Another big Moab ride

Moab loop: Flat pass > Behind the Rocks > Hunter Canyon > Back to town.  We left Dolores at 7:00am, road and then I made it back slightly late for dinner at 6:45.  We were originally going to try and add Moab Rim & Hidden Valley at the end but time just ran out. There was plenty of sand (since its Moab).  Flat pass was really cool but Hunter canyon was the best.  The scenery was spectacular there.  Hunter is technical riding with some hike-a-bike and exposure.  This is not a good one for people who don't like scaling rock cliffs with their bike in hand.  Luckily we were easily able to lower bikes down by working together.  It would be trickier and more dangerous on a solo ride.  I liked Hunter Canyon.  Check out the pictures and captions.

 

TR, Jeff, Kiviok & myself before the ride

 

Quick stop on Flat Pass

 

Self portrait attempt

 

Kiv ripping it up down the hill

 

Drastically different lines for TR & Jeff

 

Kiv climbing up the hill

 

Nice stopping spot with the snow capped mountains in the background just after a creek crossing

 

Petroglyphs in the background.  Unfortunately some morons recently decided to put their own graffiti on top of the rock art.  We were fired up about that.

 

Kiviok (in the background) brought a hot dog purchased from the gas station.  Yuck!

 

Jeff and Kiv just after they crashed into each other.  Kiv stuffed Jeff and crashed him.  Surprisingly, Jeff picked Kiviok up above his head and threw him 20' using some kind of WWF move.  Afterwords they made up and Kiv shared the rest of his hot dog with Jeff.  LOL!

 

Hunter canyon,  Nice views!

 

Handing the bikes down one of the ledges.  Don't fall off this one!  You wouldn't be riding the next day.

24 Hours in the Old Pueblo news link

Check out the article in the Cortez Journal about the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.

http://cortezjournal.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=14562

Moab early season 11 hour ride

Normally we would be doing the traditional White Rim in a Day ride but since Mineral bottom was closed from the big mud slide in the fall we decided just to do a big loop that Jeff put together.

 

Quick breakfast and some extremely thick coffee complements of Jeff.  I still can't get the smell out of my mug!

 

 Great early morning riding on the Sovereign trail

 

Sunrise, Cold!

 

Lunch, cold McDonalds cheeseburgers and a Nutella taco after 7-mile trail

 

Should we do that extra 2 1/2 hour loop on metal masher? Yep! 

Turned out great except when Jeff Hemperley ripped his tire on a wicked rock drop and face planted on the next ledge.  Luckily he was okay!  Since singlespeed endurance racers don't have much of a brain anyway we were not concerned about his head. 

  

The "Widow maker", unfortunately nobody got a picture of me huckin it.

Kiv and myself when the weather finally warmed up to 50.  Kiviok gets credit for almost all the pictures.

Great day!

Almost 5000 miles on the singlespeed this year

It's going to be close.  Two more weeks until the one year mark and the mileage on the singlespeed is 4901.  If it wasn't so snowy here that would be easy to get 99 more miles.  It would be cool to reach 5000 miles on a singlespeed in one year!  Look at the calories, that's about 10 big macs isn't it?

1st place, Singlespeed solo, 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo 2011

Just finished 1st place last weekend in the Singlespeed solo category at the Kona 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.  245 miles, 20,000ft elevation gain, 24 hours strait.  I finished 4th overall out of all the solos including those with gears and was in 3rd most of the race finishing seconds behind the 3rd place geared male at the finish.  There were around 1900 racers there.  The racer who finished behind me is the rider who won in 2010.


Big thanks to Kiviok Hight at Cortez Chiropractic.  He always has the best advise and treatments to prepare and train for my ultra endurance races.  And of course my wife Dani and her team who set me up in the pits.

