The Manimal

Qualcomm / SD Bike Racing

2010-02-10T16:29:00.005-06:00

Well it's been a while since I updated this and a lot has happened. I finally found and have subsequently started a job at Qualcomm. Its not a full engineer position but its a foot in the door at one of the top tech companies in the world. My position right now is running ATE (automated test equipment) for Qualcomm's QCT division. The hours aren't the best (nights 10pm - 6am) and has put a hamper on riding the bikes.

From Drop Box

I have however still done a few races while working the night shift. One a cross country race in Florida Canyon near Balboa Park here in San Diego. A few of the guys I ride with on Wednesday nights did it as well so it was good to have some people at the race I knew. This was the first cross country mountain bike race in San Diego in quite a few years so it was fairly big news in the cycling community.

From Drop Box

The start to the race was crazy, they started all CAT 2/3's together, which was well over 100 people. Luckily the beginning was fire road with plenty of spots to pass but it still made you burn your matches passing people. I was feeling alright and was in the top third of riders when we hit the singletrack. It was hard to tell who was in your division so I had no idea of placing until the end. The course was pretty tame and a few guys were racing cross bikes.

From SD Mtn Biking

I made a big mistake in the race though and forgot how many laps I had done, and ended up doing an extra. The people doing the timing didn't catch it either and my final time was with doing one extra lap, the same amount the pro's were doing. I wasn't close to winning this race though so it didn't matter, I just got in a little more of a workout.

I have gotten to do one more race in as well since being employed, and that was a 12 hour race in Temecula, CA at Vail Lake. The San Diego area had been hit by a ton of rain and I was expecting the race to be canceled but due to the sandy nature of the course and some reroutes the race was still a go. The course wasn't that bad either but it was a little sticky and muddy in a few sections. I was part of a 4 man team with guys I ride with every Wed. night. Most of the people seemed to love the course but it just wasn't my style of riding.

From SD Mtn Biking

We were all planning on doing 3 laps giving us a total of 12 laps but on my last lap I had 2 flats and had to bum a tube off of one of the guys at the aid station. I was too worried to keep going and get another flat so I cut the course there to tag my other teammate. We ended up with 11 laps dropping us to 14th place out of 20.

Beechwood

2009-11-02T10:03:00.003-06:00

From Beechwood

This last week I was up in the family hunting cabin in St. Mary's, PA. However the hunting would not be done by me but my Dad, cousin Bill, and Uncle Carl. A few other people made there way in and out of the camp (Gary, Art, and Ken) but my Pop was the only one not hunting who stayed the whole week. I was lucky enough to bring my bike to Pennsylvania for some mountain biking and I was specifically looking forward to the R3 ride in RothRock State Forest in State College and the Allegrippis Trail in Raystown Lake. The local bike shop here in town El Camino Bike Shop was kind enough to let me borrow the Swami's bike travel case for the trip free of charge. The shop also helped me out as 2 days before leaving as I ripped my rear derailleur of my Merlin on my weekly Wednesday night ride along with breaking the rear derailleur hanger. I had a spare derailleur hanger and was able to find a XT Shadow derailleur in town and they got me running up in a couple hours, so big thanks to Will at El Camino.

From Beechwood

My Dad and I flew into Buffalo, NY rented a car and drove the 3 hours down into Beechwood making it there at 3 in the morning. The next day nobody was allowed to hunt being Sunday so the 3 hunters went out to clear the old logging trails they used for there 4 wheelers. I put my bike together and planned a route out on some of the maps on mostly old logging roads, putting in about 20 miles. The next day everyone was up early to eat breakfast before the hunt and I decided with the good weather I would head down to ride the R3 route. I arrived around 10 am and looked for the local shop that IMBA had listed (Mount Nittany Wheelworks) but it has closed down. I tried some other bike shops listed in my GPS but to no avail I guess I would have to go mapless. Luckily when I got back to the trailhead a guy riding a cyclocross bike on the dirt roads was kind enough to give me his map. The trails aren't well marked so having a map is key to ride here, this is the map I used. Even with the map I was having a tough time following the R3 route. The first bit of the trail (Lower->Sand Spring->Balk Knob Ridge) I got on was extremely wet and at most times the trail was a creek. After finishing the first loop I headed back up to the road and climbed up to where the Mid State Trail intersects and descended onto Little Shingletown trail. It got tricky on the Sand Spring trail descent off of Little Shingletown especially with all the leaves covering the rocks. I did a superman on the descent as a rock hidden under all the leaves surprised me. I heard the Stan's sealant tried to seal up my tire as I put a hole on a knob and rolled the tire of the rim. It sealed it up but not after losing quite a bit of air pressure. After pumping the tire back up it looked as if my rim got tweaked from my tumble. So I decided to call it quits to prevent anymore damage to my front wheel and headed to a bike shop the guy who gave me the map called appropriately The Bicycle Shop. They inspected the wheel and determined I messed up the tire and the rim was fine. I was disappointed to not be able to finish the whole route but was glad that I didn't break another part on my mountain bike.

From Beechwood

The next day with the weather still cooperating I headed down to Raystown to ride the Allegrippis trail. These trails were very well marked and didn't require a map as out on the trail at some intersections that had maps posted. The trail was extremely fun but a lot less technical then the R3 trail I had ridden the previous day. They flowed extremely well and I was able to ride everything they were to offer.

From Beechwood

The next few days were rained out and I only got out on the dirt one more day following my Pop and Uncle Carl on the logging roads behind the camp on there 4-wheelers. The roads were still pretty soft and the descent back down to camp was very slick. It was a great trip and it was good to ride my mountain bike in the woods for a while as compared to the desert here in So Cal.

From Beechwood

Levyland Wedding

2009-09-21T14:52:00.003-05:00

From Wedding

Well the day finally came 2 years after getting engaged and it came pretty fast. It ended up being perfect weather and almost all of the Ellsworth's made it from the New England area and so did the Holmes' from Canada. Sarah and I stayed at Levyland the first night before any family or friends arrived. It's a very eccentric house and would be a very weird place to live by yourself or even with another person. It made for a great location though and a lot of my family used it for a base station when going to the beach.

From The Manimal

Corey arrived on Wednesday and we tried to climb Mt. Palomar but I had to bail about half way up as I wasnt feeling it that day. The next day Todd arrived and we (Corey, Wyatt, and Chase) all went to K1 to try our hand in some serious Go-Kart racing. Todd ending up spinning out on one of the S curves and I ended up colliding with him head on, sending my camera and his Iphone out onto the track. We picked them up after the race and luckily neither were broken just some minor bumps and bruises. Chase also ended up shutting down one of the races on the same S curve as he pinned himself underneath the barriers. It was a lot of fun and I think we all had a good time with lots of wisdom disposed on little Wyatt.

From The Manimal

I also conned Todd into doing a short mountain bike ride up La Costa Canyon, a local trail that I ride frequently since its a bike ride away from the house. Todd hasnt spent much time riding so he was hurting climbing all the way up the mountain but we all made it up to the top for the fun descent back down. I think it was just the right length for all of us and we celebrated with fish taco's from Rubios.

From Wedding

On Saturday was the big day and most of the day was spent lounging around. I wasn't really nervous at all except when I was standing in front of everybody waiting for Sarah to come down the aisle. Levyland turned out better then I thought with the exception of the ant invasion and a few uninvited guests (luckily not on the wedding day). We did have a few hiccups with the song for our first dance skipping and the party being shut down at 11 pm due to noise complaints. I think everyone still had fun and we all got to dance for quite a few hours. It was something Im glad I did as it brought of all our families together and will be a day I never will forget.

From Wedding

Engagement Photos / Back in Encinitas

2009-07-17T15:33:00.002-05:00

Well not much has been going on since graduation, still looking for a job for a year and then try for grad/med school. I have interviewed a few places one of them being pretty exciting as a project manager on Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, CA. I have been riding a bit too with a local club / race team here in North County called Swami's. It's been tough going though riding with them, as I came in with pretty good fitness and high expectations of being able to stay with the group, but the hills have had other ideas. Its almost like I have moved up from the minor's into the big league with the quality of riders here as compared to Lafayette. Hopefully it makes me faster as well.

From Engagement Photos

Its been pretty boring with little to no income. I try not to drive anywhere and keep any other expenditures to a minimum. The wedding though is slowly draining our account with all the little stuff needed for it. It is almost completely planned and paid for as we have met with our caterer, DJ, and photographer. We have one last meeting with the caterer on Monday to do a walk through of Levyland to figure out placing of our buffet stations and tables.

From Engagement Photos

Last Wednesday we had our engagement photo session with our photographer, Katy Regnier. Comes to find out she is an architect and gave it up to become a photographer. She seemed very intelligent and artistic to boot. After seeing the photos we aren't one bit worried about how the wedding photos will come out. Here are a few of my favorite.

From Engagement Photos

Graduation

2009-05-21T17:54:00.000-05:00

After 4 years of studying Electrical Engineering I have finally finished. Sarah's parent's came out to help us move back to Encinitas and see my graduation. They got here on the Thursday before and helped us pack and load up the Uhaul.

From Graduation / Road Trippin'

We took them to New Orleans on Saturday to eat some beignets at Cafe Du Monde and check out Bourbon Street. They didn't seem to like the city that much with the exception of the architecture.

From Graduation / Road Trippin'

Sunday was my graduation and at this point the Uhaul was completely packed with the exception of a few bikes that I had to ship. It was kinda of bittersweet to graduate as I had made a lot of good friends in Louisiana and good ties to the local bike shops. The last 4 years were probably the best of my life, even though money was tight, we always seemed to be able to still do plenty of things.

From Graduation / Road Trippin'

The road trip was pretty uneventful except for the stop in Austin where we stayed at the Hotel San Jose which was a quirky little hotel in the SoCo district. We walked down to a tex-mex place just down the street (Guero's) that was quite good. The next day I headed down early to check out Mellow Johnny's which was fairly impressive with all the Lance memorabilia and quite a nice selection of bikes.

From Graduation / Road Trippin'

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful with us stopping at Ft. Stockton, TX and Tucson, AZ for the next two nights. It was good to finally make it back to Encinitas except for the unpacking.

Bike Camping in Alexandria

2009-05-13T14:57:00.000-05:00

From Camping in Alexandria

Since I had the week off of school before graduation, myself and 5 of my buddies decided to head to Alexandria to do some camping biking in the Kisatchie national forest. One of the guys had just bought a BOB trailer so he was itching to try it out. The plan was two head out from Evangeline camp ride the bikes for a mile or so to a nice campsite by the creek and get up the next morning for a ride.

