The Magic Number

After making sure bits and bolts were tight, it became official. I have now torched my third bottom bracket this year. Frustrating. I had talked of getting a Phil Wood rebuild and now I don't really see another way to go. Suggestions are welcome.

This post was brought to you by the Misfits. Thanks Jesse.

My Accelerade Experience: Part One

When I was asked if I would review Accelerade on the blog, I offered to try it at the 24hrs of 9 Mile and provide feedback under race conditions. The challenge is that everything is skewed by the fact that I started the race without proper hydration, found myself quickly behind the eight ball and spent the rest of the race playing nutritional catch-up.

Before a drop of Accelerade hit my mouth, I had already cramped pretty badly and rolled into the pit where the crew and I went into triage mode. I downed a variety of products at that point, including my first Accelerade gel. Smooth, easy to swallow (much easier than the salt tablets I would later gag back up), I didn't feel any immediate rush of energy, but I certainly did maintain. Maintaining, at that point, was more than enough for me. I would come near cramping a couple of times on the next lap, but never truly siezed up.

I took another Accelerade gel on the next lap, ate some tuna salad and went back out and again felt no worse, maybe a bit better.

My next stop Corey transitioned my bottles to Accelerade. Corey set me up with a lighter mix than is recommended on the container. Simply, if any drink is too think, I won't drink it. If I won't drink it, it won't help me. So, I set out on my next lap with a ratio roughly half of what is recommended. The positive is that I was beginning to feel stronger. No cramping, good energy. Revitalized.

Over the course of the next few hours, I was drinking the same lighter mixture of Accelerade and eating small amounts of tuna salad. Continued improvement to the point where, as the race begain to near the last few hours, Corey and I discussed a strategy which would have meant coming off a lap with a very brief pit stop, then hitting the next lap at cross country pace. I was confident in how I felt physically. Not worried about cramping. While nothing happens in a vacuum, Accelerade was certainly played a positive role in overcoming my early race issues.

Key Thoughts:

- If I were pitting for someone, I would feel good about them using Accelerade.
- If someone asked me, "Does this shit work?" I would say, "Yep. Now drink, Dammit!!"
- I won't mix it at the levels recommended. For me, it's too thick. I cut it down on a later ride, in 100 degree heat and it was much easier to swallow. Again, I'll drink an extra bottle with less if needed.
- If I were pitting for myself, I would make sure my dumbass drank some of this the day before the race as well. Too bad I was not that smart last week.

Fire questions if you have them.

Part Two will be a review of Accelerade in my lead up to Swanson, including the race itself if I have enough remaining.

Snob out.

Exerpt

"Bicycle past police lights twisting the blue from the night. past a man setting a box on fire to make a pot of tea. Lean forward enough and it's as if you're floating, as if there's no machine supporting you, the earth spinning an inch below your feet. Blur your eyes and sing a little song to yourself to keep upright -- the song keyed to the rhythm of pedaling. Skim over the dark earth, arms spread, the sign of the cross, Look, Ma, no hands, crucified by the air, crucified by the night. Who doesn't want to just disappear, at some point in the day, in a year, to just step off the map and float?"

Keep Moving or Die

Isn't that the shark corporate motto?

'What's next' looks a little like this:

SS State Champs on the 19th.

From there I am unsure. I had been seriously considering Afton, but I have never been to Saskatchewan.

I could also try chasing Squirrel around Iowa or teaming up with the good Folks From Lincoln.

My hands still don't feel right. Maybe tomorrow.

Fight Like A Brave - 24hrs of 9 Mile Race Recap

I usually have goals for things like the 24hrs of 9 Mile. This time was a little different. If you follow the blog at all, you know that post-TransIowa has not been the land of rides and racing but simply trying to sneak training in when I could. So, while I did hope to crack the top ten, that was about all I considered. I really planned to go up, ride for a while then hang out. I thought I would end up helping Sam take care of Cameron, aid BKB crew to a National Championship or enjoy giving handups to Dallas and Paddy.

Somehow, despite fucking a lot of things up, I had a pretty good ride. Officially Sixth Place Solo Single Speed.

Remembering the weekend is just a mangled mess in my head, so here are chards that you can put together as you wish.

- I cramped big time on my third lap. At one point, I finished a small climb to have both of my quads sieze up on me. It was like standing with two pencils for legs. I hopped back on and started to spin them out. At that point, I got slapped in the back of the head, heard "Come on, BKB" and a BKB jersey moved passed me on the left. I thought it was Jesse but then saw Jesse in the pits and he said it wasn't him. I probably imagined the whole thing.

- Change your freaking brake pads and batteries. I ran that latter half of one lap with no rear brakes and lost my main light source for half of another and had to finish with my commuter light. Genius.

- Lap Six Honored Joe Patridge. Throwing Chain all over the place.

