Only 4.5 days till BUMP!

Really super stoked! not cause it's a on the pro tour, or cause it's a kenda kup, maybe a little b/c of the UCI status, and maybe cause of the olympians, BUT mainly because the is my favorite trails in the southeast!! And the fact that i get to do it twice as fast as i can go...well that's just great!

I do have mixed emotions this year about the Pro Course that the racers will race this year...it's an abbreviated version to say the least...a 6/3 mile loop that;s going be run somehow, I think backyards up jonshon's mtn. the mixed emotion you ask? well....

1. The Pro: It's perfect for the spectators. We'll all be able to track up in the woods, take pics, yell..."go,go,go"....and we'll try to catch a solid buzz doing it. It's be a blast for me and others in that sense...

2. The Con: It BLOWS for the racers themselves...they all would probably much rather be cranking the full 17 mile loop, enjoying the kick assness of blood rock and the gnarly DH that follows...no they get this little 6 mile loop with some good single track for sure, but not the race we'll have...they get robber of the all around best trail in the Southeast!

Off the soapbox for sure....

Training has been nice and consistent. I had an extra day of rest last week due to not feeling well and lots of rain on Saturday, which stunk, cause it was going be a fun ride. But besides that, everything should be right on track. I fell rested...legs don't feel great...kinda just there...but fresh. I got two days of short intervals coming up to fire the system up again...jeah! Looking forward to Sunday!

nasty weekend

well, i was told not to race this past weekend...

so saturday when i got to the trail and hammered out my lap around the course, i decided/talked into racing the ss...justification...shorter distance, not as deep of an effort, later start time...

the course was awesome. fast, tight, climbing, descending, technical, and dry...i was looking forward to the ss race.

sunday morning we woke to LOTS of rain. ummm, scratch the racing!..now it was clear...being told not to race and then mutha nature seconding that by blasting the course with about 1.5inches of rain made it an easy decision. NO race.

while i was really bummed not to be racing it was fun to watch the race and bring a bike home that's still clean and in working order.

next up........ BUMP N GRIND.

more post leading up to it i promise.

debris

the plan was to head to the nox for a training ride on the course for rockcruscher. it was deemed that too much rain had fallen and the trails were better left alone for the weekend. after looking around i decided that clear springs was our best shot for dry trails. this was a good call...the trials were dry for the most part...a few holes but nothing to speak of.

The entrance to the trails was a different story...

the entire area is flooded...and it's all due to lack of ANY attention paid to these trails by the forest service. there is a 12ft long beaver dam is blocking it up.
A little tlc and this area would be dry and go to go again...this district sucks!

Cause there are plenty of these around and there's no reason to give them more places to hang out with us on the trails.
did i mentions debris...b making a detour around the first downed tree

there was small debris...
there was huge debris

there was super old growth that was destroyed by the storm that cam thru this place a week ago...lots of trees snapped right in half. and then some uprooted.

debris bridges...

i left the camera in the car for the last lap...i went on a different trial and the downed trees on it were worse that Richardson's creek...pretty amazing what some wind can do.

the ride itself was good...the workout was worthy of any...3.5hrs with about 3400ft of climbing. managed to keep the body working hard and maximized the HR during the ride...felt great to get on the trails and bike for more than an hr and a half...

one more day of riding to top the 4 day block off...tomorrow will be some lite recovery spin on the trace...then monday starts the new program!

Late race report...

the weekend was suppose to be the best one of the year so far...

this was the first race weekend the family has joined me on the race weekend adventures. we planned, or should i say i planned the whole weekend out...traveling, sunshine, outdoor adventure, fishing, camping, riding, racing...it was going to be great!

muthu nature had other plans...like rain the entire time except for about 4 total hours....it started on us Friday morning in bham and quit about at Tuscaloosa sunday afternoon. Luckily it was actually pretty nice when we pulled in to the White Water Center on Friday about noon...so i opted to ride immediately and hope to beat the rain. While this proved to be a good decision...the trails were already a little wet but overall in great shape.

a little climbing to start things off...

fairly wet everywhere...lots of moss growing on the benchcut...

the best shot for sure...this is as clear as the sky's would be all weekend.

The loop was nice and I was looking forward to the race for sure. We loaded the kiddies up and went to grab the keys and directions to our cabin. it ended up being about 25 minutes from the white water center just on the edge of the cohutta wilderness and about 10 min blue ridge, ga. Nice area for sure. The cabin was fine, nothing spacial but the kids loved it. the stocked trout creek behind it was nice and would ended up being some fun!

The rain showed up about 630 friday night and fell steady and sometimes hard ALL night long. We woke up to it too...so I decided not to ride the course again on Saturday and instead go exploring around on the local dirt roads. the ride was fun...i would have liked to keep riding for a while to be honest...and of course it was raining on me the entire time

Saturday night and into Sunday morning just brought more rain...we loaded up and headed to the race...running late...and feeling strange, just not fresh...even though I should have been. The rain joined us the entire time we warm up so i don;t think the body ever really ever got "warm" and for some reason it took Dave forever to get the ball rolling...so I had cooled all the way down by the time GO came around...but once it did come...

we were off. the course was tough. and because of all the rain, the had cut the river view trail out and added more straight up climbing. the lap was shortened by about 2 miles...but more in your face climbing. no recovery until the top...this would, in my opinion, be the down fall for me...i was wanting to use the rolling terrain to gain ground and recovery from hill climbing...and taking that part out didn't help me at all.

Once we started climbing hard core, I fell off the pace immediately. I tried my hardest to minimize my loses on the way up with the intentions of gaining some of that back on the downhill and hopefully finding my rhythm for lap # 2. I pushed the pace hard on the downhill, maybe a little too hard cause I busted my arse once...but came through the transition about 35 sec off the chase group. I worked hard climbing on lap 2 but just had no help from the legs. They were so flat...as I started the 3rd lap, the climb seemed so long...it was raining pretty hard by this time too and I was cooked...the trails had water coming down them like we were riding in a ditch. it was nice...i got passed a bunch on the 3rd lap...dropped a few spots to my age class dudes and to the 40+ group...nothing I could do. I busted it a few more time...several actually. I was glad that race was over when it did finale end.

I ended up in 10th about 6 minutes off my goal time. Brad finished 17th. The damage this race caused my bike was fun too...like I had no breaks on lap 3...they were gone!

not the report I wanted ot be giving on the first ever Kenda Cup East. it's funny how sometimes you just ain't got it and sunday was a day like that for me...I did fall out of 1st overall in the series by 4 pts. I'm ok though...5 more races is plenty of time to make that up...I hope.