Stats:
http://64.119.44.58/liveresults/results/Solo%20-%20Single%20Speed%20Male.html
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/69642697?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d641d3317e3e142%2C0
http://www.epicrides.com/twofour/24.htm

Brutal weather! Windy, up to 50mph gusts then just after sunset a three hour rain dump with the wind and temps in the 30s during the night.  Road then entire time without sitting anything out like some of the competition.  Pays to tough it out.  After having most of my cold weather gear soaked I had no choice but to try and cover up the best I could and deal with the cold.  I road one tooth harder gearing which because of the wind turned out to really tax the muscles.  After crossing the finish line I went straight over to the vendor area and got a steak sandwich and a Latte!

I used a variety of Hammer Nutrition products including HEED, Perpetuem Solids, Gels and bars.  The Schwalbe tires did great and the new Trek Superfly SS was awesome!  No problems the entire 24 hours.  They performed excellent in the saturated sand, mud, and hard pack.

Press:
http://www.crankzone.com/2011-old-pueblo-results/
http://outbiking.com/
http://www.mountainflyermagazine.com/view.php/24-hours-in-the-old-peublo.html
http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/24-hours-of-old-pueblo-ne-1/results
http://www.mtbracenews.com/view_article.jsp?id=246
http://mountainbike.about.com/b/2011/02/21/2011-24-hours-of-old-pueblo-results.htm

Also, unrelated to the race, here is an article that showed up in Mountain Bike Magazine / Bicycling where I got some plugs for building a local trail which is touted as one of the best in the southwest.  http://www.bicycling.com/mountain-biking/crazy-good?page=0,1

Before the race start

The rock drop!

Early Morning, guess I road the trail so many times by then I didn't even have to look where I was going.  Underneath that gear I was still soaked from the storm!

The calm before the storm.  Weather was great the night before the race start.

Nice rear plates provided by Epic Rides.  They didn't last through the storm.  If you saw someone with one after the storm you knew they sat it out.

Coming into the pit

Wife Dani helping me out at the pit, She was racing on a team

Leaving the pit

Myself , Mike to my right (Last years winner) and Jeff Hemperley from Rico to my left who hammered it to get 4th.  Great race!

 

Happy to get this one.  Tough Race!

1st Place Singlespeed open, Hedgehog Husstle

Just finished 1st place in the Hedgehog Hustle SS Open (Pro/Cat1 category). This is the second race in the state points series so I'm still in first overall in AZ.

I was surprised that I was able to win by over 5 minutes and also pass a significant number of CAT 1 geared racers which started 2-6 minutes in front of us.  Geared pros started 10 minutes on front of us this time, I'm not sure if I passed any of them.  The race was at the end of a brutal week of training in preparation for the Kona 24hrs on the old Pueblo which included two 6 hour 4AM start time rides, intervals, a couple 3-4 hour rides, a race effort ride and the race itself.  The trail was very technical and rocky.  The Schwalbe Nobby Nic really performed well again on the front and the new Trek Superfly SS was great.

1st place Singlespeed open, McDowell Meltdown 2011

Just finished 1^st last weekend in the McDowell Meltdown in the highest level Single Speed category.  http://www.mbaa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=20&Itemid=35  This is the first race in the Arizona State Championship series so I’m currently ranked the fastest XC single speeder in the Arizona series.  The Pro geared racers started first, followed by the faster Cat 1 racer categories 2 minutes later, then my category which is the fastest Single Speed class 2 minutes later, followed by the rest of the Cat 1, and Cat 2 geared and single speeders.  I ended up passing a majority of the Cat 1 geared racers and some geared Pros!   I included some images with the new bike and the decals you sent.  Good thing it wasn’t a height contest (see pic).

Last year I finished 3^rd in this same race and this year I won it by over 5 minutes on the new bike.  The Schwalbe Nobby Nic performed great on the front as did the Racing Ralph on the back!  First race on the new Trek Superfly SS, Sweeeeeet bike.  The race was on the well-known Competitive tracts at McDowell which is a high speed but technically challenging course with fast rocky sections and loose gravelly corners. 

  

Racing through the pits

Good thing it wasn't a height contest!