(Apparently, I decided to start with the mistakes.) On to the good stuff...

- I popped out of the woods as my body was finally getting back in order and the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Fight Like A Brave" was cranking loud as hell. I think I sang that for the remainder of the lap and off and on for the rest of the race. It was perfect.

- Dallas is a great guy to get passed by or share a rain soaked tent with. We kept bumping into each other on the course and when the rains hammered down we were stuck waiting it out together. Tip of the Hat to you, my man.

- RF gave me some positive vibes at just the right time out of the course. Congrats to you and the crew on 3rd place.

- Much love to Corey, Sam, Cam's Dad Doug Chambers and Mrs. Snob for all of their help during the race. So much of the race was spent trying to catch my body back up to where it should be and they all helped me get that done.

- Corey and I had a great plan of attack for the remaining part of the race. I only wish we had gotten to use it. As wierd as it may sound, I was feeling my strongest in the 21st hour of the race.

Not my best race recap, but my hands are still tingling and disfunctional from the race and my mind isn't quite straight yet. Check the links. Lots of great people with great rides over the weekend. On to the visuals...

The Dream people were chasing.


Marko ready to Kill Those Dreams.

The Darkness goes in search of your soul.

Let the fun begin...
Keep Smiling, tough guy. Here come the cramps.

How about that 5th Place?

Mini-Apple-Sauce

Small Children Fear Him.


Starting out at Cars-R-Coffins Coffee Bar.


IF Steel in Johnny Mohawk Black.


"Seriously, are you gonna finish that?"


Joining Johnny on his morning commute to Quality

9 Mile Spokecards

Take It and Run

I took another step toward my GED in simple bike maintence today by replacing the bottom bracket on the Niner. Last year's Giant is now simply a parts swap waiting to happen, but it had its time and that time has been over for quite a while. The bike's ready. I'm ready.

As Sam pointed out tonight, alcohol is legal in Wisconsin, so clearly they are ready too.

Dallas coined a great phrase in the comments to the last post. We do have the makings of the "Rigid Rumble." It will be interesting to see how many Solo Single Speeders are in effect and what portion of those are rigid.

Heading up to Minneapolis on Wednesday to hang with the man called Mohawk. Coffee Thursday will certainly come from the CRC coffee bar and, depending on Johnny's schedule, I may take the tour around Quality. This is exactly what a brother needs.

The Boxed Bee has your Breck 100 report. And a few bones to pick.

Bill of Sale

I'm a freaking consumer.

Bike Feed: SwitchBlade Fork. Jones XR 2.2/2.25. Giant 225.
Mind Feed: "Labyrinths" by Borges. "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" by Flynn.

Spent Saturday in and out of the shop. On and off the Trail. Switchblade is installed and ready for 9 Mile. Bearings are shot, totalled, an alien workshop constantly active as a pedal. Nothing lasts.

Spent today watching/volunteering at the State Games Tri. Wide array. One gal pulled over in front of me and could barely get "won't shift" out through her heavy breathing. I look and she can't go any lower. I show her the situation and watch her eyes go wide. I grab the pom-poms and get her back in the game. "Team Blondies." I hope they finished.

Secret Weapon.

Secret Society.

Music by Braid. Frame and Canvas.

Ballad of Jan Ullrich

The "Patron Saint of Single Speeding" needs a gig. I may joke about having a Jerry Springer Lifestyle, but holy German Soap Opera. Win the tour, gain weight, lose weight, come in second, come in second, come in second, come in second, come in second, kick it at a rave, wreck your sports car, come in second, Lance steps aside and then you get drilled for doping.

In honor of the fallen, I will be riding 9 Mile over weight, over geared and drinking German beer. (You're thinking that would have happened anyway and you are right, except for the beer.)

Pictured: Paddy talking Dallas off of the ledge.

Floyd

"I'm telling you man, I came to win the whole race. Not just a stage."

Passion.

Back

5:30am in Denver. Cherry Creek Res. in the distance.


Rental Steed. Apparently, the shop we rented from sees a lot of chumps or I simply look like one. I started to leave the shop with the bars turned sideways and no pedals because I brought my Candies and know how to turn bars. The girl behind the desk didn't seem to think that was really the case. Had she ended each of her sentences with, "you dumbass" the conversation would have been exactly the same.


"Is this thing on?"


Pretty. Boring. Pretty Boring.


(Read the following in your best Dr. Suess voice) This is Mike. Mike and his rental bike. Compared to when I met him, Mike is now Mini-Mike. Great job, Mike.


102 degrees. Nearly three hours on the bike. All this water didn't make me feel any better.


Nice camera strap, Dumbass. Love, Ansel Adams.


Other highlights.

A bumper sticker which read, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"

Discovering a client I was visiting had a office on Pearl Street in Boulder, then having to go there twice.

