IGVENTURE
- Thread starter pooriggy
- Start date
ChrisG
Unapologetic Lifer for Rock and Roll
Ahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha:hysterica
All In
It's SS season for me. I've decided to do Lewis Morris, Kittatinny and DH40 on the SS. This means I have to put more miles on the GF Rig and get used to the 32X18. After doing 9 races with gears this season, I find it harder to ride without them. It's more work powering up climbs without the ability to shift gears but the next 3 races for me are SS friendly courses, so I'm going to give it a go.
Riding Lewis Morris a couple weeks ago with team mates, Kirt pointed out to me that the guys who race SS are all in, SS is what they bring to every race. So they have raced and trained for there specific class. True, those guys are dedicated to SSing but guys like David Van Wart are fast on anything they ride. Nonetheless I am going to put some time in to try and get stronger pedalling one gear. It does take some getting used to. My lack of hours on the SS last year prior to the DH40 race was detrimental to me. I was cramping before the end of the 1st lap. This year my goal is to have a stronger race for the DH40 and have some legs for lap 2.
These are my bf's from college, Keegan and Ragdoll. I met Keegan the 1st day of school in the dining hall. We used to love to bust on him because he was such a fag. He was ROTC until he pledged a fraternity with me and failed out. Law enforcement, parents and girls loved him because he was non threatening and a good influence.
Ragdoll could talk more then Utah and 2x as fast and he loved to argue. But he was great at talking to hot chicks, he was not afraid to approach them. We usually sent him in to break the ice then like sharks we would swarm in.
I lost touch with these guys over the years. They don't ride bikes or live in Cranford and we all got married and had kids, we moved on... it happens.
and i think i could bench more then jake back then, but then again jake was probably only 6yrs. old in 1988.
It's SS season for me. I've decided to do Lewis Morris, Kittatinny and DH40 on the SS. This means I have to put more miles on the GF Rig and get used to the 32X18. After doing 9 races with gears this season, I find it harder to ride without them. It's more work powering up climbs without the ability to shift gears but the next 3 races for me are SS friendly courses, so I'm going to give it a go.
Riding Lewis Morris a couple weeks ago with team mates, Kirt pointed out to me that the guys who race SS are all in, SS is what they bring to every race. So they have raced and trained for there specific class. True, those guys are dedicated to SSing but guys like David Van Wart are fast on anything they ride. Nonetheless I am going to put some time in to try and get stronger pedalling one gear. It does take some getting used to. My lack of hours on the SS last year prior to the DH40 race was detrimental to me. I was cramping before the end of the 1st lap. This year my goal is to have a stronger race for the DH40 and have some legs for lap 2.
These are my bf's from college, Keegan and Ragdoll. I met Keegan the 1st day of school in the dining hall. We used to love to bust on him because he was such a fag. He was ROTC until he pledged a fraternity with me and failed out. Law enforcement, parents and girls loved him because he was non threatening and a good influence.
Ragdoll could talk more then Utah and 2x as fast and he loved to argue. But he was great at talking to hot chicks, he was not afraid to approach them. We usually sent him in to break the ice then like sharks we would swarm in.
I lost touch with these guys over the years. They don't ride bikes or live in Cranford and we all got married and had kids, we moved on... it happens.
and i think i could bench more then jake back then, but then again jake was probably only 6yrs. old in 1988.
Lewis Morris
Last night was the 3rd time I rode the race course in the last 3 weeks. Every time I hit this I like it more and more. This course is fun because its a good mix of climbs and down hills. The course is the same direction as it was 2 yrs ago but this year the routing is way better. The first half of the course is more climbing like in the past but the climbs are broken up with more descents as well.
Utah and I took a 1/2 lap warm-up then went out for 2 at race pace. There was no way I was going to hang on Utah's wheel for these laps so he cleared the way for me as I followed him up. It was nice to bomb straight down hill after the bridge, yes they cleared the decapitation tree out. I stayed steady on the climbs, not wanting to blow up after 1 lap. About half way through I found Segundo on the trail...holy shit dude, where u been???
Segundo hopped on my train and we got caught up as I climbed out of the saddle on my 32X18. Segundo can still climb but his time away from the mtb as well as my time on the mtb meant I lost him on the downhills. Whaling down yellow is soo much fun, I crossed the line at 34 minutes. Utah was there to give me the high five.
