok) with the rebound in the middle. I saw Omar and a few other serious racer types getting ready for Bump N Grind as they were all making good time going the opposite direction from me. I got to Blood rock a little before 30 minutes, so I knew this could be a decent lap, so I pushed myself a bit. I finally realized that the rebound became better by tuning the dial more toward the +. I still was not particularly fond of the shock as I headed down the Jeep trail. I just let the Titus go and point where i want to go. This bike would bounce around a lot and not absorb as much. I decided I needed less air in the shock, but I was not going to stop. I could have probably run this section at least 1-2 minutes faster on my bike as I was going pretty slow. I ended up slightly shouldering a tree between Chimney ad the BMX track as I was trying to go a little faster. I pushed myself and got back to the parking lot and I was amazed at the time. I had run a 1:27:12!! This is a good minute faster than my fastest recorded time so I a quite happy. Also my average heart rate was 177 with a max of 196. I tried to keep the max down a bit (i have seen as high as 202 when I was pushing really hard) and was surprised the average was so high. I think this is close to my max time as far as pedaling, so I have a ways to go to get in the hour teens. I am pretty happy but I just got through weighing this bike and it is ballpark 26 lbs even (on the bathroom scale) which is a little less than 2 lbs lighter than mine (27.8). I could feel a slight difference during the ride and it makes me want to lose a bit of weight off of mine.

Biking on the road?

2008-04-23T21:00:00.000-05:00

After going to bed at 7 last night (I really do need my 8 hours of sleep and I was lacking after the trip to Mobile and Atlanta) I was feeling much better. I carried the Crown Jewel (Road Bike) to work today in hopes I would be able to get away in time to make the Watermelon ride at Oak Mountain. I was able to leave and got there a bit early. I got ready and decided against wearing the camelback as I knew we had to be back before 7 and that limited the ride to about an hour or so. I really didn’t know what to expect but Barbara suggested I ride with Cal so I took off with them. I have never riddent his bike on the road before (other than the test ride that was just up an alley and back). It felt really good and I was a lot more comfortable than I thought. We were moving at a pretty comfortable pace and with the weather very nice, the ride was very comfortable and relaxing. I noticed I was very comfortable and had no trouble with any of the climbs (yes I was actually a bit worried as the bike is geared differently.

A couple of things I noticed on this ride:
For some reason I seemed to fall behind on the descents. Even if I was tucked down and Cal was sitting up, I would not gain on him at all.
I also was getting a bit sore in the arms and shoulders. This may just be because I am not used to the riding hand position. I tried to keep my shoulders and elbows loose, but I think I may be stretched out just a bit too far. I will have to ride more to see.
Lastly, I think I could stand to have a larger gear. This is not something I will be changing at any time in the near future, but I may check to see what my options are. I was wishing for one more gear a few times, but I may just need to get use to spinning at a slightly higher RPM.

I had an excellent time and will definitely go for a few more rides. I can definitely see how it would be easier to train on a road bike. My average HR for this ride was 140 for an average speed of slightly over 15 mph. This is significantly less than a normal Mountain Bike ride. I think I have a bit more, but I don’t know how much, so I will have to go on a few more rides to see.

Sending back the bike

2008-04-22T18:45:00.001-05:00

Ran the bike by Cahaba Cycles tonight and dropped it off. Chris told me Titus had thought they would have it done in 2 weeks or less. He also tried to loan me a Fish Hi-Fi, but I didn’t want to take it as I am about to go out of town and I see no reason for it to just sit at my house since I will not be able to ride it. I think I will wait till I get back and see what the status is. If I will not have the Titus back before the race, I will probably take the Hi-Fi to Oak for at least one lap to get it set up right and get a feel for it. I was thinking about riding the Botanical gardens ride, but I ma so tired I think I am going to just go home and go to sleep.

Showing Crack

2008-04-21T23:00:00.001-05:00

Just a quick update. Here are a few pictures of the crack. I called Chris Leven at Cahaba Cycles and he assured me they would take care of it. He said I could take it to any store, so I e-mailed Chris Storie at the Pelham store letting him know I was planning on bringing it back to him Tuesday Night.

Nice Double but a bit of trouble

2008-04-20T17:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I did end up missing the first lap at 8:00 as there was no way I was getting up at 6:45. I would have made it to Oak around 9:40 however after I had to turn around and drive back because I forgot my jersey I ended up getting there about 5 after 10. Linda and Mitch were getting back from their first lap just as I was getting there. I got ready and we took off heading Counter-Clockwise. Linda had never ridden this direction and was willing to give it a try. We cruised around the loop and I was feeling better than I thought for riding yesterday and not getting my regular 8+ hours of sleep. I also had to tape and bandage up my wound from yesterday’s wreck and I was afraid it would slow me down as I could feel it whenever I bent my leg, but after I got going I did not notice it anymore. We finished up the lap and I ate a bit today. After yesterday’s cramps, I knew I needed to eat between laps. After a quick snack Mal rode up. Monty and I decided to ride our second lap with him. We headed out for a clockwise lap. Mal set the pace pretty quick and it was about perfect for pushing me a bit, but still keeping me from wearing myself out. We made it to the North trailhead in about 41 minutes. This is just a few minutes behind one of my best times. We headed up the jeep trail and I could tell Mal was taking it a bit easy as he was turning a bigger gear than me (and the fact I was huffing and puffing at a few points when he was barely breaking a sweat). We cruised on down to blood rock and down to the base of Johnson’s mountain. Monty decided to head on back at this point and I was surprised that I was feeling pretty good and had no signs of cramping. We cruised on through this last section and for some reason I usually feel really good and like to push myself from here to the end. Mal continued to set a nice pace and we finished in the high 1:30’s riding time. I think we stopped for about 10 minutes, but I felt really good about such a quick second lap. I drank a beer in the parking lot while we relaxed. Monty was going to go to Chipotle to eat and I decided to try it instead of my usual McAlisters. It remided me of Moe’s when I first saw it, but the food was really good.

I got home and washed my bike as I finally had a little time and it was filthy since Saturday’s ride. As I was drying it off I found a crack in the frame. It is in the titanium part where the rear pivot connects right above the bottom bracket. I snapped a few pictures, but I have to go to Atlanta tonight and will not be back till Tuesday, so I will have to handle it then. I am a bit worried as I wanted to do the DSG race on the 3rd, but I am afraid it will take them a while to get it fixed and I may not have it back in time.

Saturday ride

2008-04-19T23:00:00.000-05:00

Today, I met Ted at 8:30 for a “quick” lap. We have both been wanting to ride with someone faster because I want to get my lap time down a bit. Ted started off and said we were warming up slow, however I thought we were moving pretty good. After camp road he said we were going to pick up the pace. I tried to keep up, but I was slipping and sliding around on the roots and muddy turns. Ted seemed to not even notice them as he slowly pulled further and further away. I finally started trying to close the distance on the straight aways. Well, I shouldn’t have, because I hit one of the bridges and next thing I knew I was on the ground. Most of the time, I can feel the bike starting to slide and easily recover, or at least have time to put a foot down for balance. This time I went from riding to a pile on the ground instantly. I knew I hit pretty hard and must have yelled because Ted stopped. I had to recover myself for a minute because it was a little disoriented. I really didn’t check myself but just jumped on the bike and started riding again. We got to the North trailhead and somehow we were about 3 minutes slower than I wanted to be. ( I think it was because we rode the road pretty slowly because I felt like we were moving through the first part pretty fast).
I slowly recovered on the climb and was able to hit the steep sections with a bit of energy. We rode on and descended blood rock. I was a little cautious because of the wreck, but we scooted on down and reached Johnson’s Mountain. I pushed it pretty good but every time I looked back Ted was right there. We finished on out and I saw Joe, Lee, Joel, and Brennon on the parking lot about to ride. I decided I would try to keep up and turned to ask Ted if he wanted to do another. At this point I realize he had not come out of the woods yet. I knew he was behind me at the beginning of Toads so I started back to check on him. He came out of the woods right as I got there and his chain had broken on him. He decided not to do the second lap so I refilled the camelback and ate a pack of sport beans. I had not really planned on riding two because I had a wedding to go to tonight in Mobile so I knew I had to be back. Since it was 10:15 and I had to leave the park at 12: 30 I figured I had time. I did not bring anything to eat between laps like I usually do. This ended up getting me later.

We headed Counter Clockwise and rode Mr. Toads before Lee’s friend realized he dropped his phone. We rode back and Lee found it near the entrance to the trail. We headed out again and amazingly I was able to keep up. At the end of Johnson’s, Lee and his friend decided they were going to head back and get in some rock climbing. The remainder of us headed on up to blood rock. I had to put the front in granny for this climb, but I managed to stay on the bike. Joe managed to make it almost all the way up the Blood rock section even with all the water. He only got caught on one of the top rock steps past the toughest part. I have never seen anyone ride up it before, so I was pretty impressed.

We stopped to play on the log at the top of the BUMP trail for a while and talked to a couple of riders from Tuscaloosa. Cruising on up to the top of the mountain (where the sign is) I realized I was running short on time. It was almost 12:00 so I headed on by myself. The trail was in much better shape than this morning and had dried out a good bit. I was still being cautious on the bridges but for some strange reason my brain did not register the log as being slick. I tried to ride across it, but apparently got too far to one side and the front tire slid off. Generally this is no big deal as you ride right off, but when the front slid off, the back followed suit and I ended up on the ground again. I jumped back on the bike and finished out the trail. I cleaned myself up and went down to the BUMP pavilion since today was the day of the Spring Social. I grabbed one of the homade cookies, but as I was late (it was about 1:00 and I was supposed to be home at 1) I didn’t grab anything else to eat.

When I got home I finally assessed the damage from the wreck. I knew my hip was bruised pretty bad because it was hurting, but when I looked at it I have a huge section that looked like road rash. I managed to scratch the bottom of my arm as well as my right leg has tire marks all down my inner thigh. I really found out how bad it was when I got in the shower. I have not felt pain that bad in a while.
I am on my way home and it looks like it will be 1 before I get home. I may not make it to Oak at 7:45 for the ride tomorrow. I think I may just join Monty at 10 and see if he wants to ride 2 laps then.

Thursday Ride

2008-04-17T22:00:00.000-05:00

Now that the time has changed, I am able to ride after work. I met Moran toady out on the trail and he was going to check his baseline time to see where he stood. We headed clockwise and Brian started off with pretty good pace. The trail was a bit dusty and I was sliding in the turns a bit, but otherwise the weather was perfect. It is nice to ride in the afternoons again. For some reason I always feel more relaxed on these afternoon rides. (could be because I am limited to one lap and don’t have to feel guilty for not riding more). We rode around with not much issue. We turned a 1:52:30 lap with a small wreck where Brian’s handlebars caught a tree. We got back before the park police need to hassle us for being in the park after 7. I can’t wait till they change it to 8 so I don’t have to worry about it.

Giving the people what they want: Pictures of the trip

2008-04-14T20:35:00.004-05:00

It will be a bit before I can recap the weekend. I probably shouldn't have gone on the trip due to work, but I can work anytime. Weekends like that don't come around very often and I didn't want to miss it.

I know everyine is waiting in anticipation of the pictures, so here they are. I haven't had time to touch up any or take out the blurry ones, so you will have to make do.

Day 1:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/EllijayGA2008_04_11

Day 2:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/ThunderRockTN2008_4_12

Day 3:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/Pinhoti32008_4_13

Mulberry Gap Bunkhouse:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/MulberryGapBunkhouse2008_4_13

Final Day of Montys Trip

2008-04-13T16:40:00.001-05:00

The last morning I was going to rinse my bike off (because it was so filthy and muddy) and possibly change my rear tire (I brought a spare and wanted to get the tube back out of it because it makes the back feel sloppy). Bruce had some bike wash he wanted me to try, so I decided to use it and see how it would do. He told me to spray the whole bike lightly and then wait for 10 minutes. Well I was already behind, so I decided against changing the tire. I rinsed the bike off, dried it and lubed the chain. The wash did a pretty good job, however I don’t know if it was much different than simple green.
I was running a bit late for breakfast at this point so I ran in and ate a waffle and some fruit.

We decided we were going to ride the Pinhoti 3. Originally we were going to start at the bottom and ride up to the top, turn around, and head back down. A couple of the people wanted to get back relatively early so it was suggested we shuttle up to the top and ride down. I have never been shuttled to the top of a hill and somehow felt like we were cheating. I threw my bike in the back of Mitch’s truck (This was hard for me to do, but I tried not to think about it rubbing and scratching against the other bikes on the rough gravel road we had to drive down). At the top, a couple of us went up to the overlook and took a few pictures before heading to the trailhead.

We finally headed to the trailhead and got on the trail. I was lead to believe it was all downhill, but we climbed for a good mile before getting to the downhill section. This trail has a lot of switchbacks and was the most technical we had ridden. I had to put a foot down on a couple of the switchbacks that snuck up on me. The ladies at the MGB told us there was a trail that would bring us right back to camp from the Pinhoti and that they would put a sign out for us to find the turn. Somehow we blew right by it and rode all the way to the bottom. The last section of the trail was relatively steep, so we had a discussion on what we were going to do. About half of us decided to ride back up and take this trail and the others just rode back on the road. The climb back up felt really good and made me feel a little better about the shuttle ride. After about a mile we found the sign. It was an open house sign pointing down into the woods. I looked down the trail and it was a little rough, so I decided to lower my seat for safety. It was covered with leaves and was a steep descent down the mountain. I remember congratulating someone (I think it was Ted) because he had the bike sideways around one of the turns and the next thing I knew I was doing the same thing. This was a very enjoyable little section of trail and I am glad I chose to go back and ride it.

When we got back the ladies graciously offered to warm back up some of the spaghetti for lunch. I took a quick shower first and joined everyone. Shortly after we all packed up and headed home. This was a great trip and I believe they are planning a return trip in the fall. I would definitely recommend that if you missed this one to make the next.

Monty's trip: Day 2

2008-04-12T22:00:00.003-05:00

First off: If I relayed any info incorrectly or misspelled any names (I am usually pretty bad with names), feel free to correct me.

The second day of the trip, we headed up to ride thunder rock near the Ocoee River. We all piled in our vehicles and headed to the trail. It was about an hour away, but was a nice drive. I was a little worried because it had stormed the night before and I was afraid the trail would be very sloppy and muddy. On arriving we got ready and Brennon and Sara had driven up to meet us to ride for the day. Brennon was the crazy guy riding the single speed.

This trail started out much like the other one with a climb up some gravel road, but was a much shorter climb to get to the single track trail this time. At the top of the road, there was a bulldozer that I couldn’t resist getting on.

We jumped on quartz loop trail and did a quick lap. This was a pretty fun little loop with a bit of everything. It had some climbing, some good fun downhills and some nice views off the side of the mountain. We jumped on the bypass and rode down to Chestnut mountain trail. This section had some really nice flowing singletrack with banked turns. Other than a few wet spots that would cause the bike to slide a bit, the trail was in pretty good shape. I generally don’t get many good pictures of the downhills as I hate to stop, but I did get a small hole in my tire and stopped to see if it would seal itself. After a few minutes, it sealed up and I headed on down the trail.
The good luck did not last for long and after a few more miles I ended up with 2 or 3 small holes in the rear tire. I had lost so much air at this point I decided it would be better if I just threw a tube in it. I thought I changed it relatively quickly, but Brian had grabbed my camera and somehow managed to snap quite a few pictures. There were a lot of bored looking people so it must have taken too long. We headed on our way and finally came to thunder rock express. Monty had been talking about this trail as the main reason for coming so I was pretty excited.

