Normbrero

We make holes in teeth!

Monday, January 28, 2008

A New Bike Obsession Ensues

Coming at you Monday morning 3 days into the block and with a sore ass. Yes indeed that is correct, an aluminum hardtail for 2 days in a row leaves you with a sore rear-end. All the benefits of dropping 5 pounds off your other bike fade away rapidly when you bomb some of these LM trails on that jackhammer. There has to be a happy medium out there somewhere.

So it really is 5 pounds. I weighed the Dump Truck and it came in at 31+ pounds. Where does this weight come from? The frame and rear shock add 3 I guess. Then the fork is heavier on the FS. And I suppose the bars, grips, and brakes take up the rest. Just like that you have a bike that's heavy enough to ride DH runs on but without the 7 inches of travel. I'm in limbo with my bikes right now.

Saturday got some solid riding in with Chris, Chuck, and Bill down at Allaire. Boy has that placed changed. Fantastic park, great stuff. Last time I was there (years ago) it was sand central. These 3 guys are a pair of expert-level riders and a semi-pro. So this measly old sport class rider was pretty happy that I didn't get totally buried down there. I think they pulled up on the gas a hair after an hour because I started to fall off in a few spots. And by the end I was about done for. But all in all I was happy to be able to keep up with the pace, which was buzzing by my standards. I also got to ride Bill's 29er which was really nice and sheds even more doubt on my whole bike situation.

Yesterday I did basically a race simulation at Lewis Morris. I did the same course as the '07 race but on the HT bike. I pulled a 35 minute first lap but then went to shit with 38 and 40 minute laps after that. To be fair, I was tired from the day before at Allaire as well as having only gotten 5 hours of sleep. On top of that the bike was rough on the constant chatter of Lewis Morris. Finally it was goddamn cold and by 45 minutes in I had no working water bottle. Still, I was disappointed that I was only able to match my race time from this past year and not beat it.

This morning I was on the trainer again with 3 sets of 20 minute threshold intervals. The first was not too hard, the second definitely started to feel harder, and the third really started to make me want to be done. But in all a good workout for a Monday morning. I think before long I'm going to need to sprinkle in some more high-end efforts. Nothing crazy just yet but the time is coming fast to start working on the odds and ends that really make the difference between finishing 33rd and cracking the top 10 or even 5.

Penn Station, here we are. My legs hurt and I'm too tired to want to stand up. My wife asked my why I don't just take Monday off and ride Tue/Wed. My reply is that I like the idea of having 3 straight days off. That's what helps me wake up Monday and Tuesday, knowing that I'll get 3 decent nights of sleep after that.

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