Clark's TT - Denied

I've been off the bike since the century Saturday. I was getting jittery, like a junkie going cold turkey. So even with the rain that poured down today I changed into my bike clothes at work and drove over to Corner Canyon to see if I could do a time trial (TT) on Clark's and better my time.

I started at the Coyote Hollow trail head for a change. It looked pretty wet, but I thought it worth a look. A bit soft going up to the Tee, I went west on the BST to warm up and did OK until one spot with clay soil that stuck to my tires. I went up to above the McMansions then came back down. Most of the mud flipped off. At the bridge I started my stop watch and hit it. But I didn't get 30 yards before I had 5 pounds of mud on my tires. No way would I get a fast time in these conditions, and I didn't want to mess up the trail, so I turned around.

I still had some free time so I went down and took the BST east across the dirt road. The grader has made it's way down this far and it was a dug up mess, but I made it across and continued on the BST to the first gully crossing. The stream was roaring pretty good. I turned around and headed back. I took a little detour up the Gas Line trail then back to the car. All of these trails have sandy soil that drains real well - no mud and only a few puddles.

I pushed the pace but felt sluggish. Hopefully just blowing the cobwebs out of my legs. I'm hoping for a break in the weather so I can ride tomorrow or Friday to pre-ride the Draper race course. I'd rather not ride hard on Saturday.

On another note: Commuting fun this morning was dodging a mangled ladder in my lane.

Update: Tonight I finished converting my mountain bike to tubeless. I had gone over to the UMB shop to help Mike with the front wheel for my wife's bike (the rear wheel is done, but we didn't get the front to seal). And while I was there we added rim tape to the front wheel of my bike. At home I took out the tube, installed a tubeless stem, and added 4 ounces of Stans sealant. I don't have a compressor, but thought I'd give the floor pump a try - it worked! It helps that the sidewalls of the Continental Vertical Pro tire flex out nicely so it sealed up pretty easy. Some shaking and more pumping and it was holding air. Hopefully it will hold air overnight, but I'm confident it's done.

My Hans And Franz

Recently I've found a trick for riding more aggressively. No surprise or secret - just a fast tempo, head-banger song from the ROAM film. The song for the North Shore segment gets Todd going, and it's a good rocker, but the song "Rookie" by Boy Sets Fire playing during the Whistler segment gets me way pumped up. Take a listen:



I'm generally anti-poddie because I like to be aware of all the sounds when I ride, but I'm tempted to borrow one of my kids MP3 players and put this song on loop for a ride. Don't worry, one earphone only - I don't want to be one of those oblivious dorks you yell at on the trail and they still don't hear you. For now just replaying this song in my head gets me pumped up and pushing the speed.

P.S. Congratulations to Rio's Rider who again did very well with the 2nd song intro game.

Salt Lake Century 2008

My 3rd Salt Lake Century in a row. It's become a tradition. The first one was with the guys from work (the now defunct Linux Networx) who got me into road biking.

This year Jason Schildt came down from Seattle, and several others from years past joined us this year. The party started on Friday as we met at the Gallivan Center downtown to pick up our packets then went out to eat at The Bayou. Many of these people I hadn't seen in quite a while, so it was fun to hear what everyone's been doing.

Saturday I got up at 5:30 AM and drove up to the Utah State Fair Park. I was there early so I took a little spin on the bike and met Jason Schildt and Jason Lowry parked on the street. When they were ready we went over to the start and met the others in our group.

Bruce, Jason Lowry, me, Jason Schildt, Anne, Robert, Kevin.


The ride started at 7:25 and this year the pack seemed to thin out more quickly than in the past, but you still had to be on your guard to avoid a crash.

I was feeling mellow and rolled easy (18 mph) with Bruce to the first rest stop while the others rode up ahead. It was just such a beautiful day. Clear blue skies, no wind, cool but not cold, and lots of green. It seemed a shame to waste a nice day like this with head down staring at the pavement so I was up looking around, soaking it in. I'm sure the long, cold Winter we had this year had something to do with my delight with the day.