I fell in line behind a few other people, as this usually keeps me out of trouble by slowing me down a little. We were all moving down the trail pretty quickly and really enjoying the small jumps that were everywhere. Of course, I decided to get big at the wrong time. I saw a larger jump coming up so I got ready and jumped off the top pretty hard. About this time I noticed the person in front of me turning sharply. As time slowed down I could see there was an immediate drop off in front of me. As soon as I landed I had the brakes locked and skidded up to the very edge. I had the bike sideways and put a foot down right as my back tire was on the very edge. The brakes were definitely worth every penny I paid for them. I could feel my heart pounding and I headed on down the trail and finished it out. As a few of the people behind me came out they were asking if everyone had made it ok and no one had fallen off because they saw where the tire had slid to the edge.

We cruised on back to the parking lot and Joe, Brennon, Jay, and I played on some of the rocks around the parking lot for a few minutes before getting off the bikes. At this point we certainly did not drink anything alcoholic because that was illegal (and anyone who reads MTBR knows I have a problem with my reading comprehension of warning signs). As we were standing around someone brought out a hacky sack and I attempted to play. I have never played before, but it was pretty fun. We hung out a few minutes before heading back to Mulberry gap.

That night for dinner we had BBQ, sweet potato casserole, and pecan pie for dessert. Pau and her Crew joined us for dinner and we got to talk with them a bit. I got my picture taken with her, but it is on someone elses camera, so whoever took it, please e-mail me the picture.

It was getting late and we had to get up relatively early, so I skipped the hot tub and went to bed.

Here is the map of our route:

Linky to the rest of the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/ThunderRockTN2008_4_12

Monty's North Geogia Trip

2008-04-11T21:02:00.001-05:00

We left Birmingham relatively early in hopes of being able to swing by Green's in Atlanta on our way. We were going to meet up with Mitch and Ted on the way to Atlanta so they could follow us. They got ahead of us as we got stuck in traffic trying to get out of town. We eventually met up right on the outskirts of Atlanta. We were running behind, but decided to swing by Green's anyway. We headed on to Ellijay and I had to stop for gas. Mitch and Ted headed on and I called Monty to tell him we would be late. We were originally going to meet at the BK in Ellijay, but he gave us directions to Mulberry Gap. I was afraid we would not make it in time for the ride, but I believe a few others were slightly delayed, so we got there just in time to jump on the bike and head out with everyone.

This ride started off with a nice little climb up the gravel road. We climbed, and climbed and climbed a little more. After about 5 miles we were greeted by this beautiful sight:

We finally jumped on some singletrack (Bear Creek trail I think) and enjoyed some much appreciated downhill (Approximately 4 miles or so). I took the lead so I could snap a few pictures of everyone coming down the hill. There were a couple people putting in water berms on the trail and they were piled quite high. This slowed me down a bit, which is usually a good thing as I tend to go faster than I should on trail I am unfamiliar with. I found a switchback with some roots and a small drop and snapped a few shots. Joe with his "skillz" shows us how to get behind the seat:

Michael however mush have be distracted by some crazy looking guy in the woods and took a slightly less conventional approach to negotiating the turn. I hope he ended up being all right, the only casualty he allowed was a slightly bent rear derailleur.

We stopped to look at the Gennett poplar. It is an extremely old tree that was growing beside the trail. After this the trail had some climbs and downhills and we got on Pinhoti 1. There were some nice climbs followed by great twisting downhills.

We jumped on Pinhoti 2 somewhere along the way and continued on. Near the very end was some great fast flowing singletrack with lots of nice little whoopties great for jumping. I had my bike off the ground so many times there was a huge smile on my face. We came out on the road a little ways from the camp and rode back the remainder of the way. We got back to Mulberry gap in plenty of time and had a few beers while we were waiting on dinner. We rode close to 20 miles (the Garmin said I burned over 3600 calories) and I was feeling quite hungry. I took a shower right before dinner and showed up a little after everyone else.

The ladies at MG cooked us an excellent meal of Spaghetti and Meatballs. I ate two plates (including about 7 of the meatballs) and a salad before she told us to save room for desert. I generally don't care for chocolate, but they had some homemade brownies and ice cream and I decided to try it and it was delicious also. After dinner and sitting around chatting for a while I decided to go sit in one of the hot tubs to relax.

There were 2 and the other one was completely full, so I went to the other one and had it all to myself. After a while I started stretching my legs and they started to cramp up on me. I decided it was time to get out and go to bed. After all I knew I was going to need some rest for the following day.

Here is an overview of our ride for the day:

I need to work on my layout of the pictures. It lays out nice when I type it up, but when I publish it, things get moved around and I am too lazy to fix it.

The pictures from this ride are here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/EllijayGA2008_04_11

Build a Bridge or 2 and ride in the mud

2008-04-07T18:13:00.000-05:00

Saturday was rainy all day so I decided to only ride on Sunday. I spent a good part of the day cleaning the house starting because I couldn't find the second bike mount that came with the Garmin and I wanted to put it on the road bike. I never found the mount, but the house looks much more respectable and I filled the trashcan outside with junk.

Sunday I met up with BUMP for the monthly workday. Our primary goal was to rebuild a couple of the bridges. The first one we tackled was the small bridge that is next to the gravel dead end between foreplay and Johnson's Mtn. Jim and I went to remove the old bridge while the others stayed to build the new one by the shed. Once we removed the old one, I could not help noticing how perfect the spot would be for a gap jump over the little stream. I am always going extremely fast when riding through here counter clockwise. I may suggest adding an alternate route immediately beside the bridge with a little "air". I don't know how well this would go over, but if we marked it well no one would try it unless they wanted to.

I like this picture because the women are working and all the guys are just standing around.

Back on topic: We got the new bridge in and shifted it more toward the road which really helps with the flow down the trail. I would usually only barely catch the side of the bridge after swerving around the tree leading up to it.

After finishing this one we went to the mysterious bridge #6. There was a big discussion as to what the true number of this bridge was, but it is in the 7 bridges section of trail a little before the log cross (when travelling clockwise). I shall call this bridge KEVIN so there is no mix up in the future. We also replaced this one and had to raise it up a bit due to the main supports being 2x8s and not wanting to get the stream dammed up with leaves if the water level rose a bit. We managed to get this one done also. The moist ground really helped us as it was pretty easy to dig in where we needed to.

The last thing that was done was a reroute of the trail between Kevin and the log crossing. The trail was moved about 6 feet to the right to slightly higher ground in a spot where water collects. Hopefully this will help with the draining and not be such a muddy mess in the future.

After all the fun of working, Micky brought hot dogs for lunch. We grilled them up and I ate 2 before getting ready to ride. I was a bit worried I might see these hot dogs again, but I really had a good ride.

Mal wanted to go counter clockwise; so Me, Moran, Tommy, Mal, and Mitch took off that direction while Micky and Jim went Clockwise. Mal set a good pace and had us huffing by the time we got to the end of Johnson's mountain. He had to be back by a certain time so him and Mitch took off and Moran, Tommy and I took a slightly slower pace. Tommy decided he was going to ride up the road and meet us at the top of the BUMP trail. Me and Moran headed up and the trail was pretty sloppy. Most of quarry road was an inch deep in water. I am pretty glad we decided to go this way because this would have ruined the downhill for me as I was trying to keep my bike relatively clean.
We reached the top and waited at least 10 minutes for Tommy. I was expecting him to beat us there as I thought he was going to skip the first climb up the Bump, but come out and go up quarry road. He had ridden all the way to the top of the gravel road and came down the jeep trail. We learned this is definitely not a shorter ride.
Heading up to the top of the mountain I was still trying to keep the bike clean and kept slowing down for the muddy spots and riding through slow. When we finally reached the downhill the trail was still a bit muddy, but I just gave up. I was trying to pop my front wheel up over the water in the first few ditches, but still got wet, so I just ended up splashing my way through. I did stop and snap a few pictures of the water near scout bridge as it was really flowing today. Still a great downhill we stopped at the bottom and Moran wrung the water out of his socks. Even though I was getting low on water in my camelback, I decided to pass on filling back up. I did get to break in my front fender. It did an excellent job of keeping the mud out of my face and for the $10 I paid was definitely worth it. (an added bonus was that it looked like I was riding a dirt bike every time I looked at the front wheel. I kept wanting to make motorcycle sounds)

We rode the rest of the loop having a nice time. The weather was really nice and I was just enjoying being back on the bike. There were a few more sections of the trail that was really wet and muddy, but everyone made it back fine with no crashes. I am definitely going to have to clean the bike, but I think I am going to try to go again Tuesday, so I may just clean it after that ride.

Here all the pictures I took:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/OakMountain2008_4_6

Riding, What is that?

2008-04-01T10:22:00.000-05:00

Well, I didn't ride this past weekend. I thought it was going to rain on Saturday so I made plans for the day. It ended up that I was feeling a bit sick Saturday anyway so I didn't mind. Sunday came around and I was feeling even worse. I decided to just stay home and sleep most of the day. I am also a bit hesitant to ride the bike in the mud now. I just got it cleaned up and with the N. Georgia weekend coming up (April 10-13), I really want it running smoothly for the trip and have been so covered up at work that I just don't want to take the time to clean it.

Speaking of work, we are finally moved into our new building. Having to deal with the changing over the phone and our network/server was a major pain. It took at&t a couple of days to get both of our phone lines working properly and 5 days to get the internet working. (This little vent is for Tommy since he works for at&t, although he is a master interweb surfer and doesn't deal with piddley phone service). My office is now bigger than my bedroom closet and there is no one sharing offices anymore.

I don't think I will have time to ride after work this week, but am going to try and make the BUMP meeting Wed. Hopefully next week, I will start getting in some afternoon rides when things slow down a little.

I am looking forward to my first road ride and Mickey is reccomending the Botanical gardens ride on Tues Nights. I am still in need of a Headlight, but think I have it narrowed down to the one I want. More on that later.

Finally Back

2008-03-22T21:29:00.001-05:00

It has been a while since I last posted. I finally got my garmin back last week. I actually got to use it again to see how I am doing. The past few rides I have been riding without anything to see how fast I have been riding.

Of course I forgot the camera today so no pictures. Oak mountain has actually been quite nice lately as there has been a good bit of water in the streams. It definately makes the climb up the jeep trail much more enjoyable listening to the water tumbling down the hill beside the trail.

I didn't ride at all last weekend (this has been the second time this year, the first because I was sick). My bike was shifting very poorly from all the riding in the mud I have been doing. I knew I needed to replace the new shifter cables and housings as well as a new chain. I am supprised I only got about 750 miles out of the first one, but when I examined it, it was definately in need of replacement. I went by the LBS to check into getting some teflon coated cables, but they didn't really seem to want to help me get some, so I ordered them from competative cyclist. I got the XTR shifter cables, an XTR chain, a SRAM powerlink (I think this was one reason the chain was s bad, because I couldn't easily take it off to clean), a Park Took, cable cutter/ crimper, a chain break tool, and a front fender. I will get back to the fender, but I got the bike very clean and installed the chain and shifter cables. The bike was in such bad need of repair, I could barely shift and now it is so easy to shift gears it feels new again.

I rode a lap by myself first today before meeting everyone else for the Bump ride. I decided to head in the Counter-clockwise direction and quickly stated to think I had made a mistake. There was a trail running event today and I met quite a few runners on the trail. The were all heading in the opposite direction than me and I kept pulling over to let them pass. Most were very polite and kept trying to get out of my way. I rode a respectable 1:32 even with all the stops. I was just ridign a fast comfortable lap so I was very pleased.

I met the BUMP guys in the parking lot at about 2:15 right as I finished. This is the first time Tomy was going to ride with the BUMP guys. I took my time refilling my camelback and eating a snack as I knew it would be about 2:45 before we hit the trail. We headed Clockwise and were joined by a new rider Glen. He kept worring that we were going to leave him because he "only rides 1:30 laps. We had quite a nice ride (even with Monty's flat tire). The weather was really nice being about 70 degrees and sunny. I also did not get any bad cramps like I thought I would on the second lap. I think I am going to try and meet Glen out on the trail for a few afternoon rides as I think he will help push me to get my lap time down a little.

Lastly, the front fender seemed like a good idea as I seem to ride frequently in less than ideal conditions. Joe had a fender on the North Carolina trip and he was one of the few whose face was not covered by mud. I talked to him a bit about it and he really seemed to like it. I found one for $10 that attaches to the underside of the fork. I have not put it on the bike yet, but will carry it with me and the next time I have to ride in the rain, I will try it out.

Last Day, One last ride.

2008-02-24T22:00:00.000-06:00

For our last day we decided to go back to Dupont and ride the same area we did the first day since Miles had never ridden there before. It was a beautiful day and since it was raining the first day I was looking forward to getting some pictures of the stuff I missed the first time out.

We parked and rode out and down Corn Mill Shoals Trail. This is a flat/slightly downhill section with a lot of dirt mounds good for jumping. I followed Jay and Joe and watched them jump off of everything in sight. I was following doing my best to hit everything also. We rode on down to the water just to see it before heading back up the trail.

We came to the Burnt Mountain trail and it was still closed. Jay had told us about how fun the downhill section was on this part of the trail, but I guess that is a good reason to come back later.

We climbed up and around Cedar Rock trail to the top of Cedar rock. Somehow I had already forgotten the trail, because lots of the parts looked different. Maybe it was because it was raining on our first day and I was just staring at the ground trying to pick a good line and this trip I was looking around more enjoying the scenery. The view from the top was great and we stopped to grab a snack before heading on.

We decided to descend Cedar rock and turn around and climb back up the steep side. We didn’t get to ride down this last time only up it. The descent was a lot of fun. I took the lead so I could stop near the bottom on the technical part to get a few pictures of everyone coming down. It was a lot more fun than I thought as I was trying to stay on the trail (which is marked by little piles of rocks) through the lichen on the rocks. Somehow the rocks were a lot rougher (with numerous indentions and cracks) than I remembered from climbing. It was an excellent technical descent and I was glad we decided to come this way. When I neared the bottom, I scoped out a rough section and snapped a few pictures of everyone coming down. I think Jim surprised himself and rode down this rock also.

At the bottom we turned around to do this “little” climb. I didn’t do as well as the first time and ended up putting a foot down in a couple places. I grabbed the camera and got some pictures of those who were chugging along. It was an excellent climb really only limited by my legs and my brain. Unfortunately the bike had plenty of traction (even in granny gear) so there was no excuse other than pure exhaustion (which means I need to ride more) to put a foot down.

We rode down big rock trail which was an excellent downhill with more rocks and jumps to play on while heading down. There was a rock at the bottom (3’ or so) that I was able to jump off of. It was so much fun, I did it a few times and I think someone got a picture, so I will add it if I can get a copy.

I don’t think anyone really wanted to leave yet, so we rode up around Longview, Rock Quary, Micajah, and Wilke trails before coming back out at the parking lot.

My bike definitely did well, but near the end started developing slight shifting problems. I know all the mud and gunk is all in the shifters and cable housings so a through cleaning is in order when I get home. I managed to get through the trip with no real problems (no flats, or broken parts). We went back to camp to clean up before we headed home. I got a few pictures of the cabins we stayed in. It was a great location and worked very well. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to stay close to Dupont/Pisgah.

