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SD Triathlon Classic

2010-10-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

Not much motivation going into this race. I swam one time the week before the race and other than that I hadn't swam since IM CDA. A group of us including Jill and I decided to do the whole race together instead of actually racing. After the swim section, we all waited for our group to assemble at the Bike Out from the transition area before heading out. We ended up biking and running the course together and it was a great time. Lots of laughs were had by all but a slow time for each of us.

2011 Ironman South Africa

2010-08-10T02:10:00.000-07:00

Jill and I are registered for the 2011 Ironman South Africa on April 10th! Here we go again.

Ironman Coeur d'Alene

2010-07-01T17:01:00.001-07:00

I can't begin to describe how much fun this race/vacation was. The combination of a great venue, a group of good friends that all went together, it was my first Ironman, the crowd cheering at the finish line and finally seeing how happy my wife was when she finished made it a spectacular race.

We rented an old house in downtown CDA that was only a few blocks from the start of the swim and about 7 blocks from downtown, it was an ideal location for the week. We spent many hours on the porch of the house relaxing the days before the race.

On race day we dropped off our special needs bags went back to the house to relax and when it was race time put on our wetsuits and walked to the start.

The swim was basically mass chaos, especially at the turn around buoys. There were close to 2300 racers lined up over hundreds of yards on the beach standing 20+ people deep. When the gun went off everyone headed for the same turn around buoy.

When I reached the buoy I ran into a wall of people that were stopped and floating vertical waiting to make progress forward. It was backed up 20+ people deep and wide. No way to make progress without waiting for those in front of me to start swimming. There was wide spread panic setting in by many of the swimmers when they were in the middle of that mess. It finally cleared up and the swimming resumed. All of the time in the pool paid off as the swim wasn't that tough.

The bike portion went through some beautiful countryside with plenty of rolling hills. The numerous rides of the Lake Henshaw route in San Diego had me well prepared for the bike portion as it didn't seem too tough either.

Next up was the run and that was a different story. I'm feeling pretty good here on my first lap of the course. Our strategy was to walk through each aid station to make sure we got plenty of nutrition in us.

The second lap was tough. Around mile 18 the wheels came off the bus and I had to walk for the first time outside of the aid stations. My pace started to slow and my goal of finishing sub-eleven hours quickly vanished.

There were hundreds of spectators lining the last six blocks heading into the finishing chute all cheering for each racer coming by. It was a spectacular feeling of accomplishment and the closest I'll ever come to feeling like a rock star.

I got the job done as Coach Spencer said and finished my first Ironman!

My wife came in shortly after me and was ecstatic!

In the end I finished in 72nd place out of 250 in my age group and 582nd out of 2265 overall.

Total Time: 11:54:33
Swim: 1:22:56 (2:11 pace 100yd)
T1: 7:52
Bike: 5:35:21 (20.0 mph pace)
T2: 3:02
Run: 4:45:24 (10:54 min/mile pace)

The next couple of days in CDA were filled with lots of relaxing, coffee at Java on Sherman, Bowling at the Sunset Lanes, fireworks and eating.

Jill and I are already looking for our next Ironman to race in. It was a great time with my family and friends in CDA.

Am I ready for Ironman CDA?

2010-06-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

There are less than 19 days until the start of the Ironman Coeur d’Alene. I started wondering if I am ready for my first Ironman or not so I did a query on my training log and found some encouraging statistics. Since starting my training on 09/01/09, over nine months ago, I have completed the following:

Swim - 94 hours and 106 miles which is equivalent to 44 Ironman swim sections

Bike - 227 hours and 3586 miles which is equivalent to 32 Ironman bike sections

Run - 109 hours and 664 miles which is equivalent to 25 Ironman run sections

I think I am ready to do one Ironman!

Monday is the new Friday...

2010-05-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

It used to be that I looked forward to the end of Fridays, as it signaled the end of the work week and a weekend ahead full of relaxation, athletic adventures and some work mixed in. Now that the volume of training for CDA Ironman has increased, I find myself looking forward to Monday morning instead. My coach usually has Monday as the lowest intensity and lowest volume day out of the week.

This weekend we did a 6 hour road ride (107 miles and 7800 feet of elevation gain) followed by a 1 hour transition run on Saturday. Sunday was a 3 hour run followed by a 90 minute massage :)

Today (Monday) was an easy day with only 2.5 miles of swimming.

Monday is the new Friday!

Video from Lake Henshaw Ride

2010-05-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

The day before the Encinitas Tri, Mike the Bike, Steve and I did the Lake Henshaw loop. Steve took some HD Video when we were near Lake Henshaw and then again on the descent. When you view it make sure to increase the resolution to 720 and full screen.

Encinitas Sprint Triathlon

2010-05-17T10:03:00.001-07:00

A little too short for my liking but it was enjoyable none the less. I was pretty beat after doing the Lake Henshaw loop + T-run the day before. It was great seeing so many kids out there racing. One guy in my wave was wearing his GoPro camera mounted on his head for the swim. I'd enjoy finding that video on the web.

Total Time: 01:18:25
Swim: 00:16:49
T1: 00:03:43
Bike: 00:34:33 (21.67 miles/hr)
T2: 00:01:22
Run: 00:21:57 (06:57 min/mile pace)
Age Group Finish: 17/73

Finished the day off with a 2hr 20min long run. I'll be glad when CDA training is over!

Wildflower Half Ironman

2010-05-03T11:09:00.000-07:00

The Wildflower website describes the event as the "Woodstock of Triathlons" with over 30,000 people showing up to Lake San Antonio for a weekend of events. Not that I was at Woodstock (I'm not that old), but it does an accurate job of describing the scene at the race. We arrived Friday afternoon to a sea of tents, campers, RVs, etc... We setup our campsite, picked up our race packets and got our body marking completed.

We checked out the swim start, transition area and expos before we got settled in for the restless night of sleep before the race. We had a humble campground setup compared to others elaborate setups. Sydney who was also the team photographer for the weekend relaxing in our "camper".

Fortunately Wildflower is an atypical triathlon in that the start times are not so early in the morning. My wave started at 9:00am, Jill and Britney's started at 9:25am.

We got setup in our transition area and walked the route to remember how to get from the swim back to our transition spot amongst thousands of others.

I was racing in the "Old Mans" group M45-49 as evidenced by this photo!

Adrenalin was pumping at this point in the race, I was in the light blue caps.

Jill and Britney's wave went off 5 waves after mine and are in the middle of this chaos.

It was a tough course, way more difficult than the Oceanside half. Jill and Britney both did an awesome job. This was Jill's first Triathlon in 7 years and she did it bruised ribs and all after her bike accident last weekend. I would never have started if I was in her condition. Woman are tougher than men.

Britney, myself and Jill after finishing.

Kevin's Total Time: 05:41:23
Swim: 00:40:32 (02:05 pace)
T1: 00:04:52
Bike: 02:53:39 (19.30 mph pace)
T2: 00:02:46
Run: 01:59:34 (9:07 min/mile pace)
Age Group Finish: 32/166

Jill's Total Time: 06:53:41
Swim: 00:45:52 (02:22 pace)
T1: 00:07:35
Bike: 03:34:33 (15.60 mph pace)
T2: 00:07:17
Run: 02:18:24 (10:33 min/mile pace
Age Group Finish: 21/58

Britney's Total Time: 07:05:58
Swim: 00:49:01 (02:32 pace)
T1: 00:07:09
Bike: 03:35:07 (15.60 mph pace)
T2: 00:07:07
Run: 02:27:34 (11:15 min/mile pace
Age Group Finish: 45/78

Next up is CDA, 55 days to go!

Lake Henshaw Ride

2010-04-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

Had a big ride with Mike the Bike this weekend. We did the Lake Henshaw Route from Solana Beach, and then threw in Mesa Grande and Cole Grade road for good measure. Here's a picture of me trying to hang with Mike climbing Mesa Grande while he is taking photos on his iPhone... demoralizing at best.

That's snow on the mountains behind us. All in it was 123 miles with close to 12,000 feet of elevation gain. I won't lie, it hurt. Mike kept saying it would build character. Well my cup runneth over with character after that ride.

Open Water Swim Workouts

2010-04-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

I attended Jim Vance's Open Water Swim Workout last night at Ventura cove and it was an awesome workout! These workouts are every Wednesday evening, in the water at 6:00pm and out by 7:00pm at Ventura Cove.

I was expecting a lot of talking and not much swimming but I was wrong.

If you are familiar with the row of swim buoys at Ventura cove, we warmed up starting at 6pm by swimming one loop of these swim buoys. In the meantime Jim put out two large buoys like the ones they use in races that were much closer to shore than the row of permanent swim buoys. At 6:15 he had everyone lined up on the shore and asked us to categorize ourselves into three groups of swimmers, A, B and C. He then had us practice starting a race from the beach by having us run into the water and then swimming 15 strokes and stopping. Next we practiced a water start by starting the race from that point and getting up on shore as soon as possible. We did this a couple of times.

We then did a series of mock races. He would start the three groups in waves with the A group going first followed by the B and C group for a small clockwise race from the shore around the two closer buoys and back to shore. We repeated this going counterclockwise. Then he had us repeat the same thing but after the first lap we ran on the beach and did a second lap. He changed it up and had the C group go first then the B group and then the A group. We did various other similar mock races. By the end of the workout I felt much more comfortable swimming with others close by.

This practice really helps in getting used to swimming next to people, having faster swimmers overtake you from behind, you overtaking slower swimmers, drafting someone, sighting and swimming with a high heart rate all while being in a relaxed environment. There isn't any instructions given just the opportunity to practice.

Jim Vance is holding a series of classes where he will be giving instructions, Jill and I are already signed up for the April 17th class. If you are interested go to Jim Vance's Blog.

CA Half Ironman

2010-03-28T08:04:00.001-07:00

This was the largest race that I have raced in so far by a long shot, there were 2152 racers in total and in my age group alone there were 219. 219 racers in one wave was total chaos.