From Camping in Alexandria

We setup camp and the weather called for some light rain that night. Two of the guys didnt have any sort of rain protection so they built a lean to out of some downed trees and branches. After starting a fire and sitting around we all got pretty bored so we decided to get on our bikes and go buy a couple of cases of beer to pass the time. Unbelievably I could fit a whole case in my Osprey talon pack.

From Camping in Alexandria

I ended up not taking my sleeping bag on this trip as the low was going to be in the 70's but that night I found out that I should of brought something such as a blanket. In the morning we all woke up to bike over to Lake Valentine for a swim as the day was quickly heating up. We made it over there and the water/campground was closed which was a bummer as we were all hoping to fill up once we got there. The swimming wasn't too good there so we decided to head over to the west boat ramp of Lake Kincaid. We all jumped in a cooled off and a few of the guys were spent so I headed back to the truck and picked them up and drove back to the trailhead.

From Camping in Alexandria

We were all pretty tired at this point so we all just lounged around and cooked dinner. The next morning we went down to the east boat ramp of Lake Kincaid and setup our ramp at the end of the dock. We all took turns launching off the ramp into the lake on a dumpster diver bike that one of the guys had gotten just for this purpose.

From Camping in Alexandria

Mississippi Gran Prix

2009-04-20T12:37:00.003-05:00

The Race of the South or MSGP was my first foray into stage racing and only my second road race (the first being the Rouge Roubaix). I wasn’t too nervous with the exception of the criterium. Watching the 1,2,3’s on Friday night navigate 90 degree turns at speeds in excess of 30mph and hitting bumps on the road causing there wheels to leave the safety of the road wasn’t helping my confidence either. There race wasn’t much different then a NASCAR or F1 formula event with the sounds of motors being replaced by the sound of deep dish carbon rims. The ability of Glenn, Jacob, Jeb, and Brian to hang on to World and National champions wheels gave me a new found respect for the type of athlete’s these guys are. While not all of our team was able to hang on for the full 60 minutes there ability to compete with guys of this caliber is nothing short of spectacular.

From Road Biking in the South East

Saturday morning was the beginning of my race weekend beginning with a 25-mile road race on a rolling hills course. The CAT 5’s were the last to start and I tried to go over in my head all of the advise and tips that everyone in the team had given me especially Jonathan Falgout and Matt Billeaud who had gone one, two in this road race the previous year. As I pulled up to the line I saw a group of about 10 guys from Absolute Racing at the front all looking pretty strong. I settled near the back of the group but wasn’t planning on being there very long as I was hoping to avoid any crashes that I have heard are prevalent in CAT 5 races. The race actually started pretty mellow and I quickly worked my way to the front of the peloton. My teammate Tony Morrow was just in front of me when someone clipped his front wheel and I thought for sure he was going down taking me with him. He was able to keep himself vertical luckily for me and I thought to myself not bad for a roadie and especially a tri-geek. Soon after Tony moved to the front and pushed the pace for a while, after he dropped back I didn’t see him for the remainder of the race, as come to find out he flatted shortly after. The rest of the race was spent covering attacks made by Absolute Racing by myself and 5 others. With 5 miles to go Absolute Racing made there way up to the front and we all knew what was going to happen next. They launched an attack with three of there guys on the second to last hill and I tried to follow the rider’s wheel in front of me but he was unable to hold the person’s wheel in front of him and I wasn’t strong enough to bridge the gap. I stayed with a group of three riders all the way until the finish line beating them in the final sprint for a 9^th place finish.

From Road Biking in the South East

Later that day was the time trial and would be only my third time on a time trial bike. Don Kent let me borrow his bike for the event so a special thanks goes out to him. I knew that my chances for a good placing in the TT wasn’t going to be easy as the guy who won the road race was some big shot triathlete (Ben Hall). Luckily it was only 4 miles long so the suffering was hopefully going to last less the 10 minutes. I knew my teammate Tony Morrow would have a strong showing as he spends most of his time on his TT bike. I ended up with a time of 9:39 for a 10^th place finish and Tony ended up beating me by 10 seconds giving him a top ten placing as well.

From Road Biking in the South East

Sunday was the last day of racing being in the form of a 30 minute criterium. The rain from the previous night left the streets wet with a few puddles under the overhanging trees. The race started off pretty fast and I stayed in the middle of the pack trying to stay out of the wind and from taking any pulls. After a lap or two the pace picked up and when I looked up to see who the culprit was low and behold its my teammate Tony pulling us around the course. I stayed with the lead group a few more laps until someone attacked and I was unable to go with them and settled into a chase group of 4. We were never able to catch back up with the lead group and I ended up winning the sprint out of the other 4 in my chase group to end up with 8^th place.

Oak Mountain

2009-04-16T19:23:00.000-05:00

While on spring break I decided to head to Oak Mountain State Park with Peter, Philip and James for some mountain biking. I had the MSGP coming up so I wasn't going to push it this trip but decided to bring the Rig since my next big mountain bike race is Syllamo. Peter and I headed up Tuesday afternoon to camp do a quick ride Wednesday morning then head back. James and Phillip were already in Hunstville so they just drove down in the morning to meet us. I cooked up some breakfast burritos in the morning and go ready to ride.

From South East Mountain Biking

We got on the trail about nine and started on the North Trailhead where the fire road climb is. This was the first time I had done any extended climbing on the Rig and it did a fairly good job even though I felt faster climbing it on the Merlin the last time I rode this trail. We hit the bmx track for a while too which was a ton of fun especially when I locked out the fork.

From South East Mountain Biking

Ouachita Callenge -80 Miler

2009-04-06T08:50:00.001-05:00

From South East Mountain Biking

I had originally planned on doing the 60 mile version until the Cohutta fell through due to my FE or EIT test was scheduled for the same day. I was pretty bummed about this as I was hoping to do something big this year being my last semester of undergrad. Luckily one of the guys on my road team had signed up to the 80 miler but due to conflicts was unable to go. I took his spot and was able to find Phil who I was car pooling with someone to transfer with. I knew the OC 80 was going to be harder then Cohutta as the OC has about 10-15 miles of roads with the rest being singletrack as where the Cohutta has about 65 miles of road and 35 miles of singletrack.

We arrived in Mena, AR Saturday afternoon and explored the Talimena Scenic Drive something I had been on before on my bike camping trip but not the section we explored. The race had quite a few pros coming out from Colorado as the race is making quite a name for itself. The hotel parking lot was littered with Texas license plates as a bunch of Texans come up to do this race also.

Sunday morning on the way to the race a little drizzle started to fall and the winds started picking up. Looking at the weather forecast a front was moving in and going to cause the temperatures to drop considerably. I picked up my number and packet and got my bike ready. I setup near the back of the pack so as to not go out to hard as we were starting the same time as the 60 milers. When we started I rode up to the middle of the pack and stayed there for most of the road.

I moved up on the initial singletrack climbing as 20 or so riders were on the side with flats already. I tried to climb smooth and easy as I knew I would be in for a long day of riding. When we first hit the Womble we had a bottleneck and I was forced to get off my bike and walk a bit, but everyone was very cordial and the road did a much better job of separating everyone as compared to Syllamo. Checkpoint one was 20 miles into the ride and I stopped and notice my QR rear skewer was loose which has been a common theme with the Ellsworth skewers. I tightened it down again ate some of my energy bars and started back up on the Womble. This is where the 60 miler's turned off and took the road skipping the best part of the Womble.

From South East Mountain Biking

I started feeling cramps coming on just before the second checkpoint so I slammed some Endurolytes and kept on moving along. I got my first and only flat and had about 10 riders pass me while changing it. It was great to see the second checkpoint at roughly the 40 mile mark and the volunteers there were great filling my camelback and waterbottles. While I tried to down some food and stretch out my legs.

A few miles into the checkpoint we came up on Reed mountain that I don't believe anyone could bike up. The hike up it about did me in as my legs were feeling like jello at this point and I was starting to get foggy upstairs. It was slow going at this point and had a sneaking suspicion that I wasn't going to make the cutoff for the next checkpoint. I was completely wasted physically at this point and made it to the 3rd checkpoint with 5 minutes to spare but didnt want to continue as the 4th checkpoint was 10 miles away and I had an hour to get there. I decided to take to road back which was tough with the 20-30 mph winds. About 5 miles out somebody in a truck picked me up with two other riders and gave us a lift back.

According to the results 100 people started the 80 and only 33 finished which means 66 people DNF'd including me.

NOBC 2-Man TT

2009-03-23T19:57:00.003-05:00

This race was up in the air from the beginning as I was suppose to do a bike camping trip along the Natchez Trace with a few buddies for the weekend. Some stuff with school came up, so I had to bail on the trip which I was pretty bummed about but thats life. Hopefully we can reschedule the trip for a later date as its something that I really want to do.

From Road Biking in the South East

Anyways when I had to bail on the Natchez trip one of my team members (Jonathan Falgout) had asked me to team up with him on a 2-man time trial in LaPlace, LA. He's a CAT 4 so it wouldn't help me out point wise but we were about equal in terms of bike strength so we thought we would make a pretty strong team. I borrowed a bike and helmet from his brother Adam Falgout and Jed Darby's wheels and did a time trial test with the team on the Tuesday before the race. This was my first time ever on a TT bike so it took a while to get used to the position and handling characteristics. My teammates switched though as the rules were a little hazy with me and Jonathan being able to race together since we were in different categories, so I got teamed up with Smitty Smith. Smitty Smith is about 5'3" and 120 lbs so drafting was going to be a questionable. He ended up being a great partner as he was much more experienced then I was so I learned quite a bit from him about time trialing.

The day before the race I rode with the Pack & Paddle group and decided to do another 40 miles after with Brian and Jeb for a total of 80 miles which wasn't the best idea when I was racing the next day. I had bigger races in mind though as I recently switched over from the 60 mile Ouachita Challenge to the 80 mile version so I needed some more miles in my legs.

From Road Biking in the South East

The next morning I woke up a 4:15 ate a bowl of grapenuts and some english muffins with almond butter and met over at Precision bikes to carpool over to the race. My legs were a little stiff from the previous day's ride but no enough to slow me down. During the warmup I felt good with a slight tailwind on the way out I was easily able to hold 26 mph. After the warmup when we were all sitting around we noticed the wind was shifting back & forth. My goal for the 40K TT was to get under an hour. I had Smitty pull first as I was worried about going out to hard especially after reading about negative splits. After my first pull I knew I was going to be in trouble and the turn around couldnt come any sooner. When I was drafting off of Smitty I was still basically at my threshold so I knew this was going to hurt. Looking down at my GPS I knew that hitting my goal of under an hour was not going to happen.