Here is the link to the place we stayed:
http://www.blackforestcampground.com/

We headed home and I am really not looking forward to leaving yet. Looking at the maps, I realized we had only ridden a small part of Dupont, and the same could be said for Pisgah. I am really looking forward to returning in the future to ride more of this incredible trail.

Here is the link to all the Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/DupontNC2008_2_24

Pisgah ride and can't stop grinning

2008-02-23T22:00:00.000-06:00

After a lot of discussion, we decided to ride Laurel mountain in Pisgah today instead of Squirrel gap. Squirrel gap said it would take about 6 hours and we were worried about having enough daylight. We stopped at Grammey’s restaurant for breakfast (just like every morning) and since it was a drive to get there I got a huge breakfast with French toast, eggs, and bacon. We drove down and parked at the base of the climb. After getting ready we headed up the road. It was a nice climb just to get to the beginning of the singletrack trail. I am not use to starting riding hard right off so this trip has been a shock to my system. It has been really good for me and I need to start off hard more often to improve this part of my riding.

After reaching the trailhead we took off into the woods. We knew this was going to be quite a climb to the top, and it started off pretty flat. The trail had lots of trees down all the way up so there was a lot of stopping to carry the bike over this stuff. At one point there were some branches that we rode through that almost tossed me from the bike. I was not expecting them to be so strong but did not think much of it. Right up the trail I stopped to take some pictures of a rocky section and everyone going over it and I looked back and Jim was pushed off his bike by the branches and started tumbling down the side of the mountain. He flipped twice and landed upside down against a tree. I was scared and me, Miles and Jay ran down to help him. We had to climb down a short way and get him upright so he could even get back up to the trail. It was amazing that the tree was there or he would have rolled for quite a way before stopping. After accessing the damage and realizing he was only slightly scratched and bruised we headed on our way. I really wish I had thought to take a picture after we found out he was OK, but at the time it was not really what I was thinking about.

The trails were beautiful and there were many sections with the trees (I am guessing Laurels) had grown up over the trail to create a tunnel to ride through. I was told that when they bloom, the tunnel is all white from the blooms.

The trail slowly climbed up the mountain it would seem to come to a flat open space (where we would rest a few minutes and regroup) before getting steep and slowly leveling off to the next open area. Most of these climbs really tested me as they were long, steep, and technical. It was fun to try to make it up them without putting a foot down. Most of the trail was ridable, however there was one steep rocky section that comes to mind that there was no way I could ride so I just hiked up it. Generally if Joe and Lee tried to ride it, I would try to ride it also (Notice my use of the word TRY).

After a few of these climbs with each seeming to get steeper than the last, we came out at the top. We stopped for a snack and lowered our seats for what was ahead. When everyone was rested, we headed off to the downhill. There is definitely a thrill from flying down a steep trail where you have no clue what is coming up. The bike was much more skilled than I as it danced lightly over the rocky ground. I was jumping off of rocks wherever I could and loving every second. The trail went down the side of the mountain pretty quickly with some tight switchbacks. Most of these were right on the edge and as my front wheel was going around the outside of the turn I could glance over the side. It was quite scary and every one I negotiated correctly just added to the huge smile on my face. We stopped to regroup a couple of times and I was amazed at how long we waited. It always made me wonder if I was maybe taking this a little too fast for my own safety. But those thoughts flew from my mind as soon as we started back down the trail and I got another huge shot of adrenalin from the fun.

We came upon a huge rock garden and I tried to ride it. About halfway down one of my feet popped out of the pedals. There was no way I was going to stop or put a foot on the rock (as the guys would say I didn’t make it and I would have to go try again). It was extremely bumpy and I fought staying on a good line as I also fought to get my foot back in the clip. When I finally did, the other foot popped out. I somehow managed to wrestle it back in as I finished up this part. I was so happy I let out a yell of joy when I reached the bottom. I climbed back up to get some pictures of everyone else. I think everyone that decided to try and ride it made it down. It made me realize just how tame blood rock is.

We got to the end and I couldn’t believe how quick we got to the bottom. He had been climbing for hours and it seemed like we got to the bottom in 10 minutes. However it was definitely worth it and I would do it again in an instant.

Jim and Miles headed back down the gravel road to the car and we were going to take a short loop through the woods to add another mile or so. This section was relatively flat and just a fun ride. I started cramping a little on the backs of my legs, so I had to spin it out instead of putting much force on the pedals until it passed. Jay also got a flat tire in this section. I was amazed that we made it this far without a single flat considering everything we had been through. He changed it extremely quickly and we finished up and headed back to the cars.

It was a perfect day for the ride and the views from the mountain were awesome. I really enjoyed this ride.

We hit a Chinese buffet on the way back and it was the biggest buffet I have ever seen. They had sushi on the buffet and it was decently good. I ate till I was stuffed then got a big bowl of ice cream for desert. I generally avoid buffets due to poor quality food (and to keep the backfat at a reasonable level), however whoever had the idea to go here should be awarded a medal it was so good.

I finally got a few pictures of a ride, enjoy:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/Pisgah2008_2_23

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/Pisgah2008_2_23

Dupont + Mud still = FUN

2008-02-22T22:00:00.000-06:00

We were worried that today was going to be a nasty day as it was supposed to rain all day according to the weather. We didn’t get a very early start as it was raining when we woke up. We decided to ride some of the other trails at Dupont and wait till tomorrow to go to Pisgah so Joe and Miles would be able to join us. We parked down by Fawn lake and Headed around Reasonover creek trail. This part of the trail was a bit soupy but still a lot of fun. We circled around and rode by Lake Julia. Jay requested a cabin there for anyone looking for a good birthday idea. It was a beautiful spot and there were the remnants of an old lodge that looked like it was pretty nice back in its prime. Next we headed up to the old airstrip on top of the hill. We saw some deer while up there and stopped briefly to look over the end of the runway. Next we headed down Airport trail. This section had a lot of potential, but it was a bit slick so I could not go nearly as fast as I wanted to. It was still a fun little downhill. There was a log at the bottom that was ridable. It took me a couple of tries, but I finally made it across successfully. Next I think we took Shelter Rock Trail over to Corn Mill Shoals trail and went down to the base of the falls. It was an incredible view and I was really wishing I had brought my camera to get some pictures of this. We headed back up Corn Mill Shoals trail to Shoals trail. Next we headed up Laurel Ridge trail and then came down Mine Mountain trail. This was a really fun downhill with a few places to get in the air pretty easily. After this we debated going back to the car, but instead decided to ride a bit more by circling around fawn lake and getting to ride back down min mountain trail again.

Thanks to Jay giving me a copy of this map I was able to retrace what we rode, however if I made a mistake feel free to correct me.

Somewhere during this ride (Possibly around the Corn Mill shoals trail), we found a small drop (2-3’) that I jumped off of. It was not the most graceful landing as I landed more on my front tire, but I did manage to stay on the bike. However a few feet up the trail, there was an off camber rock that we were going to ride down. Jay and Lee rode down first with no incident, but I was a little heavy on the front brakes and the front wheel started sliding to the left on me. It happened too fast for me to correct, so I ended up doing a beautiful over the handlebars dismount and landing on my side and back. They all said it was a pretty good crash, so at least I did a pretty good job. Unfortunately this did make me leery of slick rocks for the rest of the day and slowed me down a little.

There was also a log ride that was about 4’ in the air. The log had a few curves in it and then was cut in half to provide a small drop to a flat section before curving down to the ground. It was pretty intimidating, and after my wreck I was not really looking forward to falling off as it looked very slippery because it was so wet. Jay looked at it for a while and then decided it was not worth it, then Lee decided he was going to ride it. He headed off and around the curve, his rear wheel slipped off the side. Luckily he grabbed a nearby sapling and kept himself from falling to the ground. The second time around the loop when we came to it again he decided to try again. This time we were spotting him so in case he fell, we could break his fall. In the exact same place his rear wheel slipped off the side. Somehow he managed to only scratch his leg a little but we decided it was a little too slick to ride today.

Somewhere along the ride my GPS stopped working. I was hoping it just got a little water in it and it would dry out and be fine, however I was unable to get it to work so I am afraid I will not have maps of my rides to see where we were. I managed to pull the first day’s data, but this whole day was missing.

After this ride our bikes definitely needed some TLC. I believe this was the dirtiest my bike has ever been (even including the ride in the snow) We took them to the bike wash to clean them off. Luckily we were all adults (at least in age), so there was no problem with us using it. I had to clean my shifter cables also as my bike was shifting poorly from all the gunk. I am pretty sure I will need to give it a through cleaning when I get home just to get it back operating correctly.

Tonight we drove to Ashville (I think) to eat at a little Mediterranean/Mexican restaurant. We met Joe and Miles there. I ended up getting the Chicken and Shrimp special and it was pretty good. It had a lot of flavors I have never tasted before. Finally we went back to the cabins for some beer tasting and to head to bed.

I was scared for the camera, so I did not carry it with me and only got pictures of everyone after the ride.

Here are the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/DupontNC2008_2_2122

North Carolina here we come!

2008-02-21T22:00:00.000-06:00

I decided to join Jay on his Dupont/Pisgah mounting biking vacation. I woke up early to be at his house by 6:45 because it was about an hour drive from my house to get there. We all (Jay, Joel, Lee, Jim, and I) packed up into two vehicles and hit the road. It was about a 6 hour drive, but we got there in time to get a ride in before dark. Jay decided to take us to a few trails in Dupont including Cedar Rock and Corn Mill Shoals Trail. He tried to take us around Burnt Mountain, but the trail was closed for repairs so we were unable to ride it.

This type of riding is completely different than anything we have here as it was nice and technical through some sections and most of the downhills had humps that could be jumped. The slick rock was also incredible. I was actually able to use granny gear as it was pretty steep in some sections but the granite rock had tremendous traction even though it was wet. It was a great first ride even though we only rode about 5 miles in about an hour. It definitely felt like much more and left a huge smile on my face.

It was slightly raining on us most of the time however the trails were in pretty good shape. These trails being mostly on rock did very well in the wet and were a very pleasant ride even with the rain and the cold.

We hit a Mexican restaurant that evening and I ate a huge serving of fajita nachos. They were excellent and really hit the spot after the ride. We sampled a few beers, watched some south park and went to bed.

A warning to light sleepers, if you room with Jay make sure you bring earplugs.

I didn’t get any pictures of this one as I didn’t want to take the camera in the rain.

Hell just froze over

2008-02-17T01:00:00.000-06:00

I headed to Cahaba Cycles in Trussville after my ride to look at a potential new toy. I had been tossing around the idea of getting a road bike for a while. I had a set of road wheels and tires for my old bike, but when I got the new one with the thru-axel it would mean at least buying a new front wheel. I really hate swapping out the rubber, especially with the tubeless as I have to remove the valves as well to put road slicks and tubes in the wheels. A road bike seemed to finally make sense. I had been fighting it for a while, but about a month ago started looking.

I spoke with Barbara at Cahaba about it and she mentioned her son and Chris Leven would be selling their road bikes (about a year old). I talked to them and both were a little more than I wanted to spend. Chris let me know about a week ago that he had gotten back one of his old bikes that he would be getting rid of soon. It happened to be a 60cm Independent Fabrications Crown Jewel. He sent me info on the bike and of course I researched it. It is a beautiful bike (steel and carbon fiber) and also is slightly rare. It was still a bit more than I was wanting to spend, but it appeared Chris was selling it very cheaply.

I got to the store and Chris let me look at it and ride it. This is the first time I have ever even ridden a road bike. It felt really strange with the road handles and I couldn’t seem to get my hands in the right place, however it was FAST. It accelerated very quickly and actually felt good over the slightly rough back street. I think I scared Chris as I was coming down the road after the test ride and almost didn’t make the turn into the parking lot.

I decided to go ahead and get the bike and carried it home with me.

I stopped at my parent’s house as they live in Trussville and they were cooking dinner. I at there and watched a movie before heading home. I will have to try out the bike some other time as it is too late to do it tonight.

I will have to get pictures up later.

BUMP February 3rd Saturday club ride

2008-02-17T00:00:00.000-06:00

I am quite late in this but wanted to mention the BUMP 3rd Saturday club ride for February. I decided to head out and join in so I could get a lap in this weekend. It was a pretty good turnout of people with a couple new faces in the group. I managed to get there a bit late so the group left a minute or two before I did. Luckily I was not the only late one, so we took off but quickly caught up with the group.

It was a leisurely ride to the North trailhead with a few rest stops to regroup. The weather was so nice that it felt so good to be out in the woods away from the “real world” for a while. We stopped to attempt the log ride at the base of chimney climb as well as stopping to see the new Gnome that showed up in the rock garden. At the beginning of the red road climb, a couple of people decided to turn around and head back instead of continuing on. We took off up the road and Terry decided to take the lead up the hill. I remember me and Larry trying to keep up and when we finally made it to the top, Larry captured the feeling of reaching the top perfectly:

After a short rest we headed on and enjoyed the downhill section of this road. I managed to snap a few of blood rock as everyone was coming down. We cruised on down quarry road and finished up with Johnson’s mountain and Mr. Toads. After the ride I stopped to chat in the parking lot with everyone.

I was debating about riding another lap and Stephanie called me and said she had to work late, so my decision was made. Terry was planning on riding another so I asked if I could tag along. We headed off and I did not carry my camera on this lap as I figured there probably wouldn’t be many stops. Heading Counter clockwise we hit the hard climb right off. He was setting a good pace and it felt good to get the burn in my legs on the climb. It was a good lap and I felt better about getting some mileage in as I knew I wouldn’t be able to ride on Sunday.

We finished up and I ran home to shower and change as I had plans for the evening. We hit McAlisters on the way there (there will be a new blog of where I went)

All the pictures from today:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/OakMountain2008_2_16

Broke in my bike at Raccoon

2008-02-11T00:00:00.000-06:00

I woke up early (for the weekend) in anticipation of a day at Raccoon Mountain. This has got to be my favorite place to ride this far. Tommy and Moran had ridden yesterday and were already up there waiting on me. I got there about 11:00 eastern time and we hit the trails. It was a little chilly at first, but I quickly warmed up.

Moran kept trying to tell me about a jump that he wanted me to do, and when we finally came to it, I saw what he was talking about. It was a small drop so I decided to be the guinea pig and try it out. This was still early in the ride and I swore I was going to jump off of some things today, but I decided to start off easy. I rode off of it a few times and then jumped a couple more. Tommy decided to hit it also. It was a nice start to a long day of playing.

We continued around and came to a jump in the trail. Everyone had their chance to hit it and we all were jumping pretty well. I was really surprised how much comfortable I had become with leaving the ground. A couple of months ago, I was scared to death to jump anything and now I am just trying to keep up with Tommy. Next we came to the balance log. It is a little higher than the ones at Oak Mountain, but the transitions on and off are so gentle, it is much easier to ride (also that it is about a foot wide). We circled around an hit Lower Chunky (this is considered as difficult, but is just a little more technical with some short steep descents and climbs. The trail also is on the edge of a decent drop, so there is a danger factor if you fall asleep and ride off the trail. We found a rock to ride down and then found a jump right below it. This was my first chance to fly or fail. I spent a little time scoping out the landing area as well as my line across the rock. The landing had a good transition, so even if I was going slow and dropped my front tire I probably would have been ok. After a few deep breaths I headed for it. I was just going to ride off of it the first time and it felt incredible to land smoothly. After doing it once, I must have jumped off of it about 6 or 7 times getting more comfortable each time. I finally had my fill and we rode on.

