Pre-Dirt Bag

Well tomorrow is the Dirt Bag race in Clearwater, MN. It is the final race in the AGRS series. I have done every race this year except for the Dirty Benjamin and completed all of them. I don't know how many people have done that, but I'd guess that the list is short.

I have never done this race, but I hear that it is pretty flat. I am going to try a high gearing of 48x18 (2.66) to see if I can latch on to some pace lines rather than spinning like crazy to try and keep up. For the Heck of the North I went with 42x16 (2.62) so there is not a lot of difference, but it may help over the course of 100 miles.

I have not gotten a lot time to ride this month, which is unfortunate since fall is great riding whether, but with kids sports 4 times a week it leaves little extra time to go for a ride. The GF's work schedule has been different as of late too so that doesn't help any. Other than riding to work (Which I think has only happened 3 or 4 times in October) I have only ridden twice. Once a Wednesday night group ride that I was pressed for time and only got in 8 miles and a BC-Carver fat bike ride that was about 21 miles. Oh, and the Adventure Ride that was about 22 miles. Needless to say, not exactly the prep that you would want heading into a 100 mile ride.

Despite all that, I am shooting for a 6 hour 30 minutes or under time. My previous best 100 is 7h25m, so this would be quite a leap. I think you gotta set goals to push yourself. I'm at the point where I don't take a 100 miles for granted, but "Just finishing" is not a positive for me.

The frame bag has been a life saver. I have done two races with it now and can't say enough positive things about it. It holds everything that I need and allows me easy access to anything. I no longer need the small feed bag on my top tube that would rub my knees when I climb and bothered me. It allows me to wear nothing on my back which no matter how light, would start to bother me around mile 60 and put me in full on pain around mile 80. I think it would also put more pressure on my ass which would start to bother me around mile 70 and force me to stand and glide or become more willing to walk a hill towards the end just to relieve some pain for a little bit. There is also a trash pocket on the side, but I found it nice to put the trash in my jersey pocket and use the pocket to hold my note cards.
If there's any negative at all, it's that drinking is a little harder. I bought a longer tube, but I still have to lean forward some to drink. I didn't want the tube to be too long otherwise it will just flop all over the place while riding.


The weather will be interesting. Weather.com is currently showing:

Saturday, Oct 27
Hi: 43°
Lo: 29°
Mostly Sunny
Chance of rain: 10%
Wind: S at 5 mph Sun

Sunday, Oct 28
Hi: 43°
Lo: 28°
Rain / Snow Showers
Chance of rain: 40%
Wind: ESE at 8 mph

That's fairly chilly. I'll have to at least start with a jacket and pants on. The jacket keeps me pretty warm so I won't need to layer much underneath it. I'll also start with fleece gloves, thin UA winter cap, and wool socks.

I still need to get to the grocery store to pick up some last minute items and then I will be ready to go. I'll post a race recap some time early next week and I'll try and get some pictures as well.

Favorite Races

The other day while out riding I had the idea that I should post up my favorite races. I am not really one that gets into the "atmosphere" of a race, because I'm not really there to be social, but to try my best at racing my bike. I don't take racing serious, at all, so the perspective that I provide is just that of a dude who likes to stay in shape and needs some races along the way to keep motivation up. I think that I'll just do a Top 5 because 1. I haven't been in that many different races, and 2. I don't really feel like writing that much. I'll probably spread these out over the course of the first half of the winter as my riding will be much less and I'm pretty sure none of the three people who read this blog care about how my Mite hockey team is doing week after week.

So, without further ado...my 2012 edition of my Top 5 races.

#5

Any race at Hillside in Elk River, MN.

These are always great races to attend and when I do miss them (As been the case for most of them this year) I actually feel bad about it. I find myself thinking "What could I have done differently so that I could have made it." Most of the time there is a very logical reason why I was unable to go, but the thoughts still pop into my head.

The races is always well organized and there are a lot of fast people who show up. At only $10 per event it is also a great value. All of the state races are $25-$30 depending on when you register and I don't think there is half the amount of give-a-ways.
I also like that everyone races at the same time. Have a slow friend who races the recreational class? No worries, they start just after you and will finish before you. At the state races each class is on the course by themselves and if you race the Comp class while your buddy races the Sport class, you have to get to the race about 2 1/2 hours before you even toe the line.

I also enjoy hanging out and drinking beers afterwards.

Finally is the race director, promoter, organizer, trail steward...Rich Omdahl. He does a great job of making sure that the trail is in good shape and ensuring that everyone has a good time. It seems that he comes up with something slightly different for each race to keep it fresh.

Hopefully I can make it out to more races in 2013, starting with the Cold Bear Challenge and Fat Bike Fest.

Check back later for #4.

Fat Saturday

This past Saturday was a ride that I knew would be coming up in the fall and I wasn't going to miss it. Last years ride was a blast and I wanted to see if I could find some more winter riding spots. I had already missed two of Rora's soccer games this year due to bike races so I decided to go to her last game and then meet up with the group as soon as the game was over.

I parked at Lucky's 13 and gave Josh a call around 11:10. No answer, so I headed towards the river bottoms where I thought they might be. I called again when I got to Big River park and he answered and told me that they were under the 35E bridge. I hauled ass to get there as fast as possible to not slow down the group. When I arrived four people were already bailing because it was beyond there riding ability. I don't know what they expected from an adventure ride put on by a guy who goes by Death Rider.

We rode on rarely used walking trails, up steep hills, through mud and water, and down sketchy foot paths. The rain held off enough to keep things enjoyable, and before I knew it we were climbing the Lilydale Lungbuster and eating lunch.