The swim start was interesting in that we couldn't get into the water until the previous wave started racing. With waves going off every 3 minutes that gave us that much time from being dry and standing on the boat ramp to being at the start line between two buoys, acclimated to the cold water temperature and warmed up and ready to race. Certainly not ideal but everyone was in the same situation. I stayed to the outside trying to avoid the mass of humanity in the water. I'm not the best at sighting while swimming but I swear that there were some blind swimmers out there as there were people going every direction. The phrase herding cats comes to mind when I think back to the safety personnel on there paddle boards trying to keep the swimmers on course. This was the first race that I actually got into a rhythm and felt smooth in the water. Towards the end I also got used to bumping into other swimmers and instead of stopping and looking around I just kept on swimming. I was 135/219 out of the water so it wasn't a fast swim for me.

Next up was the bike, this was the portion of the race that I had been looking forward to. My new Zipp 808/1080 tubular wheels are incredible, they look fast but they even sound fast.

Since my swim start was the 17th out of 20 waves, there were a lot of riders out there to pass. It was hard not to go out too hard as I wanted to pass everyone I saw. I moved up from 135/219 in my age group to 43/219 by the end of the bike with an average pace of 21.43 mph.

The last section of the race was the one that I was dreading, the run. I wasn't ready for the half marathon mentally or physically. I had held a 6:30 min/mile pace in the Desert Tri a couple weeks back and so I was looking for a pace of around 7:20 for the half marathon but it wasn't happening. I ended up with a pace of 8:06 min/mile for the run section.

In the end I finished in 40th place out of 219 in my age group and 415th our of 2152 overall.

Total Time: 05:10:00
Swim: 00:40:07
T1: 00:04:35
Bike: 2:36:49 (21.43 mph pace)
T2: 00:02:12
Run: 1:46:20 (8:06 min/mile pace)

I need to find another Half Ironman race to do at the end of May since CDA Ironman isn't until the end of June.

Next up is the Julian Death March MTB race in two weeks. I'm going to have to get the MTB dusted off and get in a few rides between now and then if I'm going to survive the 86 mile and 12,000 feet of gain.

Toyota Desert International Triathlon

2010-03-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

It was cold and raining for the race out in La Quinta, CA. Even with the weather I beat my last Olympic distance triathlon time by 30 minutes. The course was a bit shorter though, Olympic distance is 1.5km/40km/10km and this course was 0.75m/24m/6m. The training and coaching by Spencer Smith is paying off.

Finished in 12th place out of 44 in my age group.

Total Time: 02:14:49
Swim: 00:25:23
T1: 00:03:01
Bike: 01:02:26 (23.80 miles/hour pace)
T2: 00:03:21
Run: 00:40:38 (06:32 min/mile pace)

Next up is the CA Half Ironman on 3/27.

Palm Canyon Epic 2010

2010-02-15T19:12:00.000-08:00

Four vehicles and 11 riders made the logistics of the Palm Canyon Epic shuttled ride onerous but the ride made it all worth it!

We started at the top of Palm Canyon Trail.

From the main trail we then took the Indian Portello Trail to the wash.

Up the wash to Dunn road and a brief stop at Mike's Desert Oasis.

Then took the Hahn Buena Vista Trail down.

There was plenty of cactus to go around and everyone got there fill.

While it was only 28 miles total with 2500ft of climbing and 6000ft of descent, it took almost 4.5 hours total.

There were parting gifts for all riders, the grand prize went to Christian.

Ken came in second place with his prize.

And Third place went to Andy.

After the ride Miguel hooked us up with a great restaurant in Palm Desert. We had a great meal and margaritas at Serenata Mexican Bar and Grill post ride.

I took several GBytes of video but haven't had anytime to edit it down. I'll post it when I get the chance.

Great ride, truly an Epic adventure!

Leadville Lottery

2010-02-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

I received the following email from the Leadville 100 MTB race organizers:

"We deeply regret that we were unable to accept your application into
the 2010 Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race. We really wish we
could accommodate every interested rider, but we simply can’t. Our
goal and primary obligation is to offer every racer the nation’s
highest quality athletic experience with the utmost degree of safety,
medical care and racer support. The ever increasing numbers of
returning racers and new applicants are testimony we are meeting our
goal. We do not keep a waiting list and cannot yet accept entries for
2011."

The only way I can race it this year is to pay $1250 for one of the Carmichael Training Systems 2-day mountain bike camps in Leadville in July. I'm trying to find out the cost but the CTS website is slammed with traffic after the regret letter went out this morning.

Snowboarding in Telluride

2010-02-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

I spent a three day weekend in Telluride this past weekend, mostly work related but also had some spare time to enjoy the mountain. Enjoyed a private flight from Orange County to Telluride on a Gulfstream 450. I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in the cockpit for the landing.

Telluride Airport sits atop Deep Creek Mesa and is North America's highest commercial airport. At 9,070 feet above sea level it is an exciting airport to land at.

After some long meetings that lasted well into the morning I was able to get out and enjoy some snowboarding on a few inches of fresh powder.

Some of the runs were steep and challenging, but too many flat runs connecting one area to another, especially on a snowboard.

Lots of fresh tracks to be had out of bounds but the warning was sufficiently convincing to keep me from dodging the OOB ropes.

The town of Telluride below the run.

After a day of snowboarding on Sunday, I got in a short Snowshoe/Run on some snow mobile trails before the game.

This 15 foot screen puts my 50" plasma to shame.

It should have been the Chargers taking home the trophy on Sunday but it was a great weekend in any event!

Next weekend is the Palm Canyon Epic MTB ride.

Snowboarding at Mammoth

2010-01-25T09:01:00.000-08:00

Mammoth received over 5 feet of snow from Tuesday through Thursday of last week so Mike the Bike and I decided to head up for some fresh tracks. It was a marathon drive, we left at 5:30pm Thursday evening and didn't get to the mountain until 2am on Friday. There was an accumulation of about an inch of hail on the road going up the Cajon pass. The roads were covered with snow shortly after that for the remainder of the drive.

The drive was well worth it. The top of the mountain and the backside had been closed for most of the week and on the second day that we were there they opened up the backside. We scrambled to get to the lift as soon as we saw it running.

We had fresh tracks all afternoon. That is me on top of Dragon's back ridge getting ready to head down.

We headed back after two full days of boarding. I went out for a long ride on Sunday afternoon and quickly realized how worked my legs were from all of the fresh powder.

The conditions on Saturday at Mammoth were some of the best that I have ever experienced, it was a great weekend of boarding. I was sorry to have missed the Antelope Peak Challenge race but given the weather at the race location and the conditions at Mammoth, I was happy with my choice.

Tough Decision?

2010-01-21T11:06:00.000-08:00

Given that:
A) Mammoth has had 5 feet of new snow over the last three days and the weather forecast is for clear/partly cloudy skies on both Saturday and Sunday.
B) The weather forecast for the location of the Antelope Peak Challenge race is rain/wind with temperatures between 45 and 32.

I am heading to Mammoth with Mike the Bike instead of racing in the APC.

Palm Canyon Epic

2010-01-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

After talking about riding this trail for years we finally did it! Devlin, Terry and I drove out to Palm Springs Friday night so that we could get an early start on Saturday morning. After a quick breakfast at Elmer's we dropped off one vehicle at the RimRock Shopping center. We drove the other vehicle up to the Trail head some 30 miles away.

The weather was perfect and I started the ride in short sleeves.

I had downloaded the .crs file from Geoladders and printed out the maps from MountainBikeBill's website.

It was basically 30 miles of single track with most of it being downhill. The route we ended up taking is located on TrainingPeaks.com. We pieced together the best of it all after getting some good Beta from some locals on the trail.

My favorite trail was probably the Hahn Trail. That is San Gorgonio Mtn in the background.

And Palm Springs in the background on this one.

Terry and Devlin going down Hahn Trail.

It was a great day in the saddle with some good friends. We'll be repeating this ride with Dave and Ken on 2/13.

Cuyamaca to Noble Canyon MTB Ride

2009-12-30T06:00:00.000-08:00

We had a large group of 10 for this ride. Started out with 32 degree weather.

We started at the Horse Trailer parking lot in Cuyamaca and road up and over the East Mesa Fire Road to the traditional Noble Canyon Loop. We did extra credit and then came back.The map of the route is located here.

Nathan took some Video of the ride with his new GoPro camera.

Miguel and Osamu climbing Indian Creek Trail.

Antelope Peak Challenge

2009-12-14T18:01:00.000-08:00

The first race of the year is only 6 weeks away. SS Mark and I are going to drive out to Arizona to participate in one of the Arizona Endurance Series races, the Antelope Peak Challenge. There are two options a 65 mile route or a longer 116 mile route. There has been some smack talk coming from Xterra Dave who coincidentally is not racing as to how we can't complete the long course on our SS bikes. It's yet to be decided if we are going to succumb to the peer pressure and go SS and long.

There is a decision to be made half way through the 65 mile race if we take the 51 mile out and back lollipop extension to complete the long course. The total elevation gain of the 116 mile course is about 9000 feet.

Maps of the course are shown below:

Big Rock Olympic Distance Triathlon

2009-11-08T16:30:00.001-08:00

After 6 years the pain of my first Triathlon (Half Vineman) faded sufficiently to enable me to sign up for another. This one was a prep in our training for the CA Half Ironman and the CDA Ironman next year.

The swim was a rude awakening. I have a ton of work to do in this discipline. I made the mistake of starting in the front of my wave. It was a two loop course in Perris Reservoir. Close to the end of second lap i looked behind me and the only guys in my wave that were behind me were doing the breast stroke!

The bike section was fairly flat and all right turns with every intersection controlled by the CHP. I made some time up on this section.

Riaan and I ran the run section together to finish the race off.

Finish line photo with Riaan, Julianna amd I. Riann came in 3rd place in his division. Julianna came in 2nd place in her division and I cam in 6th place in my division. I had an overall time of 2:44:41.9, swim = 32:16, T1 = 5:22, Bike = 1:09:24, T2 = 2:20 and the run = 55:17.

I'm glad it's the end of the season!

Noble Canyon Ride

2009-10-15T11:09:00.001-07:00

Great ride on Sunday at Noble Canyon with a total of nine of us. The weather was perfect and no injuries. Bragging rights on the downhill go to Ken for cleaning "Widowmaker".

Good picture of Mark and Greg on Indian Creek Trail.

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Noble Canyon

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SoCal Fat Tire Epic Race Results

2009-10-15T11:08:00.003-07:00

Contribution from guest Blogger SS Mark:

"It was a great day. No crashes, everyone finished.