There is some new trail that is not on the map yet, and I led Tommy and Brian around this and showed them some nice rock riding. It was decently technical with climbs up and down from rocks. I love this part and feel like I really accomplish something when I negotiate it correctly. Moran said it reminded him of Moab, and he has about talked me into a bike trip there for my bachelor party. I rode down a large rock (for some reason they didn’t want to do it) as well as finding another jump. This is a nice drop where the trail just drops about 4 feet. I swore I was going to ride it this time as I was too scared to do it last time. After a few more deep breaths I headed toward it and just went. It felt great and the bike was definitely performing wonderfully. I climbed back up and did it 3 or 4 times before we headed on.

I feel I have to mention this as this is my first wreck. I was hopping a tree and some of the transition on the other side had moved away. When I came down my front tire was against the smaller log and I had to jump over the handlebars. The bike just fell over to the side, but I had to take a moment to mourn the loss of my unwrecked bike.

I could tell Moran was getting tired and Tommy was hungry, so we headed up to the overlook and stopped for a little while to rest and to get something to eat. They decided they were going to skip the last few sections of the trail but the next part was not to be missed. The direction we were going it was a long fast singletrack that was mostly downhill. It had lots of little humps in the trail that could be jumped. The trail flowed extremely well and we could carry a lot of speed. I had forgotten about this, but really enjoyed this part.

After this they cut out on the road and said they would wait for me at the car. I told them not to, as I didn’t know how long it would take me to finish. I continued on and came to a section labeled ONE WAY, do not enter. I thought that was odd, so I kept going and a short way I saw another sign as the entrance. Well I headed my happy self down the trail to check it out. There was a small drop, so I assumed that was what this was about. I kept going expecting a few more drops and soon saw a sign reading “Caution, Jump ahead”. I saw some people down the trail so I asked how high it was. They said it is not high, just long. They told me to just come on down but get some speed. I was a little confused, so I went down to check it out. I can’t believe they told me to just go. They were not going to do it, but I think they wanted to see someone try. It ended up being a gap jump across a small creek. I am not ready for this yet, and it really looked like the take off ramp was not high enough. I decided I would save that for next time and headed on around. Next the same guys were ahead again and told me there was a 3-4 foot drop ahead. I rode up to the edge and decided I would do it. They said they hated the sound of breaking bones and headed off.

Here is where I really made my mistake. Every other jump, I had been checking the landing area and walking my line to make sure I knew exactly where to leave from and what angle I should go. I never even walked to edge to look over before jumping. I headed for it and jumped off. Right before I hit it I noticed there were some rocks to the left. I tried to correct and when I landed I went right and caught the edge of my handlebar on a small (1”) tree. I tried to recover, but hooked it with my thigh and my bike and ended up falling over the tree. All I got was a bruised ego and some small scratches on my thigh, but wrecking my bike again was the worst part. I certainly learned my lesson to look before I leap (that was a poor joke).

I finished up by riding up Megawatt. This part of the trail finished me off. I could tell I should have carried food with me as I had ridden about 5 hours by this point. I also ran out of water about 3 hours ago. I was in granny gear but was determined not to be beaten. I had to put a foot down a couple of times on the rocky climb, but swore I was going to ride it. The last section up to the visitor center is pretty steep and I grannied my way up it. I had a huge smile on my face as I got back to the car from such a great ride. It turned out that they had waited on me and I let them download the pictures I took while I packed up so they could look at them. I even ate at Krystal with them because that is where they wanted to stop. I have not eaten at a Krystal since college (about 10 years ago).

The worst part was the drive home, but I am already looking forward to our next trip.

All my pictures are Here: http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/RaccoonMtn2_10_2008

Hopefully I can get a copy of Brian's also and will add them

February Bump Workday

2008-02-09T23:00:00.000-06:00

I woke up this morning and headed out to Oak for the monthly workday. With all the bad weather the trails were in need of a little TLC to keep them in good shape. I had gotten home late and my truck was still in the shop, so I knew I was going to have to take The Giz (My car). The battery was low of course since I had not driven it in a few weeks, so I left the battery on charge the previous night. I had to wash it (I am not putting the roof rack on the top when there is dirt on the roof) and ended up taking a little longer than I wanted to get ready. I had to get the rack on the car so I could pick up my bike from the shop. We met at about 9:00 and I was in such a hurry to get there I forgot my camera as well as my season pass to the park. I am slowly learning that the BUMP guys are not the timeliest of people. I probably would have had time to get everything together, but I really didn’t want to be late.

We finally headed out and I went with the group to look at the Jeep Trail (Red Road). Almost all of the ditches needed cleaning of leaves damming up the water. After this first step then we had to remove all the mud and debris from the ditches. I really did not realize how bad they had gotten, but with a lot of work we slowly got them cleaned and moved to the next one.

When we stopped to fix the water bearm right below the bridge, I stepped off the side of the trail and sank down past my knee in leaves. It was decided to clean this out so we attacked it with the blower and rakes. The wind was not agreeing with us and whenever we tried to rake them over the edge the wind would blow them back onto the trail. After much battling we finally cleared it pretty well. The water berm got dug out so it could drain properly, but the end result was a large pile of dirt across the trail. We didn’t have anything to pack it down except our feet, but it is still going to be a large ramp. The small hill that was there before would toss you quite a long distance with the speed you were able to achieve coming down the hill. I am really looking forward to seeing what this new ramp will do.

We also found a tree that was dead, rotting, and precariously leaning over the trail right before the bridge. It was decided to take it down before it fell. Corb attacked it with the chainsaw and made short work of it as well as demonstrating proper chainsaw safety when negotiating a steep hill. A couple more ditches and it was getting to be about lunchtime. I was surprisingly sore from all the shoveling; however I did remember to wear gloves this time and made it through without any blisters (unlike last time).

We got back and ate a nice lunch in the sun. The day had turned out beautiful and I was comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt. I chatted with a few more BUMP guys and am slowly learning everyone’s names.

After lunch Corb was going to hit Quary road (the bump trail right below blood rock) with the blower. As I had already decided I was just going to work today and ride tomorrow, I headed up with him and Larry. We hiked up and cleaned off around Blood rock a little more (someone had already gotten it pretty well, but I think it dried a little and we were able to remove more leaves and headed down the hill raking and blowing as we went. There was a tree that was just the right height to catch me in the helmet along this hill. I ducked at the last second on my last ride to avoid this, so I was interested in removing it. Of course we did not have a chainsaw or an axe of any type, so we decided we could swing it (the top had fallen in the V of a tree so we couldn’t do anything with that end. We tried to swing it one direction but a small tree was I the way by a few inches. After trying to break it with rocks, we gave up and headed the other way. We had to bend a few small trees out of the way, but with all three of us we finally got it swung all the way across the trail so it was out of the way.

Lastly, I found a small jump that Larry had said was purposefully built, and we cleaned the leaves from both sides so we could make use of it. We also slightly dug out one of the water berms and put a few rocks to make a natural water diverter. Corb may have gotten a little overzealous on the rocks, but there is now a really good jump on one side of the trail at that point whereas the other side is still easily ridable.

I had a good time and really enjoyed being outside in the nice weather. It also feels good to work with your hands for a while after sitting at a computer all day every day.

I picked up my bike on the way home and realized I forgot my gift cards I got for Christmas. After running back home to get them I also picked me up a bike Cube to keep all my stuff instead of keeping it in a cardboard box. This is the first time I have ever put my new bike on the roof of my car (I have to use the Fork UP since it is a 20mm thru axel) but it worked wonderfully. I was a little scared to drive all the way to Chattanooga with it on there, but I think it will be fine.

Tomorrow: RACCOON MOUNTAIN!!!

Lurleen

2008-02-03T23:00:00.000-06:00

Tommy had been wanting to go to Lake Lurleen for another ride all week. So we planned it for Sunday. This mornign right before I left the house Tommy called and said it was supposed to rain, so I checked the weather and there was a 30% chance. I wanted to go and I also told a few other people I would go so I headed on up to the McDonalds to see if anyone showed. After waiting till 10 after 9 (the meeting time) I called Tommy and told him I was going to go.

I headed on down and got to the park about 10. It was a little chillier than I thought it was going to be so I threw on my long sleve jersey and rode around the parking lot to warm up a little (And see if I could find someone to ride with). The park was pretty slow with only a guy and his girlfriend heading out (him jogging and her on a bike) so I headed off in a counterclockwise direction. I had not ridden this direction before, so I thought it might be fun.

It was a little chilly getting to the trailhead but once there I was finally getting warmed up. The trail was a bit moist, but it is also a sandy trail and the sand was not sticking to my tires, so I decided to head on. This direction starts out with some climbing and I was not here to set any records today. I just cruised through enjoying the trail. I really like riding trails I am not very familliar with as I pay more attention to the surroundings. The woods were quiet and I had just cleaned and lubed my bike so everything was very relaxing. I had remembered mostly slight climbs going the other direction so I was hoping there would be some nice long downhills this way. However, one thing I had not realized is how many short steep climbs there were. This killed my momentum and I am starting to learn this trail does not flow as well as Oak Mtn.

After I got a few miles in I found one of the downhills, but the trail being damp (roots were pretty slick) and me not knowing it very well robbed me of a lot of speed. I also had to keep slowing for tighter turns than I would have liked on the downhills. I saw some potential jumps where the trail bumps up, but I never seemed to have enough speed to make use of them. I did want to mention that whoever maintains this trail has done an excellent job of keeping the trail clean of leaves and debris. I only noticed a few sections near the middle of the loop that were not groomed.

When I got to the junction of the two trails, I took the shorter path and then circled back on the longer one. This is the direction I knew and I actually really like this part of the trail. I could move through it pretty well and there are some small obstacles that can be jumped throught here.When I got back to the first intersection, I thought about taking the long way back (the way I just came to continue on the trail, but I was afraid I would get caught in the rain, so I doubled over the short section again and continued on my way.

This next part was what I was looking for. Longer slightly downhill runs where I could just scoot throught the trees. This continued mostly till I came to the bottom of the dam. I was dreading the ride up as I did remember it being quite steep. The mesh they had on the ground gave excellent traction and I was able to easily climb right up it.

I have no idea why, but I enjoy riding next to the water, just riding the remainder of the trail while being to look across the lake was great. I got back to the parking lot and rode a lap out over the bridge and back to bump my mileage up a couple tenths to 15. I consideded having a beer, but what fun is that if I am by myself. I was pretty hungry and decided to stop at Milo's.

As I got back to Tuscaloosa, it started sprinkling a bit and I decided to just head home to eat. I decided to swing my bike by Cahaba Cycles to let them look at the brake lever that has been working my nerves (because I believe it gets dirt in it). I have taken it apart and cleaned it twice, which seems to fix it temporarily, but after about a month it will start sticking again. I am hoping it is a warranty issue as I noticed the levers are different on both sides. (I think this was an issue on older models). Anyway, I stopped to eat at McAlisters as I always do after a ride to get a sweet tea and some non-fried food. before dropping the bike off.

They decided to keep the bike, which really bothered me as I had not cleaned it off after the ride. I tried to get them to let me take it home and clean it first, but they wouldn't do it. If anyone working there reads this: I am sorry.

Tommy and Moran want to go to Racoon Mountain next weekend, but it is BUMP workday so I am not sure what I am going to do yet. I may just go up for one day if the weather is going to be nice. I am looking forward to actually jumping off some of the things I was too scared to do last time.

Sunburned in Feb

2008-02-02T21:28:00.000-06:00

Went to Oak Moutain this morning for a ride with my sister and her husband. They had asked me last night to bring my old bike for one of their friends (Joe) who rides a road bike. We met at about 9:30 and I took my usual forever to get ready (but I was getting the other bike ready also). We finally got started at about 10:00. We headed down to the Paddle boad entrance as I was preparing to ride for a few miles and turn aound. My sister was regretting stopping spin class as she didn't quite do as well this trip as the previous one (she rode the whole thing). Near the beginning Joe decided to show his skills with an over the handlebar dismount. Everything seemed ok and there were no injuries admitted to. My sister made it to the BMX track and decided she had better turn around. Paul went with her but Joe wanted to keep riding. We decided to continue on and I let him set the pace. He was moving petty well and I could tell he rode regularly. He did really well, but was extremely cautious on the downhills. I know the trail was completely new to him as well as having to ride a borrowed bike. He rode almost everything except Blood rock. He had to be back by 12:45 and he was able to ride the whole thing. It took about 2:20 riding time and about 3 hours total time. We didn't have to stop too many times and I think with a few rides he could do a sub 2 hour lap. He seemed to have a reall good time and I hope he decides to make it back out again.

After I had eaten a sack I had about and hour to burn before I was supposed to meet Moran at 2 for a lap. I called him and told him to call me when he was finished with work and decided to ide a bit more. I rode up around the family trail and cleared a few of the muddy spots so the trail could dry. After this I spent a little time moving the pine at the entrance of the South Trailhead completely off the trail. I continued on up and tried to rake the pinestraw/leaves off the trail wherever it was muddy. I made it up and around Johnson's moutain and it was about 2:00 so I took the road back to Foreplay and rode back out on the trail. I chatted with a few people in the parking lot and tried to call Brian to see whee he was, but could not get ahold of him.

About 2:50 I decided I would ride to the noth trailhead and on my wa back I would do a bit moe trail cleaning to get in a few more miles. I was going at a relativey slow pace and ran into Blackagness from MTBR. He also has a motolite so I rode with him and we talked a little. He steped up the pace and said he was goig to ride the same thing I was, but when we got to the North Trailhead he asked if i wanted to head on up. I said sure and we headed on up I was feeling much better as we neared the top. We headed on around and during the climb on Johnson's my legs stated trying to cramp on me. I had to stay seated and then my hamstrings started trying to camp also. I just had to use low gears and spin up slowly but it finally passed. I finished on out and we stopped at my truck for a Beer before he headed back to his car.

I got home and my legs are pretty sore. I think the last lap was what I needed. I also realized my face is a little toasty. I cannot believe I got burned in February. We are plannig on going to Lake Lurleen tomorow and I am looking forward to practicing my jumping.

All the pictures are Here: http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/OakMountain2008_2_2

Gnomes at Oak

2008-01-27T21:15:00.000-06:00

Went for a ride at Oak Mountain today with Tommy and Moran. We ended up starting late because I had a family lunch I needed to be at and could't make it out till 2:30 or so. We headed out Clockwise and went at a gentle pace. Upon arriving at the Rock Garden we noticed that Tommy's gnome had a "friend" We later learned that her name was Isabella and now he had someone to help keep him warm on these cold winter nights. Tommy was extremely happy and hopes that soon there will be some other Gnomes poping up around the trail now. For once I did not carry my camera, so I had to snap a few with my phone (which I luckily had with me ebcause I was expecting a call). We continued on to the north trailhead and I could tell Tommy was having trouble. He later told me he was having knee pain due to switching pedals and decided to turn around. Me and Moran continued on thinking we might could beat Tommy back as we only had a couple extra miles. We finished up and Tommy had beat us back to the car and was looking pretty cold. We packed up and left quickly as it was getting dark at this point.

I will tr to get pictues up later

SNOW in Alabama!