From Road Biking in the South East

We ended up finishing in an 1:03:37 (23.3 mph avg) in 5th place out of 10 teams. Not too bad especially since a couple of our teammates won our division. Brian an Jeb also won the CAT1/2 race with a time of 53:38, now thats fast. I had a good time and hope to improve my time trial abilities for this race season.

Rouge Roubaix XI - Results

2009-03-09T21:49:00.004-05:00

I felt good coming into this race hoping that I could place up near the front of the CAT 5 racers. I knew a few top notch triathletes and a CAT 1 mountain biker would be racing so I had no illusions of winning but hopefully sticking near the top. The neutral rollout was kind of fast with two guys actually separating themselves from the group. As soon as we rolled onto Hwy 66, some guy on a madone attacked and was quickly eaten up. This guy would ride like this all day and I didn't believe he would last the way he was riding.

From Road Biking in the South East

On Sligo Rd. is where it started getting really fast with a couple breakaways that I jumped in on when it got to 5 riders or so. We finally did end up breaking away just before the first gravel section with a group of 5 riders. This section was really loose and had me constantly using counter steering techniques to stay upright. About half way through I took the lead as the lines being picked were less then ideal. Soon after a group of Raising Cane's guys bridged up to us and a guy on a mountain bike with semi slicks passed us.

After taking the right turn back onto Hwy 969 a few riders broke off again so with three other guys in my CAT we decided to bridge up to them. A few miles later the two guys that I bridged up with fell back so the break was down to four. Soon after that me and another guy dropped off their pace and stayed together on the next left turn that led us into Mississippi, where a rider bridged up to us. The three of us stuck together and along the highway I passed a few of my Precision teammates (Scott, Mark, and Johnathan). One of the riders in our break decided to take a piss so we slowed it down to wait for him. While waiting for him to finish most of the peloton caught back up with us, so I decided to drop back in with them and conserve energy as I was going through my water / cytomax faster then I had planned and was completely out with 10 miles to go before the next feed.

On the left turn to go to the second gravel section one of the guys from Raising Cane's went down on some of the gravel across the road. It didnt look too bad and I actually saw him finish later that day. When we hit the gravel I was in second position and could feel some cramps coming on. Half way through the climb a group of 5 shot by me and there was nothing I could do. I stopped at the feed zone to grab both the bottles I had there and chased down some guy to ride together with. We rode together all the way to the third gravel section where he quickly dropped me on Big Bertha as I made it only half way up this climb before walking which I did on another hill in this section. I was bonking pretty bad at this point and had a few more people pass me on this section. When I got out to the road section I was alone though but quickly got caught by some CAT 4's whose wheels I sucked on for quite a while until I could get over my bonk. With about 10 miles to go one of them took off and the two of us started equally taking pulls. I ran out of water again and bummed some off of the guy who I had been riding with. We rode all the in together, with some guy blowing by us at the end (jackass). I ended up 15th in my CAT, which was a little bit of a let down as I know I could of rode that course much faster.

From Road Biking in the South East

Heres a video of the race: http://www.tunicatrails.org/VIDEO/rougeroubaix2009.html

Heres some photos: To see the pictures go to http://www.AdamAndErinFalgoutPhotography.com click on the 'PROOFING' tab, Then type the password 'rr2009' and that will bring up all the pictures from the race!

http://www.firstpics.net/lambra

Heres a NY time report on the race: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/sports/othersports/10cycling.html?hp

Briar Badlands Battle

2009-03-02T20:22:00.008-06:00

This weekend I competed in the Briar Badlands Battle near Gulfport, MS on the Bethel trails, where I raced the Cat 2 19-29 category which consisted of about 15-20 riders. The start line had us going down a half mile of forest roads before we ducked into the start of the trails. The speed down the gravel road topped out at 22 mph but came to a grinding halt at the entrance of the trail where it bottlenecked. At this point I was in the back half of the pack but no one had separated themselves from the group so there was nothing to worry about.

From South East Mountain Biking

The group stayed together for about half of the first lap until we hit the river section where one of the guys near the front dabbed allowing me and a few other guys to get around and separate ourselves from the group. At this point in the race I was sitting in third place with nobody near the two of us. The leader was in sight but soon after the clay climb another rider bridged up to the two of us. He attacked soon after so I decided to follow his wheel leaving the other guy behind. I stayed on his wheel for the rest of the first lap while we kept the guy in first place in our sights.

From South East Mountain Biking

Near the end of the first lap in the "badlands" section the guy went down in front of me on a sandy turn but fell across the trail blocking me from passing. I stopped allowing him to get back up and we started hammering, chasing down the first place rider due to the time lost. I followed his wheel for the rest of the first lap and most of the second lap trying to draft off of him as the wind was really bad in this section. The rider that we had originally left now bridged up to us and attacked us before the clay climb. Neither of us had an answer as my legs were feeling tired at this point. When we came up to the clay climb the guys wheel I had been following for the last lap attacked and again I had no answer. I ended up placing fourth just missing the podium and out of the money and prizes.

From Blogger Pictures

Briar Badlands Battle IV @ Yahoo! Video

Precision Bikes Racing Training Camp

2009-01-26T11:06:00.002-06:00

From Road Biking in the South East

This weekend the road team I just joined had a small training camp in New Roads, LA. Which is just a ferry ride over to St. Francisville, LA a great place for road riding here in Louisiana. One of the teams members family owns a nice camp on False River so we were lucky enough to have free room & board. On Saturday morning the team had a 20 mile loop that we were going to ride 4 times to put us at 80 miles and giving people a chance to peel off if they had enough. We started with good weather on the first lap, good enough to go with just a jersey but half way through the loop the weather dropped about 20 degrees and a nice mist developed. So we decided to head back to the truck and grab some more clothes to complete the ride.

From Road Biking in the South East

On the second lap we had our first victim due to the hilly terrain, Saul dropped back and we rode off without him. The weather was getting pretty nasty at this point so we decided to do only 3 laps but on the third lap add a little section on it to get us about 78 miles. A few of the other members were having problems too and we slowed the pace down to allow them to catch back up. When we reached the truck we were all pretty frozen so we quickly loaded the trailer up and headed back to the camp.

From Road Biking in the South East

The next morning was much of the same weather wise as a fine mist was prevalent but our ride was going to be only about a 50 mile ride doing the loop we did yesterday twice backwards. On the first lap 3 of the 8 had to drop off as the CAT 2's up front were picking up the pace a little bit. At the start of the second lap we lost one more to knee pain so it was me a lonely CAT 5 with three CAT 2's. I was doing a good job keeping up with them even when they picked the pace up even more but the last five miles they really started hammering and were attacking each other when I decided to let them go. It was a great weekend and Im looking forward to some road racing this year.

Golden, CO

2009-01-19T11:32:00.000-06:00

From Golden, CO

This weekend I headed out to Golden, CO for the Blue Key Honor Society Convention at the Colorado School of Mines a great little university of about 4,000. I was seriously jealous of the students there as the campus was very well kept and the class sizes were small. They also seemed to be happy and were taking very interesting classes, such as one where they built a canoe out of cardboard and actually floated it down the local river. I was hoping to ride my bike while I was there but the days were filled with speakers. So this was about the closest I got to riding my bike.

From Golden, CO

It was a great small town and the trip only cost me $75 dollars for my ticket and food for the weekend. I just wish I was able to spend more time there as the biking looked great and I didnt even get to venture into Denver. Im excited though as this weekend is my road teams camp down in New Roads, LA and there is about 15 people going so it should be a fun weekend of riding and socializing.

Victory Lap

2009-01-13T13:22:00.003-06:00

This will be my last undergraduate semester here and it shouldn't be all that tough of a semester either. The only course that will require some hard studying should be my Electromagnetic Theory class or as its commonly referred to E-Mag. Not only is the material arduous but its also taught by the toughest professor we have in EE, Dr. Huner.

From Blogger Pictures

Im also going to have a big season of riding this semester, as I have decided to join the road team here and compete in a few road races as well as the three big mountain bike endurance rides I have entered with the Cohutta being the big one at 100 miles long. I decided to get a training plan for it as well as I have never race my bike over that kind of distance. Hopefully I will be able to follow it as planned and not stray from it to far. I have been just riding for fun mostly now and did a few rides this weekend one being a 43 mile mountain bike ride in Alexandria at a easy pace.

From South East Mountain Biking

I felt fresh after the ride and could of done a bunch more miles but it was all my two other buddies had that day. This had also been my fourth straight day of riding and my legs weren't as trashed as I thought they would be. They actually felt quite good even though I had taken the SS out and from the trashing the Ouachita trail had given me.

From South East Mountain Biking

Ouachita Trail Thru-Bike

2009-01-07T19:20:00.007-06:00

From Ouachita Trail

This week with months of planning in advance set out on my bike camping trip along the Ouachita Trail. I started out from Queen Wilhelmina a state park that has a lodge and restaurant that I thought would be a good place to leave my car and a good place to return too for some food as I was doing a out and back on the trail.

Gear List:

Ultra-light Backpacker A-Sym Hennessey Hammock

Mountain Hardwear 20 deg down sleeping bag

Alcohol Stove and Fuel & Anti Gravity Gear pot windscreen and koozie

SteriPen Adventurer Handheld Water Purifier

Leatherman Multi-Tool

Custom Epic Designs Frame Bag

3 tubes and patch kit

Random bolts for bike

Crank Bros Mini Pump

Petzl Tikka Headlamp

Garmin Vista HCX GPS + extra batteries

Chamois Butt'r

Clif Shot Blocks x3

Hammer Endurolytes

Freeze Dried Food

Moist Wipes

Sierra Designs Rain Jacket

REI long underwear (top & bottom)

REI Wool Socks (for sleeping)

2 pairs of Pear Izumi cycling shorts

2 pairs of cycling socks

Small First Aid kit

Olympus 850 SW Camera with Gorilla pod.

Total weight:

10 lbs 6 oz on bike

18 lbs 13 oz in backpack (Osprey Talon 22)

From Ouachita Trail

It was cold starting out, so cold that I thought of bailing out on the trip or at least postponing it for a day or two as the ice storm had covered everything with a thin layer of ice. This made the going really tough as the rock gardens were now even more unrideable. The first 2.5 miles were the worst as I had to hike all of it as it wasn't a bike friendly trail. The next section was a little easier with me having to dismount quite a few times due to rock gardens and downed trees that had fell with the increased weight of the ice.

