Riding with the girls…
I took Tuesday off and had plans to pre-ride the Winter Park Point-to-Point race course. I had reconnected with a friend of Vickie’s, Ann, at Vickie’s 40th birthday party last Friday night. Ann (a former corporate slave – engineer) is taking time off work while her husband, Wes, is holding down the fort while she is taking it easy. Since Sasha is off on Tuesdays – it was gonna be a gurlz ride.
I’ll be doing the race on my SingleSpeed so I wanted to make sure my gearing choice would work on this course. It’s 19 miles with the 1st half of the course that has a lot a climbing and the 2nd half to course is fast with a lot of ‘big ring’ terrain. I figured I’d just run the 32x18 to see how that worked on the pre-ride. The race is ~2hours at race pace – so I figured get there early, ride in 2.5 hours and then spend the afternoon on the chair lift working on descending skills.
We load up the car with all the pretty bikes. NOW this is not wimpy bike collection we had – Ann has a beautiful Plum colored Ellsworth Truth, Sasha has the Titus Racer-x, I have my custom Seven, plus my SS is a Dean. Super cool that this was a collection of bikes any serious biker would drool over.
We get started riding @ 10:45am. The 1st climb is a total bitch. It’s steep but is only 1 mile long – I just have to remember to tell myself *it’s ONLY 11 minutes!*. We start cranking up this hill and I’m standing up - I’m maxed out immediately. I’m not trying to go hard – it’s just I have no choice – there is 1 small section of singletrack that is too steep for me to ride so I walk it – get back on my bike and crank up the rest of the climb.
We are going pretty good at the beginning – we stop to make sure of directions here and there. I had let some air out of my fork as it was way too stiff and I was feeling fairly comfortable on the first couple of descents. After the 1st descent I mentioned to my companions that I really liked the air pressure I was running on the bike as it felt like I was getting good traction. We hit a 2nd rocky descent and start on gradual climb – my rear tire feels mushy and I squeeze it and within 3 seconds it’s completely flat.
Holy friggin’ Moly! Another pinch flat!?!? This time I’m on a completely different bike with different tires than the one I was on for the Firecracker 50. Crap! I change out the tube and get back on the bike.
We ride on – through a gradual climb, a wide creek crossing (where we all get wet), down a jeep road, and start up a rocky climb. Man! I’m totally getting my ass handed to me here. I can’t seem to stay on my bike – yes – the climb is rocky and loose but I keep coming off my bike. I’m getting frustrated and grumpy. We hit a technical section and I ride it well (yay! No flats) we crank it out on a flat before a longish gravel road descent.
We come to an intersection and are not sure which way to go – the directions say left – so we go left. After about 5 minutes I see that we are going the wrong way – however – I’m having a bitch of a time climbing. I can’t keep up with Sasha and Ann to catch them and tell them we are going the wrong way. I get frustrated and get off my bike a couple of times and walk – just because the climb is such a grind. We hit the top and head back the way we came. We got a 1.5 climb and 1.5 descent - ~3 “bonus” miles.
We find the right way –here’s where a ‘big ring’ would come in handy – it’s a slight uphill but something you could really crank on with a big ring. I do *ok* keeping up with the gearies –but if it was a race I’m sure I would be very hard pressed to keep them in sight.
We finish the race course and ride back from Frasier on the road. I was concerned about my climbing and was telling the girls I was gonna buy and put on a 19 tooth cog – as I walked WAY more than I wanted to with the 18 tooth cog. I felt this course warranted a little easier gear. The girls probably got tired of me complaining (I think I might have been on the verge of bonking as I ran out of water)
On our ride back we stopped for food. Then I noticed it! CRAP!!! Apparently when I changed out my flat I ACCIDENTLY put the wheel on with 17 tooth cog side on the drive train. I see the climbs I was struggling with arre 5.5% & 6% grade climbs and usually I do *ok* with that grade on the 18. Now I’m torn – does 1 tooth make that much of a difference?? now I realize the 17 was pretty decent for the last part of the course but would *really* suck for the 1st part. I’m torn…I’ll probably just go with the 18 and spin like a maniac in the last 8 miles….