2008-01-19T18:54:00.001-06:00

You are about to see something very rare. The chance to bike in the snow in Alabama. BUMP was supposed to have the 3rd Sat club ride today at 9:00. I had called Tommy last night and he said he could go about 10. I called him this morning about 9:15 and woke him up. He asked me to pick him up so we finally got out there about 10:20. It was snowing pretty good so we checked out the southernmost parking lot no one was there. We decided to park next to the canoe rental building so we could get to the trail easier. We got ready and hit the trail. The snow was incredible an the trail was a little muddy. I was a little worried that the trail would be hard to see, but it was no problem at all. I started out and my hands were frozen. I could not feel my fingers at all when we made it to the first log crossing. Our goal was to ride to the N trailhead and back so we could make sure Thomas the Gnome was enjoying the snow, but with the really slick roots and the mud we were considering turing around. I started feeling better and Tommy said he would just meet me at the north Trailhead. He headed back and I slowly made my way down the trail. I really enjoyed the scenery and stopped to take quite a few pictures. I finally warmed up and was really enjoying myself. I made it to Thomas and I offered to build him a fire to keep him warm, but he said he was doing fine. Near the north trailhead a couple was riding and went by as I was snapping some pictures. I was supprised to see anyone else out, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was also a runner who ran to the north trailhead an back. Crazy people out in this weather. Finishing up my feet were frozen. My feet had gotten wet due to the mud so I drove home barefoot as I did not have dry socks. I got home and washed my bike off as I couldn't let it go to be dirty.

See all of the pictures Here:http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/OakMountain2008_1_19

Back in the Saddle again

2008-01-13T23:00:00.000-06:00

Well I am finally feeling better after being sick for a little over a week. It is really rare that I do not ride on a weekend and I missed last weekend because I was really sick. I was finally feeling a little better so I went out to Oak Mountain with Tommy, Matthew and Moran. We rode a loop counter clockwise and had a great time. Matthew managed to make it out and was riding the log rides like they were nothing. We rode a nice slow lap which was what I needed to see how I felt.

Monty had posted that he was going to ride on Sunday, so I joined him out there for a ride. There was a couple of people who had traveled down from Tennissee and Kentucky to Ride. We took off heading clockwise and Monty set a pretty quick pace. I learned the visitors had already ridden one lap and were starting their second. The guy was commenting on how Monty was pushing the pace pretty hard, but decided to push himself ahead and left our group. The girl rode with us for a few minutes and decided to catch the guy. I was hurting pretty good at this point and once they were out of sight we slowed the pace a little and I was finally able to recover a bit. They waited for us at the North trailhead, but we told them to not wait and headed up the hill. Heading down blood rock, I choose a poor route and found my front tire heading for a large root. Somehow I managed not to crash but did have to dab a foot. It was even up near the top where I don't usually even think about it. Anyway, we got down to the road and I hit Johnson's mountain. I was pushing myself a bit and finished up the loop. I got back to the parking lot and the out of towners were talking of riding a bit more. Since it was such a nice day, I decided to join them. I mentioned heading counter-clockwise and they both thought it was a good idea as I think they wanted to ride a different direction. I warned them that they may have to slow it down a little, but they assured me they were going to take it easy. We headed up Johnson's mountain and I was finally feeling pretty good. We got back to the road and they decided to head back.

I chatted with them in the parking lot for a few minutes and decided to ride a little more since I had nothing else to do that day. I headed Counter-clockwise with the intention to skip johnsons mountain, but ride the rest of the trail. I came out of the woods and ran into a couple of joggers. Without thinking, I just stayed on the trail. I decided to just ride on a little farther. I ended up riding a whole loop and it really felt good. It was a slower lap and near the end I started cramping pretty bad. I haven't had that problem in a long time. I guess it was due to being off the bike and out of the gym for 2 weeks. I am finally feeling better and am looking forward to next weekend.

First ride of the year

2008-01-01T22:00:00.000-06:00

Me and Tommy went for a ride at Oak Mountain on New Years day to start the year off right. We were supposed to be joined by my brother and Moran, but both of them backed out due to hangovers. I guess it helps to stay home and not drink as my Fiancee was sick and I just stayed at home with her.

We started out Clockwise at Oak Mountain and rode. Did I mention that it was cold today. My fingers were pretty frozen and we only rode to the North trailhead and decided to turn around and ride back. Tommy was able to ride the log for the first time today and I actually got a video of him backing it up with a second successful ride.

Lastly we stopped to take some pictures of Thomas the Gnome that showed up next to the Rock garden sign. It looks like he wants some company. Maybe there will be more showing up over the next few months if the park doesn't remove him.

I have been doing a pretty good job of keeping track of my rides on Bikejournal. I created an Oak Mountain trail and I think I am going to do the same for Lake Lurleen and a few other local trails that are not on there yet. I did come up short on my goal of riding 600 miles since I joined in late September. I am trying to get Tommy and Moran to join so they will give me some competition to ride more this year. I was thinking of starting some sort of club to log allour rides to, but that might be pointless. I have not set any goals yet, but intend to do it soon.

Link to remainder of the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/OakMtn2008_1_1

Lurleen

2007-12-29T21:30:00.000-06:00

I wanted to ride somewhere besides Oak mountain today and asked Tommy if he wanted to go to Lake Lurleen instead. He agreed so I picked him up and we headed down to Tuscaloosa. We got to the park and hit the trail heading clockwise as that was the way I went last time. The first part was down near the lake and the roots were angled toward the water. I think Tommy almost went in the water on this section. We stopped at the dam to adjust the bikes and get Tommy's helmet cam aimed correctly. Continuing on we we both fighting poorly shifting rear deraillers. I finally got frustrated, stopped, flipped the bike over and adjusted it. I could not seem t get it adjusted while riding. We stopped shortly after and did the same to Tommy's and he started enjoying the ride much more. We took our time and enjoyed the day. There were a few nice downhills that I was able to get a little air, but it seemed like the opposite direction would be better for downhills. Next time we will have to go counterclockwise. Finally after finishing the trail, we were heading back on the road and stopped to play on the camp sites.

They had little walls that we could jump off the side. I started on the one that was about a 1.5 foot drop and got comfortable. The goal was one that was a 1.5 foot drop and very quickly sloped down from there. My first attempt I was going pretty slow and ended up nosing over and landed a few feet from the wall. After going over the first time, I was feeling better. Getting up the nerve to do it the first time is always the hardest. I slowly got faster and faster untill I was landing on the flat section at the bottom. I must have jumped off the wall about 10 times. I was very pleased as the bike performed beautifully and landed very solidly and more gently than I thought. I walked down and stood where I was landing and it was almost shoulder high. I was extremely happy and finally feel like I am using the suspension. Once I get a little more comfortable maybe I can add more style to my jumps.

Please Hold: I will add pictures and possibly movies in the next day or so.

Took me a little longer than I thought but pictures are finally up.

Remainder of Pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/LakeLurleen2007_12_24

Legs failing on me

2007-12-22T22:00:00.000-06:00

Rode Oak again today. Met BUMP at 10:00 and we did a lap CCW. It was a fun ride and I played around a bit riding the logs and practicing jumping things. I got to lead from Chimney rock down through the "Northern Shire" I was cruising through this singletrack at a good pace. However near the end I lost my line and ended up having to brush a tree with my shoulder. I think Monty was following my line exactly because he hit the tree pretty good. We paused at the BMX track road and waited for everyone and that is when I found out he hit it. He said he saw me bump it and next thing he knew he was bouncing off multiple trees. Finished on up and I hit my chainring pretty good as I completely missed the large log with my front tire as I tried to hop it. Got back to the parking lot and Gavin wanted to do a second lap. I wanted to do a second lap also so I got ready and we headed out again.

We went Clockwise and were moving at a pretty good pace. I had heard Gavin could ride, but I didn't know what to expect. I was actually feeling pretty but my thighs were burning on the climbs a bit. I thought it was just me getting into the faster pace. We made it to the North Trailhead and headed up the Jeep climb. It began misting on us at this point, but was not bad, so we kept going. I don't know what was wrong with me, but I was struggling on the really steep climbs. I actually had to downshift to Granny in the front. I hardly ever use this gear and my heartrate was still low, so I don't know what the problem was but I couldn't keep up. Rarely do my legs fail before I get out of breath so it may have been nutritional. Anyway, we cruised on up and finished out the lap. Hitting the downhill after Blood rock, the ground was nice an tacky from the light mist and I was able to navigate this quite easly and had to keep on the brakes to stay back from catching Gavin. The rocky downhills were the only place where I may have had a slight advantage (or he was was waiting on me to make sure he would know if I crashed :-) ). We still finished up in about 1:36 of riding, we stopped for a few minutes to check bikes twice, but I was really hoping to get in the 1:20's on this lap.

I really enjoyed today as the weather was really nice. I had to wear long sleves and my leggings, but I stayed comfortable the whole day without getting to sweaty or cold. Traded numbers with Gavin as I think by riding with him more often I might can get my lap time down to where I want it to be.

Rain, Rain, Go away

2007-12-15T22:00:00.000-06:00

Met at Swayback for the nedurance training ride. After missing a turn on the way there I ended up getting there about 10 minutes late. Instead of holding everyone up, I agreed to just meet them at a point near the parking lot after they had ridden about 3 miles. I quickly got ready and rode over to the power line road. They were not there yet, so I rode around on the trails trying to warm up. It was not particularly cold, but was a bit chilly and I did not want to overdress because I knew I would get hot once riding.
After meeting everyone we went a couple of miles and one of the guys got a flat. I hung back with him while he fixed the flat and we started back. About a mile later he broke his chain and decided to head back to the parking lot. I picked the pace up a bit and managed to finally catch the group. We made it back to the parking lot and I refilled my water and ate a bit and we headed back out.
This lap it started raining on us. It stoppped shortly after, but we could all tell this was only the beginning. It made it just a little slick so I had to be a bit more careful which made it a bit more challenging and fun. After finishing this lap a good number of people decided to bail. About 5 of us (originally closer to 10) headed back out for another lap.
This lap it started and stopped raining a few times during the ride. The roots were pretty slick which slowed us down a little, but we were all pretty drenched by this point. We kept at it and finished the lap. Right as we were getting back to the parking lot, it started raining (not just sprinkling. We stood around and then moved under the small cover of the map structure. It started pouring pretty hard and showed no sign of stopping so we decided to call it. I went back to my truck packed up my bike and started changing and it slacked off to a light mist (which was nice so i could dry off a bit before getting in the truck.

On the drive back once I got into Clanton it started clearing up and was sunny by the time I got home. I was a little mad as we could have gotten in the miles we wanted anywhere but swayback, but it was too late.

That is all I rode this weekend as I couldn't convince anyone to ride on Sunday. I did get to meet Xray Ed on this trip and he worked on convincing me to try an endurance race. I think I may try one this next year.

Soft Hands

2007-12-09T22:00:00.000-06:00

Well I started the weekend with a Saturday ride with Tommy. We did a lap of Oak Mountain clockwise but the more interesting thing is that Tommy bought him a helmet cam. It is a Tony Hawk cam that was very inexpensive, so I was not expecting much. We ate at McAlisters after our ride and watched the video he recorded. The camera only came with a 32meg card so I think it would only record 2 minutes of footage but we got a few videos. Hopefully Tommy will get them up on his blog (see to the right under links).

Sunday I met Bump for the first time for trail work. I knew they intended to re-plank one of the bridges and I figured I would also rake some leaves. Well, we had to dolly in all the wood (which was probably the most difficult part) and about 3 of us stayed and worked on the bridge while the others headed elsewhere to work since there was only so many people that could help. I was nailing the new planks on and my sad self ended up with some pretty good blisters. I had no idea I had gotten so soft by sitting at my computer all day. We then went over to remove a bridge and replcae with rocks. By the time we got there the bridge was already removed and we were searching for suitable rocks. I found one that weighed close to 100 pounds so I had to get the dolly and wheel it about 1/8 mile to the place it was to go. After hauling this and many other rocks (the later ones we found were not as far) I was huffing and puffing. I helped place a few rocks then started raking the tail since they didn't need my help there. I only got a couple hundred yards done before it was time for lunch.

It helped me respect how much work goes into little things on the trail. I am glad I joined BUMP and am really looking forward to the expansion of the Oak Mountain trail.

After lunch we rode a lap and really enjoyed the sections of the trail that were improved. I ended up pretty tired after the day, but just being in the woods away from cell phones and work made it a great day.

Stairs Suck!

2007-12-01T21:52:00.001-06:00

Headed to Oak Mountain again to try to practice for the Day at Sway on the 15th. I had intended to try to get three laps in this weekend. Mal from BUMP wanted to do two laps starting at 9:00. Tommy and Moran were going to start at 10-10:30 and try for their second lap when I was starting my third. We hit the trail heading clockwise. The BUMP guys seem to only like riding clockwise, I don't quite understand. Anyway, I just rode with Mal and really didn't try anything on this lap but just rode. We got back and managed a 1:35 lap time (not counting the time we stopped to wait for stragglers a few miles in. I got back to the parking lot and ate a sandwich, energy bar, and refilled my water bottle.
A few more people had arrived to join us for our second lap so we headed out (Clockwise again). Gavin (I hope this is his name) joined us and I enjoyed tring to follow him as he was hitting all the log jumps and log rides as we rode. He actually cleared the large log before camp road so I decided to try it. I cleared it with my back tire, but landed on my front. It was definately not pretty, but I made it over. We rode for a while and Monty was having shifting problems and basically had to use the large chainring only. Shortly after he ran over a needle (like you air up a ball with and how this got on the trail I will never know) and had to chage his tire. He was having terrible luck. I stuck around to make sure he got it repaired (I would feel terrible if he had to walk out). We rode on to the North trail head and he decided to head back. I couldn't figure out why he didn't want to climb the hill in the large chainring only on the second lap :-). At this point I was 5-10 minutes behind everyone else so I decided to see if I could catch them. I tried to not kill myself but pushed pretty hard up the hill. I actually saw 201bpm on my heartrate monitor. According to the built in charts for my age that is about 107% of my max. Just call me an overachiever. I finally caught half the group at the top of the BUMP trail. I headed on down tring to catch the leaders. I finally caught a glimpse of them across the valley of Johnson's mountain. I was still a minute or two behind but kept pressing on. Finally I was getting close near the end of Mr. Toads, but could not do it. I got back to the cars about 5 seconds behind them. I looked at me time and was extremely supprised to see a 1:31. I did however stop for about 15 minutes for the shifting and tire change that would have bumped the time to what I thought I would have ridden.

I was not hungry, but I tried to force down a little food and refilled my camelback once again. I was able to talk Tommy and Moran into heading CCW as I needed a change for the last lap. Even though they rode this diection for their first lap, they graciously agreed. Gavin joined us as he wanted to also get 2 laps in even though he had gone road riding tat moring. We headed out and rode at a welcome slower pace. I was regretting pushing so hard on the second lap as I figured I would have to walk some of the hils according to how I felt on my last climb of the jeep trail. Supprisingly I made it to blood rock okay. I decided to once again try to ride up (even though I had already admitted defeat because I was so tired) and did better than I thought. I had to take a few steps at the tree as I was spinnign my tire and dabbed a few more time, but actually did better than usual. We continued on around and stopped at ditch #3 to take pictures of Tommy's jumping skills. Tommy tried to take the road back once we got to the North Tailhead, btu we conviced him that he was so close to getting two laps he had better not give up now. We stopped at the top of the first climb (everthing seemed like a climb at this point). Tomm wanted to rest, so me and Moran traded bikes (we swapped pedals) as Gavin headed on back due to time constraints. I rode the Stumpy the rest of the way and decided I HATE Specialized seats. I was doing fine till this and now my butt was killing me. I should have done something, but I just sucked it up and dealt with it. I am probably going to regret this decision tomorrow. We finished it out in 2:05 riding time and 55 minutes of resting. After a beer in the parking lot we headed home to get ready to go to Texas Roadhouse. I had a tasty New york strip and felt much better.