After I got a phone call from my wife telling me that my son's 8th grade graduation was tonight and that I better get my ass home I decided to do another quick lap. I figured I was already in trouble so I might as well make it worth the spanking I'm gonna get when I get home.
Utah leads out and says lets take it back a notch, which means instead of him finishing 4 minutes in front of me he'll finish 3 minutes in front of me. The second lap feels good, not tired at all on climbs and the down hills feel so rewarding. Did I mention this is a really fast fun floweeee course?
Going down yellow I saw Jeff Drobits on his cell phone on the side of the trail, I said up up as I approached then looked and sayed oh, hi. He must have been getting yelled at by his wife too. I finish the roller coaster ride and cross the line at 34 minutes again...solid. I will be able to do sub 35 minutes laps for Sunday.
I didn't have time to chit chat, I headed straight to the car, changed sayed goodbye to Utah and Jeff and raced home. I made it to the graduation in time to see Jamie get his diploma and snap some pics. Surprisingly the wife wasn't mad at me so that means I probably could have done another lap.
Last night was the 3rd time I rode the race course in the last 3 weeks. Every time I hit this I like it more and more. This course is fun because its a good mix of climbs and down hills. The course is the same direction as it was 2 yrs ago but this year the routing is way better. The first half of the course is more climbing like in the past but the climbs are broken up with more descents as well.
Utah and I took a 1/2 lap warm-up then went out for 2 at race pace. There was no way I was going to hang on Utah's wheel for these laps so he cleared the way for me as I followed him up. It was nice to bomb straight down hill after the bridge, yes they cleared the decapitation tree out. I stayed steady on the climbs, not wanting to blow up after 1 lap. About half way through I found Segundo on the trail...holy shit dude, where u been???
Segundo hopped on my train and we got caught up as I climbed out of the saddle on my 32X18. Segundo can still climb but his time away from the mtb as well as my time on the mtb meant I lost him on the downhills. Whaling down yellow is soo much fun, I crossed the line at 34 minutes. Utah was there to give me the high five.
After I got a phone call from my wife telling me that my son's 8th grade graduation was tonight and that I better get my ass home I decided to do another quick lap. I figured I was already in trouble so I might as well make it worth the spanking I'm gonna get when I get home.
Utah leads out and says lets take it back a notch, which means instead of him finishing 4 minutes in front of me he'll finish 3 minutes in front of me. The second lap feels good, not tired at all on climbs and the down hills feel so rewarding. Did I mention this is a really fast fun floweeee course?
Going down yellow I saw Jeff Drobits on his cell phone on the side of the trail, I said up up as I approached then looked and sayed oh, hi. He must have been getting yelled at by his wife too. I finish the roller coaster ride and cross the line at 34 minutes again...solid. I will be able to do sub 35 minutes laps for Sunday.
I didn't have time to chit chat, I headed straight to the car, changed sayed goodbye to Utah and Jeff and raced home. I made it to the graduation in time to see Jamie get his diploma and snap some pics. Surprisingly the wife wasn't mad at me so that means I probably could have done another lap.
Pampa
Well-Known Member
Hey Chris! It was great to see you and Joe, even if for a brief moment 🙂 I have been riding my mtb every now and then, but mostly w/ my kids or some beginner friends. I was thinking about doing LM and Wed was a good reality check. I got drop like nothing by Joe, then by you (even in the climbs could not keep up after a while) and then by another guy on a SS. In any case, I'll try to make the race on Sunday to get my ass kicked and get some motivation to train hard for Kittatiny 🙂
Segundo, it was good to see you Wednesday. I have kids, so I know how hard it is to really train when you have a young family. You have the right attitude, ride when you can and be there for the kids. It gets easier as they get older to get away to do you're own thing. Your young yet, 5-6 yrs. from now I can see you being the guy to beat at cat 1 races.
See you Sunday.
See you Sunday.
Chris , nice job yesterday and thanks for the early race advice.. I have been use to just taking off and passing whenever I can, but it was too early and to fast for a pass of the fire rode climb in. Especially with the whole pack settling in on line. Thanks again and always a fun time at these events.