From Ouachita Trail

As the day wore on the temps got above freezing and the ice began to melt causing the sensation of rain from the trees above thawing out. At this point I was getting pretty wet but kept trucking along as the trail was more and more rideable.

From Ouachita Trail

I decided to setup camp at about 4 giving me an hour or so of daylight to cook and put on some dry clothes. I cooked up some dinner and headed into my hammock as the cold was starting to get to me. After sitting in the hammock for an hour or so I couldn't stop shivering and was worried about how I would fair when the sun dropped. I made the decision that the 20 degree temps were too cold for me in my hammock and decided to make the push back to the lodge for the warmth. I knew most of my journey would be in the dark so I hurried to pack up and use what available light to bike as much of the trail as possible. About an hour into my journey back it got dark so I pulled out my headlamp to help light my way back. It worked well but I was pushing its limits on my bike. A few times I lost the trail and had to use my GPS to find my way back. I made it back to the lodge around 11:30 at night frozen to the bone with no feeling in my hands or feet. I jumped in the bathtub to warm back up but just couldnt seem to get the water hot enough. I then jumped into bed and shivered until I fell asleep.

From Ouachita Trail

Lessons Learned:

1. Ditch the Sidi's for something with a flexible sole for hike a bike.

2. Bring my gaiters as my legs were a bloody mess at the end of this trip.

3. The way I strapped my sleeping bag to my seat needs work or just order this.

4. 20 degree temps are too low for my hammock.

Chicot Cabins

2009-01-04T18:52:00.000-06:00

From Chicot Cabins

This weekend we headed out to Chicot state park, a place I have been a few times once for an adventure race and a few other times for paddling and biking. Its a great park with an 18 mile trail around the lake. This time we weren't going for those things but to have a nice weekend in one of the deluxe cabins the park has. Of course we still brought the bikes but we weren't going to do anything too serious.

From Chicot Cabins

Most of the weekend was spent drinking wine, eating, and playing board games. On our short bike ride we were caught in a thunderstorm that got us all drenched. It didn't put a damper on the weekend though as the cabin was equipped with satellite tv and plenty of wine. We quickly brought Cranium out and me and Sarah came out with a win.

Celebrating our Win.

It was a great weekend spent with friends and it would be nice place to come back to.

Rouge Roubaix Recon

2009-01-01T19:58:00.002-06:00

To start the year off right me and a couple of my cycling buddies decided to head over to St. Francisville a town just a few minutes north of Baton Rouge. The area around St Francisville is famous for all the antebellum plantation homes in the area and probably has the best road riding in the state due to its hilly terrain (for Louisiana), low traffic and great scenery. Its also the home of the Rouge Roubaix, the biggest road race in the state that attracts roadies from all over the south. It covers a 100 miles of some of the finest and not so finest roads in the area. The race contains three gravel sections on the course with the second two containing the most difficult climbs. I am planning on entering it this year, using it as good training for the Cohutta.

From Road Biking in the South East

The three of us set out on the course and initially I felt pretty good dropping my friends on most of the climbs. After the first gravel section I started feeling a little twitch in my legs so I decided to stop at a little convenience store on the side of the road where some hunters were admiring there new year score.

From Road Biking in the South East

I picked up a nutter butter and a gatorade for some sugar as there wasn't much selection inside. We headed out and when the course dumped us out on Hwy 24 (a very smoothly paved road) a head wind picked up making the going tough. My legs were going downhill fast and knew I was going to be in trouble when we got to the second gravel section. As soon as it pitched up the cramps started and I was forced to walk the initial steep climb. My other riding partners were feeling much spunkier then I and were waiting for my at a little store on the top of the climbs. At that point we all were pretty spent so we decided to bail out on the 3rd gravel section and just head home.

From Road Biking in the South East

Back at It.

2008-12-30T13:29:00.002-06:00

After two weeks off of the bike due to illness and christmas vacation up north to see my family, I was itching to get back on my bike. I had ordered some new cranks from Chain Reaction Cycles since they were cheaper then my discount through the shop. I also ordered a bottom bracket to allow me to get free shipping. So on Monday morning I headed over to the shop to install them.

From Bike Repair

The trails were to wet to try them out so I decided to head out on a road ride with my new christmas present. I used the gorilla pod that Sarah's parents gave me to attach to the bike and it seemed to do the trick but I dont know if it will be able to handle off road activities. With the help of my Mac it was easy to do some video editing.

Biking Lake Martin from Eli Ellsworth on Vimeo.

Lake Martin

2008-12-19T16:14:00.004-06:00

From Blogger Pictures

After being sick all week and stuck in the house I decided to call up my friend Ashley to see if I could borrow his kayak to go paddle around Lake Martin. I ride my bike by this lake almost every weekend but this was my first time on it. Its a small lake with lots of cypress trees and spanish moss giving you that Louisiana swamp feeling. I figured that I would only be out there a few hours but decided to pack a lunch and find someplace to eat out there. I was hardly the only person out there as tons of fisherman were out on there bass boats trying there luck. It was nice to check it out and hopefully next time I will bring Sarah out here.

Paddling Lake Martin from Eli Ellsworth on Vimeo.

Comite Classic

2008-12-14T19:51:00.005-06:00

From South East Mountain Biking

This Saturday I competed in the Comite Classic in Baton Rouge on the Comite Trail system. I had originally planned on heading to North Carolina for some primo mountain biking but due to Sarah's illness I thought I would stay home and help her out. I talked the Breaux brothers into joining me for their first XC race. James rode in the beginner category and Philip rode with me in sport.

From South East Mountain Biking

The pictures dont really show it but the trail was pretty slick in spots due to all the snow, yes snow here in Louisiana. I took a few spills in the first lap as my small block 8's werent the best tire choice for the conditions. I lost quite a few places with my falls but I'm pretty sure I wasnt the only one having traction problems. On my 3rd lap I had my rear wheel come out of the dropouts, as one of my falls had opened the quick release. Im really disliking the Ellsworth qr skewers as they seem to have a problem staying shut. I dont know what placed I finished as it wasnt near the podium and as of yet they have yet to post the results online.

Comite Classic

2008-12-14T19:50:00.000-06:00

Almost Done.......

2008-12-09T18:33:00.003-06:00

From Buoy

Well this week I completed a big step in the road for my Engineering Degree and that was done by completing my Senior Design Project which has lasted two semesters. My teams design was for a data collection buoy that would transmit data collected in the Gulf of Mexico to a satellite that our University has deployed. I was in charge of the communications and mechanical aspects of the design.

From Buoy

We presented our design in front of all the faculty and a few industry folks while answering questions and defending our design. I felt out of the two other projects that were from our design group we had the best presentation and answered all questions cleanly. This felt like a huge weight had been lifted off our shoulders but was short lived as we had a test to study for the next day and finals to worry about.

CAPE Buoy

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: satellite communications)

Capitol Cyclery

2008-11-16T19:07:00.003-06:00

Today I headed out to Lake Kincaid with a couple guys (James and Peter) from Capitol Cyclery as Peter had gotten his new bike in so he was itching to ride. He had to be back at 1 though as he was working at the shop. I rode the Rig while James was on his 69'er and since the ride was going to be a quick one I would bolt ahead of the guys to snap photos.

From South East Mountain Biking

It has been cold this week (~40-50 degrees F) so I decided to try out an Under Armour undershirt to wear under the jersey to cut the wind some. After two rides with it it has done a good job preventing me from getting frozen while no causing me to overheat any. I never thought I would wear any of the Under Armour stuff but I have read how much these compression shirts help out with the heat and the cold for cycling that I thought it wouldn't hurt to try. James has been wearing one of the winter blend shirts but he says that it causes him to overheat to quickly so I purchased one of the summer blend shirts.

From South East Mountain Biking

24 Hours of Clear Springs

2008-11-03T17:23:00.004-06:00

This was really my first 24 solo as the one I had done previously (The Mangler) had been cut short by a bear attack so I was pumped to see how far I could push myself. The previous week via email a lot of predictions / smack talk had been made by me to beat out my 2 other riding buddies (Mo-fo and Fa-real) with the winner receiving a 6-pack of there choice. I had been riding strong the last few weeks and felt good with my fitness level coming into the race.

From 24 HOCS (2008)

I originally planned on driving out to Clear Springs the Friday before the race but decided against it so as to get a good night sleep in my bed and leave at 7:00 am Saturday morning. I arrived at Clear Springs at 10:00 with plenty of time to setup my pit area and get dressed. Unlike most 24 hour races there is no Le Mans start (running start) at Clear Springs as the director lets the team riders go first then us soloist's next.

From 24 HOCS (2008)

I started off pretty fast, faster then I should of finishing my first lap right at an hour for the 10 mile course. I was feeling good and didn't pit but for 2 seconds to swap out water bottles and take off on my second lap. I was using the same plan that I had used in The Mangler by just doing a lap with a bottle of Cytomax and my tools in my seat pack. On the third lap I snapped my chain allowing Mo-Fo to take the lead. While fixing the chain I was passed by another rider Charley Rome who I knew was going to eventually pass me as he's a much stronger and experienced rider then I, and at this point while kneeling by my bike I felt the onset of some cramping happening. As I finished my 4th lap Iwent to switch out water bottles and grab some endurolytes when Fa-real came into the pits also, so we decided to start riding together. We rode for 3 laps together with 1.5 of them being in the dark. After my 6th lap my stomach starting giving me big problems and I felt like I was going to puke any second, eventually doing so behind my truck. I decided to lay down at that point after sitting around the fire for an hour. I woke back up still feeling nauseous but decided to head out and do 2 more laps before calling it quits. I ended up with 8 laps or 80 miles. It was disappointing but I was glad to see both my friends podium with 1st, 3rd and 4th. Hopefully I will be back next year to redeem myself.

Gary Fisher Rig.

2008-10-19T19:29:00.000-05:00

I took the plunge on another bike, to add to my growing stable of bikes. I really wanted to go the singlespeed route as I was hoping to gain some more strength for some of my longer races and also wanted to try out a 29'er. Since the shop I work at is a Trek/Gary Fisher dealer I could get a good deal on a 2008 Gary Fisher Rig. I also just received another scholarship from school that gave me the money to purchase it.

From South East Mountain Biking

I have changed a few things from the original parts, as it came with a 70mm stem which when combined with the bars made for cramped ride. I swapped out the stem for a 100mm but its still a little cramped as the sweep on the bars is fairly significant. I also put a WTB Rocket V seat on it and some new grips.