I just found out Charles and Charlie are going to Swayback tomorrow to ride. I think I could work the soreness out of my legs, but I am really saddle sore. I will have to see if I can even sit on the seat tomorrow morning. If I can, I may go join them. After all, I only get to ride on the weekends, it would be terible to waste a day.

Oak Mtn 2007_11_26

2007-11-24T21:00:00.000-06:00

I read on the BUMP forums that they were having a ride today at 12:00. Tommy said he wanted to ride this weekend, but he hadn't retuned my call so I decided to go ride with them. I got there a little early and got ready. Monty, Mickey and I think it was Monty's cousin Ron showed up. They warned me they were going to go slow, but they were actually were moving at a pretty nice pace. I was feeling to pevious day's ride a little as my legs were a bit sore. I cleaned the log again (I think three times is the charm, so mabe I have it figured out now) right before we stopped to regoup at camp road. Riding on up, I jumped ahead right before the downhill to get a picture of Monty jumping the log at the bottom. I was getting off my bike about the time they were all coming down and I finally got my camera out and managed to snap one of Ron. I later found out they thought I was talking about a different spot. I got a little ahead after the BMX track and had to try about 3 times before making it over the log. Mickey passed me while I was going back to try for the trird time. I headed on up and got ahead again so I could take some pictues of them coming down the trail. When I caught back up Monty told me to hammer it to the North trailhead and he was going to "try" to keep up. It didn't seem like he was having any trouble as every time I looked back he was right there. Also every time we got moving we met bikers going in the opposite direction and ended up stopping.
At the north trailhead Monty and Ron headed back on the singletrack and me and Mickey headed up the jeep trail. She set a good pace and I was supprised as she climbed this much faster than she led me to believe she would. We headed on down and I was going to get a picture of her riding down blood rock, but she said she was not going to do it. She skipped Johnson's mountain and I pushed myself pretty hard through the rest of the trail. My legs were burning pretty good and I looked down and my heartrate was only 120. It was then that I realized the monitor was not making good contact. I don't know how long it was not reading correctly, but I wanted a good reading of me pushing it so I can figure out heatrate vs. how hard I am exerting mself. I didn't want to stop to readjust it, so I guess I will have to figure it out later. I got back to the parking lot and relaxed in the back of the truck and had a beer. It was vey lightly sprinkling so I bid everyone else goodbye and thaked them for the ride. I then met Steph at McAlisters for lunch even though it was about 15:00. It was a good day for a ride as the weather was warmer than yesterday and I was very comfortable.

A couple of things I have noticed and need to fix before next weekend. The first is that since I have the tube in the rear tire, I can tell that it is there. I have been running 40PSI in the tube as opposed to the 30psi I usually run with the tubeless. I can feel the tube dragging in the wheel a little a it feels like I am very lightly applying the brakes at times. I want to get the wheel patched as there is a lot of tread left on it, but I may just put the new one on till I can get a patch kit. Also my front brake lever is not returning when I let off of it. It is not failing to release clamping on the rotor, but it is slightly annoying. I need to research that also and get it fixed before the next ride.

Turkey Burn

2007-11-23T22:00:00.000-06:00

I decided to meet BUMP for their annual turkey burn ride at Oak Mountain at 10:00 this morning. It usually takes me a little while to get ready, so I got there at about 9:40 so I would be ready to go. I later found out that the ride usually doesn't start till later. I think we finally hit the trail at about 10:45-11:00. I must have left the power to the bike computer on as it died right as we were getting started so unfortunately I have no record of this trip. We went clockwise and I fell in near the end of the group. As we got going I slowly made my way to the front as people would stop to rest or get stuck climbing a hill.
One good thing to note, I finally cleanly cleared the large log right before camp trail. I usually will unclip or hit my back wheel on the log even though I make it over, but this time I correctly landed the rear tire right on the top. Near the BMX track I saw a couple of the riders head toward the track. I usually do not ride the BMX track as Iam not very good at it, but I headed up and watched them start around. I rode a lap, with absolutely no grace and no speed and then jumped back on the trail. I next stopped to ride the log at the base of the Chimney rock climb. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I could not ride the stupid log. It took me about 7 tries before I finally did it. I finally caught back up with eveyone at the north trailhead. We climbed the jeep trail and at the top of the climb we stopped and I snapped a few pictures (I didn't take many this ride). I did manage to ride the log on the jeep downhill and played on the short log at the top of the bump while we waited on everyone. I was the last down the bump trail to blood rock and got behind a few people who were walking down. I waited at the top for them to clear and rode down. They were going down the rcky downhill very cautiously so I gave them a few minutes head start so I wouldn't be on top of them. I headed down and think I scared them as I jumped the rocks right before where they were stopped to rest. I finished on up and we got back to the parking lot. I called my brother and he said we would be there in about 40 minutes. I decided to just eat another energy bar instead of getting lunch and stood around with everone for a little while till he showed up.

It took a little while to get ready as I let him have the cleats off my old shoes as they were in decent condition and he bought some shoes to use with the old Time ATACS I had before the curent pair. I also checked the tire air pressure as well as the shock pressure for him while he was getting ready. We finally headed out and Matthew wanted to go Counter Clockwise so we could ride down the jeep trail and we took off. He was doing petty well as he was moving pretty good through the first section. I kept telling him to slow down and pace himself (the thing I am worst at) but I think he was trying to set a good lap time. We got to the Johnson's Mtn climb and he had to put a foot down but rode up all except the large rocks at the top. He seemed to be having no problem with the clipless at all. We rode on up and made it to the blood rock climb. He had to kick the chain into 1st as the bike would not shift (something I need to fix), but rode up with no problem. I was actually struggling more than him because he was just slowly climbing and I kept hitting rocks and having to put a foot down. I need to practice my grannny gear climbing more as my balance seems to suffer the slower I go. At blood rock I tried to ride up it and got stuck at the first part. It was extremely wet and I kept spinning the tire. I tried three times and the third put it in a higher gear. This helped tremendously as it kept me from spinning as much, but my tires were completely soaked and the front was sliding on me, so I just walked it up to the point where it crosses the stream. I got back on the bike and rode from here and was doing well till I met another biker coming down. He was not slowing down, so I moved off the trail and grabbed a tree. I rode the rest of the wa up after the second biker went by.
At the top matthew really wanted to ride the log. I tried to warn him that this one was a little dangerous as it was higher than the rest and had some branches that would catch your font tire if you fall off the wrong side but he was determined. He finally rode up one of the small branches and of the end. I was pretty impressed as he did this easily. We rode on up and on the way he saw the second log, he rode right across first try. I was amazed, but somehow managed to make it mself first try. Finally we made it to the top and headed down the downhill. I let him go first and gave him a little time before I headed down. He was moving pretty good because I didn't catch him till the bridge. I followed him down and watched him jump all the whoopties. he was definately having a good time. We headed on back and I could tell he was getting a little tired on some of the climbs, but he is pretty stubborn and wouldn't admit it and kept going. Not much else to mention other than I cleared the log after camp trail again and we finished right before dark. We had a beer at the truck while we packed everything up. It was a good day as I pretty much spent the whole day riding. Lastly, Matthew was talking about getting a bacon wrapped filet for dinner, so after I got home me and Stephanie went to Longhorn and I got a Steak for dinner. The steaks there are always excellent adn we managed to finish off our meals as well as the appetizer we ordered. I didn't realize I was so hungry.

First Trip to Lake Lurleen

2007-11-18T20:05:00.000-06:00

I wanted to get a ride in today, and I noticed BUMP was having their monthly trail ride at Lake Lurleen in Tuscaloosa. I met them at McDonalds this morning and we headed down to the trail. Once there we got ready and hit the trail. I believe we went Clockwise and the trail started off pretty flat. After a run in with a jogger that would not get out of the way we finally all regrouped at the dam. Heading on we went down a hill and had a decent climb back up the other side. I was led to believe this trail was pretty flat, but I was pleasently impressed. It is definately easier than Oak Mtn, but it had some uphills and downhills that made it a fun ride. Me and Doug (the guy who writes the bike column in the paper) rode ahead and took the long trail at the wye. This section had really good flow and we were scooting through it pretty good (for a trail neither of us had ridden before). We made it back to where the trail joins together. After waiting for about 5 minutes we decided to circle back and ride this short (2.5) mile loop again. We figured it would put us in the back and we could try to catch everone else. We looped around again, this time attacking the trail a bit more agressively than last time. After this the trail had a couple interesting bridges and really good flowing sections. There were a couple whoopties that you could easlily hop and get a bit of air. There were a few small down and ups that reminded me of Swayback as well as a good down and up about 10 feet deep that led into a fun fast downhill. The trail came out on the road for the last bit and we met everone back at the vehicles. We sat around for a few minutes and had a beer as well as some Sushi that Mickey brought. I also tried a wasabi peanut and I am not really sure I liked it. I enjoyed the ride with these guys (and Girl) and will probably join them in the future for more rides.

Moran had been mentioning joining BUMP for a while, but with my busy schedule I kept putting it off. There are some things I would like to see at Oak Mountain to make it a bit more difficult and the best way to offer these suggestions is if I am helping with the changes. I am probably going to join shortly.

Oak Mountain 2007_11_17

2007-11-17T18:33:00.000-06:00

Met with Tommy and Moran for a lap of Oak Mtn. We met about 10:15 and rode Clockwise. The autum leaves were still looked awsome and luckily they have not completely covered the trail yet. I am without a camera for the weekend as Stephanie loaned it to her parents since they went to the Alabama game and they wanted to take some pictures. The first part of the trail was at a casual pace and I really enjoyed just being on the bike after another week of work. Everything was going well untill we were riding up the Jeep trail and were almost at the top. Tommy heard a loud pop and realized his front derailler did not work anymore. At first we thought it had just slipped on the frame but we couldn't seem to get it fixed. We got it where it would shift so he could finish up but shortly after it got stuck in third. After we "Adjusted" it one last time it halfway worked. We rode down the bump and Moran tried to get me to jump all the rocks going down to the Bump trail but I pussed out. There is a small rock at the top that should be a good launching point if you hit it just right. It would be a huge jump for me and I don't think I am quite ready for it yet. Maybe after I can climb Blood rock, that will be my next goal.

I have really started liking the jump after the descent from blood rock. The line of rocks across the trail has one rock I can jump off of very well. We hassled Tommy a bit about wanting to take the road back and he decided to take the trail the rest of the way. We rode on out and finished in record time (well not quite). Tommy and Moran had to head back, so I headed to McAlisters to get something to eat. It was a good day for riding.

Raccoon Mountain Day #2

2007-11-11T23:00:00.000-06:00

I was extremely excited to get back out to Raccoon and ride some more. After a nice ham, egg, and cheese from Hardees I was ready to start. We started from the visitor’s center again (mainly because we were warned that many cars were getting broken into and we figured it was the safest of the parking lots with people coming and going). Tommy and Moran were with me at the beginning and we headed back onto the trail this time heading clockwise. There was a nice technical descent to get started and some short climbs. We were passed by a bunch of people I see pretty regularly at Oak Mountain. They were moving pretty good, so I didn’t get to chat with them, but did snap a few pictures as they were descending a rocky section at the same time I was taking pictures of Tommy and Moran. Setting a leisurely pace we were enjoying this ride tremendously. The weather couldn’t have been better and the trees were fully changed and had just started dropping leaves (the trail was still clean of leaves).

We came upon the part of the trail Tommy dubbed the Shire, so we had to get a picture of him riding through. I believe every trail we have ridden has had a Shire except for Trussville. Usually this is a section where there are many trees grown close to the trail. Tommy keeps threatening to one day buy a bunch of garden gnomes and set them out in the woods at Oak Mountain. I think it would be a great addition, but don’t know if it will ever happen.

Brian (Ansel Adams) Moran took control of the camera at this point and shortly after wrecked twice. I also noticed that almost every picture he took is blurry. I think he was mad because my camera did not have a sport mode.

We came back to the dam and this time the camera battery was not dead. There were a few whoopties in one section before the trail went back into the woods for a while before the trail crossed a rock bridge over the bottom section of dam. Unfortunately we met a huge group of riders at this point and me and Tommy had to wait for them to all cross before we could go across. I was actually a little supprised at how rude some of the riders were at the park. There were a few times when we should have had the right of way they basically pushed us off the trail. I am not complaining as most were nice, but I don’t usually experience this at Oak Mtn (Of course I could be considered the rude one there and we were just out for a comfortable lap today so it didn’t really matter). I had managed to burp my tire on a landing I had jumping off a small ledge and landing leaned over because there was an immediate turn afterwards. I quickly refilled my tire with CO2 not knowing I had greater damage.

We got another few miles in before Tommy and Moran had to head back. Tommy had prior engagements later that day so they had to cut the ride short. At this point I kept going and began to explore a bit. I noticed my rear tire was rolling on me around turns and I stopped at the overlook parking lot to examine the damage. I first saw there was a small hole in the tire and I kept trying to get the Bonty juice I had in there to seal it, but it would not seal. I was a little frustrated as this was a small hole and it should have worked. At this point I also saw that air was leaking from the rim bead. I figured I had gotten some dirt or something in the bead which was keeping it from sealing. I borrowed a floor pump from some bikers in the parking lot and I let the air out, tried to clean the bead and re-aired it up. It still was leaking, so I just gave up and threw my spare tube in it. I aired it up and thanked them for the pump.

I rode backwards through the black diamond part (I really need to look up the names of the sections) and not only jumped the rock but there was a banked section of rock one could ride up on and go around a tree, however there was a gap that had to be hopped in the center. I was not really expecting it and just rode it. I realize that with no picture you have no idea what I am talking about, but imagine the gap was 3’ instead of the 1’ it actually was.

I decided to ride back to the cutoff just so I could have a record of all the trails on my GPS. I found some more singletrack that bypassed this section and it had a pretty easy log ride on it. I actually rode right by it and only saw it looking back through the woods on one of the switchbacks. I rode back and rode across a few times. I arrived where the trail branched off and noticed a trail going into the woods. This trail consisted of lots of loops that I kept exploring. There were quite a few boulder fields that were VERY fun to ride. This stuff was pretty challenging and I played back on this stuff for 30 minutes to an hour just exploring. I found a 7’ drop that appeared people had been jumping off of. It took me a minute or so to get the nerve to just ride down it. Most of the rocks I could just ride up by getting a good bit of speed and then just peddling up. The rocks were amazingly sticky (I didn’t have a problem with traction). There were also many drops off the rocks as well as a decent through a pile of rocks that put a huge smile on my face when I made it to the bottom even though I had to peddle back up the hill to get back out. I really do not know if these trails were supposed to be ridden as I saw no other riders back there, and I will not post the GPS maps in case this is off limits, but they were all marked with ribbons around the trees and small flags on the ground. I would kill to have something like this locally as this type of riding was the most fun I have had in a while.