I rode mellow to the 2nd rest stop too, but Jason requested we stick together from here on out - a good plan. We cranked along the Hooper loop at 20 mph rolling a good pace line.

The ride out to Antelope Island and back is the highlight of the ride for me. There is almost always wind, but this year it was dead calm and few bugs - amazing! As we rode across I tried my hand at taking some pictures while riding - most turned out.





I got a flat about half way across. I got it fixed pretty quickly with a new tube. A 3/4" length of thick steel wire had gone right through the tire. I met up with the group at the marina and off we went around the island. Here's the group at the top of the loop:



I keep hoping to see some buffalo out on the island, but this is as close I got:



Back at the 2nd rest stop we ate lunch. From all the fixins, the turkey sandwich I made hit the spot.

We rode together to rest stop #1, with the occasional sprint for climber points at the top of even the smallest hill. Jason Lowry asked me if I was just taking it easy on the ride, and I said I was. Then came an overpass and Jason Schildt took off the front and Jason Lowry took off after him so I joined the chase. Schildt was gone, but I was able to pass Lowry half way up. Later, with a quarter mile to rest stop #1, I sprinted away from the group - Schildt wanted to chase, but he was boxed in when I took off.

At rest stop #1 I was still feeling pretty good. I was wearing 2 pairs of bike shorts to see if it reduce the literal pain in the butt I feel after 80 miles, and it seemed to be working. I'll go double shorts for the Seattle To Portland (STP) ride in July.

And I couldn't help play on the mini skate park.



A few miles into the home stretch, Robert disappeared. Schildt was sure he was up ahead. We stuck together for a while, but with no Robert in sight we wanted to catch him before the finish so we kept cranking up the speed. The other riders dropped until it was Jason Schildt, Anne and myself cranking along at 23-25 mph. We passed group after group, but no Robert. I asked Jason if he was sure Robert was out front - were we chasing a ghost? He seemed pretty sure so we continued the pursuit. As we ended the long run south to turn east, we saw him. Jason signaled us to be quiet so we could fly past him in surprise. We took the inside line of the turn and flew past, Robert spotted us and yelled at us. The pack he was towing encouraged him to give chase. We pulled back and chatted with him as he caught us. But after a few blocks I said to Jason, let's finish this thing in style, and we sprinted away. Robert tried to give chase, but he had spent a lot of energy pulling the last several miles. Another guy tried to stay with us, but eventually dropped. We had one scare at a stop sign where we had to wait for traffic, but we sprinted off and rolled to the finish. I felt a bit bad robbing Robert of the finish after he'd worked so hard, but it was pretty thrilling for Jason, Anne and I to catch him. A good chase.



We ate some juice popsicles at the finish and waited for everyone in our group to roll in. Kevin got a flat which put him last coming in. Jason asked if I could do another 100 miles right now - I felt like I could so that's a good sign for STP.

As per tradition, we met at Squatters for lunch where we met up with Cameron, another LNXI guy. It was a good lunch with good conversation.

Few things are better than riding with friends. The Salt Lake century this year proved that to still be true.

Corner Canyon Mixer

Met Mark, Matt and Fox for the Corner Canyon tour.

Climbing up the dirt road we happened upon Elden (FatCyclist) who had just finished Jacob's Ladder which was where we were heading. He was game for another lap so he joined us - sporting the new FatCyclist jersey no less.

Mark, Matt, Elden, me. (Thanks for taking the pic, Sly!)


I wasn't anywhere near 100% recovered from the cold I had on Monday and Tuesday. My legs felt weak, but I motored along. I'm glad Mark was in go mellow recovery mode or I may have turned back. I took it easy on the access climb to Jacob's Ladder and did OK, but the legs were lacking any snap and I was breathing way harder than usual.

Elden had his geared SuperFly today but had it in a high gear and stood up and rowed it up the climbs. I asked if he was stuck in single-speed mode. He grinned.

At the top we let Fox lead out and make his first DH TT attempt on Jacob's. He was gone in a flash. I went next, but with Elden close behind I felt like I was holding him up so I waved him past and he tore down the trail rolling smooth. Being the 2nd time on Jacob's, I DH'ed better and liked it more this time. I rolled the rock knob this time (last time I panicked when I saw it and stopped).