From South East Mountain Biking

After a couple of good rides (37 mile and a 26 mile) I have to say singlespeeding is much different and my upper body was feeling the effects at the end of the ride. The 29'er is fantastic it just rolls over stuff and does a great job in the sand at Kincaid. I was a little worried about going back to a hardtail but the 29'er seems to give you a little suspension.

Movies in the Park

2008-10-18T21:48:00.000-05:00

This weekend Sarah and I rode the bikes downtown to Parc International to catch a movie. Its only about a 2 mile ride to downtown Lafayette from our place so I packed some sushi and lemon orzo for dinner that we picked up earlier in the day at Fresh Market. It was my first time using my osprey talon and it easily packed up a down blanket, bike lock, dinner for the two of us and sweaters. It should workout for my thru-ride of the ouachita trail.

From Me & The Old Lady

We had our dinner on one of the benches over looking the stage where they had the inflatable screen. Luckily we had brought the down blanket because it got quite chilly while watching Beetlejuice and the bench got less and less comfortable as the night wore on. It was still a great time for only $2 per person and asked ourselves why we never ride our bikes downtown when we go out for our rides.

Gustav's Damage

2008-09-20T19:35:00.000-05:00

Due to Gustav our roof developed quite a nice new water feature inside our apartment. The only problem with this is we needed the pots used to collect the water for cooking. Luckily there was another empty apartment in our complex just in a separate building. So the last few weeks with the help of the bob trailer has gone to moving.

We also purchased Sarah a new bike that was paid for with a little off the clock work at the shop. We took it around campus last night for a ride.

From Me & The Old Lady

Petra Davis - Bear Attack

2008-09-03T11:05:00.000-05:00

I was in a 24 hour race in Alaska that was stopped due to an grizzly bear attack on one of the racers. This is an interview just done with her about the attack. Im glad to see she is going to keep riding.

Gustav

2008-09-03T10:24:00.000-05:00

From Gustav

Well it hasn't been much of a labor day weekend for me as Hurricane Gustav has put a damper on everything. I was tempted to head on up to Arkansas for some riding but with Sarah not having a job and just spending 3 days in my truck a week ago I just felt like staying put. Sarah wanted to evacuate as it was originally predicted to be a category 5 hurricane and I wanted to go because of the thought of being without power for a few days would be unbearable. We waited it out though and only had brief flickers in power and lost our cable/internet for half a day.

From Gustav

I did however get a road ride in Saturday with the race team for a fast ride. Its good to be riding in a group again I missed the speed of those rides and had a little trouble keeping up when they ramped up the speed to 28 mph. The Sunday ride was not happening due to the hurricane so today I decided to get on the trainer and do a Spinerval DVD. The iso squats were killing me at the end and I had problems finishing the last set. Now I just have to get back into school mode and start doing my homework.

Hurricane Gustav

2008-09-03T10:22:00.001-05:00

Bienvenue en Louisiana

2008-08-22T09:38:00.000-05:00

Well Sarah and I left San Diego at 6:00 AM Wed. morning to make it back to Louisiana by Friday, giving us the weekend to get settled before I would head back to school. The first night I planned on stopping in Las Cruces, NM which was about a 10 hour drive and then head from there the next day and check out Austin, TX. We arrived in Las Cruces about 5 pm and checked into our hotel which wasnt too bad. For our night in Las Cruces we thought we would try some mexican food as Las Cruces is the chilli pepper capitol. The mexican food was decent but we notice a weird drink that was served in New Mexico called chelada. Didnt look appetizing to me.

After getting back to the hotel we checked the weather and it called for thunderstorms in Austin so we decided to change plans and head to Houston which would give us a short drive on Friday of only 4 hours. We got on the road at about 8 and started the long drive again as the day progressed we decided to skip Houston and make it all the Lafayette that day. This would give us a 16 hour day of driving. I thought it was worth it to sleep in our own bed and save the money that would be spent on a hotel. We made it into Lafayette around 1 am and didnt even unpack.

Its good to get back and finish up my last year of college though as much as I don't want college to end. These last two semesters shouldn't be too bad.

San Onofre

2008-08-15T23:10:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to do an out and back up to San Onofre which I thought would be around 50 to 60 miles. As the link from Swamis said 22 miles one way but my starting point would be a little further. So I packed up some fresh banana bread and a couple of water bottles for the ride. I was hoping the construction would be done that had stopped me the last few times.

As I approached the same place that stopped me last time I saw the same construction signs allowing no access. I decided to find another way around and followed the detour signs which brought me out to the Oceanside Harbor Exit where I went and entered the base from. The ride isn't very hilly but its like a total different world going through the base. You have huge Hummers passing you by on the road and tanks parked off on the side. They had some cool obstacle courses located throughout the base that I was tempted to go try but didn't.

I made it all the way SONGS where I decided to turn around with almost 40 miles on my odometer at this point. I stopped at San Onofre to eat my banana bread and saw I only had a half of a water bottle left. This worried me as I wasnt carrying any cash to refill, but knew there was a McDonalds on base that I could stop at and refill my water. I ended up with 75 miles which was good after all the eating we have been doing for these tastings.

Photos

Encinitas, CA

2008-08-13T13:55:00.000-05:00

I arrived from my flight from Anchorage on Saturday afternoon and was dead tired from the red eye. I lucked out with my luggage as I wasn't charged the $125 for my bike instead they charged me the now normal $25 for 2 pieces of luggage. The guy checking me in didn't notice it was oversized until after he had ran my credit card for the $25 so he let me go without paying the $125.

When I finally got back to the house I tried taking a nap but couldn't as I'm not much of a napper. The rest of the day was pretty much wasted though as I was too tired to do anything and couldn't fall asleep. The next day after 12 hours of sleep that night was spent unpacking everything but my bike and doing errands.

Tuesday I decided to head out on a little road ride to get a feel for my legs. They were a little tired but not too bad so that night I decided to put my mountain bike together. I gave it a shakedown today at La Costa putting in only 5 miles as we had a tasting at the French Gourmet. Everything went fine except for a little play in my rear wheel. Which I haven't had time to fully inspect yet.

Resurrection Trail

2008-08-07T23:37:00.000-05:00

Today I went to pick up my bike from Eric as he was doing measurements for my new bike bags for a trip Im planning early next year. After picking my bike up and checking out all his gear he uses for his crazy adventures I then headed down to Hope to hit up the Resurrection trail. I wasn't in the mood for a big ride just wanted to take it easy and take in the sights.

I arrived at the trail around noon and started the uphill grind. The trail has a slight incline with a few breaks but for the most part your climbing for 19 miles I suppose. I stopped only 8 miles in at a creek to eat one of my sandwiches and just enjoy being in the mountains.

I started back up after 45 minutes and started climbing again until about 2:30 when I decided to stop again for 30 minutes and then head back home for dinner. The ride down was a blast and I actually spooked a black bear that was on the trail as I was coming down. As soon as he saw me he bolted for the woods.

All in all it was a great day and probably my last mountain bike ride in Alaska this summer. Hopefully I can make it back with my bike at some point and ride some of the trails that I didnt get to finish or do.

Photos

Lost Lake Trail

2008-08-05T01:43:00.000-05:00

I headed down to Seward, AK on the train this morning at 6:30 am to make into Seward at about 11 am to ride the Lost Lake trail / Primrose trail. It was voted on in the local forums here in Alaska as the best singletrack ride in Alaska. The train was a little more expensive then driving but well worth the forgoing the hassle of driving plus it only dropped me off 5 miles from the trailhead. I was a little worried making my ride back as boarding began at 5 and the train left at 6 that left me with about 5 hours to finish the 15 miles of singletrack and the 22 miles of pavement that I would have to ride to the trailhead and back to the train station.

The gravel road to the trailhead was a nice precursor to what I would be doing for the next few miles on the trail. Within the first 100 yards of trail I was quickly stopped due to a flat in my rear tire which was no problem as I always pack 2 tubes in my backpack. After fixing my flat I steadily climbed up to the top of the lake where I wasnt afforded much of a view due to the clouds that were hanging out. The trail was also fairly wet making some of the climbs a little trickier due to the wet rocks. It also had a few stream crossing but nothing that would cause you to get your feet soaked. There were also quite a few backpackers on the trail as its a fairly popular backpacking trail.

After splitting off the Lost Lake trail to descend down the Primrose trail I was stopped by my second flat. I was getting a little worried as this was my last tube and I hadn't packed a patch kit. The descent down Primrose was fantastic, everything I could of hoped for. Half way down the descent though I got my third and final flat as I had nothing to fix it. I stopped some backpackers and tried using a light to melt the tube as to seal the tube but had no luck. I started my 3 mile hike out of the trail hoping to hitch-hike a ride so as to catch my train.

At this point it was 4 pm and I had two hours to walk 17 miles to the train station. When I got out to the Seward Highway I tried flagging people down but had 10 cars pass me with no signs of stopping. Luckily I saw a highway trooper going in the opposite direction and waved him down. He ran my license and then was nice enough to give me a ride back into Seward even though he was headed home. I made it time to catch the train where I ended up sleeping most of the way.

Photos.

Eagle River Yurt

2008-08-03T20:23:00.000-05:00

This weekend my family and I had reserved the rapids yurt from the Eagle River Nature Center. Its really a great place for $65 you get this great yurt on the side of a cliff overlooking the Chugach Mountains and the Eagle River. It has a set of bunk beds, a table, a bench, two chairs, and a wood stove inside. Outside it has a huge deck, a fire pit, and a bunch of chopped wood to heat the yurt. Its only a 1.75 mile hike to the yurt so you can bring some of the finer things in life too. We had brought some kabobs, beer, smores, and cheese and crackers to snack on while we were there. We also packed one of our favorite games clue to pass the time at night.

The next day after we hiked out my Dad and I went to Rabbit Slough which is part of Wasilla Creek. It usually gets a nice run on coho's so we were going to try our luck. The river is only open for fishing on the weekends from 6 to 6 so we only had an hour and a half to bring back some fresh fish. We brought the canoe to paddle upstream a little to get further away from the crowds of people that usually sit along the bank. Paddling upstream you can see the waters turning from all the salmon in it, it actually looks like the water is boiling there are so many of them. Once we got to our spot it wasnt long until my dad hooked one. It ended up snapping his pole though, but it didnt matter as it was an illegal hook anyways. A few minutes later though we ended up catching a nice coho 15 minutes before the fishing shutdown.

Alaska Salmon Fishing

2008-08-03T20:03:00.000-05:00

Johnson's Pass

2008-08-01T23:49:00.000-05:00

With one of my classes done for summer I thought I would celebrate by heading down to the Kenai and bike Johnson's Pass which is located at about the 64 mile marker on the Seward Highway. The trail is a 21 mile point to point trail that drops you off 40 miles further down on the Seward Highway. I arrived at the trailhead around 11 am and was planning on riding there and back giving me about 42 miles of riding.