I saw a few deer on the last part of the ride as I rode the fast curvy single track through the woods. I also ran across more female riders. I was also really surprised how many female rides were out on the trails. These were not the normal girls just riding through the woods, but women who looked like serious riders (they were wearing costumes and you could tell they had been riding for a while). I had to get a picture of the steed before I left as it treated me right this whole trip. I haven’t reiterated it in a while, but this bike kicks ass. I was heading out and the sun was just starting to set so I snapped a picture of the lake also.

All the pictures can be seen here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/RaccoonMountain2007_11_11

First Visit to Raccoon Mountain

2007-11-10T21:34:00.000-06:00

We headed up to Tennessee to check out Raccoon Mountain as it was supposed to be a pretty nice trail. We decided to start from the visitor center as we heard they had maps of the trail. We were not really worried about getting lost as we knew it was just a loop around the lake. The leaves were all changing and it was beautiful. It was slightly chilly so I wore a long sleeve shirt under my jersey. We took off and headed counter-clockwise. The trail started out with nice flowing singletrack. It was a nice warm-up for us. We ventured on and the trail continued to be pretty fast and fun. We stumbled on a fallen tree across the trail. It happened to be on a slight downhill so we stopped and piled up some dead trees and branches as transition on the uphill side as they wanted me to jump the log. This was only about 12” so I cautiously approached it the first time and nose dove while jumping it. We worked on the transition a bit more and I got where I could jump it decently. Tommy and Moran jumped it also before we headed on. A nice picture of Moran showing us how the kewl kids land it can be seen here.

We pretty much always turned left at every intersection as we knew that would keep us on the longest trail around the lake. Next we came upon an overlook and the view was incedible. There was a steep down and up that Moran and I rode down. Tommy managed to snap a picture as we rode down.

The next part of the trail we later learned was expert level, but it was very technical with some sections of the tail on the edge of a decent ledge. It was extremely fun. At the beginning of this section we found a rock that was a good 2.5-3’ drop. It had a good transition close to the rock, so we all practiced our jumping. Tommy was the hucking king. The video of him is below.

The next section had a couple of great views but at this point my camera battery was dead. This section was decently rocky and Moran was ahead of us and went over the handle bars. I just heard him crash and looked up and he was piled up with his bike. I tried to take his picture, but the battery was gone. Tommy had to help untangle him from his bike before he could get up. The final section had a few climbs and we finished up with a climb back out to the parking lot.

We got cleaned up and ate dinner at Big River Bar and Brewery. We had to wait an hour for a table, so we went to the bar (the whole restaurant was NON SMOKING!!, I decided I really like Chatanooga) I had their Pumpkin beer while we watched the Auburn/GA game. We all split an appetizer, I had a steak and ate a piece of cheesecake. It was an excellent meal to finish shuch a good day.

The Rest of the pictures can be seen here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/RaccoonMountain2007_11_10

Added a map of the ride:

First Ride in a while for my Brother

2007-11-04T17:37:00.000-06:00

Went to Oak Mountain today for an easy ride to let Matthew ride a lap. He has been wanting to get back out there as it has been about 9 months since he has ridden. He is as stubborn as I am about not giving up so I knew he was going to ride the whole thing no matter how long it took. He borrowed my GF Sugar and I quickly guessed at his weight for the shock settings. He also decided to try clipless pedals for the first time. I had my old Time ATACs and old shoes that never quite fit me right. I know they did not fit him very well, but he wanted to try them so he made do. He clipped in and out in the parking lot a few times and we hit the trail. Going counter clockwise everything was going well untill we got past johnson's mountain. Then going up the rocky sections on the way up to the blood rock climb the clipless got him. He fell over a few times trying to negotiate the rocks. To my knowledge both him and Tommy rode all the way up to blood rock.

Once there I tried to climb it again about 5 times. I made it to the turn by the tree a couple of times, but seemed to always get stuck there. My tires were getting more and more wet and sandy with each attempt so I eventually called it and headed on up. I seem to do better by gearing high at the beginning to keep from spinning and downshifting once I get over the first section. Some day I will ride up this thing.

I tried to get Matthew and Tommy to ride the log at the BUMP/Jeep junction as well as the one on the way up the Jeep trail, but I couldn't get them to. Going down the Jeep I stopped at the third ditch to catch Tommy and Matthew jumping since this is the best place to get some air. Tommy went first and flew. I snapped the picture a little early, so he is just launching, but I was thoroughly impressed. He was 3-4 feet in the air and landed about 12 feet down the trail. I tried to get him to do it again but I think it scared him a little. Matthew crouched like he was going to jump, then just coasted out. I am sure the borrowed bike as well as the clipless pedals helped him decide to not be stupid (at least this time out).

Continuing on down the trail we came to the last of the log rides. We all stopped and I got Tommy and Matthew to try and ride it. There were no crashes, so everything was good.

The next item of amusement was at the BMX road crossing. There is a small ditch that I usually bunny hop. Matthew went down to fill up his water bottle and I was playing with hopping the ditch. I was goofing around and was going to pop a wheelie over then hop over to my front wheel. Well I managed to land the front wheel on the edge of the far side and the wheel rolled back down to the bottom. I was precariously balanced on the front wheel for about a second. The camera actually slid out of my back jersey pocket and hit the ground before I got unclipped and got my feet on the ground. Tommy witnessed the whole thing so maybe he will give a better account, but this is the closest I have come to crashing the new bike. I know it is coming and me acting stupid doesn't help, but I have not flipped the bike yet.

I ran into Eddie Jones on the last section of trail. I had been wanting to meet him, so we stopped and chatted for a few minutes. He also has a motolite also and we talked bikes for a few minutes and went on our way.

Back at the truck we sat in the back and had a beer. During this time about 10 cars of boy scouts pulled up all around us. I don't know the policy on drinking so we finishe up and headed on out. However during this time there was a wreck in the parking lot. Some lady in a huge SUV backed into a pickup truck on the road. I have no idea why she kept backing up. The guy in the truck started honking as soon as she started backing up but she just kept going till she hit him. I am pretty sure I saw her on the phone when this happened.

All in all it was a fun ride. The weather was awsome and with all the stops for pictures and playing on obstacles it took about 3:15 for the lap. As is my standard after ride tradition we went to McAlisters afterwards. We hung out there for a while and laughed at the pictures and videos I took on this ride.

In one of the videos I was trying to take pictures over my shoulder, but I accidently had it on movie mode.

Pictures and Videos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/OakMountain11_04_2007

Day at Sway

2007-11-04T08:08:00.000-06:00

Had a great day yesterday! I met up with Charlie (cartecs3) and Charles (K2Biker) for a ride of Swayback yesterday. I really never know what to expect when I ride with other riders for the first time. For some reason I always think I am going to be struggling to keep up the whole time. Anyway, Charles was running a few minutes late, so me and Charlie decided to ride the quick two mile loop to warm up. I have a terrible time trying to set a pace and think I was going a little fast (as I was in the lead), but it felt really good to be on the bike.

Charles was in the parking lot when we got back and shortly thereafter we hit the trails. I know it may be hard to believe, but I think Charles was even more excited about riding than I was. How can anyone not get a huge high from peddling through the woods on such a beautiful day. The weather was almost perfect with the trees starting to change colors. I even love the smell of Fall.

Anyway, I carried the Edge with me for the first time, but I forgot the heart rate monitor. I probably would have taken it off mid ride anyway as we were just playing an having a good time. I did however manage to figure out how to get a map of the ride graphed which you can see. I had to turn off the auto-pause because it kept beeping at me whenever we would pause for a second or whenever I would try to hit an obstacle a few times.

We rode for a lap and managed to pick up a couple of single speed guys that Charlie knew from the Dauset Race. They rode with us for a while and then headed on back. We continued on around the black loop and then headed back to the cars. After a snack and refilling my camelback, I decided to carry my camera. We headed back out in no particular direction and just wandered around playing. I have all the pictures on my other computer, so I am going to try to get on there and get them added to this.

See all the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/Swayback11_03_2007

Maybe all for the better

2007-11-02T21:20:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday I carried my bike to work and played during lunch. I swapped out my clipless for some platforms and we headed out. Me and Jimmy found a nearby lot and stacked some boards up to practice riding skinnies. After a while we took off looking for more fun. We rode to a nearby park and rode around a little. I realized how much I depend on the clipless as I kept pulling my feet off the pedals. I mainly switched to platfiorms to help with bunnyhopping correctly. I tend to cheat when in clipless and am trying to train myself to do it correctly. We eventually found a long curb and attempted to ride it for a while. I was trying to hop up and of course spun the pedal into my shin. One more scar to remember my biking! Jimmy finally got a slow leak so we headed back to the office quickly before it went completely flat.

I was origionally going to go to Raccoon Mountain this weekend with some friends to ride up there, but it ended up falling apart as one of the group had some "female" problems (He had to spend the weekend with a female :-) ). He asked if we could push it a weekend, so I guess we are going next weekend.

This freed up this weekend up for some local riding. I found out Charlie and another endurance rider were going to swayback to ride 3-4 of laps. I have been wanting to put some miles on the bike so I am plannig on meeting them tomorrow and see how long I can hang with them.

Sunday I am going to try to get out to Oak Mountain to meet the BUMP guys for a lap. I think my little brother and Tommy are probably going to join me also on this one.

New Toy

2007-10-29T21:34:00.000-05:00

I just received my new toy yesterday. I was talked into getting one of the Garmen 305 cycle computers to help my rides. Brian had been using a heart rate meter for some time and he has definately improved in his riding. I figured I would give it a try as I seem to ride faster laps when I start off slowly and pace myself instead of trying to ride fast. I will not lie, I also like that I can dump the data onto a map to graph what I just rode as well as being able to see the elevation changes.

I am going to try to ride during lunch one day this week to try it out before our trip to Raccoon mountain this wekend. I still need to get it installed on my bicycle. I am debating about putting the cadence/speed sensor on as I mainly got it for this winter so I can ride on the rollers and log my distance while indoors. However I still need to buy a spare front wheel so I can swap out easily to slicks.

Oak Mountain 2007_10_28

2007-10-29T11:53:00.000-05:00

Pretty uneventful ride. I tried to arrange a group to go on Saturday and Sunday, but everyone backed out. Did I mention I really do not like riding by myself very often? Stephanie had the day off, so she went with me and sat in the sun and studied while I rode a lap. The Trek demo was just cleaning up as I arrived. I didn't know they were going to be there, or I probably would have test rode a bike just because.

I went clockwise with the intention of riding about a 1:30 lap. My battery on the transciever of the bike computer went dead so I did not have speed, only time. I was feeling off also as I was riding sloppy and sluggish. I finished in 1:31:12 and saw 2 nice TH (1 running and 1 biking).

Still debating going to Raccoon Mtn next weekend. Everyone has backed out the last two weekends, so I am a little hesitant to plan anything.

Scared to Ride with me?

2007-10-21T18:10:00.000-05:00

Once again I went to Oak Mountain. Moran was supposed to meet me there at 9:00 and about 9:15 I called him to see how long before I could expect him. Apparantly I woke him up and he said he wasn't going to ride. I should have known as quite a few beers were drank last night. Anyway, I finished getting ready quickly and left as I was supposed to meet Eddie at 11 for a second lap. I had forgotten the camera as I was trying to always bring it on the weekends to get a few pictures, but ran off without it this morning. Turns out it didn't really matter.

I decided to head out Clockwise as it seems like I rode CCW the last few times. Heading down the road to get to the lake entrance I was actually a littel chilly. I am glad I did not let Moran talk me into riding any earlier. I was trying to pace myself to ride a 1:45 lap and thought I was doing well as I was taking it pretty easy and got to the North Trailhead at about 38 minutes. Continuing up the jeep trail I realized I had made up a lot of time. Somehow I was going much faster over this section and made it to the top, right before the downhill at a little over an hour. I continued on and got to blood rock and I fell apart. Somehow I could not hold a line. The bike was amazingly forgiving as I was hitting all kinds of roots and rocks and should have gone over the handlebars multiple times but somehow the bike saved me. I rode on out trying to take it easy and not look at the clock, but I just have so much trouble not riding slow when I am alone. I finished and looked at the clock, to my amazement I had finished in 1:31. I have a lot more in me and may try for a good time one day after work or next weekend. I really feel like I have a very low 1:20's going this direction.

I decided to relax for a while as it was just 11:00, so I sat in the back of the truck and ate an energy bar and drank the remainder of the gatoraid I had carried with me as I didn't really drink very much while I was riding. I hung out till about 11:45 and decided to head on back out. I had a free sample of Hammer gel, so I took that and drank a little purple before I left. I decided to go CCW this time as I wanted to try to climb Blood Rock. Started off and rode up to BR, there were a lot more people on the trail than in the morning. I finally got there and attempted to ride up it. My back tire started spinning in the wet part right before the turn by the tree and I put a foot down. I coasted back down and tried again this time trying to get more speed but had the same result. Back to bottom and tried again. This time I geared down and tried to pedal up instead of hitting it with speed. I started spinning almost immediately and decided that I was once again defeated for the day. I headed on up thinking about it and I think I was in too low of a gear. I will try to gear up next time and I think it will help with traction as I shouldnt be able to spin it so easily.

At the junction of the Bump and the jeep there is a new log that someone cut ramps to ride. It is a short (6-8 ft) log but about 18 high at one end and 2' at the other. It has a slight left hand turn you have to make and it has a Y facing towards the lower end (that I was riding up onto it). This created a trap so if you dropped a tire off that side it would get caught in the Y and you were definately going over the handlebars. I tried this twice both times dropping a tire about the turn and managing to get the brakes on and a foot down before wrecking. On the third try I finally rode over it and dropped the tire off the tall side. I teetered precariously on the front wheel before it decided to go on ahead and I finally did it. I was pretty happy and looked up and an older woman on a bike was riding up looking at me like I was a fool. I bid her a good day and headed on my way.

I cruised on up and then down the Jeep enjoying the bike and the suspension. I had decreased the rebound on the front shock a little and I think it helped. I then came to the other log ride. I hit it sloppily and had to bail off the side. I decided to ride the bike back and do it till I got it right. The second time I had not trouble. I was having a great time through this section and even jumped the tree in the Southern Shire (Named by Tommy) This is the section after the BMX track road crossing up to the climb before Camp road. I was feeeling pretty good so I decided to try to cross the big tree right after camp road. It is around 18" tall and I have been a little scared to try it with the new bike. I aproached it hesitantly (I know this was a mistake) hopped the front tire up on it and jumped the bike. On my old bike I could hop the back wheel up to where the front is and ride off, but I was going a bit to slow and was scared. I slightly caught the chainring but made it ok. My foot popped off the pedal and I landed pretty sloppily, but I did not wreck. I have not wrecked this bike yet, and I am waiting because I know it will happen. I try stuff I should not be doing, but so far so good. Finally got back to the truck in 1:41. It was about 2:00 so I went ahead and packed up and headed to McAlisters. I stepped out of the truck and my right hamstring cramped up pretty bad. I crumpled against the truck and stod back up stretching it for a minute or two. I am sure this looked pretty strange to anyone watching, but I did not see anyone. I sat in the sun and ate all while keeping my leg stretched out. It felt like it was going to cramp on me again but never did.

Eddie sent me an apology e-mail when I was eating saying he got stuck doing work at home and couldn't make it. No worries, I had a good time. Today was a beautiful fall day with temps between 65-75. I enjoyed spending the day outside and woudl have been mad if I had wasted this day inside.

