Okay I think I'm ready!

As ready as I could be after not training for 4 months, that is! My sweet Eddie spent the day preparing my two Jabberwockys to race. There is some kind of issue with the suspension fork that I hope is fixed but I won't know until I ride it. If I can stand it, I want to race the pink Jabber with bitchfork for as many laps as I can.

OK, so I know nothing about the course..conditions...tires...it's a good thing we are leaving tomorrow so I can figure it out. Not sure we will have a connection when we get to MS but I will try to update!

Thanks for the good luck, I need it! :)

Thanks

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. I'm starting to feel a little better, so I'm optimistic for the race...we'll see.

I was very excited to receive a little package from Twin Six today...it made my day! I think I now own every single Twin Six t-shirt they made in 2007. Believe it or not, I actually dress in T6 apparel 6 out of 7 days of the week, if not all 7 days :) There's still a couple of the new ones I'm going to have to get...

Timing is everything

I suppose it's a "good" thing that I got sick SIX DAYS BEFORE MY 24 HOUR RACE!!??? I guess it's better than getting sick 2 days before the race. All I can say right now is I hope I'm feeling better by Thursday :(

Some of my favorites

More pix here

R Ranch in the Mountains

What a fantastic week!!! 3 days in Dahlonega at R-Ranch with a great cabin on a lake, hiking, fall colors, and miles and miles of technical 8-12 inch wide singletrack littered with rocks, leaves, creeks, roots, and logs..all without driving anywhere!! We had all this right out of our front door. What a gem, I can't believe I had no idea R Ranch had all of this. It is private property, though, so don't even consider poaching. Pix and full write up to come...but for now it's time to celebrate my birthday....again! :)

Woohoo, on cycling news

Okay, it's not really about me, but my name is in it.

O'Dea signs with Vassago Cycles

Former Kona racer Eddie O'Dea and has signed with Vassago Cycles for 2008. O'Dea, who hails from Atlanta, Georgia, has been making regular trips to the podium since 2005 and is looking forward to joining his wife Namrita on the team. On the O'Dea calendar for 2008 are the Singlespeed World Championships, US Nationals, the Granny Gear 24 hour National Points Series, and several of the National Ultra Endurance (NUE) Series events.

"I'm very excited to be supported to race at the national level and to be racing on a 29er," said the 32 year-old O'Dea to Cyclingnews. O'Dea is also the promoter of the Fool's Gold 100 miler in Georgia.

Sad news

You may have already heard, but the Razorback trail in Reddick, FL is closing in a week and a half. This is one of the best trails I've ever ridden, I loved the 12 hour race there, and it's definitely my favorite trail in Florida.

I feel REALLY bad for the FL locals...as they are losing something great. Hopefully a new trail opens for them sometime in the near future!

I'm wondering where the 12 hour in Feb. is going to be now?!

Exploring

The beer festival deserves it's own report since it involved a whole 6 hours of drinking microbrews from all over the place. I tried some new ones from Left Hand Brewing Co., Avery Brewing, and had the usual Highland Gaelic Ale and a bunch of others. Hopefully one day Bells will make it down south! Patrick Jones (IF guy) and Peter Joski (Dedicated Athlete guy) were there too, so we had a good time.

Sunday was Eddie's and my 1 year anniversary. We spent it by exploring around Pine Log again. Sometimes exploring is good, and sometimes it's not. I guess that's the risk of exploring. Yesterday was OK until we decided to try this old washed out road bed since it went W/SW the direction we wanted to go. It was quite steep and tech in the first 1/2 mile with HUGE waterbars in it. The road had trees, shrubs, ruts, big rocks, and was really dry. Well yours truly found a way to endo on a 29er! I found out that big wheels will roll over a lot, but not big shrubs. :( I hurt my wrist, and it still hurts, but I think it's just a minor sprain. The worst part is, after 15 mins more of bike-whacking (nothing else was rideable), our old roadbed died out. We had to turn around and hike back out! At least now we know where not to ride around there. Next time we'll explore the other side of the WMA.

We're heading up to R-Ranch in Dahlongea midweek to celebrate the anniversary and my birthday. We'll take the dogs and stay in one of their cabins. Apparently they have tons of trail on their property also so we'll check it out!

Hello Switzerland!

I completely forgot to post about this...but awhile ago, I stumbled upon this.

Pretty cool! The pink Jabber is famous all over the world :)

Thanks for the kind words (even though I had to use google translator to read it :)

The cat is out

In case you missed it, Eddie loved my Jabberwockys so much that he decided to join me in racing for Vassago Cycles next year. He'll be racing the geared Chupacabras which is really exciting!!

We'll have some more big sponsor news coming bit by bit...and we now have a shared blog that we'll both update. Check it. There's not much on there now, well...since we're not doing much riding right about now!! But, we'll post our sponsor updates there.

Big wheels...you got em?

If so, you might be interested in the 29er Gathering of the Southeast...to take part during the Fool's Gold Mountain Bike Races & Festival on August 15-17 2008.

