Tour de Cure 2008

With the creation of the Cycling Club at Sikorsky Aircraft, the leadership of employee participation in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure has fallen upon the club. The Tour de Cure is a fund raising bike ride, not a race, in which participants collect donations prior to the ride and on a designated date gather to celebrate what they've raised by going out for a bike ride together. The rides offered vary by location and often varying rides are offered at each location. Some do a handful of miles, others go for 100 miles.
Since I find myself in a leadership position within the club I find it obligatory to participate in one of our club's major charity events. As such, I will be riding the 100 mile route on June 8, 2008. I'm not usually one to ask for donations or participate in fund raisers, however I feel it my duty to ask those of you who find yourselves reading this blog to think about making a donation to the fight against diabetes. Any donation, big or small is welcome and I sincerely thank those of you who make a donation.

To make a donation surf over to my personal fund raising page and you'll find some links that will guide you in submitting your donation.

http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=5002&px=3347272

Some photos from a while back

Since Brialee, there has been a good amount of riding going on, though a little more could always do some good. I was taken away on a business trip to Orlando, FL for a few days following that race. Unfortunately I wasn't able to rest as much as anticipated so the days away weren't necessarily good rest days. However the last two weekends have been well spent with some significant rides on the trails as well as a few good road rides. Memorial day weekend couldn't have been much better, the weather was perfect for riding and resting.

I finally got around to finding a few pictures from Brialee, though I have yet to actually post the ones Chris took with my camera. Soon though. For now here are a couple links to follow to the mudfest pictures.

Scott 1
Taylor 1
Scott, approaching top of worst climb on course.

Pictures from the first Race at Hop Brook Dam:
Scott
Slightly hidden but I'm sitting in 5th off the start.
Getting ready at the start (Sikorsky Jersey)

Pictures from the Fat Tire Classic:
Taylor warming up
Tom warming up
Scott 1
Chris
Tom 2
Scott in the background to the left
Taylor finishing
Start of Sport race

Just a training ride.

Just a very painful training ride. Brialee was about what I remembered, rough, very rough, random lengths of mud, pea soup mud, water crossings, and generally painful. It was a fun course though, tested one's skills at riding over rocks, roots, sometimes both and sometimes both covered with mud. I found the worst mud hole on course, deeper than my hubs in fact. I think that's where my back brake stopped working very good. Then there was the giant puddle with a big rock in the middle that you couldn't see, one easy way to knock a person off their bike. I can't really even describe some of this to it's full potential so I won't try any further. You really just have to see it in person, or even better, try to ride it.

My first lap was not so great on the technical riding. Lap two was better, but I finally found my groove on the last lap. I was also finding that my legs were going to stay relatively strong through the last lap as well. I hadn't ridden particularly fast, I found a pace I felt good with for the day and held it. It was just a training ride as I see it, one of my hard training rides. At some points I was likely as far back as 10th or 12th, but as some people flatted and others cracked from going too fast at the start I finally moved up into 6th place. I made a least one pass by running (instead of trudging) through the mud and remounting cyclocross style. Thank you cyclocross.

As it were, the day was beautiful for a bike ride.

As soon as I find some pictures I'll throw up a few links. I hope another video of the riders' viewpoint shows up on youtube, this one would be good.

Qualified

I check the USA Cycling page, and it's official, I am now qualified to ride at the USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships. This year I'm focusing much more on this race for redemption from last year's terrible ride. The class is Sport Men 25-29 in the cross country discipline. This page has the latest update for rankings. You can also click here to search for other criteria.

Racer's point of view

Here's a good shot of the start from last week's race a winding trails. This one is from the racer's point of view, so you get a taste of what some of us see. It looks like it might be from the Sport 30-39 class, about two minutes after I'd started.

Where are the legs?

3 Races into the season, and I haven't had much to speak of for legs at any of them. It leaves me wondering, do I just not have the legs anymore, what am I doing wrong. Then I'm reminded, I don't need to be fast now, the time to be fast is national championships and 24 hours of great glen. The speed and legs will come in time. Plus, I haven't done much for intensity in my rides, mostly a lot of base miles.

Tonight I worked in the first real ride on the road bike with big intensity. It was time to get a hill climb ride in. So Chris and I first hit the hill on Mansion road, which is not an overly difficult or lengthy climb, but it makes one work. Then we worked our way to Holiday Hill. Oh the pain! I haven't felt much from my legs at this point in the ride, and now I'm doubting my ability to make the climb. Then Chris started to pull away. Thankfully he decided he was toast and slowed way up. Then we headed over to Horton Hill. I'd seen the hill once, by car. As soon as the road pitched up, I was in my easiest gear, standing and grinding some ridiculously slow cadence. We're talking 20+% grade for a good quarter mile. Somewhere on the way up my legs must have decided to come around, because I didn't feel too bad at the top and felt like I had a bit of spark on our trip back home.

There are some videos floating around from some of the recent races. I saw a good one today (click here) from the Fat Tire classic. About 18 minutes of pretty good shots. The elapsed time of the video is in the lower right corner of the player; times to watch closely are 1:15 (Chris), 5:40ish (myself), 6:20ish (Taylor), and 8:45ish (Chris again). Taylor and I were wearing the Sikorsky bright blue shorts with blue black and white top. Chris is in the Penn State blue and white top, and blue shorts. There are some fantastic spills when people hit the dip at the bottom of the hill!!