Thanks Mitch, it was good to see you at Lewis Morris. You were scaring me at the start of the race yesterday. The whole Cat 1 SS field was together going up the gradual climb to start the race and I could sense you getting edgy behind me and taking a lot of really bad lines. With 3 laps to go I knew there would be lots of places to advance and with everyone together at this point there was no need to burn energy to make moves. As long as the pack is together its best to sit in, when things start to spread out thats when you need to make decisions. Coming from the Cat 2 class you looked like you were ready to attack out of the gate.😀
Lewmo Recap
Cat 1 SS
The above pic sums up my race, I had fun before during and after the race. I parked next to Norm and Utah, threw my kit on and headed down to register and warm-up. I went out with Clapper and Rob for 1/2 a lap getting in some climbing and some downhill. At 10:00 I lined up next to Norm, Chris G and Mitch and when the guy beeped his horn we hit the pedals and spun up the road.
I felt good at the start and was kinda surprised at how easy the pace felt, when Mitch started getting antsy I told him to settle down, in a friendly kinda way. Norm was in front of me and I wanted to stay on his wheel. When he made a move around someone I did too, it just seemed right. Heading up the long gradual climb on teal we lost half our field, I called back to Mitch to come on but I found out later he was having tire issues.
Norm was always faster then me pre-riding this course but I was surprised that I was able to stay on his wheel today. About 1/2 way through the lap Joe Cruz (roadie from Mass.) caught me on a climb but he was kind enough to let me pass him back when we go into the single track. The 2nd half of the course has more downhills you could bomb, by the end of this lap Joe Cruz was no where in sight. First lap complete in 32 minutes, two minutes faster then my fastest pre-ride lap.
I stayed with Norm through lap 2, we passed one other Bulldog SSer on a climb, I think his name was Jeff. After this we didn't pass anyone else for the rest of the race. By lap 3 I began to fade and let a gap form between me and Norm. I kept calling out to him to see if he would wait up but he didn't stop.
Blasting down yellow for the last lap was fun, I enjoyed what was left of the race and pedaled across the finish line.
Brawley Chris MTBNJ.com-Halters Cycle Cat 1 Single-Speed 1:42:24.12
After the race I watched the cat 2 class go off and cheered for the podium winners. I was going to leave after he Cat 1 awards but the beers tasted good and was enjoying talking to everyone and snapping pics. I ended up staying for end of Cat 2 race and awards. Good times.
Thanks Marty dudes for a great race course and post race goodness!
I like capers but i didn't want to get too close to the sweaty caveman.
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just your typical sperm bank delivery bike.
Weekly recap
I met the crew at Norms house on Tuesday and we went out for a non kill ride, well maybe kill but then regroup. We had a bigger posse for this one, Utah, JP, EricO, Falco and Chris Ru. We followed a lot of the HG A ride with some deviation thrown in. This is the same ride we did a few weeks ago. I felt pretty good considering I raced Lewmo on Sunday. I felted well rested going into Lewmo so recovery was quicker.
The ride had the occasional attacks but given the size of the group and the fact that this is not a drop ride things didn't get too out of hand. The one thing of note that I felt really good on was an attack going up Pottersville road. Since being on my SS mtb I feel like I have more power, particularly when climbing out of the saddle on my road bike. I need to get together with that crazy russian and do the lebanon 52 again. Last year when I did the 52 for Fred's birthday ride, Ilaya attacked every climb. It was a great workout.
Today
I took a page out of Norm's training book and did 4x5's. I pedalled from my house to the swamp which is about 45+ minutes away. On the way there my legs didn't feel real snappy and wasn't expecting great results. The first one is the hardest, once you get into kill mode the remaining ones don't seem as long. After doing 4 of these my avg. speed was 24.3 mph, this was .45mph faster then the week before when I felt more rested. My legs didn't feel like they had a 5th since I pushed some climbs on Tuesday so I pedalled home content with my efforts. Since I don't have a pm I have to guage efforts by avg. mph. I use the swamp as the training grounds since the roads are flat and they accommodate my 5 minute intervals nicely. My guess is that 25mph is what the big boys are running for a 4x5 avg. I can climb but I need to work power on the flats.
I saw this today on fb...underwater photography.
Well July is here and so is the summer lull. This is a rest week for me, which is a good thing since its hot as balls out. Working out doors in this heat zaps your energy. I had all these chores lined up this week since I would have the extra time but after work I don't seem to be too productive these days.
