The Morning After

For the past several weeks, we've settled into a habit of a Thursday night ride followed by breakfast at the Village Inn. It's become a part of my routine. Something I look forward to as much as the weekend.



Last night the group was small (Jamie, Tony, Brad K., and me). We rode up Clarks, down Ghost Falls, caught a new section of trail over to the jeep road, back up and down Ghost again and then finished it off with pancakes, eggs, and hashbrowns.



It's been years since Brad has done a night ride so it was fun to have him along. He will be racing the 24 hours of Moab http://www.grannygear.com/Races/Moab/index.shtml this weekend as part of a 4 person single speed / rigid team and probably wanted to get a quick night ride in to fine tune his skills before the big race. I'm just glad he kept the pace slow and didn't encourage Jamie to go all out. The pace was fast but good.



The morning after is always a bit rough. My recovery plan usually includes a couple of Diet Cokes. However yesterday, the Red Bull girls visited the Omniture offices and handed out samples of Red Bull. I should be flying high by 10am after I polish these off....

Pre-Ride Meal

Yesterday I didn't think I was going to get out for a ride. I forgot my shorts and I had meetings scheduled at work until 5pm. In order to ride, I would have to drive home (35 min commute)to get shorts and negotiate the hall pass for a ride. By that time, It would probably be too dark to ride.

To my surprise, at 5:10pm my wife calls and tells me that Seth was with a friend until 8pm ish, and Tatum was at a b-day party that got over around 6:45pm. She asked if I wanted to get a ride in before I came home and that she would home about 7:00pm ish (Rachelle rules!!)

I immediatley left work, got home at 5:45, changed, and was ready to roll by 5:46. I had no idea what time it would get dark but the sun seemed to have at least another hour of light. I was starving and hadn't eaten anything for dinnner yet. I opened the pantry door and grabbed a handful or Oreos

As I dropped down Clarks, I began to think about my eating habits. Asking myself the question. "If I ate better foods and cut out the junk and Diet Coke, would I be a faster rider?" I mean here I was having Oreo's for dinner. Not to mention that my favorite pre-ride meal is a 44oz Diet Coke and a sleeve of donuts from the gas station. This can't be good.

Maybe I should try to eat a little better and see if I could improve my riding. But on the other hand, it sure is nice to be able to eat whatever I want and not worry too much about gaining weight.

Almost Everything

During the week, I usually leave all my cycling gear in the back of my truck. Too many times, I've received that email at 3pm on a Tuesday from the core group proposing a time and route for a ride only to realize I didn't have my bike or gear with me.

It's just nice to know that if the opportunity for a ride comes up, I am prepared to leave work at the drop of a hat and meet up with the group.

Sometimes I'll get multiple emails during the day. Yesterday, for example, I had the option to ride on the road with Elden, singlespeed with Dug and Dan, or Night ride with Tony and the DNA group.

Since the singlespeed ride was my idea, I of course elected for that option. I met Dug and Dan at 4:45 in Draper and rode up from the Draper pool to the tunnel, up the tunnel to the flight park trail head, stayed left up the new section of trail that comes within a mile of Suncrest, back down, out to the flight park, and back to the car. It was only about an hour ride (I needed to be at Tatum's soccer game by 6:15), but sometimes an hour is all that is needed to take my mind off the stress and pressures of work.

This morning as I pulled into work, I realized that I had my bike, shoes, helmet, gloves, pump, gear bag, jersey, but NO SHORTS!!!

Have you ever been tempted to drop $60 on a pair of shorts from the local shop (Racer's Cycle Service) just so you could get a ride in?

Coming Soon

I bought this on ebay over the weekend. It's a 2003 (never before used) Redline Team Scandium frame w/ aluminum fork. I'm going to build it up as a 1X9 with some used parts and try and get a few cross races in this season.

Rachelle is being a good sport about it since I really didn't mean to purchase this and gave her absolutley no warning that I had placed a bid. I need to get on the ball and find her a sweet (or as my brother-in-law says "cherry") mountain bike.

If you have any used cyclocross parts, please send my way.

Another Diet Coke Please

I got home at 2am last night after a night ride at Mueller Park in Bountiful. with 4.5 hours of sleep last night, I'm feeling it. I've already polished off two diet cokes and it's only 10am.

I've never ridden Mueller before and am kicking myself for finding out about it this late in the season. I'm actually a little bit annoyed that my "friends" have never showed me this gem of a ride until now.


The group: Jamie, Tony, Joe, Sam, Justin, Jon L., Keith, and I.