There was some drama though. Ken and Kevin dueled it our for first place. Ken set a blistering pace for the first lap and had the early lead. His tactic proved to be unwise and as Kevin approached the nasty climb on the second lap, he found Ken cramping on the side of the road. I was not there (far back at this point), but I heard as Kevin went by he sprayed Ken with Heed, kicked dirt on him, and then was heard chanting "Girlie-Man" as he pulled away. Not to be disgraced, Ken dusted himself off, rested for 10 minutes, and then took off for Kevin. 10 minutes turned into 7 minutes, and with less than 3 miles to go Kevin was in ken's sight. Kevin saw Ken out of the saddle and knew the end was near. Luckily, Ken ran out of room and finished 2 minutes behind.

Kevin - 4:50
Ken - 4:52.

Lynn and Osamu battled for third with 3rd going to Lynn.

Lynn - 5:17
Osamu - 5:25

SS Mark played sweeper with a time of 5:27.

As predicted SS Mark went to the pool for a soak and a stretch. Once there he quickly realized he was the only male, surrounded by 5-6 cougars in bikini's! He tale of finishing 2nd in his division (even though there were only 4 competitors) was enough to fire up the hungry herd. Knowing he would need help, he went back to the car for Lynn, Ken, and Kevin. Unfortunately by the time we returned the cougars had moved on to other quests.

Luckily for us we once again escaped sure trouble."

Note that all of SS Mark's comments regarding place were relative only to our group of riders. The overall results are available here:

Congrats to SS Mark for taking 2nd place in the SS division.
I took 7th and Ken took 8th in the Men 40-49 division.
Lynn took 6th in the Men 50-59 division.
Osamu took 7th in the Sport Men division.
Andy took 9th in the Sport Men division.

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for So Cal Epic 50 Race

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Pre-ride of the SoCal Fat Tire Epic Course

2009-09-28T16:17:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we drove out to Vail Lake and pre-rode the SoCal Fat Tire Epic course. After some encouragement from SS Mark I decided to bring my SS 29er for the pre-ride. Ken, Lynn, SS Mark and I all met early and got started riding shortly after 7:00am as the temperatures were supposed to be in the high 90's.

Jason has setup an awesome course going all of the way around Vail Lake. The course is two laps, with each lap being 24 miles and just under 3000 feet of gain. There are several climbs that even the geared riders are going to be walking, especially the second time around. It's a tough course for a SS and I am second guessing racing this with the SS in favor of the geared bike.

After riding the course we enjoyed the pool at Vail Lake, this will be a welcome sight after finishing the race on Saturday.

I'm still under the weather from this cold and am hoping to have it behind me by race day.

Hurkey Creek Fall Race Results

2009-09-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well apparently my expectations of lap times for the Hurkey Creek Fall race were set a bit too high. Neither my son and I racing as Team Valhalla, or Ken and Dave racing as Team Albion Brewing, aka "Team No Race for Old Men" were able to get in 9 laps.

Dave and Ken pulled off a podium finish of 3rd place.

Friend's and fellow Swami's Will and Joe, racing under the creative name of Team Will and Joe, put in some really fast Lap Times, completing 9 laps and taking 2nd place. Other Swami's racing included Tony and Mike who finished in 10th place.

Nathan and I came in 5th place out of 40 teams.

My son Nathan put in two laps faster than my fastest lap time and proved hands down that he is the faster rider of the two of us. I'm really proud of him. After the race he told me he hasn't been on his Mountain Bike in two months! My pride kept me from telling him how many hours I've spent on my bike in the last two months training.

I took the Lemans start.

Nathan finished the last lap in the dark. Here he is coming across the finish line smiling like it was a stroll through the park.

I have a policy of not drinking a beer until my team mates have crossed the finish line. Here is proof that Dave does not abide by this same policy, as Ken is still out riding hard on his final lap.

After I called him out on this he tried to redeem himself.

His team mate Ken was none the wiser. Great picture of the 3rd place finishers.

Proof that I abided by the policy (and yes he's over 21).

It was a great day spent in the mountains, riding single track and enjoying the day with my son and some friends. It doesn't get any better than that.

Hurkey Creek Race is Tomorrow

2009-09-18T09:34:00.001-07:00

My son Nathan and I are all ready for the Fall Hurkey Creek race tomorrow in Idyllwild. Our team name is Valhalla and we're hoping to get in 9 laps which means we'll have to average less than 57 minutes per lap. In the Spring Hurkey Creek race I put in a 0:51, 0:52, 0:54, 1:00 and 1:03 hour lap which averages out to 56 minutes. I think that my son Nathan is faster than I am so we might just make it, barring any mechanicals or flats.

I tried to instigate some trash talking from one of the other local teams that we will be racing against, Dave and Ken, from team "No Race for Old Men". I actually don't know what their team name is but I figure that name fits fairly well. Their response to the trash talking was weak at best. In reality I think these two guys might put in a 10 lap race which will give them enough ammunition to verbally abuse me for some time to come.

Revenge is Sweet!

2009-09-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

I got an email from a friend of mine, Mike the Bike, on Friday with a picture of his new Scott FS mountain bike.

Mike is a super strong road biker and Triathlete. His PR in an Ironman is 9:08 and the last time we road together he had his hand on my lower back helping me to hang onto Michellie Jones wheel as I was getting dropped on a long climb. Well Mike was anxious to get his new carbon machine out on the trails so on Sunday morning I picked him up for a local ride.

The question was where to go? Given Mike's legend of being a Bike God, I thought that Dailey Ranch or Lake Hodges would be too easy for him. Deep down I was also thinking that unless the trail was technical, he was going to crush me and be waiting at the top of every climb. Given that this was probably only his third time on a Mountain Bike and I have been riding for years, I couldn't let that happen. I had to pick a place that had enough of a technical challenge that he wasn't going to be waiting for me at the top of every climb. It couldn't be too technical though or my plan of revenge would become all to apparent. We settled on Elfin Forest.

Right out of the parking lot the trail climbs and climbs. As we were riding I kept thinking of how I had forgotten how technical the climb actually is, especially for someone that has only been on a Mountain bike three times. The pains of guilt kept creeping into my every thought. Had I selected this trail in order to seek revenge for being humbled by Mike on the Road bike or had I truly forgotten how technical the trail was? Mike refused to walk any of it. He road the entire trail, he fell more than once but bounced up dirty and bloody, a huge smile on his face and kept on climbing. Half way up we ran into Rob, Dan and Terry as they were descending the Way Up Trail. Much to my dismay they took one look at Mike and told him that the trail lived up to it's name "Blood Mountain". That was all Mike needed. "Blood Mountain, my first ride out with you and you take me to Blood Mountain?!?!" For the record, I had never heard of Elfin Forest being referred to as Blood Mountain. I was verbally abused by Mike for the remainder of the ride, all in good fun of course.

Post ride we grabbed some breakfast and ran into some mutual friends. The story was told again and again how I took Mike to Blood Mountain for his first ride and he had the blood to prove it. My character was put into question several times by friends who were sympathetic to Mike's dirty and bloody appearance. I will say that there was ample opportunity for Mike to get cleaned up but he wore the dirt and blood like a badge of honor. Our friends kept commenting, "I can't believe that Kevin took you to Blood Mountain for your first ride!" Well I figure given Mike's age that it will take him at least 4 weeks to forget this experience so its safe to say that I won't be road riding with him for at least that much time.

Tanzania and Kenya MTB Trip - What an experience!

2009-08-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

The most appropriate adjective that I have been able to come up with to describe our 19 day trip to Tanzania and Kenya is complex. Not logistically complex but complex in that it was so much more than just a mountain bike trip. It was a total immersion into the culture and the environment. The trip exceeded all of my expectations in almost every regard. The people of Tanzania and Kenya were wonderful, so happy and welcoming.

The local kids really enjoyed listening to Jill's iPod.

We traveled through some areas that very rarely see any tourists. The terrain ranged from coastal roads overlooking the ocean near Bagamoyo,

double track trails through the Usambara mountains

to the barren land of Lake Amboseli.

We stayed in a few resorts along the way but for the most part it was tent camping.

One night we camped next to a Masai Village and were fortunate enough to be able to interact with the Masai warriors and get a tour of their village. Their huts were very modest, being constructed of branches, mud and cow dung.

Four of the days we were on game drives in four wheel drive vehicles and saw some incredible sights.

Traveling by bike in Tanzania and Kenya quickly highlights many aspects of our life here in the states that we take for granted. The majority of the villages that we went through had no electricity, no local source of water and the absence of anything that wasn't made from natural resources. The few exception to this were the numerous Chinese manufactured Phoenix bikes, plastic containers for carrying water to the village and aluminum cooking pots.

In one village I met Jackson, the headmaster at the local primary school who spoke fairly good English. We discussed the ability for the local kids to go beyond his primary school. He indicated that many of them don't continue their education due to the fact that most families can't afford the $280 annual cost which is about equal to the average per capita income in Tanzania. It was quite an eye opener given that I spend that amount at Starbucks on a quarterly basis.

Coming back to work today was a real shock given that I didn't turn my Blackberry on one time during the trip and as a result I had 1738 new email waiting for me.

Some additional photos from my trip are located here.

We made it to Dar es Salaam!

2009-08-05T10:38:00.001-07:00

MTB ride in Africa

2009-08-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

The trip is finally here. The flight to Africa is a long one; LAX to London, London to Nairobi, Nairobi to Dar es Salaam. We start the 19 day mountain bike ride from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi on Thursday. Along the way to Nairobi we will be going thru and visiting; Bagamoyo, Usambara Mtns, Maasai Steppe, Arusha, Meserani Snake Park, Mto Wa Mbu, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, Serengeti National Park, and Lake Amboseli.

I have no expectations other than to come back with some fond memories.

Bikepacking Gear

2009-07-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a lightweight shelter for bike packing. The Gossamer Gear SpinnTwinn Tarp weighs in at only 8.6 oz. It arrived this last week but I was too busy getting ready for the Tanzania to Kenya 19 day MTB Ride to take it out over night and test it. I did set it up in the yard to get an idea for the size and construction. It is a really well made piece of gear and the area under the tarp is plenty for two.

One issue associated with using a tarp in the summer months will be mosquitoes. I have a Bug Bivy on order from Mountain Laurel Designs that should be here when I get back from Africa. The bug bivy weighs in at 5.5 oz and doubles as a ground clothe. The combination of the two make a really light weight and versatile shelter setup.