I went to Allaire today on the SS after work. I was all sweaty before I even started my ride when I saw Mark Muller in the parking lot. He was checking out a cx bike from a Felt demo they set up in the parking lot. Kinda weird to set up a demo here on a weekday, on the day after 4 o July no less. Most folks are kinda hung over from the day before, I know I was sweating out a lot of impurities on my ride.
The Day Before
I'm a Cranford Jaycee, so that means on the 4th of July I volunteer to help run the Firecracker 4 Miler. Its a 4 mile race that attracts about 1,500 runners every year, its one of our biggest fundraisers. I was working behind the reg table giving out the T-shirts. 6 of us gave out 1,000 t-shirts in a little over an hour, it was nuts. The morning- of scene is always hectic until the gun goes off sending the runners on there way. This race has been put on by the Cranford Jaycees for over 30 yrs, its great to be a part of it...and its an organization run by guys so yeah we have a keg ready after we break down the race.
Later that night the wife and I walked to a friends house in Cranford, drank beer and watched fireworks from Nomahegan park. Cranford is a great place to be on the 4th😉
The guy to the right in bib #980 won it with a time of 21minutes. Sausage fest 4 miler.
I went to Allaire today on the SS after work. I was all sweaty before I even started my ride when I saw Mark Muller in the parking lot. He was checking out a cx bike from a Felt demo they set up in the parking lot. Kinda weird to set up a demo here on a weekday, on the day after 4 o July no less. Most folks are kinda hung over from the day before, I know I was sweating out a lot of impurities on my ride.
The Day Before
I'm a Cranford Jaycee, so that means on the 4th of July I volunteer to help run the Firecracker 4 Miler. Its a 4 mile race that attracts about 1,500 runners every year, its one of our biggest fundraisers. I was working behind the reg table giving out the T-shirts. 6 of us gave out 1,000 t-shirts in a little over an hour, it was nuts. The morning- of scene is always hectic until the gun goes off sending the runners on there way. This race has been put on by the Cranford Jaycees for over 30 yrs, its great to be a part of it...and its an organization run by guys so yeah we have a keg ready after we break down the race.
Later that night the wife and I walked to a friends house in Cranford, drank beer and watched fireworks from Nomahegan park. Cranford is a great place to be on the 4th😉
The guy to the right in bib #980 won it with a time of 21minutes. Sausage fest 4 miler.
Well my rest week is coming to an end and hopefully the weather will cool down so I will not melt in the heat. Next week is the Kittatinny race, I need to get the legs opened up this week and ready to race. Having ridden the race course already I know its going to be a fast fun one, like Lewis Morris. Something tells me I should have my chain checked for wear since its over a year old and I have been crankin on it pretty good lately. The chain is pretty thick though, it looks like it should last longer then a non SS chain. Maybe I'll go to High Gear this week and have them throw on a new Mr. T chain just to be safe.
There is not much for me to report so I'll just give a photo run down of what I do at work when its really hot out. I work on a golf course managing the operation of the maintenance and basically keeping the grass alive for the golfers.
Irrigation pond with view of the pump-house in background
On the weekend my day starts at 5am. Since the first tee times are 6am we have to get a head start getting the course prepped for the day and make sure we stay ahead of golfers teeing off. On a golf course the most important part of the day are the 1st 4hrs. This is the window we have to get what we need done before the course is overtaken by golfers. Once we are caught by golfers we have to work around golf play which means we are limited as to what we can accomplish.
Keeping grass healthy when its mowed at .140" in 90 degree temps takes a lot of effort. Irrigation is a big part of it. We have (2 )60 hp pumps, a cla-valve and a flowtronics panel to provide water pressure for the golf course. Luke is probably one of the few guys who can appreciate this kind of talk, but hey I'll throw it out there for any other pump geeks.
Throughout the golf course we have a network of pipes underground to distribute the water to sprinkler heads. These heads are activated by solenoids powered by wires. The wires are run to satellite boxes on the course which can be programed to operate at any time for any duration you want. We have over 20 satellite boxes on the course which are linked to a central computer in the office. Setting up programs to night water is very useful to irrigate over 200 acres of golf course. However with all this technology we still have to drag hoses around to hit areas on the greens that need more water or need to be cooled off during the heat of the day.