There will be an organized 29er ride, lots of food, unlimited microbrews, bands, and awards for the following: Ugliest 29er, Sexiest 29er, Blingest 29er, Lightest 29er, Oldest 29er, Best Wheelie on your 29er, and Most Creative Setup on your 29er.

We're still in the planning stages and sponsor hunting, but I wanted to get this out there...so you still have time to rid yourself if your baby 26er wheels and party with the cool people! :)

um...help

So, Dave Muse, Fools Gold route designer describes the 24 hour of Clear Springs course I'm about to race like this:

Ever ridden there before?

The terrain is wild; deep gulleys everywhere, and the trail just goes straight up and down the fall lines. The vegetation is so tenacious, that if a trail gets worn out they just move 4 feet to the left and cut a new one, and a year later you can't even tell where the old trail was.

I haven't been there in years, but it used to be terraced, stair-step, vertical climbs followed by equally terraced, stair-step vertical descents, composed entirely of basically sand and criscrossed by an infinite number of roots. At the bottom of every hill is quicksand and though there were some flatish spots, they were equally hard to ride because of all the water they collected. I swear, Conyers and Carters Lake are harder, but every other cross country trail in Georgia is easier than Clear Springs. I remember it as a savage, merciless, unyielding, face-crushing, mangling, devestating beat-down. One day I dislocated both shoulders there in as many laps.

I say all this, and yet we rode it pretty much every other weekend. It is, in fact, a really fun trail, if you're into that sort of thing.

In the summer, it's typically over 100 degrees in the woods with 100% humitidy. If you stop for a second, it feels like you're baking. This time of year it should be pretty nice though, especially if it hasn't rained in a while.

The park ranger who took over maintenance of the area just before I moved to GA was a really avid mountain biker, so the trail may be god's gift now, but back in the day it was pure screaming hell. Also, my memory may be skewed because I really sucked back then.

Hope you guys have fun. Especially you Nam, on the singlespeed.

So..yeah. He's not really selling me on it. Can anyone confirm or deny the above??

Just over 2 weeks and counting.................

BTW--the Decatur Beer Festival is SOLD OUT! Told ya! Eddie and I got our tickets, though...I've been looking forward to this all year! :) Neal, I will drink one (or five) in your honor since you decided to go to Bolivia instead...Jodi, I will drink 1/2 of one in your honor since you are a slacker non-commital type!

A true adventurer

My friend Neal just decided last week to pack up and bike around Bolivia for a month. The altitude is 12,000 min! He's traveling solo..which is just crazy to me. He really is a true adventurer and I'd highly recommend checking out his blog as he documents his travel through Bolivia.

My public service announcement

Tickets for this year's Decatur Beer Festival are only sold online this year, so make sure you get one ASAP. It will also be Eddie's and my 1 year anniversary!! So, presents are welcome and encouraged :)

Bailing

I decided to bail on this weekend's planned riding and shenanigans in Pisgah...just way too much school-related stuff to do. No point in going out of town for fun if it stressed me out. I'm actually really glad we stayed here. Eddie and I got in 4 hours of tough riding on Saturday up in Blue Ridge...Stanley, Flat, Green, Long, Stanley..I don't know what was harder up there, the SS or the rigid...Lucky me, I had both. I was happy to be done afterwards! Today we explored the Pine Log WMA. Everyone is right, it's really hard to find your way around there..maybe someone can give us a good topo of the area with something resembling a route on there?

In other news...we are working on planning a number of other exciting events for next year......and some interesting sponsor related news is coming soon.

Here we go again...support needed

Eddie and I are racing the 24 hours of Clear Springs in MS solo on Nov 3-4 and we thought we had support squared away...but that just fell through.

If anyone is willing to help, please let me know! We will hook you up with a 55nine Performance Laser Precision Bike Fit and race entries to the BURN 24 hour and/or Fools Gold 100 or 50.

Mechanical skills are preffered, but not required.

Thanks.

Great post

If you have a few minutes, check out this blog post from Brian Pace.

Finally a ride

I did get on the bike yesterday, but I assure you it wasn't without incident. I'm not going to go into details, it's just too embarassing :)

Eddie and I ended up riding some random stuff yesterday, not a lot of "flow", but certainly technically challenging especially with a big-azz gear on my 29er. I think a lot of what we rode is not designed for mountain biking, and it was definitely a lot more fun to go down than it was to go up. Good skills practice though. My legs feel a little worked.

To the Bike Gods:

PLEASE STOP MESSING WITH ME!!!!!!!!!!!