We headed back down the hill and across the river into St. Paul for some river riding. I had ridden this area a few times before and need to make it a point to get out there more often. When it was all said in done we had 7 people remaining from the original 15 who started and myself. It was a good day to be outside when I normally would have looked at the forecast and just considered it a lost day.

Thanks again to Josh for putting this all together and providing food at the break! I know that he puts in a lot of time to find all these cool paths so that we can all go through it was as much "ease" as possible.

As I left Josh told me that he expects me to put on a ride in the future. That's a tall task to live up to. I'll have to see if I can find 20-25 miles worth of riding that doesn't cover any of the same ground. I have some ideas already... Think early March.

Some Thoughts

I saw over at the Almanzo site that Chris is looking to take a back seat for the race and bring in a new director. The amount of work that he puts into this race is enormous. I can't even begin to think about how to get an event to the point he has grown the race to, but I think therein lies the problem. Too much growth. There was a market two years ago and talks of a band playing in 2013 the night before. All of this is great for the participants, but for one man to take on, especially running on donations and personal money, has to bring on a ton of pressure. There is a reason that most races charge $50-$100. There are a lot of costs associated with putting on a race and the people who put these things together deserve some compensation for their efforts. I've raced the Almanzo for the past three years and the Gentleman's Ride once and can not express how much I love the race course and all the work that goes into it. Above and beyond that I am grateful for all the races that have sprung up inspired by Chris. Being unemployed for over a year it was about the only racing that I could afford, and it helped keep me inspired to get out and do things, rather than sulking about not having a job.

I am grateful for all that Chris has done and I wish only the best for him.


Other note:

I have been backing off of Strava quite a bit lately. I still post my rides there, but I rarely look to see what others are doing. My latest gripe is with elevation. I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but on a Garmin device you can choose to enable elevation correction or not. (The default is "enabled") So when you do a race and you get two VERY different elevation profiles you have to wonder why someone, more than likely, has disabled elevation correction to make it look as if there ride was more difficult than it actually was.
At this years Almanzo there were people who posted elevations around 7,600ft, while others were around 4,600ft. Where did they do 3,000  more feet of climbing? I've climbed 10,000ft in a day before, and I can tell that the Almanzo is not even close to that. Anyway, people use the site differently, I would just think that when you look back at a week, month, or years from now, you'd prefer accurate data so that you truly know what you are capable of.

Heck of the North

This past Saturday was the Heck of the North in Duluth. I had heard good things about it but was never able to make it till this year. I knew that the course was relatively flat but had plenty of challenges along the way. My original plan was to drive up late on Friday and sleep in the car. This got scrapped when I wasn't able to drop the kids off until 8pm. I decided to stay home and just go to sleep early and wake up at 4:15am. This had me a little worried because if anything went awry it could mean missing the race. I packed the car up with everything except my bike so that I could just wake up, grab a couple things and go. I fell asleep early  and got up right on time. I noticed though that I did not plug my phone in knew that it would cause a couple issues. I then grabbed a Monster and hit the road. As I was on 35 I saw a cop pulled over a guy and was giving him the DUI test. I then did a wallet check and realized that I had forgotten mine. I did a quick pros/cons thought and decided to turn around on 36. Now I started to stress a bit about being there by the 7:30 registration deadline. I got home, grabbed my wallet and headed out again. I normally drive fast, but now I made it a point to drive fast. I cruised at 80mph almost the entire way and made it to the lot about 7:20am. I felt relieved and got ready to ride.

The race start was a little warmer than I expected, which was nice so I only wore a long sleeve shirt to keep me warm for a bit. We did about a 2 mile roll out and then the race was on. I was able to stay with the lead pack till about mile 7 where it got too fast for me. At mile 8 there was an eight foot pipe in the middle of the road. Some people choose to walk around it, while others were trying to go over it. I was about to go over when I remembered that the bottom of my shoes are a hardened plastic and would not grip well, and decided to go around. As I was waiting to get across the creek, I saw two people trying to go over fall flat on their face. I was now very happy I didn't try and go over.

Not too long after that we were on to snowmobile trails. I started with a big group of people but they were hopping off of their bikes frequently and messing with my "flow" so I decided to stop and turn my headphones on and let them spread out. This worked pretty well. I caught back up to the group and was able to pass all of them before we exited back onto the gravel.

From there it was a pretty standard ride. Just before the checkpoint the wash boarding in the road that had been sporadically present was now unavoidable. It slowed my pace of 16-17mph to 13-14. After the checkpoint and off the road (I think it is called Drummond) the wash boarding became minimal again. 

We hit another section of snowmobile trail that was a little rocky, but once again a lot of fun. It's always good to break up the monotony of strictly gravel roads. Once we turned back on to gravel I took the opportunity to snap this photo: 

Off in the distance is Lake Superior. I think we had about 20 miles to go at this point.

Making my way to the finish my legs felt good and was decided to push a little harder. I stopped at mile 91 to get some water from some kids cheering us on. It's always nice to get some cold water. Shortly after that I was flagged down by a lady holding a clipboard and almost didn't stop because I thought she wanted me to take a survey. Turns out, there was a power line down up ahead and we needed to be rerouted.

From there I kept a good pace and other than a little walking up Pleasant View finished strong.

My time was 7 hours and 25 minutes, a personal best.

The event was very well organized and I had a great time. Thanks to all the volunteers that make these events so great! The organizers always seem to go above and beyond expectations.