Irrigation head
Satellite boxes
Irrigation is one part of what we do on the course, spraying pesticides is another one but I'm sure the tree huggers don't want to hear about that🙂
There is not much for me to report so I'll just give a photo run down of what I do at work when its really hot out. I work on a golf course managing the operation of the maintenance and basically keeping the grass alive for the golfers.
Irrigation pond with view of the pump-house in background
On the weekend my day starts at 5am. Since the first tee times are 6am we have to get a head start getting the course prepped for the day and make sure we stay ahead of golfers teeing off. On a golf course the most important part of the day are the 1st 4hrs. This is the window we have to get what we need done before the course is overtaken by golfers. Once we are caught by golfers we have to work around golf play which means we are limited as to what we can accomplish.
Keeping grass healthy when its mowed at .140" in 90 degree temps takes a lot of effort. Irrigation is a big part of it. We have (2 )60 hp pumps, a cla-valve and a flowtronics panel to provide water pressure for the golf course. Luke is probably one of the few guys who can appreciate this kind of talk, but hey I'll throw it out there for any other pump geeks.
Throughout the golf course we have a network of pipes underground to distribute the water to sprinkler heads. These heads are activated by solenoids powered by wires. The wires are run to satellite boxes on the course which can be programed to operate at any time for any duration you want. We have over 20 satellite boxes on the course which are linked to a central computer in the office. Setting up programs to night water is very useful to irrigate over 200 acres of golf course. However with all this technology we still have to drag hoses around to hit areas on the greens that need more water or need to be cooled off during the heat of the day.
Irrigation head
Satellite boxes
Irrigation is one part of what we do on the course, spraying pesticides is another one but I'm sure the tree huggers don't want to hear about that🙂
yeah, its just a point and shoot camera. i do use the photo editing software on my mac. this is pretty much the beauty i see at work everyday...the mornings can be surreal.(especially when u wake up at 3:30am).
i have adobe photoshop on my $2000 facebook machine computer but its just way to complicated to use. i do like the mac for editing, its so much faster/user friendly.
i have adobe photoshop on my $2000 facebook machine computer but its just way to complicated to use. i do like the mac for editing, its so much faster/user friendly.
So lets revisit the HG A ride, since this is what I did last night.
The usual Tuesday night ride out of Norm's house wasn't happening due to a rest week for Utah & Norm. I was itching to get out and throw down so I met the roadies at High Gear last night. There we're 10 of us that headed out, the only ones I knew by name were Esnes, Ray, Jon Sellers and Jeff Woliver. I recognized some of the other guys and some I never met.
10 cyclist seemed like the right amount on the busy roads although double pace line along Burnt Mills Rd is like the Corvair...unsafe at any speed. I hadn't done this ride since April 24, this is when we (Norm, Utah, Eric...) were showing up everyweek and working this ride hard. Without Utah and Norm out front driving the pace from the get go, last nights ride was very crit-like. There were times that the pace seemed to crawl along then at other times things got real quite and the paceline surged forward. I find the rollers on Lamington to be the hardest part of this ride, its a long stretch with a paceline that we drill up & down hills.
Overall the ride felt easier to me but then again I am in seasoned race shape now. It may have been easier without the winds we had in April. My avg. HR for this ride was in the 150's back in April, last night is was in the 140's...that's tempo pace for me. The pace was 21.7 mph avg, which is normal.
Everyone has their favorite part of this ride they like to attack on, for me its the climb up Liberty Corner. Since I was at the front at the start of this climb my plan to attack turned into setting the lead out for others to attack. I was able to drop half the group as I pulled 5 other guys behind me but halfway up they said thanks and left me to chase them. This is always the hardest part of competitive road riding, answering to a counter attack after you damn near blow yourself up. I managed to catch these guys on the downhill after the goofy 4-way stop.
I like doing this ride, as a competitive cyclist its a ride that I need to keep in the rotation. I believe in having several go-to rides that will help keep me in race shape. Whether it be attacking hills with teammates, doing intervals in the Great Swamp or going on a 3 hour tempo ride. These are hard rides but each are difficult for different reasons. Also, mentally going over the same interval workout week after week would drive me nuts...it feels good to switch things up occasionally.
