so last night I did my first alleycat race. Here’s a play by play if you’re interested.

got to DC a little earlier than I anticipated (I expected more traffic) so I rolled out to Adams Morgan and the pharmacy bar to see my old friend Mike D. He looked good, we chatted a bit, I left.

I decided to race on my surly. this was a good idea because it was a single speed freewheel so it would give me a chance to rest. I also tend to ride faster on a freewheel than fixed. this was a bad idea because it is geared really low for cross racing. I thought this would be a good training ride to get me used to spinning my ass off.

around 7:20, there were people mulling around dupont circle getting ready for the race. tim showed up on the hottest looking cruiser I have ever seen. A schwinn panther (I think) rad. He was there to take pics. Got the manifest and my number and then we all left at about 8pm. It’s a good thing that I was following the crowd because I would have gone a much longer way to the first checkpoint if I were just doing it solo. Everyone went the wrong way down a one way except for one guy, he made a right. I followed him because I figured he knew something the others didn’t, he was going pretty fast. In the end, it was a good move because we ended cutting some people off.
Read the rest of this entry »

No Comments || Topcs: General, bikes

made it out to philly yesterday afternoon. Met mike and we rode out for packet pick up. On the way out, my crank was making some noise, I thought it was my shoe, but it’s not. I gotta check it out.

woke up super early this morning and drove out, racked the bikes and realized that neither of us ate breakfast. marathon bars and clif bloks on the bus over to the swim start. it was cold outside (for june) and the water temp was 75. it felt good to get in the water because it was warmer than the air. the swim felt good, water seemed clean, I was undertrained but it felt OK. 5 minute gaps between waves. We were 3rd, I was enveloped by green caps (women 30-34?) and light blue (next men’s wave?) but it could have been much worse. I think my swim time was like 40 min. Not bad for undertraining.

transition was hilarious, since we rolled up kinda late, I couldn’t get my stuff all layed out properly. right before I got on the bike, I realized that I had put on one bike shoe and one running shoe. ooops. had to switch that.

I felt strong on the ride. I averaged between 18 and 19 mph. at the end I realized that I maybe could have gone faster, but I was still pretty pleased. I have to work on my descents and high speed turns because I still sketch out a little bit on both of them. couse was hilly but way fun.

T2 was cool. jen, cherokee, and holden were there so I got a little smooch and some encouragement.

the 1st 2 miles of the run were HORRIBLE. flat course, no problem. but my shins were on fire. I was slow. real slow. REAL slow. everyone and their mother passed me. but anytime I saw someone in my age group pass me, I still felt OK, because it meant that I took them on the bike. It helps that I can feel good about something even when I’m sucking really bad at something else. 3 miles in, I found my groove. it was a slow groove but a comfortable one. 5 miles in, I made a CRITICAL mistake. I was really thirsty. at the water station I went for 1 water and TWO count ‘em TWO gatorades. then came the cramp full stomach yuck feeling. I was over it by the time I hit mile six. Usually, I think I know where the finish line is, but it’s really much further away. I get close and start to turn it up a little bit, but then fizzle out before I hit the actual line. This time, it totally came out of nowhere. I was able to run it in a little harder and I felt good at the end (in spite of how slow I was). THe final time on the clock was 3:30. I’m pretty sure our start was 10 minutes after the initial go so that gives me a time of 3:20.

pittsburgh time was 3:32.
Naylors Beach was 3:47

any way you slice it, I came out ahead. I blame the orbea. even if my time was worse, it would have been a good day. the swim was nice, ride was challenging but fun, run was beautiful (even if it did involve running) and flat. I had low expectations of this race, but in the end, it was pretty damn cool.

1 Comment || Topcs: General, bikes, running/triath

A history of every trip I have ever taken to Richmond

1. played a show with the stratford mercenaries on a wednesday night. worked the next day. felt like hell.

2. played a show at the end of tour at some punk house. We played pretty well as I remember. richmond rubbed me as a very depressing city though.

3. helped mike move. decided to take a run around the bases of a muddy baseball field, slipped, fell, got COVERED in mud head to toe. sandy rocky mud. It was very uncomfortable. I ended up in a store trying to buy shorts after close. I actually said, please sell me some shorts. It’s an emergency.

4. xterra triathon 2006. I realized that richmond is in fact a nice, charming city, stayed with jason and allison in their nice apt. did the triathlon. it nearly killed me, but I enjoyed it.

5. feb 2007. played a show in richmond, we played horribly, there were a billion people there, it was a crazy night. this is the evening that mike swore off playing after/while drinking.

6. richmond xterra triathon 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

No Comments || Topcs: General, bikes, running/triath

well, not really. But if you want to track my riding habits so you can make fun of me. Feel free to click the “Jim’s Rides” section of the links. It links to my motionbased account which ties in to my techno gear bike nerd GPS system. Any ride I do on my road bike, cross bike or mountain bike will be on here. If I remember to throw it in my pocket, the fixed rides will show up too. You can see my route, speed (or lack thereof), distance, calories burned, elevation profile and speed vs. elevation graph.

Here’s the elevation of 2 laps in the park.

Here’s my speed (the dark line) vs. the elevation profile.


Click Here for More unnecessary info:
The Test run

No Comments || Topcs: General, bikes

decided to get some dirt under the rubber today and head to patapsco. I’m always very quick to tell everyone that I’m a mediocre mountain biker on my best day and a poor one on most. Now, some people would accuse me of downplaying my ability because they say that’s what I always do, but I assure you, I am crap-mountain biker. But today, I dusted off the old singlespeed rig and tried to adapt to my new local trails.

Got on the soapstone trail from the park n ride. I have ridden part of this before, but it felt easier today. THere are also a lot more stream crossings than I remember. 10 minutes in, I was thinking that my fork didn’t seem to be eating up the bumps the way it normally does. THen I looked down and saw that I still had the lockout on. THe soapstone trail hits a little parking lot and then goes straight up one of the ridiculous hills that seem to be everywhere in patapsco. I managed to ride most of it but had to start pushing as I got near the top.

It seems like patapsco is just a string of hills I can’t ride up and hills I’m too scared to go down full speed. This is the nearest trail though and the best in the area so I guess I have to get used to it. The descent down the soapstone trail wasn’t so bad though. I ended up back at the parking lot pretty quick so I figured I’d try to hit up another part.

Started rolling back out towards the car and cut left on the bull run trail. This trail was a push-a-thon for me. the hills seemed ridiculous. Once I hit the top, I ended up off trail down a big hill, pushed back up and then retraced the way I came up. There was a really steep downhill that I pretty much rode down at a snail’s pace choking on the brakes because I’m a sally. rolled back along the soapstone and then came home.

I’ve got 7 more days of break before I go back to work, I’m going to do my best to get off road every day if I can. Maybe at the end of the week, I won’t be such a wimp.

No Comments || Topcs: General, bikes

so yeah. I really like racing cyclocross. I even got a little competitive. I’m a little bummed that the season is over. One thing that pissed me off is that the officials do a terrible job keeping track of the last finishers. Of my 7 races this season, 4 had glaring errors in the final results. I actually wrote a letter to mabra and mac (the racing associations) about it.

I will probably just keep riding the surly on easy singletrack like rockburn and fairland for a while. there are a number of awesome pictures available to recap the season. Most are compliments of Kevin’s Site. But there are also some here. If you are bored at all and have at least a passing interest in cross, you should watch the slideshows on velophotos because they rock.
I also discovered the wonders of youtube and the video feature on my camera. I made a video for Sunday’s race and for Granogue.
Here they are:

Granogue 

Capital Cross 

Other videos that aren’t mine.  but are WAAAY better.