Snow & Ice Test Bed

The basement is coming along nicely but I am waiting for some floor flashing before I can proceed with some more ‘core strength cross training’. So today was 4.5 hours of snow and ice riding. Old school style, ie: no special bike with fat tires (big sigh) I was actually planning on only 3 hours today, but I just had to check out this fire road I had never noticed before, well now I know were it goes……...

Also I was doing my TD Cold Test:
I ordered up some wool knee and arm warmers and new wool jersey so naturally I had to try them out today. Basically I wore most of my warm/rain TD clothing today. Only my toes got cold the last 45 min or so (started about 46 deg & was down to 30 deg or so by end) so I know I am good to go ‘warmth’ wise. Of course ‘rain’ is an other story/test.

Also pretzels, a plastic knife and a jar of peanut butter washed down with ice cold apple juice, now that’s TD training food!

Cross Training Program

>
Some hit the weight room
Some ride the trainer
Some brave the elements
and
Some move mass

At the bottom of these stairs lays phase 1 & 2 of my winter time cross training - Core Strength -program.


General Outline for Core Strength program is as follows:

Gather special tools, concrete saw, jack hammer, pick axe, shovels, 5 gal buckets etc.

Help fellow trainees prepare some mass with saw and jack hammer, pick axe, shovels etc. Transport prepared mass in 5 gal buckets from low elevation to higher elevation, empty buckets into large roll off containers(s). Repeat till 30 cubic yard of mass (about 30-40 tons) have been transported.

Phase 2 (phase 1 be done) will involve transporting buckets of rocky mass (about 15+ tones) from high elevation to a lower elevation, followed by transporting 3.5 tones of grey powdery mass in 80 lbs bags over same elevation change. Grey mass will then be mixed with H2O to the desired consistency and placed in the appropriate locations, ½ bucket at a time.

Once these two phases are complete I will have developed my core strength to a fine edge, but more importantly I will have prepared my mental motivation to really really want to get back on the bike!

Aerobars on a Mountain Bike?

It’s dark, snowy and 24.6° outside.

Time for a bit of winter time play.

Never ever used aerobars, ever, know almost nothing bout them. But I do know they seem to be popular on the Great Divide with the go fast crowd. Some of the TD racers are looking for that extra ½ to 2 mile/hr advantage. Others seem to be after the comfort of an additional position. Me, I am after comfort but hope for a bit of aero goodness. I chose some profile design T2+ aero’s because they clamp up high ‘on top’ of the bar and also because they can be adjusted in all dimensions.


Unfortunately Aerobar clamps are not made to fit mountain bike bars, the clamp is to large for the dia of the bar and the ‘bend’ of the bar tosses off the alignment of the aero’s. I dug up an old set of stout aluminum mtn bars to see just how much shimming I might need to do. Turns out with the old school bars the aero’s clamp ‘almost’ tight without any mod. I am encouraged that I can fit the aero’s to these bars without much tinkering. Of course in till I mount them up on a bike there is not much more I can trial & test but I it looks good at this point.


My biggest concern at this point is if the aeros are up high enough to comfortably rest my elbow/arms on. A position that racks my back would be 100% counter productive in a 100+ mile/day 25+ day race. More to come……….

Marshal’s Superior, and very precise & scientific, TDR Planning & Preparation

It is a backbreaking even tedious job, requiring dedication and many hard sacrifices. There will be many tough choices, days and days dedicated, scientific & highly focused, training time. But, well it’s just Got to be done, oh the pressure.

Hardware
Stage 1; gather up lots of stuff
Stage 2; order & build up hard tail bike
Stage 3; mate stuff to new bike
Stage 4; repeat stage’s 1 & 3 till sometime around say 11:30am on the 11th of June, 2010

Training
Stage 1; sell power meter and spend money on more important stuff like new frame bag, wool jersey, arm/knee warmers etc etc
Stage 2; do as many fun rides as/when possible through rest of 2009 in to 2010
Stage 3; Apply scientific ‘fit procedure’ to new bike, ie: ride new bike till knee hurts, “adjust-ride-adjust” things till knee stops hurting
Stage 4; fun rides with wife and son as much/long as they will
Stage 5; ride some more while happily playing, uh I mean training, experimenting with & testing, all the stuff from Hardware-Stage 3

NM Day Trip

Had to be in NM last week, got in a little exploren....



TD required food


Someone lived here, they passed on in 2006 according to the note



TD/NM backdrop

Fantasy Literature

Now that I have the GD maps I have been re-playing leaderboard spot tracks. Using the individual Spot tracks, call-in’s and these detailed maps it’s interesting to look closely at how different racers progressed down the route. How early did they usually start their day, how late did they ride, how far did they get per day, did they camp or fine a room etc etc.

Of course I am most interested in the riders who rode/raced at a 25-30 day finishing pace. That will be my pace and I think their experiences have the most to ‘teach’ me.

Michael Komp, 22 days into it, just past Hartsel

The more I delve into the ‘details’ of their rides the more intimidated, impressed, confident, worried, etc I become.

Long days with high mileage mixed in with ‘average’ days and the occasional shorter day…..happy call-in voices mixed with stressed voices….overcoming or succumbing to broken bodies and bikes….

So, lots of fun route and strategy ‘research’ taken place….even better that curling up under a warm ‘winter time’ blanket with a good Si Fy book.

AZT Revisited

Onward to S CA……Did 40 ‘dirt road’ miles yesterday on the GD route and a quick 15 miles of AZT singletrack today.