The temperatures should be cooled down by the time I get back to test the new shelter out on the Pine Valley to Borrego Springs route.

Sign Sign everywhere a sign!

2009-07-23T16:06:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was another day spent driving up and down Hwy 67 and exploring every possible paved road, dirt road and trail heading east in my quest to create a MTB route from Solana Beach to Cuyamaca. Every single option I investigated ended up with another no trespassing sign ... This was the posting that I found most discouraging.

It reminds me of the song "Signs" by Five Man Electrical Band. The lyrics go like this:
"Sign Sign everywhere a sign
Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign"

I seriously doubt that a Wildlife Habitat area is Private Property. In fact it is probably my tax dollars that enabled this Wildlife Habitat Area. The adjacent property owners who are probably tired of people like me trying to explore San Diego's back country, must have went to Home Depot and bought and posted every sign meant to discourage any such activity.

I did take the time to talk with one of the adjacent property owners. What I found out from him was that the property was in fact a Wildlife Preserve. Immediately following that he then told me that he wouldn't give me permission to enter his property. I was confused, who's property was he talking about anyway, his property or the property bought with my tax dollars? He concluded by telling me that the rancher who owns the land on the other side of the Wildlife Preserve gets upset when he rides his horses beyond the preserve and onto the adjacent ranch property. So it's alright for him to ride his horses on the Wildlife Preserve but I can't ride my bike on the preserve. I'm taking a trip to the Tax Assessor's office to find out who owns what.

In order to actually get in some miles I drove to Iron Mountain and rode/hiked to the top and had a great time riding/hiking back down. That is a technical trail that will test anyone, I had to dismount too many times to count.

The most frustrating part was that from the top of Iron Mountain I could see the majority of the route that I had planned out, I just couldn't get to it.

Reconnaissance of the Solana Beach to Cuyamaca Route

2009-07-16T11:32:00.001-07:00

I went out on Tuesday night to do some reconnaissance of the route. I wanted to make sure that the planned route where I was to cross Hwy 67 going east wasn't posted as Private Property or Indian Reservation Land. Heading east on Foster Truck Trail I encountered sign after sign.

I decided to drive around San Vicente Reservoir and head up Wild Cat Canyon Road to where I was to come out at. Every dirt road heading west off of Wild Cat Canyon Road was posted.

I came to the conclusion that this portion of the route was not to be and fell back to the backup plan of just taking the paved roads from Hwy 67 to Wild Cat Canyon Road. It didn't take long to come to the conclusion that the only possible outcome of taking this alternate route was another trip to the ER as the road was filled with blind turns without any shoulders.

Back to TOPO! software and Google Earth for a revised plan. The revised route that I will be checking out this weekend bypasses Wild Cat Canyon Road and doesn't cross a single Indian Reservation.

Solana Beach to Cuyamaca Route

2009-07-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

The Tour Divide has motivated me to put together a local bikepacking route that I don't have to wait until the weather cools down to actually ride. I previously put together the Pine Valley to Borrego Springs Route but haven't been able to ride it and now it is just too hot in the desert. The new route that I have created is 85 miles each way. It starts at my house in Solana Beach and ends at the Green Valley Falls Campground in the Cuyamaca Mountains. The difficulty in creating this route was avoiding the checkerboard of Indian Reservations in the East County. I had considered just riding the Sea to Sea Trail that Eric and I did last year and stopping in Cuyamaca instead of the Salton Sea. The problem with this route was again the difficulty in avoiding the Indian Reservations. Below is the West portion of the route. The route drawn in Yellow is the Sea to Sea Trail (Incomplete), the route drawn in red is the proposed route which is fairly straight forward until it reaches Hwy 67. At this point in the route I was going to try the route shown in Blue but the problem is that at the east end of it crosses the Barona Indian Reservation. The east portion of the route unfortunately travels on road for some distance to avoid the Capitan Grande Indian Reservation that surrounds the northern portion of the El Capitan Indian Reservation. I found links on line to a little known trail that connects Ramona to Cedar Creek Falls. This trail crosses the Sea to Sea Trail which enables me to completely avoid all Indian Reservations at the expense of miles on dirt.

The plan is to ride this as soon as I get my Carousel Design Works Frame Packs. No telling when this will be though as I have been waiting since December of 2008. I'm biting my tongue here as I hope the wait is worth it.

Interview with the winner of the real 2009 Tour

2009-07-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

Matthew Lee is this years winner of the real Tour, the Tour Divide. There is an interesting interview with him on the Outside Magazine Blog

Beautiful weekend in San Diego!

2009-06-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

This could be the title of everyone of my posts.

Went on a MTB ride at Lake Hodges Saturday with Dave, Mark x 3, and Lynn. I took the SS out and really enjoyed it. Mark predicted that within a year I will be selling my geared bike, the Lynskey Pro 29r. He might just be right about permanently moving to SS, time will tell. After the ride we went on a short run. My first run in over 3 years and it wasn't pretty. Got me a little worried about CDA next year. I was going to wait until January to start training for the swim and run sections but I think I will start right after I get back from Africa.

Sunday I did hill repeats on Torrey Pines on my road bike followed by Margaritas and an awesome sunset at Los Olas with Jill. It was a great way to end the weekend.

2010 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene

2009-06-25T17:26:00.000-07:00

Somehow Jill and I succumbed to the peer pressure and ended up registering for the 2010 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene! For those of you not familiar with the Ironman it's a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride followed by a 26.2 mile run. The bike section won't be a problem but I need to do a lot of training to prepare for the swim and the run. We did the Half Vineman in 2003 and I remember finishing it and thinking how miserable it would be to do a full ironman. My finishing time in the half was 5:25:19, we'll see how being 7 years older and increasing the distances by a factor of 2 will affect my finishing time.

Mark's Prediction

2009-06-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

Post by friend and contributing author Mark S:
----------------------------------------------
Two more years and you will see this article –

“A 54 year old San Diego man shocked the world today by winning the Open Division of the all Universe Mountain challenge. He attributed his success to having only one gear and one chain ring. “The weight savings could not be denied”, said Kevin. “I found I was forced to use the only gear I had to climb and descend. I went faster up hill, the spinning on the flats helped me recover, and when I needed to get off the bike on steep climbs, I found it helped stretch my legs. My good friend, and fellow SS’rd, Mark S turned me on to this years ago. I thought he was smoking something organic, but when he finished the Julian Death March on his second hand Kona, I knew he was on to something. I built up this tasty Jabbowacky, and never looked back.”

Eager to save even more weight, Tech freak Greg “I hate steel” Z, removed his spleen, one kidney, and one arm. Unfortunately this proved to be his demise when he was banned for life for taking a controlled substance he needed to ward off infection.
----------------------------------------------

Inaugural ride on the Vassago SS

2009-06-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

For Father's Day my son Nathan and I went out to Anderson Truck Trail to test out the Vassago. We had a rough start, as soon as we hit dirt after the paved climb, my chain snapped. We took the bad link out but the result was a chain that was too short. After a trip to a local bike shop to get a new chain we were back in business. It was a humbling ride for the majority of the climb. I thought I was in better shape than the gearing of the SS made me feel. Good motivation to step it up a notch though. The downhill was awesome on the steel Jabberwocky frame. After my inaugural ride on the SS I am even more impressed with Chris Plesko's progress on this year's Tour Divide race.

Markleeville Death Ride Entry Available

2009-06-18T18:37:00.001-07:00

Instead of riding in this years Markleeville Death Ride, I plan to go back and visit my family in the Midwest. I have an entry to the ride as well as a campsite at the Grover Hot Springs campground in Markleeville for the night before and after the race. If anyone is interested in "both" I can transfer them to you at cost.

Completed Vassago Build

2009-06-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

I finished building my new SS Vassago this weekend. I haven't tested it out yet but can't wait.

Junk Miles

2009-06-01T11:39:00.001-07:00

There's no way to classify my miles this weekend as anything other than junk miles. There was no specific goal in mind, no X watts for Y minutes for Z intervals. Just riding for the enjoyment of it.

Living Vicariously through the GDR and TD racers

2009-05-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

Once again I will be following the Tour Divide race and the Great Divide race from the comfort of my home. While the racers are scarfing down trail mix and power bars, I will be dining on fresh meats and vegetables. While the racers are sleeping under a tarp in the rain, I will be sleeping in a comfortable bed next to my beautiful wife. I almost feel guilty. In order to get closer to the vibe of the race maybe I should change my diet to food I would eat if I was racing. Maybe I should ride my MTB to and from work each day. Maybe I should sleep in the yard under a tarp and experience the simulated rain produced by my automated sprinkler system that goes off each morning at 5:00am. Maybe, just maybe... Well there is always next year.

The Tour Divide starts on June 12th in Banff and the Great Divide Race starts a week later on June 19th in Port of Rooseville, MT. I will be living vicariously through the racers for the duration of the events. I'll be checking out their daily call-ins posted on MTBCast and wishing them all a safe and memorable race.

Back in the Saddle Again!

2009-05-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

It's been 3 weeks now since my surgery and so it's time to get back in the saddle again. The last three weeks have gone by slowly not being able to get out on my bike. I missed Breathless Agony, the long weekend road rides, Rob's Thursday night ride and training in general. When you can't do what you really want to do what's left besides the obvious work and family?
1) Develop claustrophobia by taking spin classes at the gym
2) Watch the Lakers dominate Houston and now Denver
3) Spend hours in the garage working on my bikes and building my Vassago SS
4) Live vicariously thru other's mountain biking adventures by reading their blogs, one interesting one is the trip report on the Kokopelli Trail/White Rim Trail Double: Up in Alaska

I ran into Miguel this morning at the coffee shop and he convinced me to cowboy up for Dave's Wednesday MTB ride. I haven't ridden with these guys for years. It's a fast group so I'm sure I'll get dropped while I'm rebuilding my confidence on the downhills but I'm going to give it a go. I just have to make sure that I don't get injured again between now and when we leave for the MTB ride in Africa.

This weekend I'll see how well I've been able to maintain my fitness level with the spin classes.