Our ride time was ~3 hours for ~30 miles but our total time was ~4 hours. We ate and decided to forego hitting the chair lift. It was good time – good riding companions and I got to ride my bike. :)
I’ll be doing the race on my SingleSpeed so I wanted to make sure my gearing choice would work on this course. It’s 19 miles with the 1st half of the course that has a lot a climbing and the 2nd half to course is fast with a lot of ‘big ring’ terrain. I figured I’d just run the 32x18 to see how that worked on the pre-ride. The race is ~2hours at race pace – so I figured get there early, ride in 2.5 hours and then spend the afternoon on the chair lift working on descending skills.
We load up the car with all the pretty bikes. NOW this is not wimpy bike collection we had – Ann has a beautiful Plum colored Ellsworth Truth, Sasha has the Titus Racer-x, I have my custom Seven, plus my SS is a Dean. Super cool that this was a collection of bikes any serious biker would drool over.
We get started riding @ 10:45am. The 1st climb is a total bitch. It’s steep but is only 1 mile long – I just have to remember to tell myself *it’s ONLY 11 minutes!*. We start cranking up this hill and I’m standing up - I’m maxed out immediately. I’m not trying to go hard – it’s just I have no choice – there is 1 small section of singletrack that is too steep for me to ride so I walk it – get back on my bike and crank up the rest of the climb.
We are going pretty good at the beginning – we stop to make sure of directions here and there. I had let some air out of my fork as it was way too stiff and I was feeling fairly comfortable on the first couple of descents. After the 1st descent I mentioned to my companions that I really liked the air pressure I was running on the bike as it felt like I was getting good traction. We hit a 2nd rocky descent and start on gradual climb – my rear tire feels mushy and I squeeze it and within 3 seconds it’s completely flat.
Holy friggin’ Moly! Another pinch flat!?!? This time I’m on a completely different bike with different tires than the one I was on for the Firecracker 50. Crap! I change out the tube and get back on the bike.
We ride on – through a gradual climb, a wide creek crossing (where we all get wet), down a jeep road, and start up a rocky climb. Man! I’m totally getting my ass handed to me here. I can’t seem to stay on my bike – yes – the climb is rocky and loose but I keep coming off my bike. I’m getting frustrated and grumpy. We hit a technical section and I ride it well (yay! No flats) we crank it out on a flat before a longish gravel road descent.
We come to an intersection and are not sure which way to go – the directions say left – so we go left. After about 5 minutes I see that we are going the wrong way – however – I’m having a bitch of a time climbing. I can’t keep up with Sasha and Ann to catch them and tell them we are going the wrong way. I get frustrated and get off my bike a couple of times and walk – just because the climb is such a grind. We hit the top and head back the way we came. We got a 1.5 climb and 1.5 descent - ~3 “bonus” miles.
We find the right way –here’s where a ‘big ring’ would come in handy – it’s a slight uphill but something you could really crank on with a big ring. I do *ok* keeping up with the gearies –but if it was a race I’m sure I would be very hard pressed to keep them in sight.
We finish the race course and ride back from Frasier on the road. I was concerned about my climbing and was telling the girls I was gonna buy and put on a 19 tooth cog – as I walked WAY more than I wanted to with the 18 tooth cog. I felt this course warranted a little easier gear. The girls probably got tired of me complaining (I think I might have been on the verge of bonking as I ran out of water)
On our ride back we stopped for food. Then I noticed it! CRAP!!! Apparently when I changed out my flat I ACCIDENTLY put the wheel on with 17 tooth cog side on the drive train. I see the climbs I was struggling with arre 5.5% & 6% grade climbs and usually I do *ok* with that grade on the 18. Now I’m torn – does 1 tooth make that much of a difference?? now I realize the 17 was pretty decent for the last part of the course but would *really* suck for the 1st part. I’m torn…I’ll probably just go with the 18 and spin like a maniac in the last 8 miles….
Our ride time was ~3 hours for ~30 miles but our total time was ~4 hours. We ate and decided to forego hitting the chair lift. It was good time – good riding companions and I got to ride my bike. :)
Comments