http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/28823500

I’ll be updating this site more regularly as the season progresses, but it was nice to get things underway this weekend!

Taking a breather out on the dam

Today I decided to take a decent ride starting in Granby and winding my way up around the Barkhampstead Reservoir.  What I didn’t really think about when I planned the route was the fact that some of the roads out in that part of the state are very hairy (read: unimproved dirt roads) and they created quite a challenge for me.  The picture on this post is from when I stopped for a breather out on the dam. Below is the link to the route.  Next time I’ll plan to start a bit earlier to beat the heat!

Reservoir/Sundown Loop
Find more Others in Granby, Connecticut

Kerensa deep in sanding duty!

Well, it has been over a month since my last update to the blog and quite a few happenings have gone on.  I raced in the Massasoit XC race and had marginal success.  The month between Root 66 races from Massasoit to Winsted was a nice breather that really let me settle down and decide what I wanted to do for the summer.  Justin and I spent plenty of ti

me just going out to Penwood, Robinson, and Case to just ride and enjoy ourselves.  I have been averaging about three days riding per week with a combination of road and mountain.

During National Ride Your Bike to Work Week I took my ‘cross bike all the way to New Britain.  It is so nice to be able to take the rail trail for 18 miles!  The ride out in the morning was beautiful; cool, quiet.  I met my friend Marc in Farmington and we rode the final miles

together.  Each way was pretty much 30 miles for me and getting into work felt really good.  After working eight hours and then having to ride home the same 30 miles was a bit less enjoyable.  New Britain at rush hour on a Friday in 85* weather isn’t totally advisable!  The final ten miles were pretty tough as I just wanted to get home, but my legs wouldn’t let me get there quickly.

The following day, Kerensa dragged me for 18 miles headed North on the rail trail up to Southwick where the trail is still under construction.  I couldn’t

believe it, but my legs were so trashed from the day prior that I was having a tough time keeping up!  Any acceleration from my ride leader just put distance between us.  Racing at Winsted was a serious maybe at this point.  I decided to wait until the morning and decide then how my legs were feeling.

I d

etermined over the month off that I didn’t want to pay good money to ride around the back of the pack with no chance of winning.  If I’m not feeling 100% I won’t race.  That reasoning was exactly what made the decision for me in regards to Winsted; my legs were roasted from Friday so I called the race off.  It worked out for the best as I got to complete some home projects that I’ve been meaning to do.

That brings me to really what has consumed most of my training time recently; making the condo ours!  From simple things like fixing the doors so they close completely to more complex projects like replacing the in-ceiling bathroom fans.  As I’m writing this we are on day #7 of a re-painting of our half bath.  Why wallpaper glue has to be so strong that it could hold a race car together is a question that I asked many times.  After the demon wallpaper was removed, we had the toilet flood, causing 1.6 gallons of water to pour onto the floor and into the ceiling of the finished basement, ruing a couple of tiles.  As with most projects, I’m starting to learn that if something can go wrong it most definitely will!  We have a hard deadline of next Saturday so this week will be more project completion than biking.

This morning Justin and I met at the Line St lot for Case mountain in Manchester and proceeded to check out what the park had to offer. This was actually my first time riding here so Justin got to play tour guide. We started up the fireroad then branched off into some technical doubletrack. Before long we were at the summit and enjoyed the nice view! We pointe the bikes downhill and rode some pretty tricky stuff before winding our way back to the summit. This time we went down the back side of the mountain and stayed back there. I have a horrible memory so the trails we rode on will remain lost in the woods! We did find some stunts out in the woods and on the red trail we ran into the bridge you see in the picture. After we rode for a couple hours we had to get back to town because we were going to the New England Regional Chili Cook-Off in Somers for noon. Case was full of technical terrain that I’ll surely have to come back to ride again!

We waited for what seemed like an eternity in the cold wind, but it was eventually time to line up. Everybody lined up 15 minutes early and that left me with a sweet 3rd row starting spot; not where you want to be on a one-lane start! We all raced up the sandy road and abruptly stopped when we hit the singletrack. Someone must have had an issue because we were literally standing in a line waiting for the front to move. Back on our way, the pace was high as usual and things got spread out pretty quickly. I held onto a decent spot for most of the beginning of the race, but had a hard time keeping up with the front pack. From then on it was just about holding position and keeping moving. I took my jacket off at the end of the first lap (good thing; don’t want to upset the sponsors in the woods) and cruised back into the woods. I actually had a partner out there for some time. Jesse from Expo and I went back and forth for almost the whole lap before he turned the jets on and left me to race with Adam. I played the part of follower by letting him pace me for a while but I wound up using more energy than if I had been riding alone. We battled back and forth a few times until the final trip through the mud hole when I hit a soft spot and had to put a foot down. I just watched him ride away as I ran through the mud to try and stay with him. That gap was too much to make up and I rolled into the line at a disappointing 14th place. The only consolation was that my time today was more than ten minutes faster than my time from Monday!

The recent thread on the Root 66 forum talking about sandbagging should have been read aloud because maybe it would embarrass the certain people that know they shouldn’t be racing where they are. Putting minutes between you and the bulk of the field only hurts youself because everybody sees what is happening and nobody likes a sandbagger. Maybe I’m a sore loser and maybe they are legit, but this is my place to tell it like I see it and those that disagree will have to deal with it.

As always, Jim put on a great race and the course was top notch! Next week we travel to Taunton,MA for a new race; we’ll see what happens there…

Well, my lap times were exactly the same with either bike, but I felt super sketchy on the cross bike!  It is an easy choice to take the tried and true mountain bike out for the race.  Justin and Brandon M. joined me at about 6 for a couple of laps and got to see the race course for themselves.  Justin will be dusting off his number plate and racing in Cat 3 on Sunday!

I found it interesting that I wiped out all by myself, pre-riding a course that I know really well! The resulting wounds on my arm and leg will be fine in a day or two, but they are stinging like crazy right now!