At the bottom we regrouped and rode back up the road to ride down Clark's, but Elden headed down Hog Hollow for home.

We let Fox, the DH master, lead down Clark's. Mark was behind him and hung close for a while, then Fox lit the afterburner and was gone.

We regrouped at the bridge and rode the rest of the race course (BST then down Spring Hollow and back along Highland Drive). My legs felt better for the last half, but my lungs felt burned.

It was a good ride with good riders. The weather was sublime with 60 degrees, clear blue skies and sunshine and lots of green coming on.

Blue Vader

The after effects of the cold are lingering so no cycling today (but hopefully tomorrow!). So I present this:

Song Intros - Part 2

Since part 1 of the song intro compilation was fun, and since I'm sick with a cold (and hence not riding), it's time to roll out part 2. Here's the drill: I collected the intros of all the songs I like and put them together in sequence. Here is part 2 with artists S through Y at just over 4 minutes in a 5 meg MP3:

Song Intros part 2

So, who's up to the challenge this time? List the artist and title of each song in the comments.

(OK, the name of the artist of the first song technically doesn't start with the letter S, but the second word of the title does - close enough).

And as if there was any question, Rio's Rider essentially named all the songs of part 1 - good job!

Spring Road And Dirt Saturday

It's been weeks since I've been on my road bike so I joined the Utah Velo Club for a ride around West Mountain (south end of Utah Lake). I arrived early so I wouldn't miss the 8:30 sharp start. It was a sunny but cool morning. I wore arm warmers and two jerseys which was a little cool for the first 10 miles, but perfect after that. I joined the sprint for the 10 mile mark and tied with the lead guy. Others asked "What was that about?", to which I replied "Just boys being boys". The road around the north end of West Mountain is deteriorating and as I followed the paceline I got led right into a pothole that jolted my bike so hard it reset my cyclocomputer - I lost my odometer (I was over 5,000 miles) and the temperature was in Celsius. Without my mileage I misjudged the distance to the 20 mile mark sprint and ended up in the pack. The stretch heading into Genola is my favorite with smooth pavement and a slight downhill. But the group was only doing a mellow pace so I took off out front. I was solo for a while, but the pack caught me at the bottom of the hill. Just having fun on the bike. Most of the group was going on to Mona (72 miles), but I needed to be back home around noon so I split off with two other guys to circle back on the 47 mile route. We picked up two other riders a few miles later and had a nice 5 man paceline going and averaged 21 mph. One guy dropped and his buddy went back for him so we finished with 3. I went into the gas station to buy a recovery drink (chocolate milk) and talked with the rider who broke his handlebars. He was hopping a cattle guard and came down and the right side snapped off. Luckily he didn't crash by quickly grabbing the stem and braking with the left hand. Yet more validation of my warning that carbon handlebars and seat posts are a bad idea.

At home I puttered around cleaning up stuff around the house. My oldest daughter Jamie was out on her "pre-date" - a helicopter ride around the south end of the valley.

Jolene and I decided to go for a mountain bike ride. Nothing fancy, just the BST, but it was a nice day and a good ride marred only by a flat (not me, Jolene's bike this time - another dang goathead thorn). We did the climb up past (north) Dry Canyon then turned around. The valley below looked more green. On the way down I tried to work on my cornering. I leaned into some turns and for a few short moments felt the tires hook up and rail me through the turn. It was a thrill! I'll keep working on it. The new tubeless rear wheel and tire felt great. The tire is noisy on pavement, but it grips the dirt good and didn't feel heavy or slow.

When we got home Jolene helped Jamie do her hair and get ready for prom. She looked beautiful. Kevin came to pick her up, they exchanged corsage and boutonnière and off they went. Can I really be this old?

With 47 miles on the road and 10 miles on the dirt, I was tired and kept falling asleep if I sat down. Went to bed and slept like a rock - felt great.

Bonus: The above image was created from two shots taken by my digital camera and merged together with AutoStitch - the best free panorama software I have found.