Rob Ballou

One of these things

... should be found on a bicycle. The other should not:

Props to friendly people on the Maplewood Bicycle Tuesday ride for help wrestling tires I will never buy again.

Back in action

Many exciting things have happen since the last time we met:

Django 1.0 was released and trying to update to the new version broke my site (more correctly, I didn't read any documentation about the upgrade process... so I broke it)! I've finally pieced things together so that they seem to be working again.

My first race

I placed 7th out of 13 in the beginner race at the finale of the local dirt crit series. This was my first mountain bike race, so I arrived early, watched the A race, the B race and chatted up some folks. When the C race set out, I was determined not to be the first through the chutes and by the time we reached the singletrack I had succeeded in that: I was close to the back. At one point I saw an opening to pass some folks, so I started up the right side unfortunately at the same time as someone else. I caught his wheel and went down, throwing me into last place. I remember rolling, ducking and almost colliding with another rider who was behind me as I came up. My chain had of course fallen off, and everyone was at the creek by the time I got back on the bike.

Adrenaline pumping, I began a slow march of catching people. The creek crossing, which I handled fine on the first two laps became more and more sloppy as the race went on. I yo-yo'd with a few guys at this point, but was able to finish well, considering. Speed felt good and my base seemed to be able to handle the short lap count and I think I could have put down a little bit more speed (but maybe not another lap!).

Burin' 2008

The next weekend after the dirt crit, I took on a bigger, badder challenge: the 6-hour solo race for Mesa Cycles' Burnin' at the Bluffs. This is a 6/12 hour race at Council Bluff. It goes without saying that this was my first endurance bike race, but this was the first time I would have spent 6 hours on a bike, let alone my mountain bike (I've done about 80 miles on my road bike which took around 5 hours). Again, I didn't want to be out anywhere near the guys gunning for the fastest lap competition, so I jogged out the Le Mans start towards the back, hoped on and waited through the line at the first bit of singletrack. After a few position changes, I settled in behind a few folks and just pedaled on through.

I passed a couple folks, but not many, but I began to develop a serious issue with my rear derailleur where it was skipping horribly. For the dirt crit, it wouldn't have been an issue because there were little to no hills to deal with. C-Bluff, though, throws down at least three note-worthy climbs (including the one mile climb to get to the start/finish!), so this was pretty bad timing for this issue . So I took some time for a bit of mechanical help between this lap, with the assurance from Scott that my pace was above what I needed for my goal of three laps.

From what I remember, the second lap felt good. I had less issues with climbing (still a bit, but I could ride up hill!) and was able, I felt, to put down some decent speed from time to time. I started getting lapped by some fast guys, but things were going well for me.

When I came in from that lap, I decided to put down some solid food and sit for a minute. Either or both of these were a mistake. The first four miles of the course, I felt off and a bit sick to the stomach. Finally put off these feelings, but the energy was zapped. I took basically any chance I could to rest, took in a lot of fluid and gel, trying to see if that was the issue. But I was pretty much done. The last lap was a pace-killer. After my first couple laps, there was a possibility that I could finish with four laps if I went over 6-hours, but I rode in at 6:25 with 3 laps.

I can't really complain about the race: it was fun, I met my goal of three laps, and I turned out faster-than-expected lap times. And I know what I need to do next year! For 2008, I ended up in 12th out of 20 in the men's 6 hour solo. Not sure if I will hit the 6-hour next year or the 12-hour team, but I'm planning on being there again.

Up next in the race world for me is the Castlewood 8 hour race! This will be the first outing for the "Rubber Side Down" team and the best to date!

Burin' at the Bluffs 2008 photo by WTBiker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wtbiker/

Moving forward

After my half-marathon was cancelled, I decided to concentrate the sights on two-wheels instead of two-feet. So I began plotting: it's the end of the road season and there are a few mountain events left on the calendar. So, I have my first two MTB events that I'm going to try: a short dirt-crit and a 6 hour solo.

With that in mind, I got much saddle time this weekend:

• Shirtripper and Bathew agreed to heading out to St. Chuck for some mountain time. Little did they know, I hadn't really calculated the distance we were going to ride. They ended up doing a truly epic job on a 23 mile stint through single-track and rail trail.


• The next morning I took off for Creve Coeur for the St. Louis Meetup's TDF Creve Coeur. This event was originally planned near the actual TDF, but got pushed back. Anyway, I had planned on a 50-miler, but it turned into a monster 36-mile with some Hills (with a capital H). I discovered I have an ok burst of speed, but just can't keep it going for longer sprints. And I suck on the hills (in retrospect, I did hammer one hill, only to find that it wasn't a KOM!), but that's not a big surprise. First sprint of the day was an interesting one because it kicked out a bit early and a front group (with a few 1/2 guys that raced in St. Gen on Saturday) ripped open a gap, that I closed but essentially dripped my power to nothing. Then we took a steep hill (rough calc: 11% grade, about 193 foot climb) for KOM points. I was reserved to the middle of the pack on this one. On the final descent back to the lake, I found myself in five-spot behind the ride leader (who pulled pretty much the entire thing), two young 1/2s, and another speedy guy. At the base of the descent, the 1/2's made a gap like it was nothing. I sucked past the other two and tried to bridge. I passed the lead out rider after he dropped off and still hammered, but then looking at the distance I called it a day, got passed and ended up fourth!


• Having bought a new bike this past week, I wanted to get some more mountain time, so I hit up CWood in the evening. While I can't say I was happy with a couple things on the ride (still having trouble climbing Justin's), it was great training ride. Have to say, an evening ride on a Sunday > a mid-morning ride on Sunday at the park. A few other bikes out, saw one or two hikers, but not the usual mob that usually takes to the trails. The lower half of the park is still closed due to flooding.

We'll see if I have legs in the morning for a commute or if it's going to be a lazy-drive-to-work-day.

And the race is cancelled

I left yesterday morning, dragging myself through the rain to the airport via a ticket-less ride on the Metrolink (install covered ticket machines and you may have made $4; wet money does not work well for buying tickets from a machine). Landing at Dulles it was warm and sunny, as perfect weather as can be expected for a half-marathon at the end of the summer.

That was, if we would have ran the race Thursday or Friday. Tonight, tropical storm Hanna is heading this way and so the folks at the North Face Endurance Challenge cancelled the race. I can't completely disagree with their reasoning. Beyond the safety concerns of people, the trails would be destroyed after several thousand people ran a race in a downpour.

And now I'm left figuring out if I want to try to get an event in before the end of the year. This was going to be my big event of the year, closing out the summer season and providing a marked transistion from concentrating on running to a focus on cycling. Now I may take on some of a trail-running series or find an end-of-the-year mountain bike races (road races are pretty much over). I hopefully will have lined up enough funds for a new mountain bike by the end of the month, which is exciting!

Vacation

It's been so long since I've updated this site, it feels awkward updating it to say that I will be away for a week, but it's true. Don't be too sad :)

I'm heading out to West Virginia for some mountain biking and hiking. This may be the first year that I don't head to Colorado in the summer, but maybe I will western sun in August or September. I may moblog a bit from the road, depending on cell phone signal and pictures that work from an iPhone (if only their was a CF card reader for the iPhone!) as I most likely will not have the laptop.