3 weeks

I have 3  weeks to get ready for this race. I'm hoping for god weather. I don't want to drive 7hrs to do a muddy 65 miles off road in the middle of nowhere specially when I'm planning to camp the night before. The race is based out of the small Appalachian trail town of Damascus which looks to be a cool place. No hotel chains here, only B & B with a few other small places. Rode in to work yesterday and down in the valley the temps dropped to 51 degrees. It's summer and almost July and I'm still wearing long sleeves to ride to work. It actually makes for a nice cool ride in. Thick fog in a few places but with my 5 blinking lights I'm very visible on the road. Was hoping for back to back days and when I went to bed there was a 70% chance of rain in the morning; I get up and of course everything is dry and the threat of rain was downgraded to just a few showers in the morning and partly cloudy/sunny in the afternoon.
Short interval workout tonight at h-hill and I'll ride in to work tomorrow and then rush in the afternoon to my evening spinning class, have to keep race money coming in.
Have a great day, get out and ride.

Hitting Mohican Friday morning at 7:30am.

Global Intelligence

TRUE or FALSE:
ANGEL FALLS IN VENEZUELA ARE NAMED FOR THEIR HEIGHT-AT 3,250 FEET THEY ARE THE HIGHEST FALLS IN THE WORLD-WHICH EXPLORERS IMAGINED AS BRINGING THEM CLOSE TO HEAVEN.

Yes, no, yes, finally a big NO

Every 2-3 Fridays I'm the long hours person in the office (we get Friday afternoons off during the summer) Today is my Friday and not needing to be in the office unti 8:30 I slept in until 5am. wohooo.
Got up looked outside, cloudy but dry. weather said "morning showers". Got dressed, stuffed the backpack with everything I carry, open the garage door and I'm standing there for what seemed like minutes looking at the pouring rain and everything getting soaked "again". As I contemplate pulling my heavy rain coat out and ride anyways, the the thought of riding 32 miles in the rain at 6am suddenly doesn't appeal to me.  With no showers to clean up at work commuting in the rain is a pain. With my head down and bike in tow I walked back into the house down the stairs put the bike on the rack. There's only one thing left to do...put a pot of coffee on fire up the lap top and sit there staring at bike parts and once more look at the "Transylvania Epic" stage race website. Why, because I signed up, that's why.
If that doesn't give  you a reason to train hard, I don't know what will.

Reagan TT

Reagan came and went. Didn't race it since  was helping with the start and doing some last minute taping to make sure nobody got lost and nobody had taken down the yellow tape.
felt sorry for the begginers, rain came down hard just minutes after the last one left. I was sweeping the trail and got out of there as fast as I could. I 'll get wet but not muddy was my thought. Some of the begginers mentioned they felt they were riding up river in some parts of the trails. It came down hard.
The trail was in great shape before the rains came down but like one begginer said at the end while spitting dirt out " it is mountain biking". Thanks dude, great attitude. We had a rider from Florida stop by and race the TT and ended up winning overall, Drew Edsall, fresh from doing the Transylvania Epic stage race. Got to talk to him a little about that race and all my resources and rime will be dedicated to that race next May 2012.
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Keep your bike in a safe place, we don't want a fairy to die if its stolen.

Pics

Chasing a Rainbow

GRM 2011 - Chasing the Rainbow from pedalidimarca on Vimeo.

MMM / Global Intelligence

For the past couple of years "The Ho" and I travel out of state to do a century or two during the summer.
Las year we chose "The Six Gap Century" in Georgia in late August. Last Friday we traveled to Boyne City, Michigan to do the MMM. This century is a choice of 50, 100, 160 and 200K of nothing but short steep, punchy little mothers of hills. The longest gradual hill was about 3/4 of mile with lots of the other kind thrown in for good or bad measure depends how you see it. There was a few  short 20-22% and what they call the wall at mile 91 which starts climbing at a mellow 2% grade for about 1/2 mile and it keeps getting steeper until you round the bend and it goes from 4 to 8 to 10 to 12 to 14 in about a tenth or two of a mile. It really wasn't that bad, it just that it comes at the end of a tough ride.
Anyways, we were planning on doing the 200K but just like it happens every time we go out of state for a ride...it rained. The planned mass start was at 7am but it was delayed 1hr until the rain stopped. Once we took we decided to do the 160k or 100 miles since the start was delayed 1 hr and we really didn't want to be out in the elements another 1 1/2-2 hrs. The temps never reached 60 degrees and after 12pm it went down a few degrees. We started on our own and we rode by ourselves 95% of the time. Many people went out to fast for the type of terrain and we would end up passing them later at the rest stops. We had two flats that found me begging for a spare tube just in case we had another one. One interesting thing was that you could drop a bag at any of the aid stations which we did with dry socks spare tubes and all our Hammer stuff. Believe me, having dry socks after 55 miles felt great.We finally made it back to the finish line in 6:28 total riding time for 105 miles. Total time including stops was about 7 1/2 hrs.
I only took 3 pics after the ride since I didn't take my camerea or phone with me cause of the rain.
Next non race ride is the Civil War Century in Maryland.