My legs weren't feeling great probably from my lack of time on the bike and the 55 mile ride I did 2 days previously. The trail started out great though on beautiful singletrack with a slight incline perfect for getting the legs warmed up. I passed a backpacker and a runner and made my first few creek crossings that were no deeper then a few inches. Further along the trail as the creeks got bigger bridges have been constructed to help you cross. You will still end up getting your feet wet as a few creeks dont have bridges and on some parts of the trail the creek was actually flowing down the trail. A few miles into the trail it quickly became overgrown with devil's club and cow parsnip that made the going that much tougher. Cow parsnip is known to give people small blisters so I was little worried with all the bushwhacking I was doing. It was also getting harder to see my front wheel and the mud was thickening in spots.

At mile 9 I stopped to get lunch as there was a great spot right before one of the bridges that

had a beautiful view of a waterfall. At mile 10 you come to a Lake and not too much further the cow parsnip retreats and the trail becomes a little wider as you start your descent. The downhill isn't very technical with just a few small rocks to navigate around. I soon became too complacent and next thing you know I was over the bars smacking my head into some downed trees. My neck was a little sore also from the fall and as I went to inspect my helmet I noticed that I put a nice crack in it.

After regrouping from the fall I started my descent, taking it much more cautiously. At mile 18.5 I came to a small stream that had about a dozen sockeye salmon in it. I didnt like biking near it due to bears so I decided to turn around and start heading back. I was walking my bike at this point since my legs were feeling pretty tired.

As I came up on the Lake again I heard a rubbing coming from my back tire and looked back to see my tire was rubbing against my rear seat stay. Upon my inspection I noticed that the bolt connecting the seat stay and chain stay and fallen out deeming my bike useless. This is the exact same thing that happened to me with the other rear triangle. I felt so stupid for not checking those as soon as I got a few rides in on the new rear triangle.

On the 10 mile hike back to the car though I had a black bear run right out in front of me and stop 20 yards of the side of the trail and just stare at me. I was a little unnerved as the bear was unphased by my hollering. From then on every minute I was hollering Hey Bear, on my hike out. I finally made it out at 10 exhausted from the days events.

Photos

Eklutna Lake - The Return

2008-07-31T00:11:00.000-05:00

I decided to leave early enough today to make it to Eklutna Glacier from my parents house. This would be an approximately 55 mile mountain bike ride. So i packed up some lunch and headed out my usual way through the powerline trails to the Eklutna River which I crossed then start the long climb up Eklutna Lake Road.

I wasnt feeling very spunky today as I havent been mountain biking as much the last few weeks due to all the studying I have been doing for my two summer classes. So once I saw wind of a trail off the long climb I stopped for a breather and to check it out. Luckily I did because just 20 yards off the road you got out to the edge of a cliff that opened up to a huge gorge that the river had cut out.

At about mile 12.4 of the trail around the lake it ends and you have to dismount as the trail is not passable with a bike. This trail follows along the Eklutna River and the river is really flowing at this point which also causes the temp's to drop a little. I was hoping this would lead me out to the glacier but to reach the glacier you would of had to been a mountain goat. You would of also had to cross the river and at this point its probably a class III river that is as cold as ice. So I decided to eat my lunch and head on back home.

Photos

Eklutna Lake

2008-07-20T23:42:00.000-05:00

Even though I had written previously that I wouldn't be riding this weekend because of all the rain and my Organic Chemistry test on Monday, the weather turned out to be really nice on Saturday giving me the itch. So today (Sunday) when the weather turned out to be good again I thought why not go ride as I was diligent in my study's all weekend. I mentioned the idea about riding up to Eklutna Lake from our house to my dad and he said the road leading up to the lake was a 10 mile climb. I thought since I haven't been on my bike as much as I would of liked and with the trail only being 12 miles and flat it would be a good way to put in some extra miles, 10 mile climb be damned.

The ride started like the last few starting on the powerline trails that are behind my parents house but this time instead of crossing the Eklutna River I had to wade upstream a bit to get across the Glenn Highway where the road up to the Lake started. While wading through the river though I got to see a few king salmon swimming which made braving the freezing waters that much more bearable. When I got to the road it was slow going as it climbed from 200 feet to 1400 feet in 3 miles and then leveling up for the last few miles. After 10 miles on the road I finally reached the entrance to the Lake.

The trail following the lak e was all doubletrack and relatively flat. What it lacked in technical stuff it made up for in beauty. If it had been anymore technical it would of been easy to wipe out while staring at the mountains and lake. I was hoping to make it all the way to the Glacier but it was getting late and I had to be back for supper. So I turned around at the 10.5 mile mark to head home.

On the way back the skys opened up and I put the hammer down trying to make it back around 7:30 for dinner. Once I got cell phone service I called my parents to come pick me up at the end of the road so that I wouldnt have to wade through the freezing Eklutna River again. I had miscalculated though and only made it have way down the downhill when I saw my dad in his vehicle. I was glad to get in the car though as the effects of the rain and the long downhill had chilled me down to the bone. Hopefully I will try this trip again and make it all the way to the glacier.

Photos

Record Rain

2008-07-18T12:51:00.000-05:00

The rain here just doesn't seem to wanna stop. I believe Anchorage broke a record yesterday for rainfall at 1" in a 24 hour period. So with the trails seeing all this rain it looks like I will be not riding my bike at all. Which might be a good thing as my right knee has been giving me a some discomfort the last week. It might be due to the fact I was trying to do some strength work on my bike last time out pushing a big gear up the hills. Its probably a good thing as I have a big Organic Chemistry test this Monday that I need to be studying for.

On another note I got the new Beck album Modern Guilt and its really good featuring production by Danger Mouse (1/2 of Gnarls Barkley) and singing by one of my other favorite artists Cat Power. I have also been watching a lot of The Flight of the Conchords. See below.

Flight of the Conchords - If You're Into It

2008-07-18T12:50:00.000-05:00

Little Susitna River

2008-07-13T20:10:00.000-05:00

On Saturday my brother, Dad and I headed out to paddle the Little Susitna River up in Houston, AK. Its a fairly swift moving river much more so then the Swanson which we had paddled last weekend. The Lil' Sue is also much closer of a drive being only about an hour from the house. My brother and Dad were going to paddle in the Old Town canoe while I would paddle the kayak. We had to do some work on my Dad's canoe as the thing is older then me and in dire need of some maintenance. We fixed the holes with and gouges with bondo and fiberglass.

After finishing the repairs we ended up on the river at about 4 and planned on only paddling a couple hours before setting up camp. The river quickly showed me that kayaking skills are lacking when I went entered a fast flowing section of the river to find out a log was laying across the whole river impeding my path. I tried back paddling to slow down but I was coming in to quick so I resorted to using the paddle to stop me on the log. The paddle did a fine job stopping me but the river had other ideas about the kayak, pulling it out from underneath me and sweeping it underneath the log I had stopped on. I tried to hold onto the kayak as my camera and a few other things were inside it but this caused me to be pulled under the log also. I quickly swam to shore to and empty the kayak of water and hop back inside. Luckily the only damage was my water logged cell phone.

The rest of the trip was spent perfecting my kayaking skills and just having a good time watching the king salmon swimming underneath me. We also had a moose and her calf jump out onto the bank to inspect us and a bald eagle or two fly by. When we got to the end where we parked my brothers truck to shuttle us back he realized he left his keys back at the other car. So we had to call my mom to come bring the extra keys to his truck, thanks Mom.

Photos

A River Runs Through It

2008-07-11T23:51:00.000-05:00

I had planned the night before to head out and try the Powerline Trail in Anchorage before our canoeing trip down the Little Susitna River on Saturday. However my plans were quickly changed as the weather wasn't cooperating when I woke up this morning, so I decided to hit the books instead. I was having problems concentrating though with my mind on mountain biking so as soon as the weather cleared up I got ready to head out. Instead of driving the 30 miles into Anchorage though I decided to hit the trails up behind the house again. Last time I had stopped at what I believe was Eklutna River and turned around but this time I decided to try and cross it. So I packed up my pack with some extra socks along with some food and ensure as I was planning on a long ride.

I headed through the neighborhood down to the trail that follows the powerlines. After crossing the railroad tracks I came up on the river and removed my shoes and socks preparing for the freezing water as its a glacier fed river. Luckily it wasn't that deep only reaching my knees at the deepest point. Upon reaching the other side I put my socks and shoes on and quickly got moving to restore my circulation in my feet and legs. The trail on the other side was quite muddy, with a consistency close to clay. Luckily it was extremely flat and traction was not needed for half mile where I quickly learned that the trail was coming to an end. I turned back around to wade through the freezing river again.

I wasn't done riding for the day so I decided to try another spur on the trail. I came upon

Eklutna River again but decided to keep the shoes on for this crossing as I had lost traction earlier in the clay and wet my feet. I rode this trail for about a mile after crossing to find that again a dead end would stop me. At this point with my feet cryogenically frozen I decide to turn around and call it a day. I ended up with almost 20 miles of riding yet was hoping for much more. Hopefully the trails down on the Kenai peninsula dry out as the snow is to deep on the trails.

Photos

Swanson River

2008-07-06T14:29:00.000-05:00

This weekend my father and I decided to paddle and camp the Swanson River located on the Kenai peninsula here in Alaska. The Kenai is a pretty popular spot here in Alaska mostly due to the fishing it affords but also the beautiful blue water that runs through it. I had never been down on the Kenai in my other visits to Alaska so it was all new to me. My father had actually done this trip before down the Swanson without camping but said it made it a grunt of a day trip.

We didnt leave the house until about noon and we still had to pick up groceries for the trip. By the time we got on the road it was one but you don't really have to worry about burning daylight here. We got on the river at 5 and we planned to paddle about 4 hours until we started hunting for our campsite. On my Dad's previous trip he had marked potential campsites into the GPS as the river goes through a stretch of nothing but marsh that offers little to no campsites.

On our way we saw two moose actually in the river, once coming within 5 feet of one of them. I could of honestly stuck out my paddle and smacked it. The river was pretty tame with small spots of swift moving water. It luckily had enough water also to prevent any portaging but we were still scraping the bottom in a few spots.