Idyllwild Spring Challenge

2009-05-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

The day after my surgery two of my boys, Nathan and AJ drove up to Idyllwild for the Idyllwild Spring Challenge. AJ entered the Cat 3 race which was basically the same course as the 24 Hours of Adrenalin Hurkey Creek course that AJ and I raced in several weeks before. AJ finished in first place in his age group in 55:14. Nathan entered the Cat 2 race which was similar to the Cat 3 course but with an additional section added in. Nathan finished in second place in his age group in 2:04:10 which would have been fifth place in my age group if I had raced. I'm left to wonder if he would have beaten me if I had raced?

AJ on the podium in first place:

Nathan on the podium in second place:

New Project - Single Speed Vassago

2009-05-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

It was my Birthday this weekend and I received a Vassago JabberWocky frame as a gift from my wife.
My plan is to cross over to the dark side and build it up as a single speed. I'm currently debating on whether to make it fully rigid or not. I'm leaning towards putting on front suspension but we'll see how it goes.

Front Flip on a MTB?

2009-05-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

Is it possible? The only way to find out is to try, maybe not... It didn't happen at ESPN's X Games, it didn't even happen in front of a large audience. It wasn't the legendary Dave Mirra either... Well it also wasn't even intentional!

My new motto is rubber side down. I went mountain biking with two of my boys and came to a revelation. It hit me all of a sudden just as I was landing on my head and shoulder on the ground without my bike ... I am old! I even announced it in no uncertain terms to my boys after I reached up and realized my collar bone was fractured.

This is the before picture.

This is the result of the failed front flip attempt.

After walking out of the Lake Calaveras area with AJ while Nathan went for the Suburban, we spent the next 6 hours in the ER learning what is like to be a second class citizen. After all of that time, all I got was some pain medication, a sling and advice that clavicle fractures heal on their own. I spent the next two days going to a couple of Orthopedic Surgeons getting XRays and advice. I decided on Dr Chao from the Oasis Surgery Center. If he was good enough for Wayne Gretsky, Michael Jordon and a host of Chargers, I figured he was good enough for me.

I had the surgery on Friday and by Monday I was back at work. They put in a Titanium plate and 7 screws to hold everything together.

Even though Lance was back on his bike within a matter of weeks, I'm going to give it a little more time. I obviously had to cancel my appearance at Breathless Agony.

Hurkey Creek 8 Hour Race Results

2009-04-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful day in Idyllwild for the 24 Hours of Adrenalin race. AJ and I entered the 2 Person 8 Hour category as Team Valhalla and decided to go a lap at a time and then switch riders. The course was 9.5 miles and around 1300 feet of elevation gain. The race started with a Lemans start where the racers run for 600 yards to the bikes and then start the first lap. AJ decided that he would start the race and you can see he had plenty of pent up energy for the start. He ended up coming in the top 15 racers after the Lemans start and headed out on the bike. The course was fast with only 3 climbs and plenty of single track with winding downhills and berms that really let you stay off the brakes. The second lap for each of us was a real pleasure as we knew what to expect the second time around. There were some professional photographers on the course so after they get their pictures posted I will post some of them here. We ended up finishing 8 laps in 7:55 with the fastest lap being 51 minutes. We placed 6th out of 30 and had a great day.
Andy from the San Diego Thursday night riding crew was out racing as well and had a great race. The race results are located at: Hurkey Creek 24HOA 8 Hour 2Person Results Page

Hurkey Creek Race this Weekend

2009-04-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Decided at the last minute to race in this Saturday's 8 hour two person category at Hurkey Creek Park. One of my son's and I will be racing together as Team Valhalla. We've resurrecting Jill and my adventure racing team name (Valhalla) for the mountain bike racing scene. The course is a 9 mile loop with 1320 feet of elevation gain. Our plan is to do two loops per turn and to try and get in 8 laps. That means 2 hours on with 2 hours off per rider with two at bats each.

Boston Marathon

2009-04-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

I spent this past weekend in Boston with my wife, who ran the Boston Marathon for the first time. Jill qualified for Boston in the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon with a time of 3:58. She was looking to beat that time and did with a 3:56 on a much more difficult course and under worse weather conditions. She did an awesome job and I am really proud of her accomplishment. In typical fashion she says that she never wants to run another marathon but I'll give it a month before she has another big goal that she is shooting for.

I have to admit that it was tough standing on the sidelines watching all of the athlete's go by, I'm not a runner though so it wasn't that tough.

The Julian Death March was this past weekend as well. Mark, Rick and Andy all did a great job. I was disappointed to see that there was only a 10 minute spread between myself and three other racers. If I had shaved off 10 minutes I would have come in 9th place instead of 12th. I'll have to wait until next year.

Next up is Breathless Agony on May 2nd.

Snow in April in San Diego County?

2009-04-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

When we left Pine Valley for our road bike ride of the Kitchen Creek route it was drizzling on us and 36 degrees. Surely the clouds would part, the sun would come out and it would be a pleasant climb up Kitchen Creek to Mt Laguna, alas it wasn't meant to be. As we looked back on the stretch of rode that we had already climbed we did see the sun shining through in the distance but looking forward to what was yet to come, it was a different picture. A few miles before we hit Sunrise Hwy on the forest road, the ground was covered with a fresh dusting of snow and all of the limbs of the trees were covered in ice. The temperature was dropping quickly and it was every man for himself to get to the store at the top. Usually we are in and out after filling our water bottles, but this time we found every excuse to delay our departure as we congregated in the warmth of the store below the heating duct. After a couple cups of coffee and the purchase of some $2.99 work gloves (for those that wore half finger gloves) we set off for the descent back to Pine Valley. The winds picked up knocking the ice off of the trees and onto us as we descended the wet pavement. By the time we hit Pine Valley there wasn't a finger or toe on anyone of us that had any feeling left in it.

After changing into some dry clothes we treated ourselves to a big breakfast at Major's Diner. It was an epic day in the saddle.

Sagebrush Safari

2009-04-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend two of my sons decided to race in the Sagebrush Safari. They both ride fixie road bikes and recently they have each gotten more interested in mountain biking. AJ has only been on a mountain bike around 4 times and Nathan has been riding for a month or two now.

They went out and pre-rode the course yesterday to see what they were in for. During the pre-ride they stopped and had a picnic in the shade of a tree and ate a subway sandwich, definitely not race pace! They had so much fun on that ride that they registered for the race that was today. I would have enjoyed racing with them but my legs were still worked from yesterday's JDM.

They raced in the CAT3 19-24 age group.

I drove up and found a great spot to catch them in action out on the course. You can tell they're really comfortable on the downhills!

They both did awesome and I was really proud of them. AJ came in 6th and Nathan came in 3rd for a podium finish.

Finished - Julian Death March 2009

2009-04-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I completed the 2009 Julian Death March course in just under 8hrs 34min, four minutes faster than last year. I raced the course two weeks before the actual race as I have another commitment that weekend. Rich was nice enough to agree to insert my time into the results so that I can see how I placed.

It ended up being 85 miles and around 11,500 feet of elevation gain. I started right at 8:00am and it was a cold 31 degrees at the start. It warmed up quickly and the weather was perfect for the race. I ran into one other rider Tom, out on the course on the climb up Oriflamme. Other than that it was a fairly lonely day in the saddle. It was difficult mentally to push myself when I wasn't really racing anyone. I thought the course was more difficult than last year's due to the climb out of Oriflamme canyon starting at mile 48.

I was looking forward to some pie and ice cream after the race but I ended up resting in my Suburban after I finished for too long and when I went to the pie shop it was closed.

The link to my GPS results: Julian Death March 2009

SPOT Share Site

2009-04-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

I bought a SPOT Satellite Messenger and will enable tracking before I start on my race tomorrow.

Link to see where Kevin is: Kevin's SPOT Shared Page

This is for those of you that have nothing better to do and for my wife who always worries about me when I am off on a solo adventure.

Racing Julian Death March Saturday 4/4

2009-04-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

Since I have a conflict the weekend of the Julian Death March, Rich agreed to let me race it ahead of time and submit my GPS file as evidence of my results. He is going to insert me in the finishers list with an asterisk indicating that I actually raced it on a different day. Unfortunately I won't get the benefit of the aid stations but I plan to drop water and Hammer Gels ahead of time where the aid stations will be for the race. I'll post my results next week so for those of you that are racing on 4/18 you can see how long it took me. I believe that the course this year is more difficult than last years due to the climb out of Oriflamme Canyon. I finished in 8:38 last year so I would be pleased to break 8:30 this year.

Anderson Truck Trail

2009-03-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

My son Nathan and I went out to Anderson Truck Trail for some riding on Sunday. After twenty years in San Diego that was only the second time that I have ridden there. I forgot how much fun that area is. It was the first time that my son and I have ridden together since he got a fixie. I was impressed with how strong of a climber he's become from riding his fixie. He's also really good at the technical descents from his BMX days. I'm going to have to get him into some of the local races to see how he does. In the picture that is San Vicente Reservoir in the background.

On Saturday I did hill repeats on Mt Soledad with Craig and Dan. I typically ride Via Capri and then the far side up from Pacific Beach. Craig and Dan showed me that there are actually seven ways up to the top of Soledad and we did them all.

Great Day of Riding in Julian

2009-03-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

Rick, Mark and I met at the CA Riding and Hiking Trail head just off of Sunrise Hwy - S1 Saturday morning. We ran into Mark and Arlyn who were also out there pre-riding the Julian Death March course. The weather was perfect, arm warmers were only needed for an hour or so. We didn't have any issues finding the route, mostly fire roads for this last section of Loop 1. The route up Oriflame Canyon was pretty challenging as it was a long climb with the lower half being fairly rough terrain. After completing that loop we drove to Julian where Mark and Rick headed off to ride the second loop. I was running short of time so I drove to the trail head to the Open Space Preserve at the end of Farmers Road. The last loop is a fairly fun loop with some varied terrain. Since I had a head start on the loop, I ran into Mark and Rick as they were coming into the West Loop. Most importantly, I made it back in time for my massage! Next up is my virtual race on 4/4 of the entire course.

