What a difference

What a difference a week makes. Last week I fought anemia the whole week and I thought I was going to have to go to the doctor since I wasn't feeling any better by Friday. Saturday I was up at 5am and by 5:30 I was at the soccer fields setting up the goals, by 8am I was at the Rec. Ctr for my two spinning classes and an hr worth of weights after the spinning classes. That was just what I needed to get me going, although I didn't do anything yesterday since I had some house chores to do. As soon as the alarm went off this morning at 4:08 I was up and going. Felt good to get up without having to fight yourself and re-setting the alarm to get up later. Tomorow I'm starting to swim again and ease myself into the off season. October will be an easy month and then 6 weeks to get ready for two weeks of riding in warm weather when I go to Puerto Rico to visit my parents in December. I want to do some hard rides while I'm there to get ready for my first race next year, the Cohutta 65 miler. Hopefully I'll come back in one pc and no broken bones.
Fall is finally in the air. I do love this time of the year, riding through the metro parks and watching the leaves change from green to amazing colors. It is a beautiful display of Gods creation.

That is it

After the way this week is going I decided Reagan TT was my last race. I was planning on doing the Swank 65 in Asheville NC but I'm going through one of my anemia bouts. I suffer from anemia and once in a while it hits me from out of nowhere. It had been a long time since last year in June when it hit me together with walking pneumonia and knocked me out for a couple of months. Since Sunday I haven't done anything, I get up tired go through the motions during the day and go to bed tired. Last night I forced myself to go to Reagan for an easy hour lap and had fun. Hopefully it all be over and I can go back to the gym to start swimming and working out again.
On another subject, I've been thinking abut turning my Trek 9.8 hardtail into a single speed. With the front suspension fork I won't get beat up and I can install disk brakes on it. Have you noticed I'm really starting to dig this SS stuff. I used to think single speeders where insane, now I'm part of that insane society "full speed ahead". What's next, a 29er in the future, hmmmm.

Reagan TT photos

A couple of photos from the Reagan TT. Yes, I poached them, sorry.
Most people I talked to, liked my steel rigid SS. You don't see frames like this anymore. I'm glad I never got ride of it. Soon to have tubeless wheels. Still looking for a 1 inch carbon fork.

Reagan park Time Trial

120 racers showed up today for the Time Trail, the race of truth, just you against the clock. The team did really good at the race with top 5 placings in the expert, expert vet and sport categories against good competition. The best race was the expert under 35 where Steve finished second only one second behind Dave Walker. I started a little too fast and before I exited Reagan I had caught 3 riders. I missed the turn across the street and took the wrong line coming around a corner to cross a bridge and yes, I went down, the dirt is my friend. But it felt like slow motion going down. Got up and kept going. Coming to the gravel road section around the soccer fields I was over heated and had to slow down a bit and a rider passed me here. It was the only rider that passed me the whole race but I managed to pass him back on the Hoffman side of the trail. He was fast on the straight aways but very slow on the twisty techy stuff. Going out too fast cost me but that's the name of the game, if you don't try it you never find out if you can do it. That's why I like endurance races over short races, going ten miles at oxigen debt it's not my type of race but like I said before, sometimes you just have to get out of your comfort zone and "just do it". No pictures, my camera ran out of batteries as soon as I turned it on.
My time was 50:44 on a fully rigid single speed, it beat me up but I loved it and I have another scar on my shin to prove it.

HHH

Went to Findlay Ohio on Sunday with the thought of trying for a sub 5hr century. It was not to be. After the lunch stop we were about a mile into the century route when I decided I had enough and turned around to the 64 mile route. My left hand was killing me from Fridays fall and it was starting to swell more. I couldn't find a good handle on the handlebars that didn't bother me or hurt. I told the "Ho" to do the century and that I'll just wait at the finish. Too bad, we were feeling good, we did the first 46 miles in 2 hours and 5 minutes with the help of a tandem and a another guy that was taking good pulls, it would have been possible.
It was a very well organized ride with beautiful quiet roads and a place to take a shower at the end. 860 riders signed up.

THE HO

This guy was riding the 100k route bare footed.
You see everything during these type of rides.



Try riding even 1 mile on this thing.