Our campground was 10 feet up a bank nestled around a bunch of spruce trees. It looked like it gets plenty of use and there was already some firewood chopped from the previous tenants. We had stopped along the way to collect firewood anyways as that was our only source of cooking. My dad isnt into ultra-light camping so we camp luxuriously air mattress and all. For dinner it was steak and potatoes and for desert apple pie. My mom thinks its ridiculous cooking steak out in bear country but at this point there are no salmon in the Swanson.

The next day we cooked up some eggs and potatoes and headed out. We were hoping to get some cell phone service so we could call my Mom to tell her we were going to reach the take out point earlier then our 6 o'clock arranged pickup time to no avail. We arrived at 3 o'clock and decided to setup our tent and catch a nap before she came. She arrived 30 minutes early and we packed up and left making it home around midnight. It was a great trip with tons of wildlife from osprey's, to great horned owls, to moose, and even a black bear on our drive out. All and all we paddled 28 miles in about 8 hours. Hopefully I can do a few more of these float trips before I leave.

Photos

Commuting

2008-07-03T00:41:00.000-05:00

I started commuting today to school via the many bike paths that the state of Alaska provides. The bike route goes all the way following along the Glen Highway. The first section was unpaved at the Peter's Creek exit for a mile or two but then it switched to nice blacktop. I don't have any other tires here except for my panaracers so I wasnt the fastest person on my commute.

According to my garmin it was a 28 mile trip into town from the house taking about 2 hours. I had a little time to spare so I tooled around checking out the campus a little more but forgot to take pictures.

After class I decided to head down to my Dad's work to catch a ride back home with him. On the way back we witnessed an accident with the car in front of us and a car trying to make it across. As soon as it happened the driver and passenger who weren't at fault jumped out and screaming obscenities at the other driver and yelling at them that they had four kids in the vehicle. Yet the whole time we watched the parents never seemed to make sure there kids were alright.

This weekend my Dad and I are talking about canoeing the Swanson River Trails. It looks like a great time hopefully we can get everything together before the weekend. If not I will probably just head out and try the trail Lost Lake on my mountain bike.

Photos

The Mangler

2008-06-29T22:02:00.001-05:00

This weekend I competed in The Mangler a 24 hour race in Hillside park in Anchorage, AK. I didn't have a chance to pre-ride the trails but I don't think its that necessary in a 24. The staging area was held in a field with most of the competitors making a tent city. I setup a little area for myself with some help from my dad for my tent and supplies. My original plan for this race was to 2 laps consecutive without stopping but I was going through my water bottles to quick for that.

The course was a 9 mile loop with about 900 feet of climbing. It consisted of about 60% single track and the rest being double track. It was a great mix between the two and the only part of the course I disliked was the new piece of trail they had cut. It was extremely soft and I saw quite a few people go down there.

I felt good for most of the race saving myself on about 5 of the climbs by just pushing the bike up them. After burning your legs climbing up your upper body got quite the workout on the long downhill at the end of the course. My original goal was too do 100 miles during the race but I quickly found out that I would be able to do much more and set my goals on 100 miles before midnight. I started slowing down though at around 8 pm and knew that it was going to be tough to hit my mark. I ended up with about 75 miles around midnight 25 shy of my goal but a good effort.

As I finished my last lap at around midnight I overheard a few of the volunteers calling the paramedics. I guess a girl who must of been a few minutes behind me was attacked and mauled by a bear. They shutdown the race and the paramedics had to hike in with guns to go retrieve her. It was a sad finish to a great race. Everyone at the race was extremely friendly and it was great place to try my first 24 solo.

Photos

Kincaid Park / Tony Knowles Coastal Trail

2008-06-24T20:23:00.000-05:00

Today as I previously had mentioned I headed over to Kincaid park to try my hand at some Alaskan singletrack. I arrived at the park about 9 AM and headed out with no map to speak of hoping to pick one up at a kiosk which didn't happen. Luckily they had trail maps posted at most of the intersections since the trails were one-way. The park was built for nordic skiing but in the summer they are used by bikers and runners so there are no technical features to it. The trails were still fun with no long climbs or descents but plenty of little power climbs and enough downhill to make it worthwhile. I didn't complete all the trails in the park as on my way through one of the loops I connected to the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail which runs all the way from the park to downtown Anchorage.

The Coastal trail is a great paved trail that you guessed it follows along the coast. Off the trails I found many spurs that had little pieces of singletrack that was enjoyable. I rode all the way downtown to meet my Dad for lunch and then headed back down to Kincaid Park to ride some more of the trails that I skipped out on. By the time I got to Kincaid Park it was getting close to time for me to head out so I called my mom to pick me up so I could go pickup the dog. All in all another good day racking up almost 40 miles and some great weather.

Photos

Chugiak, AK

2008-06-24T00:39:00.000-05:00

I arrived in Anchorage, Alaska yesterday at 1 AM in daylight. Being the day of the summer solstice (June 21st) I arrived on the longest day of the year. I had no problems bringing my bicycle onto the plane except for the $100 fee they charge on top of the $25 for checking two bags. I still don't understand the policy on baggage, some over-sized items they seem to be fine with not charging a fee for and others they hammer you on. Luckily my bike made it through the trip unscathed and weighed in at 55 lbs in the case with a few other items that I packed inside.

I set the bike up on Sunday after getting some sleep that night but didn't ride it until today. I did some errands in town such as finding where my class is on campus and visiting the bike shop that is holding the 24 hour race on Saturday. It was a great shop carrying all sorts of high end bikes and equipment much better then the bike shops I have seen in California and on par with the few I visited in Colorado.

After running my errands I had plenty daylight left as it doesn't get dark here until 2 or 3 in the morning and even then its not really that dark so I decided to check out the trails by my parents house. I had been on them before on my parents 4 wheelers so I wasn't that excited about it but thought it would be a good check on my bike after the assembly. As I ventured out the trails really surprised me as I really found them enjoyable even though it had no singletrack but the views were great the weather was perfect and its always good on my mountain bike.

It was hard to navigate my way around as there are no signs posted and without a map of the roads or trails. I came upon a few dead ends after crossing the railroad tracks where I was met by a river. I thought about crossing it but a few rough looking individuals came through in there trucks so I decided to head back home the way I came. All and all I ended up with 15 miles in about an hour and a half. Tomorrow I will head down to Kincaid park and check out some of the singletrack in downtown Anchorage.

Photos

Stopped Again

2008-06-19T20:59:00.000-05:00

Today due to the heat wave that all of the southwest has been getting I decided to get out on the road bike and ride along the coast and once again try the famous Camp Pendleton ride again. I was hoping that the construction would be completed since the last time I tried this ride. Even though most of San Diego was getting blasted by the sun along the coast it was very foggy which the locals here call June gloom. This is what gives San Diego its mild temperatures that its famous for.

I was still hurting from my ride on the San Juan trails so I took this ride more as a active recovery ride and didnt push the pace too much. Kind of took in the sights as there were tons of girls in bikinis along the beach to look at. As I passed by the Oceanside pier the construction signs made it apparent that I would once again be unable to complete the ride. My legs were thanking me as they felt like lead trying to push my bike over 20. I sprinted on the bike a few times to get the illusion of a workout but was usually just tooling around. This will be my last ride until Alaska when I hope to get in one ride before my race.

Photos

San Juan Trail

2008-06-17T23:19:00.000-05:00

My original plans for the day were to head up to San Bernardino and ride the SART but didn't feel like driving for 2 hours by myself to ride the trails. Also a little heat wave has been rolling through so I wanted to say closer to the coast. I heard that the San Juan Trail was one of the best in the area also so I decided to try my hand on it instead as its located in Orange County which is closer. I got there about 10 AM with 2 cars already in the parking lot and started my long, long, long climb up to the top. Its about an 7.5 mile climb to the top before you get any sort of downhill that allows you to let up. I felt good for the first 2.5 miles of climbing cleaning all but one of the switchbacks. I then started to get tired and the trail was pretty rutted forcing me to walk a few of the steeper sections.

The trail was exposed the whole time except for a small portion of it around the 8 mile mark when you come into a small meadow. I stopped there to cool down in the shade as I was draining my camelback quicker then I planned for. I had thought about turning around since I was low on water and only had a few ounces in my water bottle left. I decide to stick it out as I knew my climbing for the day was almost over. I headed out again walking quite a bit of the trail as it was extremely rocky and I was feeling mentally tired. I hadn't brought any gels and I needed some sugar because I was bonking.

As I started my decent I was feeling good but crashing a few times. One of them causing me to go over the bars into some bushes that ripped my shorts exposing my ass. Luckily I had just passed two girls on the trail and was hoping that would be the last bit of people that I would see as I still had a few more miles to go. I made it down without mooning anyone and quickly threw on a pair of shorts I had brought.

My overall feeling off this trail is that the downhill wasn't all that great as it was extremely rutted and too many switchbacks so that you can't sustain speed. I will not be back to ride this trail again unless I need to work on my climbing more but with Elfin Forest nearby I doubt that.

Photos

MCAT

2008-06-16T17:54:00.000-05:00

Well I have signed up for the MCAT come September 6th so today with all the study material I bought I studyed some. The chemistry aspect is not too tough as thats the freshest subject in my brain but biology which I took 2 years ago and physics are a little tough. Im hoping by doing the flash cards everyday for a few hours and then the practice tests towards the end it will payoff. This is the way I have been studying all throughout college, learn the material then take practice tests a few days before, hopefully it works out. Its not a revolutiontary method of studying just what works, for me at least.

One thing about registering for the test and buying study material I noticed was the cost associated with just applying to medical school. It was around $250 for the test and I spent $150 on study materials plus it will probably be much more to apply to the schools. This is a small taste of why the rich get richer in this country. If I would of taken an MCAT prep course I would of been looking close to two grand for that also.

Enought about that stuff, I have been also messing around a lot lately with all my freetime and watched what I believe to be every bit of The Flight of the Conchords youtube video's and let me tell you they are hilarious. Here are two of my favorites:

Flight of the Conchords- Business Time

2008-06-16T17:53:00.001-05:00

Elfin Forest / Fathers Day

2008-06-15T23:35:00.000-05:00

It's Fathers day so I started out by helping my soon to be father-in-law by cleaning the pool. It was tough going though as a bunch of the yellow spots just haven't been coming off. So I got a little hand brush and went to work on the problem spots. It helped out some but it was still very noticeable. So Mr. Bill decided to head down to the local pool shop with a water sample. The pool shop said it was a yellow algae in the pool and gave him some chemicals that will hopefully rid us of the algae.

After the few hours I spent doing that I got the mountain bike ready to go to Elfin Forest. I knew that it had a tough climb and my body was feeling spent from yesterdays mountain bike ride and the pool scrubbing but I know I needed it. It was slow going and every time I thought I cleared a technical section of the climb right around the switchback would be more rocks that would cause to dab or lose my balance.