So, after this past weekend's mishaps, today was the day to get out and RIDE!!! Eddie was borrowing a full carbon Blue prototype to ride and give feedback on, but the front brake wasn't working. No, I'm not kidding....more brake problems. This one was different though, one of the pads was worn completely and it needed shims to center the caliper. So, after spending all morning working on the bike to set it up to ride, he threw his old Kona on the back of the car (again) and we loaded up the dogs and headed to Chicopee Woods. As we pulled into the parking lot, dark clouds and heavy winds started to encroach on us. We decided to risk it and flew into the woods..after all, we sat in the car for an hour and the boys needed to run! We are trying to work them into riding shape after their long summer off. I'm not sure they will be in great shape for this weekend in Pisgah, but we'll see. Anyway, after about 5 minutes of riding, the skies opened up. I think we got about 15 minutes of riding in before we made it back to the car..the lightning was close and you get in "big trouble" if you ride these trails when they are wet. So, another ride foiled...that was the 3rd in a row. We are trying again tomorrow and I'm expecting a good one this time!

Is it really that time again?

I mean, time to train and taper for another 24 hour solo. Yes, it is that time. My brain and body are in *almost* complete off-season, fun-riding, beer-drinking mode so I'm having to try really hard to override that. My goals for this upcoming race are simple...not to cry. Yeah, I want to see if I can actually race my bike for 24 hours without crying.. I cried at the BURN race because I was so frustrated with my fork mechanicals, and my forearms were killing me from riding the Reba fork locked out. I cried even more at 24 hour Nationals feeling sorry for myself from the rear flat episode and being given uncharged or low-burn time batteries by my pit crew. But, that's all in the past...

After that, Eddie and I will be trying some new offseason training plans and I will be building a nutrition plan for us so we can both be way stronger and faster next year!!! We are also planning a long trip to FL in December so we can get in some long quality outdoor miles this winter!

My weekend

It was full of good plans...but not all of them worked out. We were supposed to finish building Eddie's Jabberwocky on Friday, but after 8 hours (not joking here) of trying to bleed the brakes we gave up and went to drink beer. We got up on Saturday and began working on the brakes again, and fit the bike for Eddie. The rear brake was just not holding so we decided to scrap our plans for Chilhowee (it was already noon anyway) and head to Addictive Cycles to let the brake master work his magic. Hodge couldn't "fix" it even after working on it for an hour...several problems with the lever, leaking, who knows. He put on a Magura lever (which we found out weighs 1/2 of the Avid lever!) and we were in business. However, we only had 2 hours or so to ride...at Fort Yargo...not what I had in mind, but it was riding none the less.

Sunday was better. We got up early and headed up for some Fools Gold route action with our friends Chris and Rich. Not 3 minutes into the ride, though, Eddie stood up to clear a steep section of doubletrack and his headset fell apart. He was back on his 26er bike because the rear brake from Saturday's problems never held. Sounds like we need a new rear brake altogether. When he tried to tighten it, he broke the stem....great. We rolled back to the car in hopes that Chris had some extra Aerus parts in his truck, but no luck. After hemming and hawing about whether to ride with the risk of Eddie snapping his sternum in 1/2 on his stem or turning home, we decided to keep riding only because Eddie promised to ride smart and hike when necessary. We got in almost 3 hours with Chris and Rich, and then Eddie and I rode some more horse trails for 1-2 hours. The Jake mountain trails were in great shape...dry...and STEEP AS EVER! Eddie came out with no crashes so we were both very relieved that the stem held out. Don't try this at home!

I have a few pix I will upload soon.....hope everyone is enjoying Fall!! :-)

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh

Nice. 2008 Bandersnatch---this one is silver and you can find the green version on the website.

Week in pictures

Eddie's impersonation of Cartecay Mike

Jackson is knee deep looking for his ball

Eddie's got balls

Porter posing

Eddie picking lines

Hot Dog

Heading home

Time to buy Twin Six stuff :-)

It's time once again for the TWIN SIX SORT OF BI-ANNUAL FOUR DAY SALE.

From Thursday 10/4 through Sunday 10/7 you can get all sorts of T6 goodness on the cheap. 2007 T6 men’s and women’s jerseys that are still in stock will be $45. Also, all of the 2007 T6 men’s and women’s t-shirts will be $15 (find them in the TRUNK section). In addition to what’s on sale, we just launched all of the 2008 T6 t-shirts, and a few of them are prototypes marked down to $12.

The sale starts Thursday 10/4 and ends Sunday 10/7. Get while the gettin’s good.

BTW: Shipping is free on orders over $100!

This can't be good

The pain I've been feeling from 1) Running 4 miles and 2) Lifting upper body weights for 30 minutes has been UNREAL!!! Am I really that out of anything-but-cycling shape?? It's kind of scary how sore I have been :) On a positive note, though, Eddie and I got to play on the Snake (Snake Creek Gap) yesterday. 2.5 hours of rocks, rocks, and more rocks. The trail conditions were very dry and sandy..made for some tough steep climbing and sketchy descending. It was probably a bad day to choose that trail after lifting weights as my entire upper body was really fatigued..making for a tough ride with all the rocks on the trail. I guess I will have to mix in some yoga and core/upper body strength this fall and winter.

I think we're heading to TN this weekend to ride some new trails!! Fun. Eddie will be on the orange Jabberwocky!!! I think he's finally warming up to the idea of big boy wheels :)