Julian Death March Pre-Ride Round 2

2009-03-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

The pre-ride of the remainder of the Julian Death March Loop 1 as well as Loop 2 has been moved to Saturday instead of Sunday. So far it's Mark, Rick and I. We're meeting at 7:30am and rolling by 8:00am. The weather is expected to be cool and clear. My Lynskey was just tuned up and it is riding great. Total ride will be 57 miles with 6,800 feet of climbing. Apple Pie, cinnamon ice cream and coffee in Julian afterward. I am following the ride up with a 90 minute massage from Mel at Mirabella. That evening I am taking my beautiful wife on a dinner date to Trattoria I Trulli. Tell me could a day possibly get any better than that?

Julian Death March Pre-Ride

2009-03-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

We had a good group of 9 riders pre-ride the majority of Loop 1 this past Sunday. Dave, Mark, Rick, Scott, Tim, Andy, Osamu, Miguel and I left right at 8:00am with the temperature in the high 30's. We had a good group of 9 riders pre-ride the majority of Loop 1 this past Sunday. Dave, Mark, Rick, Scott, Tim, Andy, Osamu, Miguel and I left right at 8:00am with the temperature in the high 30's.
It was a cold descent to the turn onto Cedar Creek road but things warmed up quickly as we climbed.
We rode all of Loop 1 with the exception of the section to the east of Sunrise Hwy. We ended up getting in around 42 miles and 5000 feet of elevation gain in 4:14hrs. Finished it off with some Pie and Ice Cream. Next Sunday is the final pre-ride where we'll ride the remainder of Loop 1 followed by Loop 2.

Julian Death March Pre-Ride of Loop 1 on Sunday 3/15

2009-03-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

The pre-ride of Loop 1 has been moved to this Sunday. We will be starting at the main intersection in Julian riding at 8:00am sharp. Plan on arriving by 7:30am. The portion of Loop 1 that we will skip this weekend is the part in Blue on the attached map. The ride will be about 42 miles and 5000ft of gain. The pace won't be race pace but then again it won't be slow.

Leave me comments on this post if you are interested in joining us or send me an email. If you can't join us and you want the .gpx file for either the shortened version of Loop 1 or the full Loop 1 send me an email and I will forward it to you so that you can ride it on your own.

Link to the race site: Julian Death March Race

Vision Quest

2009-03-08T21:18:00.000-07:00

Vision Quest race was this weekend and the Warrior's Society did it again by putting on another great event. Dave, Devlin and I camped at O'Neill Regional park on Friday night before the race so we wouldn't have to get up so early to get to the 5:30am race start. Even with that the alarm went off way too early at 3:45am. It was cold at the start, 39 degrees at the bottom and even colder at the peaks based upon the frost on the ground. There was one stretch on the back side of the peak that was solid snow for several hundred feet.

Vision Quest is 56.5 miles with 11,000 ft of elevation gain. Last year I finished in 7:35 and this year I shaved off 18 minutes from that time, coming in at 7:17. Which put me 44/182 and 9/37 in my age group. So by my calculations if I can shave off 18 minutes every year, I could actually win the race in 2017! That's right, Manny Prado won it again in around 5:15. I think I'll keep my day job. The results haven't been posted yet so I am not too sure how I placed. The hike a bike section up West Horse Thief trail was as brutal as ever. The cheeseburgers that were waiting for us at the top of West Horse Thief trail were a welcome relief from the day of Hammer Gels and Perpetuem. Coming down Trabuco Creek Trail to the finish line makes for a great way to finish the race.

Finisher's feathers, photo and a lunch from El Pollo Loco were waiting for us at the end. We followed that up by having a beer with our team mate Alberto from Primal Quest 2006. Next up is the Julian Death March.

Gran Fondo San Diego

2009-03-03T16:24:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday was the first Gran Fondo ride to be held in San Diego, CA. Gran Fondo is Italian for "Big Ride". I hope that this is the first of many Gran Fondos to be held in San Diego as it was great event. A friend of mine Robin hooked me up with the Expobicio folks and I got outfitted with a brand new Expobici kit to wear for the ride. Prior to the race start they brought Robin, myself and the three other Expobicio riders to the front of the start line for some photos of the group with the Major of Little Italy, Ernesto Colnago and some of the organizers. After all of the photos were taken the pack was led out by a handful of Ducatis and Ferraris. It was a controlled start through Little Italy and Downtown San Diego for a mile or two when they pulled over to let the pack go.

The event is a ride and not a race, however every participant is given a timing chip as there is a King of the Mountain challenge in the middle of the event. Timing mats were placed at the bottom and the top of a long grade to capture ascent time for this portion of the ride. There were at least 5 very well stocked aid stations along a very scenic 97 mile route with minimal traffic.

In the end I came across the finish line in the top 10 and came in 20th place in the KOM challenge. The organizers had a well supported expo and pasta buffet at the finish line. I am confident that next year this event will sell out in record time based upon all of the feedback that I have heard so far. Given that everyone received a custom Gran Fondo jersey, finishers medal, well stocked aid stations and a finisher's buffet, the entry fee was a bargain.

Julian Death March 2009 Course Pre-ride

2009-02-27T13:28:00.000-08:00

Julian Death March is schedule for April 18th this year. A group of us are planning on pre-riding parts of the course on 3/21 and 3/28. Since I can't race the weekend that the Death March is scheduled due to another conflict (support of my wife in a race of hers), I am planning on pre-racing the entire course on 4/4. This will be a good warm-up for the AZT300 on 4/10. Hopefully I can talk Rich into including my finishing results into the overall list of finishers.

The total course is 11,000 feet and 84 miles. Loop 2 of this years race is the same as loop 3 of last years race, while Loop 1 is mostly new terrain.

3/21 - Pre-ride Loop 1 to Fages Monument and then back. The starting time of the race is on 4/18 is 8:00am so we will start both pre-rides at 8:00am (wheels rolling).
Link to the map of Loop 1: Julian Death March Race Loop 1

3/28 - Pre-ride remainder of Loop 1 and then Loop 2.
Link to the map of Loop 2: Julian Death March Race Loop 2

Leave me comments on this post if you are interested in joining us.

Link to the race site: Julian Death March Race

Lake Hodges - East

2009-02-27T11:38:00.001-08:00

We rode the trails on the east side of Lake Hodges last night. The trail is referred to as the San Diego River Park trail or the Mule Hill/San Pasqual Valley Trail. It is basically an out and back 20 mile flat ride with the exception of the climb up to Raptor Ridge in the middle. This section of the trail is very well maintained and is a fun climb and descent on the west side. The east side isn't as steep and the descent isn't as interesting. Riding the trail all of the way to Hwy 78 from Raptor ridge is not too interesting. I'd like to figure out how to get from the trail head on Hwy 78 to downtown Ramona on trails. I'll leave that exploring for another time. Half way thru the ride someone had a high powered spot light pointed at us from a distance and we over heard a younger individual say "shoot em Dad!", the pace of the group accelerated and the ride was over before we knew it.

Analyzing the Performance Mgmt Chart in WKO+

2009-02-25T11:05:00.000-08:00

There is only a week left until Vision Quest so I thought that I would compare where I am at this year with regards to my training to where I was last year right before Vision Quest. Attached is the Performance Management Chart from WKO+. The yellow curve is the Training Stress Balance (TSB) which basically translates to the relative balance between training stress and rest. At any given time if the value is positive then an individual is more likely to perform well. The blue curve is the Chronic Training Load (CTL) which measures the long term effects of training done prior to the last 14 days while. The magenta curve is the Acute Training Load (ATL) which measures the near term effects of training done within the last 14 days. It is fairly clear from the chart that the level of training that I have been putting in this year is not as intense or as frequent as last year at this same time. However since I trained thru the winter months my CTL is about the same as it was last year at this time, right around 60.

The most interesting aspect of the chart is trying to identify when I had a cycling coach and when I didn't. Starting in January of 2008 I had a coach until around the middle of April and then another coach from the beginning of June until the middle of July. During both of these periods my CTL increased in a consistent fashion. During the periods of time when I had no cycling coach the CTL trends down or is relatively flat. Since the beginning of January 2009, I have had a weight training coach and have been focusing on core and leg strength. I have been planning my own cycling workouts and as you can see the CTL increase hasn't been as steady as when I had a cycling specific coach. We'll see how this translates into finishing time next weekend in Vision Quest.

Lance takes out Syringe Man in TOC 2009

2009-02-24T10:59:00.001-08:00

An awesome photo sequence of Lance taking out Syringe Man while climbing Palomar mountain in the 2009 Tour of CA.

La Costa to Elfin Forest MTB Ride

2009-02-23T11:42:00.001-08:00

My planned San Diego Super Loop Round 2 plan was postponed as the trails I need to connect thru Penasquitos Canyon were closed. So instead I decided to ride from La Costa trails to Elfin Forest trails and meet up with Rob, Dan, Wes and Rob. I attached the route that I took starting at the base of the switchbacks in La Costa and heading over to Elfin Forest via the Olivenhain Water District dirt access roads. I originally found out about this route from the Swamis_getdirty group. The last time we rode this route we saw a single track heading to the east just before the steep concrete road. I wasn't meeting Rob and the rest of the guys until 10am so I had plenty of time to spare and used that time to explore the single track. It was a real nice albeit primitive single track trail. At the eastern most point that I rode to there was a T in the trail and I headed north to get to Elfin Forest. I'll have to go back another time to explore the other direction. With a little trail maintenance this could be an awesome loop. I met up with Rob and the rest of the guys we rode for a couple of hours and then I headed back the way I came. In the end I got in more than 5000 feet of climbing and 30+ miles.

San Diego Super Loop Round 2

2009-02-19T17:41:00.000-08:00

Only two weeks left before Vision Quest so I am planning on riding the San Diego Super Loop again on Saturday. The trails should be dried out enough by Saturday and hopefully I make all of the correct turns to get from the Elfin Forest trails to the La Costa trails this time. It should be a good time and will end up being around 80 miles with about 9000 feet of elevation gain. I had hoped to ride the MTB route that I planned from Pine Valley to Borrego Springs and back but there is too much snow on the route right now. The photo below was taken on the CA Hiking and Riding trail looking back towards the direction of Sunrise Hwy and was taken last Saturday.

Julian Death March - 2009

2009-02-18T09:23:00.000-08:00

Well I am hoping that some foul weather hits San Diego County on April 18th. The date for the Julian Death March was changed from April 4th to April 18th and I can't race the weekend of the 18th. Rich says that the only way the date will change is if "the weather does something crazy". So hears to wishful thinking.