Chatting with Kris, our guide during our Novice white water rafting run from the front of the boat. Hope you make it to Costa Rica.

Having Kris try to knock me out of the boat because I was always turned around talking to him.

---

Thanks to everyone who contacted me about riding. Unfortunately, I wasn't ever in a situation to really plan a good ride and get ahold of anyone. It was get up at 5:15am or sneak away at a moments notice to get some miles in.

Bandwagonesque

Mr. 24 provided his thoughts. Fat Marc mulled its effects on his soul. Now they have contacted the Snob.

Accelerade has offered the sampler platter to yours truly for a review. I am still mulling it over, but am leaning toward "why not."

Read more on thier product here.

Got specs for the frame today. Concerned a bit about the difference between the top tube and seat tube lengths. 58 and 50 respectively. I like the old school down over the bike style, but I also don't feel like breaking a lot of seatposts. Think I will give the Boys a call and discuss.

More from Denver.

More Mouse

Heading out to Denver tomorrow for SIC. I hope to have a camera with me. We drove last year and are flying this year. I'll take it. Bikes are rented, routes are planned. I think I can sneak in enough mileage to keep things going in the right direction.

"This is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about." - Modest Mouse

Rock the Vote

The Bad Idea Racing boys need your love and voting attention. They entered a Race Face Contest which would allow them to be the first single-speed team to push pedals in the TransRockies.

The Old One - Two

Wisconsin State Single Speed Championship:

1. CreepyFriendly

2. The Darkness

Then everybody else...

"More Clowns on More Bikes More of the Time"

Seven wrote that on my office white board this week. It won't be coming off for quite a while.

It pains me to miss Manawa this weekend, but this should be the last event I have to miss. There's a silver lining there somewhere. And as far as events go, I'm with Paddy.

We had a Segway hoax at the office today. I fell for it with both barrels firing. Rumor was that our CTO had purchased a Segway. This is the same guy who I helped purchase an IF two years ago. When hearing about the Segway over lunch, my initial comment was, "Well, then I am taking his fucking IF." (Pictured) As we drove back from lunch, it dawned on me that Sir Wilhelm had once used a pretty good line to me that applied in this situation.

A few of you may remember a couple of years ago when we were getting together for winter trainer sessions in the basement of D St. At one point that winter, my car wouldn't start and friends of ours offered to let us borrow one of their cars. The drove it over and the car turned out to be a Hummer.

Being a fan of irony, I drove it over to D St. one day and starting rocking the workout, when Tony came flying downstairs. "Whose fucking Hummer is that?" I raised my hand without a word.

"Where's your fucking dick!?!"

There was then a moment of awkward silence as there was probably some question as to whether or not I would be pissed, but it was all good. Tony got filled in on the deal and it became funny.

The Segway also turned out to be nothing. It was made of legos and was only a few inches tall.

Denver on the Company Dime

The work induced road trip has now been prepared to keep the mileage rolling with 9 Mile in mind. It will be road work during the week and I hope to hit it mtb style on Sunday morning. I opted to skip the "teambuilding" atv outing but did sign on for the rafting trip Sunday afternoon.

If someone can explain to me how riding around on atvs can constitute "team-building" and do it with a straight face, I am happy to retort and tell you why you are wrong.

For those of you scoring at home, that's Sunday the 16th if anyone is free out in the Denver area.

Tour Du Tick

Four more hours covered yesterday. Tried to hit a few more hills and ended up hurting a bit on the way back to Wilderness. Over-reaching leading to over and nearly out. After I returned and changed I was walking out to take my favorite punk rock fixed gear riding sitter home, when I managed to go dizzy for a second and slam into the door jam. Whoops.

Did have the usual MG siting in Wilderness the second time through and he was joined by Jesse. No ticks though. Almost disappointing.

Paint has been redialed with IF on the Cross Frame. Speaking of cross, it's taking over my brain and I can't even say I have ran a complete mtb race yet. WTF? Half the time I was riding yesterday, I was thinking of cross. I've got problems.

Corey keeps leaving sidewalk chalk messages on my front step. I am thinking of getting David Lynch to direct the movie if this keeps up. A Gimp handed man leaving messages scralled in sidewalk chalk seems quite "Lynchian" to me.

Running the Tick Gauntlet

Took off for a bit of a pedal pusher after 10am today. Wilderness to gravel grind to Wilderness and home. Tried to keep a nice tempo going but held back a bit in Wilderness to keep it safe. Some sections are grow out enough that visibility can be sketchy. Not to mention that you are running a tick gauntlet. It's not a matter of if you will have some friends with you when you finish but how many (I found three.) Saw MG and Emily out as well. Somehow I missed the little rainshower that dropped. Hope they did too.

Riding the same time again tomorrow. Most likely the same type of route too, whether depending.

Happy Fourth.