scouting for UROAR

 John and I went out to the Hichiti trail to do some snooping for the up town rotary ocmulgee adventure race (UROAR) coming up. We ran the trail, which is a good running trail. Its about 5 miles long. Some areas have a lot of growth, but still run-able. A real nice creek along the much of the trail, nice rocks, and a couple of nice pools. Several good places to take the kids. Think I will do that soon.
 We then headed over to lake Juliet. The water was real low so we rode our bikes down to the lake and rode on the bank. Not the easiest thing to do, but fun. Good thing no game wardens saw us. Anyway, good day of goofing off.

Back 3

 A few of us went up to Helen and road the back three gap, Hog pen, Jacks, and Unicoi. We pulled out of Helen and decided to do a lap around Lake Unicoi, just to add some miles and get a good warm up. Very nice warm up, completely shaded and a couple of steep hills. Too bad hog pen didn't have the cover that the lake had. We then crossed the river, took a right on Russel scenic hwy. and let the pain begin. Like always starting out on a tough climb I feel strong and ready for the challenge, and then, like always I wonder "WHAT WAS I THINKING". All and all, I did well going up. My slowest speed was 5.5 mph. I past the first overlook on the right, and there were two guys taking a break. They yelled some words of encouragement, and I remember thinking, oh I want to pull over and rest. But if that overlook was not there I would not have given it any thought.  So I suffered on. When John, BK, and me reached the top heaven was waiting in the form of Ethan's truck, and Julie driving with cold drinks. It was awesome to have sag. 

BK's bike and mine

John and me didn't want to wait for the other guys, so we took off. BK stayed to hang out. Fun, fast decent off of hog pen, 53 mph for me. John said "no way". He and I worked good to get to Jacks gap, and we ate a snack once we got there. Stairing at the Brasstown entrance we decided to go for it.

half a mile up I couldn't take it any more and turned back, Superman kept   

going. It took John around thirty minutes to reach the top and back down. By this time the group caught back up, BK then went up. Two out of twelve, not good odds. We all left as a group for Helen, but first Unicoi gap. This will make you feel strong. Unicoi has a steady grade but not steep. John and I motored up about 15 mph. Once we started back down to Helen the weather turned bad. Wet roads are not fun when coming off a mountain. It was dry down by the Chattahoochee and I opened a gap on John, First across the line(Helen city limits). I may have been the only one racing, oh well! 

 Good day for the training, but bad day cause it hurts. If someone says they were fine after this ride I would have to call "bu*#sh@#t". I must be sick but I can't wait for the next round of suffering. 

Running again

 I've been running again, well I never stopped but I've been more consistent. I really like my "Columbia Ravenous". They are good feeling shoes on and off the road, although I haven't had them on real trail yet. 300 miles and no real trail...sad. I have had my Mountain Masochist on the trail and these are sweet. Running and my "workout runs" have made the difference in my cycling this year. Since I am limited on my ride time, running has kept me in good shape. And it is also what started my habit of getting fit.
 I've been entertaining the idea of running another ultra, but I am afraid of losing time on the bike. But ultra training shouldn't hurt my fitness. Maybe just some long trail runs at Pine mountain would curb this appetite. I need to give this some thought, because I do have a "milestone" goal I would like to reach (ride to Pine mt. then run the trail). I had three goals I wanted to meet when I first started getting fit, which I thought would be milestones to mark my progression. 

1. Run the whole Pine mt. trail (23 miles)
2. Run the whole trail, then ride my bike back to the start
3. Ride my bike to Pine mountain, then run the whole trail

 But we'll see, 2012 season could hold a different plan. 

Dauset training

Dauset again. I attempted a six hour ride but only ended up with five. Started out pretty good, steady but not slow "LSD". This ride really tired my out. A week off of training, hanging with the kids in Florida, eating nothing but junk food, really not the best training plan. But it was fun and my legs felt great. I cut another rear tire,(man I have bad luck) on huff-n-puff. I brought my other wheel set so I just swapped rear wheels instead of adding a tube and fighting all the stans boogers in my good wheel set. Besides if I had added a tube I probably wouldn't have found the object in the tire and popped the new tube. So off I went back on the trail with my old rear wheel that has a nine speed cassette. Oh ya my bike is now set up with a sweet 10 speed group. Well it actually shifted o.k. There was only three gears that didn't shift very well, but manageable. This also caused me to push harder gears than I wanted, because the gear I wanted would always seem to skip. Oh well, what you don't like makes you stronger. I fumbled my way through another lap and did some pine mountain repeats, and then I had enough. I would like to think if I hadn't punctured my spirits would have been better, and possibly rode for six hours.

I also gave those Ergon GC2 grips again. What an enigma. I think I am done with these things for the final time. My hands are killing me and my four arms tingling. The Ergon kool-aid drinkers say I don't have them turned correctly, but I have them in the recomended position. They feel great at first, then after a couple of hours, OUCH!

Well for now I will be in search of the grips that take me to nirvana.

Fried Green 50, fun ride

Fried green 50, cut a little short (46). Monti, Charlie, Mark, John, and me were OTT at 7:30am real good pace all day. A gravel grinder in the Piedmont is a great way to spend the morning. We had about 2800 ft. of ascent, 46 miles, very sneaky elevation gain, you feel like you've done the work but the miles click away quickly. Awesome ride, fun, and good training for anything.

Monti has set up a good route, I knew where we were for the most part, but I was surprised when we popped out on highway 11 in Round Oak. I grew up down the road in Wayside.

We took a short break at the forestry station, then headed back into the Piedmont. This section started out fast and rolling then the pain began. Some of the steepest hills were on this part. Good day, I can't wait till we do this again.

Mmm!

Charlie getting stuck in a tree?

Dauset training

T.O.T.

Started 12 hours of Dauset training yesterday. Got five hours in, all in all a good day. Dauset really beats you up, especially when trying out new grips and adjusting my seat all day. Just could not get comfortable. The grips are my new Cohutta 100 grips (lizard skin), they are a lot smaller diameter than the SRAM grips I was using, my hands and wrist hurt a tad.

First two laps(35 miles) I rode steady, averaged 10.7 mph. I'll have to maintain that for the next nine hours if I want to be on the lead lap. I was running my skinny tires, so I had to pick my lines carefully because these tires will kick you all over the place, and the rear slides a bit. Skinny tires and big fat roots are not a good pair. Yes I went down, (only once)

Met up with Monti at Brown Lee, we talked about the price of rice in China, and just the state of mountain biking in general, John's foot and up and coming rides. Then we took of on our own way. Got up to the parking lot and met up with Chris, Mike, & Tiffany, Thomas, and Jason. They had just finished running a 20 mile training run. Chris, Mike, & me went out and did huff-in-puff before they all had to leave. I enjoyed riding with those guys, just spinning and joking, lots of fun.

After hanging out with everyone I went back at it, not as much "want to" as before. I guess I lost interest. And I was running out of time, lost to much time hanging out. So just did some Pine Mt. repeats. Next round of Dauset training I'm going with more purpose. Ended the day with 57 miles. Hopefully I will have some different grips to try too.