Rich changed the course up this year with only 2 loops instead of 3 but the elevation gain and distance stays at around 11,000 feet and 84 miles for the total course. Loop 2 of this years race is the same as loop 3 of last years race, while Loop 1 is mostly new terrain.

I will be heading out for some training rides to pre-race the course with some Swami's in late March.

Link to the race site: Julian Death March Race

Zen Mountain

2009-02-13T09:21:00.000-08:00

I rode Zen Mountain for the first time with some friends last night. I can't believe that I have lived in San Diego for 20 years now and this was the first time that I have been there. I was amazed at the conditions of the trails given the amount of rain that we have had. This is definitely one of the best places to ride in San Diego right after or during rains. The entire ride was single track with some challenging technical sections. I was told that this area is sometimes referred to as Blood Mountain since inevitably someone comes back bloody from the ride. It didn't live up to that name last night. I checked it out on my TOPO!! software and the official name is Van Dam peak. It's supposed to rain this weekend so check this area out, it's kind of small so to get in any significant amount of riding you'll have to do multiple loops.

Article on the Tunnels in BikeMag

2009-02-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

A fairly biased article from mountain biker's perspective on the Tunnels in BikeMag is an interesting read.
Link: Tunnels in BikeMag Article

Valuable Lesson Learned

2009-02-02T13:22:00.000-08:00

Lesson Learned: When you get new equipment (bike and/or wheels) try and change a simulated flat at home before it happens in a race or on the trail. Use only the tools/tubes/pump that you carry in your pack when racing.

We had a great ride planned on Saturday that didn't quite turn out the way we had it planned. Dave, Lynn, Mark and I road from Dave's house in PQ east thru Penasquitos Canyon on the south poway trail out to Sycamore canyon and had planned to ride back. Ken met us near the entrance to Sycamore canyon. While we were riding in Sycamore canyon, I had a puncture in the side wall of my rear tire. I run tubeless so I threw a tube in and quickly realized that the stem was too short to inflate due to the deep rims that I have. I had a valve extender but unfortunately it was sitting on my work bench at home. I wrote before about the Edge carbon All Mountain (AM) rims that I have. These are some awesome bomb proof rims but are deep and require a longer stem. I finally gave up on this and tried to patch the sidewall and go back to tubeless. Unfortunately without a compressor I couldn't get the tire bead to seat and seal. In the end I hiked out to the road while Dave, Ken and Mark road back to the car. I had a nice nap under a tree in the shade while waiting. It turns out that Mark went down pretty hard on their way back to Ken's car. An hour or two later I got picked up, we enjoyed a cold beer and then headed home. It ended up being a long day for only about 25 miles of riding.

The next day I took the wheel to B&L to get a tube that had a longer stem as well as a new rear tire. Unfortunately they didn't have any in stock that had a sufficiently long enough stem. I am still looking for a manufacturer that makes a tube with a longer stem. In the meantime I put my valve extender in my pack (after verifying that I could fix a flat with it). While I was in the shop we realized that one of the spokes had lost a nipple so they trued it for me. We found out that reason for the lost nipple was that it disintegrated due to corrosion. It looks like I am going to need to replace all of the nipples on my wheels before my next race to ensure I don't have any issues.

Winter in San Diego

2009-01-29T14:52:00.000-08:00

This last weekend was a typical winter one in Sunny San Diego. It wasn't sunny and seventy degrees but rather overcast and cool. It made for some great cycling weather. Got in some good local rides with hill repeats up Soledad Mtn on Friday and Saturday and then a mountain bike ride with friends on Sunday at Dailey Ranch. The picture is looking north along the coast from the top of Soledad Mtn. Looking forward to a good night ride tonight on Black Mtn.

La Costa to Elfin Forest Route

2009-01-06T18:13:00.000-08:00

I went out with the Swamis_getdirty group last Friday morning. There were five of us and Dave helped us to navigate our way from the start of the La Costa Trails to where we could have taken a single track up to the Elfin Forest trails. Instead of heading up there we took Questhaven back to where we started. It was a good ride and I think I finally know how to connect the two trail systems together. The next time that I do my San Diego Super Loop, I won't make the same wrong turn that I did last time in this section. In the topo map that is attached, the red route is the one we did counter clockwise on Friday, The green route is Elfin Forest which I rode on Sunday with Rob, Flat Stanley and company and finally the blue route is the single track that connects the two.

Flat Stanley rides MTBs

2009-01-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

One of my nephew's sent me a Flat Stanley to take around San Diego. For those of you that don't know about Flat Stanley, he is a character from a 1964 children's book. In 1995 a 3rd grade school teacher from London started a literacy project where kids mail their version of Flat Stanley to other kids who then keep a journal on what adventures Flat Stanley had while visiting them. The journal along with photos are then mailed back. Obviously either my sister or her grandchild thought I needed some help with my writing skills and asked me to show Flat Stanley around. I have been showing him around San Diego and took him Mountain Biking this weekend at Elfin Forest.

Pine Valley to Borrego Springs Route

2008-12-30T17:16:00.000-08:00

In order to prepare for the AZT300 MTB Race coming up in Spring of '09, I have started planning local San Diego County multi-day routes that I can use as training events. I thought that I would start with a two day trip. The route starts in Pine Valley, CA and goes thru Noble Canyon Trails, up and over to the Cuyamaca Trails (including Middle Peak), connects to the CA Riding and Hiking Trail and finally the Trans-County Trail into Borrego Springs. This portion of the route is 73 miles with 11,400 feet of elevation gain. After the first day of riding, stay the night at the Borrego Springs Campground and then the next day take a similar but not identical return route back to Pine Valley. The return trip bypasses Middle Peak in Cuyamaca but comes down Noble Canyon instead of the paved road section. This portion of the route is 72 miles with 8,700 feet of elevation gain. There is too much snow up there at the moment so I will have to wait a few weeks before giving it a go.

Climbing Mt Baldy

2008-12-22T08:35:00.001-08:00

For a single day trip in the local mountains, it doesn't get much better than this. The weather was perfect, we had fresh tracks in the snow, enough technical stuff to keep it exciting, a chair lift back to the car after the climb and no SAR.

How to Follow the San Diego Super Loop Route

2008-12-17T15:38:00.000-08:00

If you have a Garmin Edge 305 or similar device it is fairly straight forward to use this to navigate your way and replicate the route that we took. On longer rides I track the route that I take with my Garmin Edge 305 and then after the ride I download it to Motionbased. You can find the route that I took at http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7289265. Connect your Garmin Edge 305 to your computer and then follow the link above to the ride data. In the Summary Data section of the activity on MotionBased, you'll see a Download - GPS Device link in the middle lower section of the screen. Select this link and then choose to open it which will download it to your Garmin 305. There is now a course stored in your Garmin of the route that I took. When you are ready to replicate the ride go to the start as identified on MotionBased and then in your Garmin go to Training, select the course that was downloaded and finally select do course. I haven't figured out if you can jump on the route at any point other than the start and have the Garmin figure out where you are at and continue from there. If anyone knows let me know.

This will work for any route that you find the .gpx file for. You can simply upload the file to MotionBased and follow the same steps.

I have tried using GPS2CRS.EXE, GPSBABEL.ORG and BikeRouteToaster.com with varying degrees of success. In the end the MotionBased approach has been the most reliable for me.

San Diego Super Loop Route - Planned versus Actual

2008-12-15T09:55:00.000-08:00

The attached jpg file shows our actual route versus the planned route. The red route was the plan and the blue route was the actual. You can see where I made the wrong turn heading towards La Costa after coming down from Elfin Forest. I should have stayed to the North of the creek but with being tired and it pouring rain my navigation skills were off. The total time was a little over 8 hours. I am going to explore the route between La Costa and Elfin forest a bit before I do this route again. Send me an email if you are interested in joining me for round 2. Maybe this time I'll do it clock-wise.
The photo below shows the Trans County Trail signs that are posted along part of the South Poway Trail.

San Diego Super Loop Completed!

2008-12-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

Finished the Super Loop today. I left the house at o'dark thirty and road the route thru Penasquitos Canyon where Rob met me. We road the TransCounty trail which is also called the South Poway Trail all of the way to Hwy 67. We made it all the way to Ramona before it started to rain on us. Rained for most of the remainder of the ride. I found the trail out of Elfin Forest and made it most of the way to La Costa Trails but took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up too far south. So in the end I missed the La Costa trails but hit everything else. Total of 77 miles and 9000 feet of elevation gain. I'll post some pictures later along with the gps results.

Revised San Diego Super Loop

2008-12-11T14:53:00.000-08:00

With some input from Jasper I was able to connect the La Costa Trail system to the Elfin Forest Trails without hitting any pavement. New mileage is 77 miles and total elevation gain is 9000 ft. 55 miles of the total 77 miles are on either single track, double track or fire roads, thats 64% of the route on dirt. Rob commited to riding with me so I won't be going solo.

San Diego Super Loop

2008-12-10T15:44:00.000-08:00

After talking with Cliff, a fellow Swamis rider, I put together a route around San Diego using my TOPO! software. The route is a variant of the route he told me about that attempts to hit as many of the local MTB areas as possible. It includes the trails of La Costa, Elfin Forest, Lake Hodges West and East and then finally the Trans-County Trail. In the end the modified version is 73 miles and 8000 feet of elevation gain. The plan is to ride it this weekend as long as the weather holds. No need to add rain to the pain and suffering.

Africa Mtn Bike Trip

2008-12-09T07:47:00.000-08:00

Jill and I are going to Africa this summer for a Mountain Biking/Game Safari vacation. The trip is a 19 day mountain bike adventure where we'll travel from Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean coast in Tanzania to Nairobi in Kenya. This is a custom trip guided by Escape Advnetures from NZ. The route that we will be traveling goes through open savannah, desert, mountain rainforest and tropical coastline.

We'll be taking a break from our bikes during the middle of the trip to view Amboseli National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge and Serengeti National Park. Ngorongoro Crater hosts the largest concentration of plains game anywhere in the world.

Weekend of Local Riding

2008-12-08T09:35:00.000-08:00

Some great local riding this weekend. On Saturday morning I hit Elfin Forest, got in a few laps on the Equine Loop, out to the Lake Hodges Overlook and then back down the way up trail. On Sunday I joined Rob's Thursday night group for some riding at Daley Ranch. Rob got a brand new helmet and in the parking lot he jinxed himself by saying that he wanted to "break it in". We rode the main loop, with a couple laps on Cougar Ridge downhill. On the second descent of Cougar Ridge, Rob provided some injury free entertainment by doing some acrobatics sans mountain bike. All was well in the end and Rob did "break in" his helmet.