Single Speed crash

Oh yeah, I'm enjoying the SS so much I went back to Reagan park today for an easy ride this time. There I was trying to get an easy lap in and I didn't want to go to hard since I'm doing the Hancock Horizontal Hundred Sunday and the "Ho" and I are going to try to do a sub 5hr 100 miles. The ride is all flat and there's plenty of fast groups that all you have to do is latch on to a group and ride. Anyhow, back to the SS story, yeah doing an easy lap is easier said than done. You may start easy but the trails at Reagan wind you up in such a way that you end up picking up speed at every turn. Coming down to the last section by the paved path there's a huge pile of logs that I have gone over them may times and at a faster speed that I hit it today. What I forgot was that riding a bike with front suspension versus a fully rigid bike sometimes can be a little different, specially when you drop down from a two foot high pile of logs. The speed was high but nothing out of the ordinary, I hit the pile go over it and on the way down I lost control when the wheel went in and didn't come out. With a suspension fork I think I would have been able to regain control because it gives, but not with the rigid fork. I went down hard hit the ground with my face and helmet and to tell you how hard I hit, the helmet cracked in 3 places. The right side of my right knee is banged up, the left thumb feels like I sprained it. As I write I'm starting to feel more bruises, long live the SS. There I was on my knees, my neck cracked when I hit the ground and it is only by the grace of GOD that I'm not paralized right now. I got up walk around a little bit, sat on a log counted fingers, followed one finger from side to side talked to me, myself and whoever else was there, was anybody there, I think I was by myself, whatever. When I finally collected my thoughs my left hand was hurting so bad I rode back to the car and sat there meditating about what had just happened. I'm going back again, I'm having too much on the SS to let one of my many crashes scare me. Long live the SS, bring it on.

Here's a couple of pictures of my face, I'm sure is going to get worse, battle scars baby, battle scars. My neck hurts, I wonder why, I'm loosing my memory too.

Pictures

Here's some pics of the SS and a few more. Can't miss me on the trails with this custom paint job. I bought the Paramount 1989 or 1990, can't remember. Raced it a few times then i stopped racing and riding all together for almost 10years.
I hate my camera, I swear is not me, it just seems that every picture I take comes out blurry for some reason. Any way feast your eyes on this beauty. Old style stem, hopefully I'll be able to find a 1 inch carbon fork somewhere so I can install a carbon stem and handlebar.
Oh yeah, I went back today after work to Reagan park to ride the SS once again. I had too much fun yesterday.

Next few pis are for my ride at Mohican last week. From the moment I jumped on my bike I was in pain, one of those days. So after a while of trying to push the pace I decided it wasn't worth it and took it easy and stopped to smell the roses and take pictures. All ride I wanted to bail out but I kept going and before I knew it it was over. In all it took me 2:47 ride time, plus 10 minutes of picture taking.

If you are a mountain biker and have had problems on the trail, you can't help but love this sign.

Although it should say "Share the Trail" Wouldn't it be nice if we all (hikers, horse back riders, mtb'ers) share the trails without any problems?

This was a big one and after taking the picture I had to run.

Who, what lives there.

And what's a set of pictures without my smiling face once again. This one was taken on the road.

What's up

Long time no blogging. Have been busy and lazy.
I finally turned my old Paramount hand made steel mtb with custom paint job into a single speed bike. Man did I have fun tonight at Reagan park in Medina. Climbed everything and only dabbed twice climbing.
At first I had to go back to the car and shorten the chain because it was coming off and it needed to be a little tighter. Full rigid bike and rode great. I've been looking for a 1 inch carbon fork but nobody has one. That's how old the bike is, they don't sell 1 inch forks anymore. If you have one and want to give it away to a good bike or sell it at a good price, please let me know I'll like to try it. It looks nice and clean with only the brake cables. pics and weight later.
Time to go to bed.

First flat of the year

This morning I had my first flat of the year in the middle of nowhere on the bike and hike trail. The back tire started to feel strange and right away I'm like, no, not here. No choice but to stop and fix it, no worries mate. What really got me going was the hybrid guy from last week went by and didn't stop or even asked if I needed help. I yelled a not so pleasant hello to him and thanks for asking how I'm doing you jerk, it's dark, 46 degrees my fingers are hurting from not wearing the right gloves, I could've used a bit more light to finish putting the tube in.
Anyway, I needed to let some steam out of the cauldron. I can't wait to catch up to him again sometime in the future, I may just shove him in the ditch and laugh.
The rest of the ride was beautiful except when the ranger passed me to close and I yelled at him too. But I don't think he even noticed that he passed me that close. I think most drivers are like that, they think they are giving us enough room when they really aren't.