We met at Mueller at about 9:45 and rode the 14 mile out and back of pure single track. The whole ride was in the woods with tight single track (did I mention that it was all single track yet?). It was one of the best rides of the year for me. At times, it was so tight, that I had to move my hands in an inch or so on my bar to avoid the branches.

Jamie started out at race pace and for the first 20 min, many of us were redlined. It turns out, Jamie was trying to duplicate the odd heart rate scenario he experienced earlier this week. The doctors have him hooked up to a HR monitor for the next 2 weeks (I guess he needs to leave this on 24 hours a day) and have told him to ride and see if his HR spikes unusually high again. Lucky for us, we were all trying to keep his wheel and ride at that pace while he was doing this test.

So when Joe mananged to break his chain about half way up the climb, I was happy to stop and wait for him while he fixed it. )Note: I always like to have Joe or Jamie along on a ride. They are both killer mechanics and usually can fix anything.)


Joe fixing his chain:






The entire climb, I kept thinking about how fun the downhill was going to be. I followed Jon L.'s wheel for the first half and had a huge smile. I didn't want to lose his wheel since he has ridden this trail a lot and knew what was coming. This was my first time down Mueller. It was in the dark and we were flying. I thought Jon was going to crash hard on one of the many bridges but he manged to ride it out.

The Post Ride Chill:







The "Heartland Scramble" (This is what I ordered...Mmmmm)

Two eggs scrambled with chopped bacon, country-fried potatoes, green peppers and onions, and topped with Cheddar cheese. Served with two strips of bacon, two sausage links, hash browns and three fluffy buttermilk pancakes.

This time we met at Denny's for some food. Did you know EVERY breakfast plate at Denny's either comes with sausage and bacon or bacon and ham? It's out of control how much food they give you for $6.

The storm is rolling in so probably no rides this weekend. This night ride should hold me over until Monday.

The Itch For Something New

I've been thinking a lot lately about adding to my bike collection (Rachelle, turn away now...)

The problem is this. It's too hard to know what to get.

1) I have friends who are pulling the trigger on single speed road bikes

2) My brother just built up a very cool fixie

3) It's cyclosross season and that looks really fun

4) I've always wanted to do it right and get a custom single speed mountain bike

It seems a little crazy to have so many bikes but it's not like I don't ride them. Adding a cross bike to the mix would allow me to do some races late in the year and maintain my fitness.

I like Elden's (Fatty's) advice on how to get approval from the wife to get a new bike. Check it out here: http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/humour-how-to-justify-your-next-bike-12570

While You Slept....

Soccer Dads:

Last night, I met my "smoking hot wife" and kids at Tatum's soccer game at 6pm. I expected it to be rained out but to my surprise we stayed dry the entire game. It was cold but dry. So dry, in fact, that I began to think a nite ride would be possible. The nice thing about Tatum's soccer team is there are at least 6 hard core riders with daughters on the team. Jamie, Tony, Joe, Sam, Seth, and Matt. Those of us who didn't get a ride in earlier that day began to toss around the idea of a nite ride. We decided on 9:15 at the equestrian center in Draper if it stayed dry.

Here I am waiting in my car for Jamie and Tony to show up.... I tried something new this time. I wore a cycling cap under my helmet to get things nice and tight. It worked great. The head lamp stayed put with no shifting during the downhill.

The Ride:

At 9:25 ish, we met and took off. Jamie, Tony, and I.

We rode up Clarks, down Ghost Falls and stayed left on the new section of trail that took us over to the BST/Jeep road. We climed the Jeep road to the top of Ghost Falls, down Ghost Falls back to the car. The trails were in great shape. No mud but still tacky from the rain earlier that day. We got rained on a little bit as we got to the top of Ghost Falls the 2nd time but not enough to get muddy. By the time we got to the car, it was cold and raining harder.

Jamie managed to get his heart rate up to 224 on the 2nd climb. I was ready to dial 911. Not sure what was going on with Jamie but he was clearly not having a normal night. As soon as Tony and I sensed Jamie was not feeling good (something he ate, didn't eat, or a side effect of a new sports drink he tried), we decided to try and drop him so we could each claim for once in our lives, we were able to beat Jamie on a climb (the guy is sick fast).

(Jamies HR Chart)

It was a great ride. I always feel like I'm getting away with something on a nite ride. Everyone is sleeping, the trails are emplty. No rush to get back.

Thursday night seems like a good day for the next nite ride.....Anyone?