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Answer to the last Global Intelligence:
The murals are mosaics made of grains and grasses, and birds soon strip the walls clean
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GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE

Q: This river, which flows through southern Oregon to meet the Pacific Ocean in the town of Gold Beach, picks up its pace radically over some of its course, making it a favorite for whitewater rafting as well as fishing and jet boating. what is its name
a) Columbia
b) Colorado
c) Salmon
d) Trinity

Bedford Reservation

Pic from the viewing deck at the Bedford Reservation Monday morning on my commute to work. The sun just starting to peak over the trees. Although is a somewhat hilly 32 mile one way commute, I really enjoy it in the morning when I ride in. I get to see the sun come up, the wildlife starting to wake up. There seems to be more wild turkeys and deer this year than ever. Then there's the occasional

"I'm in love' skunk spraying their fragance all over the woods. That will really get you going.

Now that I have to leave the house before 5am there's less traffic on the roads. Most people are not in a hurry to get to work in the morning. In the afternoon is so much different, the same drivers that give you a lot of room in the morning will buzz you in the afternoon for no reason at all. One thing I'm starting to believe is that most drivers probably believe that they gave you enough room when they actually didn't. Monday I got buzzed by a yellow jeep in the Bedford reservation and when I caught up to her and very politely asked her why she buzzed me when there was no other cars coming from the other direction, she looked at me like I was crazy or something. We didn't argue or anything but she probably thought she gave me plenty of room.

And that's my thought for the day.

Be careful out there and drink plenty of fluids today, mid 90's and humid.

GLOBAL INTELIGENCE

Q: The murals celebrating crops and farm life that decorate  the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, must be re-created every year. WHY?

Mohican / Summer hours

Got up early Saturday and met a couple of team mates behind the church in Loudonville. Loaded my car with a cooler and their stuff and headed to see the start. this year they started the 100's first and 15 minutes later the 100k's. A half hr would have been better since the 65's started catching the back of the 100's quite fast.

Steve and his new Groovy bike

Nobody doest it better than Ross, fixing cleats with 5 minutes to spare.

Ray in Red, cool, calm and collected.
The race started and I drove over to the first aid station which was already getting full with people and cars.
Waited there for a about 1:45 chatting with support crews, husbands and wives. Ross came through and the exchange was no more than 20 seconds. He told me that Steve's chain snapped as they enterd the state forest trail. Last year he broke a handlebar he's taken the wrong turn because of poor or no signage, what else can go wrong for him at this race, remains to be seen. One day you'll have the perfect Mohican 100K race. He made it to aid station one and had to fix his saddle. In the meantime I shoved food in his mouth and gave him two fresh bottles. The second station was off limits to crews and spectators because it is a private residence. At station 3 I met up with some of the same people that were at station one and kept the conversation going. I can talk the ears off your head if you let me. Ross came through in either second or third and the exchange was even shorter than the first one which enable him to leave aid station 3 together with Carson and they had a good race going. a\At one time Ross was 3 minutes behind and he finished 1 minute and one second behind the winner in under 5 hrs at 4:56:58. Steve with all his problems came in in the top 25. Ray Finished 15th out of 42 starters in the master men division. Tom Franek made it in in 7th for a good showing from the Edge Outdoors team.
I'll try to download a few more pis tomorrow, right the puter doesn't want to download.

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Summer hours started today at work which means I have to get up at 4am now when I commute to work on my bike. I had a good ride in today and the rest of the week is going to be easy shorter rides and Friday the "Ho" and I are heading up to Michigan to do the "Michigan Mountain Mayhem" 200 K and 10k of accumulated elevation. Any ways, summer hours are 9 hour work days Mon-Thur. with friday afternoons off. Not a bad deal for the whole summer.

6 days in a row

It sure has been nice riding weather the past 6 days with no rain and up and down temps. I rode in to work on Tuesday in short sleeves leaving the house at 5:30am. The afternoon temps were in the 90's and very humid. Today I had long sleeves and knee warmers for another 5:30 am start at 53 degrees. Once the sun came out I was starting to get hot but I was only a few miles from work no sense in stopping to peel off clothes. With my commute home in the afternoon I'll have close to 17hrs in the last 6 days. Last night it was a spin class and an easy spin on the fixie that's not fixed. I may even ride in again tomorrow since I'm not riding Saturday. On Sta I'm going down to Mohican to do my Director Sportif duties for some of the guys in my team that are doing the 100K. I'll be passing out bottles and food and driving from one aid station to another. At least is going to be dry unlike last year when it pour the night before and the entire day of the ride.
Have a great one and do something outside today.

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ANSWER
Built by the Order of the Knights of St. John, which held the town as a bastion during the Crusades