After following the way up trail to the top I split off onto the equine trail which had a nice little downhill run followed by more switchback infested climbing. At this point I reached the top that had quite a nice lookout over North County where I stopped to take a break.

I took the Mariposa trail next that connected on the the fireroad that runs along the top of the mountain here next to the reservoir. I missed my turn and got lost searching around for my way down. I knew that I had to take the way up trail back down, which wasn't that nice due to all the hikers out and around. I only ended up with 7.5 miles but it felt like much more.

Photos

La Costa

2008-06-14T19:07:00.000-05:00

The day started out with an appointment to see Levyland a house that Sarah and I are renting to have our wedding at. We wanted to go over a few things as were starting to iron out some of the details of the wedding such as seating. Since the day before we went talk to one caterer and they started to talk about our seating arrangements. Were actually thinking of seating everyone in the driveway under the canopies of the trees with tables like below.

Im still kinda of torn between spending all this money on the wedding and using it for something else. Part of me says this is one of your most memorable parts of your life so why not have fun and having some extra cash in your pockets isn't what life is about. The other part says that we should be using this on our first house together. I think that at this point were both pretty excited about having a wedding.

After our trip to Levyland I headed over to El Camino bike shop so that they could slide my grips on using an air compressor and crimp my cables. I had finished bleeding my brakes the other night so I was ready to get in some mountain biking. They did it at no cost but I dont really like the vibe in there especially the vibe Jose puts off. After that I rode my bike over to the La Costa Trailhead. Its really a fun trail not very big (6 miles) but there are rumors of it connecting to Elfin Forest which would make it all that much better.

The climbing wasn't too bad it just kept switchbacking all the way up Denk Mountain. A few parts I dabbed and didn't clean it but was just happy to be on the bike. At the top I ran into a nice lady who showed me around as most of the trails are intertwined. She was a great rider and was actually doing a much better job on the downhills then I was, hopefully it was just me being rusty. I bit it on both of the downhills, once by washing my tire out on some sand and the second was a OTB from a rock. All in all it was great to be back on the Merlin riding some trails.

The Ranch

2008-06-12T19:42:00.000-05:00

I decided to head through Rancho Santa Fe today and hit up Del Dios Highway and climb up it, something I haven't done yet. For you who don't know Rancho Santa Fe is the most upscaled community here in San Diego. I believe at one point is was the richest neighborhood in the country but with the woes in the housing market here in San Diego Im sure it has taken a bit of a hit also. You cant see many of the houses though as they are usually accompanied by a gate with many acres.

On my ride I got a call from the lady handling the claim for my bike. I had got a call from the culprit the other day but he didn't want to give me the insurance info for the car he was driving. I guess though he was more friendly with the insurance companies and said he would get them the info in the next couple of days. I have already paid out of my pocket all the money to fix my bike so hopefully I can get reimbursed soon.

Also on my way back on El Camino Real I was getting ready to take my left onto Garden View when a huge F-250 blew buy me to stop 50 yards ahead at the red light. I sprinted to get there before the light turned green and what do you know he has his window rolled down. I told him that he was suppose to give me at least 3 feet while passing. All he had to say to me was that he saw me and not to worry about it. I told him that I could feel his side view mirror come too close for comfort to which he replied ride faster.

Im getting excited about Alaska and reading this post on MTBR is not making it any easier.

Photos

Coolngreen

2008-06-12T00:36:00.000-05:00

I wasn't up for a long ride today and I know that I haven't been doing many intervals lately so I decided to head over to Coolngreen which is a street in our subdivision that has 16% grade for maybe 50 yards. I did 3 sets of 5 climbs up it each lasting about 30 second with about 1 minute of rest between each interval and 5 minutes of rest between each set. I thought I was going to puke after the first set and almost called it quits after my second set.

Photos

June Gloom

2008-06-10T23:16:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to head out on the famous Camp Pendleton Ride from Swamis even with the weather being pretty bad with the infamous June gloom. I had printed out the directions and taped them on my top tube as I have been doing for all my rides but didn't pay any real attention to them. When I got down to the coast it had me confused and wondering where to go. I called Sarah as a last resort even though she is very bad at giving directions. I knew at some point I had to cross across the 5 but was unclear with the directions. She wasn't very helpful and I ended up finding it out on my own. On South Pacific I found that it was under construction and no allowing through traffic so I was unable to get to Harbor Drive and decided to turn around and head home. On the way I decided to make it an active recovery ride and just spun my legs out. One guy ended up passing me and I chased to stay with so as to push myself. I still ended up with 40 miles so all was not lost. When I got back home I was locked out as Sarah had left for work. Her mom showed up 20 minutes later without a key either. So we sat outside freezing waiting for her Dad to come and open the house.

Same Route New Way

2008-06-08T22:53:00.000-05:00

Before I get to bored of the monotony of riding my same few routes that I have adopted from Swamis I decided to do go ahead and try them all in the reverse direction to change it up. I started with the long route going through San Marcos first onto a nice climb on Old Castle Road thats not quite as bad as Lake Wohlford but taxing none the less. On the way there I saw quite a few RAAM riders and there support vans. I stopped at my usual spot up on top by Lake Wohlford where i chomped on some blueberry poptarts.

I grabbed my usual orange but it wasn't as tasty as my first one, they never are. The ride hurt much more then usual, don't know if it was harder this way but I liked the descending down Lake Wohlford instead of climbing it with all the traffic on that road. The climb up Old Castle Road has more shoulder which is needed more climbing.

Photos

Bleeding Heart

2008-06-07T16:28:00.000-05:00

Well today I called around to a few of the bike shops in town to see if any of them had a bleed kit in stock that I could buy and if not how much would they charge to bleed my new front brake. None of them had any in stock and they all charged about $35 with a few day wait. So I decided to resort to the internet to find one to buy, and what do you know the flea market that is ebay had one for $20 plus $5 shipping. So with that taken care of I was off to go on a road ride.

Its much the same route that I have been taking since moving back to Encinitas. Taking Levante Street to Rancho Sante Fe to Elfin Forest to Del Dios to the coast then up Birmingham and back home. Its a fairly scenic ride but the offshore wind really slows you down in the direction I do it. I think the next time I try this route I will have to try it counter clockwise. Out of the 10 or so riders I saw all of them were doing it the opposite direction.

Photos

Bike Repair

2008-06-06T21:41:00.000-05:00

Today I was planning on getting a road bike ride in but a present came in the mail from Ellsworth and my mind switched from road biking to getting out on the dirt. When I opened the package they sent me the wrong bolt but I had dirt on my mind so I called around to see if anyone had the bolt in stock. Luckily North of the Border Bicycles had one in stock so I took a drive down to Mira Mesa to pick it up.

After a few hours of running new cables through my seat stays and adjusting the derailleurs I was done with the exception of my new front brake which didnt come pre-bled from the factory so I will either have to go pick up a bleed kit or have a shop do it. Hopefully I can have this done so that I can get a ride on some dirt tomorrow.

Photos

Coastal Ride

2008-06-05T17:14:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to head out on the road bike and ride along Hwy 101. Its a pretty flat ride and its hard to get into a rhythm with the stop signs but you cant beat the scenery. I am really hoping to have my mountain bike done by the beginning of next week as im waiting on the bolt that goes through the frame that connects the chain stay to the frame. Hopefully I can get a few rides in next week.

I ended up with 35 miles and rode at a pretty good pace despite the stop signs. On my way back from Oceanside a pro team was out for there ride and I tried staying with them, which didnt work out as my stamina at 28 mph is lacking. I doubt they were even pushing hard.

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Orange Thief

2008-06-03T23:10:00.000-05:00

Since I was lazy in San Francisco playing GTA 3 I needed to get back on the bike to get ready for my 24 hour race in Alaska. I decided to head out for a 65 mile road ride as my mountain bike is still in pieces after the accident. I road out to Escondido via Elfin Forest and up too Lake Wohlford where I stopped for a snack and a restroom break.

I had done this ride once before and knew that there are tons of orange groves along some of the roads. Some of them are protected by chain linked fences and barbed wire but one was not. I decided to stop and test one of the oranges 40 miles into my ride and it might of been the best orange I have ever tasted.

All and all it was a great ride that had my legs burning at the end on this long false flat. Its a great ride because you get out in the country with little traffic. The climb up Lake Wohlford is a little dicey with traffic but a nice quad burner at about 10% grade for a couple miles.

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Yosemite

2008-06-02T22:52:00.001-05:00

Since the gas was free on our trip I was looking at some side trips to do on the drive back from San Francisco and decided too make a detour to Yosemite National Park. It would add a few hours onto the drive but I knew it would be worth it.

It took us 3 hours and a hissy fit from Sarah until we arrived. She was fine once we got there and seemed to enjoy herself. I wish we had more time to explore as all we had time for was a 4 mile hike and some exploring from the side of the road. I was amazed how crowded it was and even more amazed that once you actually hiked a few hundred yards how the people thinned out. It shows how lazy many people are. We got to see the famous attractions like El Capitan but didnt make it out to half dome, maybe some other time.

The rest of the drive was long and boring through the Grape Vine. It was nice to stop at In -n- Out though and get some dinner. Its one of the things I miss when at school in Louisiana.

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San Francisco

2008-06-01T17:51:00.000-05:00

Sarah's parents were heading out to Canada for her cousin Tim's wedding so we asked to borrow the company car and gas card to drive up and see her sister Corynn. They were nice enough to allow us to use them and off we were Thursday afternoon after dropping them off for there flight.

The drive up was pretty uneventful I was originally planning on driving the coast since the gas was free and we had plenty of time. I missed the exit though and just stuck it out on the 5 all the way up to Walnut Creek a suburb of San Francisco.

It was a nice little town that had a nice MUT system that seemed to get quite a bit of use throughout the city. It had all the normal stores to satisfy most women also.

Corynn's boyfriend Chase had to work all weekend but he was still able to hang out with us at night as he got off at 3. The first night they took us out to Pyramid Brewery for drinks and dinner, the beer was good we got a pitcher and I tried there beer sampler.

The next night we headed to downtown San Francisco to check out a street fair that was going on. We arrived about 5 pm and everyone there was already drunk, and every conversation started by the famous words "I am so fuckin' wasted right now". Its no fun being sober at a drunk fest so we decided to head out and walk to get some dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.

I had planned on riding my road bike while I was there but the evil that is Grand Theft Auto 3 called my inner couch potato and forced me to sit and play for hours while the girls were shopping.

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