Fast ride

4 peeps set out for this mornings 9:30 fast ride, Me (Chad), Erik, Janel, and James. The plan was for 30 miles or so. Temps were around 50 when we set off and peaked around 65, great weather! Looked a little rough this morning, but it really did turn out great. Up 100 to mile climb and back, hammering all the way. 100 was good, we pulled 17-20 mph for the entire thing until we hit the climb at the peak. Pushed pretty good to mile climb, but my muscles started burning so I slacked off a bit on Big Shannon. We hit mile climb and Janel and James took off up that, while Erik and I climbed a bit more conservative. After topping mile climb we hooked right (whoops) and headed down what we thought was Little Shannon. So after a 10 mile detour and a moment of thinking I looked at the GPS and realized we were going north, just a bit west of Kirby. We then threw away our man cards (the 3 of us that posses them, though I do temporarily loan mine to Janel on climbs) and asked for directions from various locals. After backtracking and finding Little Shannon we started making our way back. Erik had a class to attend, so he pushed really hard all the way back. James had work to attend, so he rode pretty slow. We pushed nice down Big Shannon and hit a recovery pace down 100. I was out of food and on the verge of a big bonk, but James came through with an extra power bar.

A good fast ride overall. We were averaging 17MPH until we made our screw up and took a right at the top of Kiger Hill. The roads were pretty gross too until the sun really came out, so riding a wheel wasn't an option. When we got home we all looked like we just finished mountain biking. 30 miles turned into about 55, and it was great.



GPS LINK

Breaking the virginity

Before




After

Turns out, it wasn't a short cut

A few of us decided to go to Blackbear today. We heard it was better if we took this other route, as University and High Street might have traffic.
So 8 of us left the bike house headed 119 to Cheat Lake. Shawn Waters wanted to show off how bad ass he was so he brought his single speed. A few hills crushed his hopes.
We opted to separate so people could get better training, and our group went to 6. Bala was all stoked about riding on a highway, so we 1 upped that and rode on the wrong side of the road.
Liew and Shawn took the rail trail back from Pt Marion while 4 remaing headed towards Mt Morris with hopes of riding part of the RR course. A few hills later we gave up that endeavor and took 100 home.
If anyone is looking to paint a 2" black line up thier butt and jersey, I'd highly recommend hitting up 100. You can even speckle the front if you draft someone.
Nearly 50miles later we go to Blackbear, only to find out the girl's had beaten us there! Then they all bragged about how there were 9 of them and only 8 of us and all this crap about how they're going to race and look pretty while doing it.
I'll believe that when I see it. I think they just took University to High Street to get to Blackbear.
Oh ya, the food was good.

Ryan

View Larger Map

Continue from Liew and Shawn.W side of story, after the split at Pt.Marion, 2 of us headed out to rail trail instead of going up Stewardstown rd, we thought its gonna be an easy and fast escape road. It's turn out not! Have you ever ride a whole 7 miles stretch of icy rail trail? I think we does. When I got home, I also realized that we took 4 hours to do the whole 30 miles loop! 30 miles! Good ride Shawn.

Liew

Not everyone is a jerk

I was talking to someone today, and they commented on getting a flat and not having levers, but luckily someone stopped and gave them a ride back to town.

Then I thought myself, of all the times I've ever been on the side of the road working on my bike and cars passed, I don't think I've ever not had someone ask if I needed assistance. Even the other day when my chain broke on the group ride, someone offered help.

Cyclists bitch all the time about cars, as if they themselves don't drive, but I seldom see them comment about motorists offering a hand or even a ride.

Snow Biking at Night

Papa Dave keeps ramblin' on about how cool it is to ride in the snow, and how cool it is to MTB in at night. Well, put those 2 together, and you get one sweet resistance training and handling training, plus if you're lucky the snow will clean the dirt off your bike from last race season.

We hit up White Park for about an hour last week after the meeting, and again tonight for around 2.5 hours. Including my commute, which sucked it was over 3 hours. I got enough salt in my mouth on the way to and fro; my muscles should have plenty of electrolytes.

Conditions were awesome for almost 2hours, then the snow turned to rain/sleet. We stayed warm, plowing through the snow as the layer of ice formed on top of the snow and crunched beneath us. The snow reflected enough of the surrounding street lights that head lamps weren't even necessary.

Yeah...It's REALLY not cold out.

Today was... in one word... perfect. Temp stayed around 55 degrees with slight cloud cover but sunny most of the time. Brock and I set out from the 'lair to put in about two hours of good riding. The plan was Railtrail to Dug Hill to Cheat Lake to Pt Marion to Bakers, with playtime on the unfinished highway.

Well, rail trail didn't work out since it's still a slush covered mess, so we sat off through South Park and descended the backside of Marilla park to Dug Hill. Everything was uneventful until we got to the abandoned interstate. Once we headed up the path to the unfinished interstate from Fairchance Rd I think Brock was convinced I was crazy, but once we got onto it all was well. It's REALLY slushy right now, but still such an awesome road to ride. I think everyone should try to ride it before they open it, because you'll never be able to ride something like that again.


Soo we headed straight on that for about 5 miles until we got to the Pt. Marion exit and crossed the median onto the oncoming exit ramp. The plan was originally to drop down to the dam but the road leading down had...no exaggeration... an inch of salt and cinders covering it, so scratch that. We headed on 43 to 119 to Pt. Marion which was an awesome ride, and 119 wasn't nearly as heavily trafficked as I thought it would be. We took a breif break at the Pt. Marion Subway to fill bottles and eat a Cliff bar then headed up to Stewardstown (sp?). From there it was the usual Stewardstown to Bakers and back past the hospital.

Awesome ride, almost 40 miles and 4,500ft of climbing. We railed pretty hard for most of it, especially on 43 and 119. Hope everyone enjoyed the awesome weather today and I wish we could have ridden at a better time for those who had class. Once the days get longer things will definitely be easier.

GPS: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=7501029

-Chad

It snot cold out

Last night we had a post meeting MTB ride at Bakers. That was a lot of fun, sliding all around on the very cold snow. It was 18 degrees, but I was far warmer last night on the MTB than I was last week when it was in 20s on the road bike. Riding in snow definitely tests your handling skills.
I told Liew I was retiring the road bike while it was cold out, and he said today it wouldn't be cold. A balmy 39 degrees. Maybe it was at noon, but didn't seem it at 4:30 when we started our adventure. Rail-trails with half melted snow and ice on road bikes is a bad idea.
I noticed my chain was making noise each rotation while climbing Dug Hill, so we stopped and checked, and sure enough, I had broken another chain, this time a Wipperman. I'm getting a SRAM and never going back. I had my trusty multi-tool with me and fixed that chain nearly like new and we ventured on. Jake decided kayak rolling in the pool would be more fun, and turned around.
Liew and I decided to go up to the new UHS and check out the course. We did a few laps in the dark, and found that its pretty well lit except for the back stretch. It was also very well paved, and almost totally dry. The stadium course was in just about as good of shape. I feel really confident in these courses, unless it snows the day before the race.