Landmine 2010

Landmine, last "official"* race of the season. Most racers were ready for the season to end, but I felt I was just getting started.
With Landmine Jill and Chris, the Root 66 head honchos, have a lot of balls in the air. There is a Marathon going on at the same time as the regular XC event, and all the categories go off at once. To expedite this they lumped some of the groups together, which meant they were sending the Cat1 SS off with the Pros. That works well for us, because even when the Pros are just settling into the race they are flying; no getting caught behind a sit and spinner.
The whistle blows and for a very short time I'm the first singlespeeder...until local strongman Mike Ramponi from Independent Fabrications passed me and began to float away. I reeled him back a little, but once things started getting twisty he was out of sight.
But chasing him, I had put a little gap on Kerry and Reinout, 1st and 2nd overall in the series.
One of the unfortunate side effects of starting with the Pro men is the Pro women and leaders of the following age classes.
Mary McConneloug from Seven / Kenda very politely passed me with the leaders of the 30-39 class, who had paced Kerry back up to my wheel!
Fizzle Sticks!
We raced the next few miles when we entered a rocky section, I heard an awful metallic clank behind me. Kerry had crashed.
Again I started to build a gap, and again the next group of age group leaders, the 40-49 year olds brought Kerry back to me.
At the half way point we were only meters (that euro speech for feet or yards) apart.
But even though they caught us, we're the same age as those geezers and the lead group dangled in front of us. This was the carrot I needed, and finally began to build a gap.
It seemed my gear was just about perfect in the woods, as I was closing down the gap on geared riders, but once we'd get to a paved section, they'd twiddle their levers and fly away.
When Andy Chambers from the 50+ group caught me I was expecting Kerry to be once again on my wheel, but not this time. I raced into the finish alone, passing very courteous Cat3's from time to time, but without being pulled back.
Mike Ramponi, coming off finishing 2nd at the SM100 beat me by about 9 minutes. The way he rode away from us I wasn't sure if he was racing singlespeed or Pro. Sure he had some local knowledge, maybe without that the gap would have been more like 8:45.
The overall series remained unchanged with Kerry Robair of Biker's Edge winning the overall, after a long fought season. He solidified his gap over Reinout Schoolderman with his 3rd place finish at Landmine.
Congratulation guys!
I ended up in third overall, which I'm satisfied with having missed 9 weeks of racing.
One nice thing about the season being over, is I can ride more, while still spending more time with my family, so I guess I'm not too broken up with the season ending.




*no one said anything about "unofficial races"

What a great day for a ride!
Worked half a day and hit the res for one last "warm up" for landline. Must be a timing thing, but there wasn't another cyclist in the woods.
My main objective was to keep the legs fresh without over doing it, breaking my bike, or myself. Things were going as planned, until I looked down at my computer; I was on a really good pace.
So with that in the back of my mind, maybe I was hitting it a little harder than I should, but man, was I having fun! I did break my bike either.
We'll find out soon enough if I over did it, and if my super top secret gear is the right choice.

I was going to post about this large bird of prey I saw in the woods, but he was too fast for me to snap a picture of. Was a HUGE hawk. just looked at me as if to say "You're in my house now be-atch".
I was fast enough to take a picture of one of my pet peeves:



Maybe you could lift your fat tushy off the saddle and pull up on the bars to get over the log instead of making a stupid pile on both sides of it and just slamming into it? Mmmkay?

I wasn't going to "blog" about this ride, but I got a pretty decent shot of James being all pro and making a rocky switchback that I wouldn't even try, so here's a mini-blog.
I brought James out to experience some of East of the River's finest at Case yesterday. Lots of fun on the rocks. After Sunday's ride we both had had about enough after a couple of hours and made our way over to Mo's.
I'm really liking the whole post ride burrito concept.
But I guess Case is sort of like the stereotype of Chinese food; after a couple of hours I was wanting more.
Wow! No spelling errors! I feel like a winner!

TdT for Labor Day

The Tour de Talcott is a classic central Connecticut ride that I've babbled about from time to time in the past. By tradition it is ridden on Father's Day, but due to my own stupidity, it had to be postponed. This weekend I had the pleasure of riding it with one of the largest groups I've ever ridden it with not to mention one of the strongest.
The distance of our ride varies depending on where you get your data. Garmin Connect says one thing, while GPSies says another. GPsies also has a climb rating system that puts the TdT on par with the Col de Joux Plane. But no matter how it was recorded, it was the longest version of the TdT I've done to date (about 34 miles if you didn't clicky the linkys). It was also the fastest, which wasn't surprising considering the company I was keeping.
We left my house and hit the West side of the Res, including some newer trails there that only Kerry had previously ridden. Took the pavement to the back of res.6, to the trail out to 185, crossed into Pennwood (the happiest place on Earth), headed along the ridge on the west side (yellow trail) to the back of the park and went the hard way, a route I won't take alone, over the back to Wintonberry Rd.
My modest technical abilities abandoned me for awhile on the last section which left me hanging off the back. After we saw Craig, friends, and "the Rocketman*" (who would have preferred joining our group) at the overlook, I got hung up on the most non-technical technical. Again I found myself off the back. But then the group was completely out of sight. Was I that slow? One technical bobble and I'm completely alone? When I got to the chimney where we planned to turn around still nobody? Did they descend into Tarifville to go to the store? It was too early for the bar to be open. I heard church bells but I doubt they headed over to St. Bernard's for mass. Wait! those bells are my phone! James had called me. They took a wrong turn, had heard me pass them on the upper trail, and were on their way.
The way back we took the Wilcox Park trail back to Pennwood, but went down to the picnic area to refill water bottles when we got back into Pennwood. We then took the dirt path that parallels the road back to the trail head. If I realized we were on such a pace, I would have pushed for us to go back up to the yellow, because not only is it more fun than a bike path, it would have added another 10-15 minute to our ride. But with my family commitments for the day, it was probably better I hadn't wrapped my mind around that.
We finished the ride hitting the East side of the Res.
Josh and James then went to Mo's. I was hating on them.
One thing that struck me was the diversity of the bikes on the ride. There were some similarities, but every bike was unique in some way.

Josh was on the classic 26" Ti hardtail

Brian's ride was similar, but with grown-up sized wheels
Kerry probably wins the "most individual" award with is Maverick equipped singlespeed 69'er
Doug was sporting the all plastique, lighter than air, Wunder bike

James was on what I consider as the Workingman's Race bike; light, fast, reliable.
Of course I was riding BlüSteel, my Singular Swift the choice of discerning riders.
You might notice I used a "file photo" for BlüSteel, as I never thought to actually take a picture of my own bike, even when I was standing around at the chimney, one of my favorite picture sites, waiting for them to find me.

Great ride with a great bunch of guys, on one of the most perfect riding days you could imagine. Doesn't get much better (it actually did as I had birthday cake at both my Sister's and Sister-in Law's houses in the afternoon).


*Rocketman is Craig's dog

Now I think I'm just over compensating

Sure, the two young ladies riding the scooter together on Farmington Ave last night was hot, but the super hot girl who used to work at the bagel shop just turned up at Starbucks! I don't know if she rides a bike.

Racist or Closeted Homosexual

On my ride home tonight there was a black guy riding the opposite direction on a green and white steel bicycle. He was shirtless, in the drops, perfect flat back. He was magnificent. Not many could make that look work, but he was beautiful. Man, muscle and machine working as one.
I wonder if the small white man riding the brown fixed gear in a Mapei jersey made any impression on him?