Weekend Riding in Cuyamaca/Laguna Area

2008-11-24T10:57:00.000-08:00

It was a perfect weekend in the Cuyamaca/Laguna area. Saturday morning a group of us met for a mountain bike ride. The weather was perfect, sunny and seventy by mid-day. We started in Cuyamaca SP at the Sweetwater Bridge, made our way over to the Lagunas, Pine Mountain, Laguna Meadows, Noble Canyon and then back to Cuyamaca. All in all it was 40 miles and 5200 ft gain. My new Lynskey hardtail is so much more fun to ride than my full suspension Titus. The bike climbs great especially with the lightweight carbon edge wheels. I camped out in Cuyamaca Saturday night and then met another group of friends for a road ride on Sunday morning. We met in Pine Valley and did the Kitchen Creek Loop to Sunrise Hwy, around Lake Cuyamaca back down Hwy 79 and then old Hwy 80 to Pine Valley. It ended up being 56 miles and 5000 ft gain. Kitchen Creek is closed to traffic for the majority of it which makes for a relaxed 11 mile sustained climb. We happened upon a group of deer hunters at the beginning of Kitchen Creek. Talk about diverse interests, one group of guys in bright colored lycra shorts riding carbon road bikes and another group of with their pickups, guns, budweiser and marlboros. To each his own!

Lynskey Pro29

2008-10-13T10:28:00.001-07:00

I received my Lynskey Pro29 from BRC this weekend. I took it to the tunnels for a few hours on Saturday and it handled awesome. I ended up switching from the Industry 9 wheels to the Edge Carbon all mountain wheels several weeks ago. They are 400 grams lighter and super stiff. I can't wait to get some miles on this new bike.

New Lynskey Pro29 Mountain Bike on Order

2008-07-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to replace my 2003 Titus RacerX mountain bike. After going back and forth on a hardtail versus full suspension and 26" versus 29", I decided on a 29" Ti hardtail from Lynskey. Joe at Big Ring Cyclery is building it up for me and it should be here in a couple of weeks.

Frame 2009 Pro 29 brushed/eched logo

Fork Fox 29 f100

Cranks XTR 175

BB XTR

Shifters XTR shifter pods

Rear Der XTR shadow

Front Der XTR

Cassette XTR

Chain XTR

Brakes XTR

Seatpost USE Carbon SUMO

Stem Syntace f119 100mm

Bars Easton MonkeyLite XC

Pedals Time ATAC XS Ti Carbon

Saddle Fi'zi:k Gobi XM White

Wheels Industry 9 Black Hub/Black Spokes Stans Arch Rims

Tires Maxxis CrossMark

Cages King Ti cages

Headset Chris king black

Markleeville Death Ride

2008-07-14T17:15:00.001-07:00

Completed the Markleeville Death Ride this weekend. The ride is an awesome event that is supported by the local community of Markleeville. The total mileage is 129 miles with 15,000 feet of elevation gain. I ended up with a moving time of 8:50 which is an hour less than what I did it in 2007. Total time was around 9:15. Tough ride back to San Diego though, the 395 was closed south of Lone Pine due to a mud slide. We were finally able to get through the following day and there was still about a foot of water flowing across 395.

2009 Cape Epic

2008-05-28T12:18:00.001-07:00

Well I am just back from a two week business trip to London and Seoul. No biking adventures to report on however a few culinary adventures in Seoul involving Octopus.

I had to sell my entry to the 2007 Cape Epic earlier this year as I couldn't find a team mate. Well the lottery is open for the 2009 Cape Epic and I just entered. Hopefully I get an entry and can find a team mate so I can move this off of my wish list and onto my resume!

Great Divide Race

2008-04-22T02:51:00.001-07:00

On my wish list of adventures to attempt is the Great Divide Race http://greatdividerace.com/index.html. There is a great write-up on "A Day in the Life" of a GDR rider at http://greatdividerace.com/_wsn/page3.html. There is one particular paragraph that I enjoyed: "As the day winds down and the sun drops behind the nearest western ridge, we'll stop to add layers, turn on the lights, recheck the maps, then click in to cover more miles, with the added bonus of some solitary soul searching. Riding in the dark, on an unfamiliar trail, in unfamiliar territory, with an unknown distance to the next town and with some uncertainty as to whether the route info you have is correct, tends to make even the most hardened trail veteran think twice about the noises in the brush, the sturdiness of their steed, and the toughness of their resolve. Thishappens every minute of every day to every racer, but at night we have no visual distractions to divert our attention. It becomes the front-center, number-one thing on our minds, and we have no choice but to stare it straight in the face and deal with it. The bottom line is that no matter the circumstances facing us, we all just have to ride on through and see what happens."

I believe that Eric and I experienced a day in the life of GDR racer when we rode the Trans-County Trail Traverse. The main and obvious difference is that the GDR is a 24 day event covering 2,490 miles and 200,000 feet of elevation gain as opposed to our 157 mile and 16,000 feet elevation gain trip. Out of all of the adventures that I have read about and that are on my wish list. I believe that the GDR has to be the most difficult one of all. Some day I hope to attempt this race, but not this year. This years race starts on June 20th, I'll be following the progress of all the riders that take this challenge on.

Kevin

Trans-County Trail Wrap-up

2008-04-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

Eric and I had a great time on our adventure. The Trans-County Trail when finished is going to be an awesome trail.The trail is however incomplete as we were told before we started. In order to connect all of the sections without traversing over private property or taking paved roads would require much more careful planning than we put into it. We thought that we had planned out a good route using TOPO!, Google Earth, Microsoft Live and Philip Erdelsky's maps/trail descriptions but we still came across many no trespassing signs, fences and trails that just stopped in the middle of nowhere. The best example is the TTT west from Oak Oasis Open Preserve. It is a wonderful trail heading down to San Vicente Reservoir. We traversed this for an hour or so for it to just stop. We were surrounded by nothing but thick brush and the trail back up from where we came. After bushwacking to a private driveway, climbing and climbing on private roads we came to the realization that the only way to get out of there without going through private property was to go all of the way back to the start of the Oaks Oasis Open Preserve and take Wildcat Canyon road and then other various roads all of the way around to San Vicente Reservoir. The TTT through Poway was really fun and quite a trail system given that it goes right through town.

We rode some incredible trails, saw alot of wildlife, and enoyed the time on our bikes. I must have accidentally pressed the stop button on my Garmin 305 when lifting my bike over a fence as it stopped recording somewhere just east of San Vicente Reservoir. I didn't realize it until we were under the Hwy 15 bridge. I restarted it there but missed about 30-40 miles. Without those miles the elevation gain was around 16,000 feet. My new MTB powertap recorded a total of 157 miles over 28 hours, 8200kJ of work with a TSS of 554.

Lessons learned:
1) Pay close attention to the dotted lines highlighting the boundary of Indian owned reservation land on your topo maps when planning your route.
2) The area around El Capitan reservoir is posted no trespassing by the Water District.
3) Don't underestimate the amount of chain lube needed on a ride of that length.
4) It doesn't take long for trails that don't see much traffic to become totally overgrown and unrecognizable.
5) It is a long way from Salton Sea to the Pacific Ocean!

Kevin and Eric

Finished TTT

2008-04-19T01:03:00.000-07:00

Eric and I just got to Torrey Pines State beach at 1:00am for a total of 28 hours and 156 miles. That included lots of exploration as the entire route hasn't been defined yet. I will post more details tomorrow after I get some sleep.

TTT-Oak Oasis Open Space Preserve

2008-04-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

We're near Barona Casino and the Oak Oasis Open Space preserve. We've put 116 miles behind us and 11,200 feet of elevation gain.

TTT-Lake Cuyamaca

2008-04-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

We made it to Lake Cuyamaca in time for lunch. Best quote of the trip so far came from Eric: "That was a whole lot of hurt!". We have 85 miles and almost 9000 feet of elevation gain behind us.

TTT- Climbing Oriflamme Canyon

2008-04-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

Eric drilling it on the steep climb out of Oriflamme Canyon.

TTT - Shelter Valley

2008-04-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

It's 7:00am and we are in Shelter Valley. We had hoped to be to Cuyamaca by now but Plum Canyon had a long hike a bike section and we took a small scenic detour. We filled up on water at the Fire Station and are on our way. Looking forward to breakfast in Cuyamaca, well maybe lunch by the time we get there. So far we have gone 63 miles and 5800 feet of elevation gain. The big climb to sunrise hwy is right in front of us..

TTT - Borrego Springs

2008-04-18T00:28:00.001-07:00

Its just past midnight and we are in Borrego Springs. The town is all closed for the night. We were hoping to buy a red bull and a hotdog but no luck. Now it's up Montezuma Grade towards the Ca riding and hiking trail.

Start of TTT at the Salton Sea

2008-04-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Our good friends Rob and Masha drove us to the Salton Sea for the start of our Trans-County Trail Traverse (TTT). Thanks so much! We stopped at the Travertine Grill in Salton City for dinner to fuel up. It is about 9:00pm on Thursday night and we are on our way!

Trans-County Traverse Route

2008-04-16T14:53:00.001-07:00

Eric and I have finalized the route for the Trans-County Traverse. The total distance of the traverse is 145 miles and 20,856 feet of elevation gain. I figured out how to post to the blog from my Blackberry with pictures attached so we will be posting enroute. Email me at ibclimbn@gmail.com if you are interested in getting the .tpo file from TOPO! or the gps waypoint file after we are done.

Julian Death March Results

2008-04-14T09:22:00.001-07:00

Julian Death March was a tough race this weekend especially with the wind. The final results were 11,000 feet of gain, 80 miles, overall time 8:38 hrs, 9th place overall, 2nd place in 45+ age group. Thanks again to Dave, Mark and Lynn for pre-racing the course with me. The fact that I didn't have to navigate during the race definitely helped to improve my time. It was a really enjoyable course with some diverse terrain. I would highly encourage you to race it next year, very low key, grass roots kind of event with some well positioned and well stocked aid stations.