Epic Ride

2007-10-20T15:18:00.000-05:00

I was wondering how I would feel today after the fast ride yesterday, but I actually felt pretty good. My inner thighes are pretty tight, but I decided to do them at the gym Thursday so I am not really supprised. I was supposed to meet with Charlie to try for 3 laps of Oak mountain. He sent me a message last night informing me he was feeling sick so he probably would not make it. Moran has been sick lately and Tommy was putting hardwoods down in his house today so no one was going to ride. I am a terrible procrastinator when riding by myself and here it is almost 3:30 and I am probably not going to ride today. I really don't like riding by myself very much, mainly because I cannot pace myself very well. When riding somewhere familliar I always end up pushing myself instead of just relaxing and enjoying the ride.

I had planned on going into the office tomorrow, but since I wasted most of this beautiful day inside, I will probably go to Oak Mtn tomorrow morning. I will hate myself If I do not ride at all this weekend. I had thought about Attack on Swayback and I could probably do decent (not finish last) but I think I am going to pass as I don't know anyone else racing.

Oak Mountain 2007_10_19

2007-10-19T23:00:00.000-05:00

I had planned to slip out early to get a ride in today, but things got pretty bad at about 2:30 when i had planned on leaving at 3. I finally got everything back under control at about 3:30 so I was running a little late. I got to the park at about 4:10 and Tommy had already left. He left me a note saying he had gone Counter-clockwise, so I quickly got ready and left at about 4:20-4:25. I started out without warming up and my quads quickly started burning. I decided to slow down a bit and figured I would catch Tommy somewhere around the top of the mountain (assuming I started about 20 minutes after him). I got quite a surprise coming down Johnson's mountain when a tree was laying across the trail. I had both brakes almost locked up and stopped a few inches from the log. I never would have stopped in time with my old v-brakes. Continuing on up to blood rock I finally started warming up and I started feeling pretty good. I reached it at right at 30 minutes. This is a few minutes slower than I have ridden it before, but still decent for me. I once again attempted to ride up it, this time I took the rocks to the left of the normal path as it looks like it would line me up better for the turn at the tree, but I barely made it up the first few rocks before my wheel started spinning and I just didn't have it in me to fight any more. I pushed the bike over the majority and jumped back on to continue up to the jeep trail. I reached the jeep trail right at 32 minutes. I knew I should be able to get below an hour an a half so I took off up the hill. I crested the top and headed down and reached the bottom, this time not meeting any other bikers on the downhill sections. I think I keep getting a little more brave each time on this downhill. I reeached the North trailhead and there was still no sign of Tommy. I was starting to wonder at this point , but figured I would catch him eventually. I glanced at the clock and it read 51:30 so I knew I was still doing OK. I did run into a couple of hikers in the next section with the only TH of the trip (see Tommy's blog for TH definition). There was a guy sitting on the side of the trail resting and the girl tried to pull him out of the way when she saw me comming, but he just fell over backwards covering the whole trail. I briefly considered trying to bunny hop him, but thought better of it and slid to a stop. He was huffing and puffing like he just ran a few miles and slowly moved over to the side of the trail. I could tell the girl was a little frustrated and I thought how terrible it would be to get where it was all I could do to hike a half-mile or so before having to quit. The kid was not visually out of shape either. Anyway I continued on to chimney and half heartedly tried to ride the log at the bottom, but had to jump off the side as I was off balance from the beginning. I continued on and had no problems till camp trail. I was coming out of the woods onto the dirt road and there was a portly boy scout walking down the road. He turned and saw me and I swear could not decide what to do. It reminded me of a squirrel as he darted one way, changed his mind and went the other, and then decided he wanted to go the origional direction after all. All this while running down the road. I laughed and went on my way. The boy scouts must have just arrived because I met a van parked right in the middle of the road with doors open on both sides. I don't know why they don't pull off to one side, but there was someone in the van, so I locked up my brakes to let them know I wasn't real happy about having to stop. they just looked at me like I was an idiot, so I got off the road and went around. I had decided at this point that if I caught Tommy I was probably just going to go ahead and finish as I wanted to know my time. Finishing up I got back to the truck at 1:26:23. This is my best time to date with my previous best being about a 1:28. I was very happy with this time as I am sure I can take a few minutes off of it. Just to fill everyone in. Tommy decided to take the road back from the north trailhead. I believe he could have gotten his best time ever also, but he was afraid they would lock the gates at 6 and he would be stuck in the park all night. If you know Tommy you will know I am serious. I tried to reassure him I had bee there long after dark a few times and they never had locked the gates, but I don't know if he is convinced. I think he is ready to break the two hour mark now that the weather is nice.

Oak Mountain 2007_10_16

2007-10-16T23:00:00.000-05:00

Once again we planned an afternoon trip to Oak Mountain. I met Brian there at about 4:00 and we hit the trail shortly afterwards going Counter-Clockwise from the southern trailhead. We had discussed climbing up to blood rock, riding down, then taking the road up and riding back down blood rock to ride something different. This sounded good to me as it should be about 17 miles and I was up for trying something a bit different.
We started out warming up slowly and after we finished Johnson's mountain and started the climb to Blood rock I could tell Brian was struggling. He almost didn't ride because he had been sick but decided to go anyway. Another rider caught us about halfway up and chatted as we climbed the remainder of the way. His goal for the day was to find a good line and ride up blood rock. I told him I had never seen this done but had heard it was possible. Unfortunately I have never been able to do it, but it is not for lack of trying. I attempted to ride it yet again and didn't make it very far. We wished him luck and headed on our way. When we made it to the Jeep trail/BUMP connector Brian said he didn't think he could continue. I decided to just ride out the rest of the loop instead of the different route we discussed earlier because I really wanted to scoot through the trail on this bike. At this point we were about 5.4 miles in and it had taken about 49 minutes.

I decided to let loose on the bike and see if I could finish in my normal 1 hour from that point (I usually take right at 30-32 minutes to get there when moving at a good pace putting me around a 1:30 lap. I took off (being more rested than usual helped) but climbed the rest of the way to the top without too much trouble. This bike made me feel as if I was going the same speed as usual, but I was using larger gears than usual and my speed was up a little. At the top of the hill I made the normal quick check of the bike before the downhill and started on my way. This time instead of just coasting, I was actually pedaling down. The bike just feels so great I was in greater control at more speed. Right after I crossed the bridge (about 1/2 way down) I went around a corner and unfortunately there was another biker peddling up. I got to test my brakes as I tried to stop from I am guessing 22-25 mph. I was trying to get out of his way and he was trying to get out of mine. I ended sliding off the trail trying to take the worse line so he could climb easier, but he was acting like he was trying to block me. All I ended up doing is getting so far off the trail he would know I was not goingt to collide with him. After apologizing profusely (I am sure he was cursing me but I did everything I could to give him the right of way) I was back on my way. When reaching the bottom I looked at my time and was supprised as I was a little ahead of schedule. I rode the rest of the way out enjoying the singletrack slolom through the trees at a good pace. The climbs seemed slightly easier for such a good pace, but I partially attribute that to the comfortable start at the beginning of the ride. I passed a few other riders wandering through the trails and finally got back to the road. I locked the suspension out for the 3/4 mile or so on the road back to the parking lot and it made a difference in the amount of energy exerted climbing the small hills. At the truck I looked at the clock and couldn't believe I ended up with an 1:39. I managed to take over 10 minutes off my normal riding time for this part of the trail. I will have to attribute it to the bike as I felt as if I was going about the same pace.

I can't express it enough, but I am extremely happy with this bike. I feel I finally have the suspension almost perfect for me now and the bike feels extremely solid beneath be.

Oak Mountain 2007_10_14

2007-10-15T14:41:00.000-05:00

Decided to go to Oak Mountain instead of Swayback since I have stuff to do this afternoon. I picked up Tommy and headed out to the park. After a pit stop to pick up some new tires at moran's bike parts warehouse (his garage) we made it to the park. We swapped tires and we did a clockwise lap. Once again I decided to take my camera in hopes of getting a few shots of our trip. None of them ended up great, but here are a few:

Finally, shot a quick video of me riding a tree that was beside the trail. Not very spectacular, but fun.

Swayback 10/13/2007

2007-10-15T14:37:00.000-05:00

The bike shop got my handlebar in so I went and got the loaner bar changed out before our ride today. I weighed the bike on the shop scale and it said 28.85. I was a little dissapointed as this is a pound heavier than the bike should have been. I went home and weighed it on the bathroom scale multiple times and it kept coming out to be 27.6 lbs. This is what I was expecting, so I wonder which was accurate.

Me and Moran drove down to Swayback in Wetumpka for an afternoon ride. On the way I ran across this and had to stop an take a few pictures.

We ended up leaving later than desired so we didn't have as much time as we hoped but still managed to ride a lazy first lap (11.6 miles) and hammered out a short (4 mile) lap before sunset. I thought it might be fun to carry my camera since there is a very slim chance of me crashing here. Me and Moran kept swapping the camera whenever we took a picture so I actually have a few pictures of our trip (which helped it take a little longer). Here are a few:

Lastly, A video:

Weekend in Review

2007-10-13T11:00:00.000-05:00

As I was running around all weekend trying to fit everything into my schedule, I have not been keeping up as I should.

Starting Wednesday (10/10/2007)
Rode the MotoLite for the first time. I rode one loop of Oak Mountain (Clockwise) after work with Moran. I had spent some time dialing in the rear shock before the ride, but in my haste just aired the front shock up to the specified amount and made sure I couldn't bottom it out (140+/140-). I also did not take my pump with me as we started at 4:40 and it gets dark about 6:30 so I knew we wouldn't be stopping much. I felt a little uncomfortable on the bike at first and dialed the front shock down to about 125mm. after I could not get it to stay on the ground. I will just go ahead and say the front shock was HARSH. I felt as if I was riding a rigid fork and really could not appreciate the bike on this trip. I finally realized what was happening and extended the shock all the way in hopes of getting a bit of dampening, but could not. We still rode a comfortable slow pace, but the rocky downhills were a challange as the front of the bike was hopping around everywhere.

Friday (10/12/2007)
Before this ride I played with the front shock and finally ended up with (75+/75-). I also moved some of the spacers under the stem above it as I felt the handlebars were too high. I rode one lap of Oak Mountain (Counter-Clockwise) with Tommy and Moran. The bike was completely different this time allowing me to more ride much more comfortably. The bike is extremely rigid laterally but with the suspension open it absorbed the bumps much more effectively than my old Gary fischer ever did (I know 2 more inches of travel should do this). After the climb up Past Blood rock I stoped and lowered the pressure a bit more (70+/70-) as I was still not using all of the shock. I was able to ride up the climbs on the Jeep much easier than I ever had. This bike just tracks the ground incredibly.
The decent down the jeep trail was beautiful. The bike made me feel so comfortable I found myself going faster than I had desired to go. I was going to take it easy since this is a new ride, but I was just coasting and even the rocky turns felt more comfortable at speed. The brakes are also a huge upgrade and allowed me to slow down much faster and in control. I could tell my speed was higher by the airtime I was getting coming out of the ditches and over the bumps. This bike exibits beter control while in the air (I always felt a little uncomfortable on the fischer when in the air for any amount of time) and the bike was so gentle on the landings no extra time was required to recover after hitting the ground. I finished out this ride with a huge smile on my face ready to go again tomorrow.

Trussville and New Bike

2007-10-08T16:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday me and Tommy went to Trussville. I had halfway thought of trying to race in the Dead Dog race next weekend and wanted to at least try to ride the trail before racing. We spent a while trying to find the trail and eventually ran into Frank (I think that was his name). He graciously showed us what he thought was the race course. After finishing the first correct lap I decided to ride a couple more to see if I could find a decent line. For some reason I was struggling much more than usual. I think it was because I tried to eat a few power bars I got at the gas station on the way since I skipped breakfast and we started riding about lunch. Anyway I couldn't seem to pace myself correctly and was just riding sloppy. My first lap was about 26 minutes and my second was about 25. I was once again struggling with a lot of back pain and I will get to the solution to that shortly. I am pretty sure I am going to puss out of this race as it is a pretty tight course with very few places to pass. I think I would be a bigger hinderance to the other riders than anything.

On to the good news. I went by and picked up my new bicycle yesterday afternoon. It is a Titus MotoLite Exogrid size large. I searched for about 4 months and after a wait of about 3 months after ordering it finally arrived. I have not had time to do anything but take a few pictures of it. And the fiancee would not let it sleep in the bed with me so I am looking forward to getting my first ride in sometime this week. I am most excited about having a bike that actually fits me correctly. I will not know what to do when I can ride for more than 2 hours without back, shoulder and palm pain.

First Post and New Bike

2007-10-06T23:24:00.000-05:00

Well, after reading everyone elses blogs, I am starting to desire to have one of my own just to help me remember (in my old age) what and where I rode a few weeks after I actually ride.

I am just coming off two weekends of riding new places. September 21st I went to Helen, Ga for Octoberfest. In addition to the numerous German beers I tried, We (Brian Moran and Tommy Watkins) rode from our rental house to the Unocoi Trail. We rode a lap of the trail and then back. The trail was in pretty good shape and a lot of fun. It is a pretty smooth trail but has a lot of elevation changes. It was a fun ride as we also decided to ride across the chatahoochie river as it was only about a foot deep at that point. I will try to post a link to the pictures later.

Last weekend I attended the Fat Tire Festival in Huntsville at Monte Sano State Park. Once again I went with Moran and Tommy and we drove up the night before and stayed in a hotel. Saturday I rode the Epic ride and it was a little more than I was expecting. Monte Sano is quite rocky and has some incredible downhills. I ended up almost finishing off my brake pads on this trip. The pace and not knowing the trails made this a pretty difficult ride. I ended up going over the handlebars twice (once I was just going too fast and hit a sharp rocky turn and the second I chose a bad line through the rocks and tried to keep riding when I should have just put a foot down). I also wrecked another time or two but nothing serious the first day. Back to the ride: I was doing ok untill we came to the last hill we had to hike up. I had been fighting off cramps in my thighs for a few miles and no one told me there was about a mile of hiking the bike up the hill (I am not used to hills that cannot be ridden). By the time I got to the top I was almost done. I did manage to finish strong on the family trail and I was happy as only about a third of the origonal group finshed with us.
The second day when they called for the Epic riders, only about 6 people joined so I wimped out and decided on the Super Sampler. I figured I would get to see some different trails also so I was not too worried about it. We actually ended up taking nearly the same route but the pace was much slower. I had my worst "wreck" of the trip even though I never hit the ground. My chain came off on the steep downhill with all the switchbacks and when I tried to pedal, my ankle met the front chainring and the chainring won. I didn't even realize how bad it was till much later in the ride when I looked down because I felt it burning and my sock was red. It is just now healing, but I think I am going to have a tatoo to remember this by. Near the end Moran got a flat and we waited on him. Most of the group went back on the road but we convinced AL29er (our guide) to take us back on the trails (we took mountian mist) so we could see more of what Monte Sano had to offer. I had a great weekend with an estimated 35 miles riden.
I also got to meet BlackAgness, SSinga, and AL29er from the MTBR board while there. I will definately be going back for another ride. That has been the most technical riding I have done.

Lastly,
I found out that my new bike is finished today. I am really excited as it is quite an upgrade from my current bike. I am hoping to pick it up tomorrow. Stay Tuned.