Sorry no pics today, I'm at work and I left my $2,000 FB machine at home.
The dude abides.
The usual Tuesday night ride out of Norm's house wasn't happening due to a rest week for Utah & Norm. I was itching to get out and throw down so I met the roadies at High Gear last night. There we're 10 of us that headed out, the only ones I knew by name were Esnes, Ray, Jon Sellers and Jeff Woliver. I recognized some of the other guys and some I never met.
10 cyclist seemed like the right amount on the busy roads although double pace line along Burnt Mills Rd is like the Corvair...unsafe at any speed. I hadn't done this ride since April 24, this is when we (Norm, Utah, Eric...) were showing up everyweek and working this ride hard. Without Utah and Norm out front driving the pace from the get go, last nights ride was very crit-like. There were times that the pace seemed to crawl along then at other times things got real quite and the paceline surged forward. I find the rollers on Lamington to be the hardest part of this ride, its a long stretch with a paceline that we drill up & down hills.
Overall the ride felt easier to me but then again I am in seasoned race shape now. It may have been easier without the winds we had in April. My avg. HR for this ride was in the 150's back in April, last night is was in the 140's...that's tempo pace for me. The pace was 21.7 mph avg, which is normal.
Everyone has their favorite part of this ride they like to attack on, for me its the climb up Liberty Corner. Since I was at the front at the start of this climb my plan to attack turned into setting the lead out for others to attack. I was able to drop half the group as I pulled 5 other guys behind me but halfway up they said thanks and left me to chase them. This is always the hardest part of competitive road riding, answering to a counter attack after you damn near blow yourself up. I managed to catch these guys on the downhill after the goofy 4-way stop.
I like doing this ride, as a competitive cyclist its a ride that I need to keep in the rotation. I believe in having several go-to rides that will help keep me in race shape. Whether it be attacking hills with teammates, doing intervals in the Great Swamp or going on a 3 hour tempo ride. These are hard rides but each are difficult for different reasons. Also, mentally going over the same interval workout week after week would drive me nuts...it feels good to switch things up occasionally.
Sorry no pics today, I'm at work and I left my $2,000 FB machine at home.
The dude abides.
Random backyard pic of me and my twin. Mark was always more of the hell raiser then me but he stopped drinking and got real religious. This means he's not as much fun as he used to be but just as well, fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. Growing up there were times I wanted to kill him for the shit that he did, and sometimes we did kill each other. When we were apart at college thats when we came to appreciate each other. He was still a knuckle head but I could deal with him as long as we weren't around each other too much. My wife didn't care for Mark much when we met, he is better behaved these days so all is good. I thought you needed to know these things...so now ya know.
I Rode my bike today. After work this morning I headed over to Allaire to get in a pre-race tune up ride on the SS. My suspicions of having a stretched chain were correct. Juan at HG told me it was 4, I'm not sure what that means but I do know he put on a new chain for me.
When I was on the trails I met Arwen's Mom. I passed a women on a bike with home made fenders on the front, having read a post from AM about having fenders this lead me to stop and say are you Arwen's Mom. Now the woman didn't look at me confused when I said this but smiled and said yes I am. It was nice to meet AM, she was very personable...like her posts.
I continued on my ride, heading down to the hog bog, over to tiger woods, then to blue and white. On the blue trail I slid out on some sand and went down in some mt laurel. It was a gentle slide without much speed however I managed to mangle my left index finger between the bar and brake lever. When I looked at this finger I was surprised to see it all akimbo. The finger was swollen an numb, since I couldn't feel any pain I grabbed it and gave a yank to straighten it. This helped but it was still bent. I didn't want to take my glove off so I left it on and finished riding towards glass, then those twisties heading to the parking lot.
Once at the car I took my glove off and saw my finger out of joint. It didn't hurt much but I couldn't bend it. I cruised home then went to the ER so they could pop it back in place. I am glad I let the doc do it, he numbed the finger and it made and audible pop when it went back into place. They x-rayed it while I was there, nothing broken and no chips floating around.
I am on the fence about racing KVSP tomorrow, I'll have to see how the finger feels in the morning. Right now its sore and it hurts to bend it, I could brake with my middle finger but the thought of going down and hitting this finger again is enough to make me thing twice. It will be a game day decision.
Before
After
