2011 Year in Review

This is one of my favorite posts to create each year. It allows me to look through all of the cycling/outdoor photos I've taken throughout the year, remember the rides and events and then choose some of my favorites for each month. I've had some great rides this past year with great friends, and my supa-awesome brother. I've been fortunate enough to have ridden in at least eight different states on both mountain bikes and road bikes.

January: Battenkill training ride, getting in some wet gravel miles




February: Toilet Bowl Duathlon




March: Multnomah Falls outside of Portland, Oregon




April: Preriding the Tour of the Battenkill course. Cambridge, NY




May: Mitch and Erich on the Old Toll Road outside of Montreat, NC




June: Erich and I on Dr. Rob's Tandem. He and his bride rode away after the reception on this, and E and I just had to test it out.




July: Mountaintop view from Sauruatown Mountain. This was the final night of the Rapha Rising challenge. Tough.






August: Erich at the Moore's Springs Trails Danbury (or Westfield depending on who you ask) NC





September: Greenslick in Bent Creek outside of Asheville, NC





October: Doughton Park, NC

Of course I had to put in a couple extras for October from the Autodrop Invitational






November: Relaxing by the Kerr Scott Reservoir near Wilkesboro, NC




December: Solo ride on Sam Scott Road in Shoals, NC

Rapha Festive 500k: The Ride to Redemption

Totals: from December 23rd until December 31st
Distance: 514 kilometers (321 miles)
Elevation Gain: 5510 meters (18072 feet)


Ride #1- Rural Hall to Brown Mountain 63k
Plans fell into place to get together with a small group of like-minded individuals at Frank's Pizza in Rural Hall. We kitted up and headed north towards Brown Mountain. The climb was short, but it was definitely a slog. Two weeks ago, the rear shifter on my bike broke, and I've been waiting on a warranty. The reason I mention this is because I borrowed a bike from a friend (Thanks, Dr. Rob!) The gearing is quite a bit different from my Giant. Giant Compact-11-27, Rob's Seven Standard 12-25. It was great to get out in a group and intermingle a variety of cycling types.

Erich at the top of Brown Mountain enjoying (?) a mini coke!

Ride #2- Lewisville to 601 Solo Ride 59k
Nothing much to say about this ride, its a typical tuesday/thursday stretch of road. The most memorable aspect of this ride was what happened afterwards...Turkey!


Ride #3- Pfafftown Pyrennes Solo Ride 32k
Christmas Day ride around Pfafftown. These roads are some of my favorites because there is such little traffic, they are incredibly smooth, and lined with beautiful farms. Kilmurry Hill, Beroth, and River Ridge are the top three by far.


Ride #4- Lewisville/Watkins/Williams/Grapevine Loop. 103k
Day after Christmas burner. I met up with some other cyclists in Lewisville for a 30 miler. After riding back into town with them, I turned around and headed back out in the same direction. Spinning around some of the beautiful scenery that is the Piedmont of NC, I passed West Bend Vineyards. Up Grapevine at the end of the ride had me reminiscing about last years training for the Tour of the Battenkill. I must have ridden Grapevine about a thousand times in February and march of last year to get ready for the Battenkill.

Ride #5- Lewisville/Powerline/Wyo Loop. 81k
I met up with Whitney and Dudley to get in some good mileage in a brutal wind. We headed straight out of town and into the 20-25mph wind for the first 28k. All cyclists know, the only good thing about a headwind, is the tailwind when you turn back. We rocketed back into town after hitting two loops out in the direction of Yadkinville.

Ride #6- Orchard Gap. 29k
Solo ride to get in some recovery. I headed up to the Blue Ridge Parkway with the intention of going slow and just enjoying the scenery. I ran into another cyclist who talked me into descending down from Orchard Gap and into the Piedmont. We made the trip an out and back, so my recovery day included a Cat 2 climb...slightly ridiculous?

View of Pilot Mountain


Boundary Road, an excellent gravel road that parallels the Blue Ridge Parkway



Overlooking Hanging Rock and Sauratown Mountain from the Parkway
Ride #7- City Loop/Tanglewood Loop. 82k
This was a good ride. Perfect weather, relatively calm winds, sunny, and a good riding buddy. Erich and I headed out from his place and towards the south side of town. We continued out into the country and ended up in davidson county and by Tanglewood. After about 45 miles we stopped in at Cycletherapy to shoot the breeze with Mike and Rob, then headed over to Starbucks. It was good to take our time and average a reasonable pace. Erich was my training partner (for those of you who end up here who dont normally read my blog) for the Tour of the Battenkill last year. So many of our rides felt like we were just beating each other up, so anytime we get out now and have a friendly spin, its great!

Ride #8- Lewisville/Watkins/Williams Loop. 66k
back in with another group, we left out of town to fantastic weather. By the end of the ride the temp was in the low 60's, perfect winter day. I had at one point during the challenge said that I felt as if I was cheating having such nice weather, and couldnt imagine having completed it had I lived back North. The group ride was good, and just as we rolled back into Lewiville my 500k was complete, but I decided to do another short loop since it was so nice out.



What a fantastic challenge this was, thanks Rapha for throwing this out there! I'm excited to do the Rapha Rising challenge again this summer, I have some crazy ideas of how to gain the elevation already brewing in my mind.

Stokes/Surry Gravel Ride

After yesterday's Mistletoe 5K (which did not go all that well), I wanted to get out to do something relatively chill today. I headed out to the Shoals VFD to park, and get in some good gravel from there. Along the way, I met this guy: I call him Murphy.



Erich and I have been working hard again over the last couple of months getting things ready for our next foray into race promotion. T-shirts should be here this week, Jerseys before Christmas, and we have a website launch tomorrow! I'll post up a link here from the blog to the Autodrop Doubleshot. Should be a good weekend of both dirt and asphalt!


Photo Dump:

Matt Gfeller 5k

Lined up at the start, it was a good feeling to know that so many of my friends, including my wife, would be running in this event with me. The proceeds go to a great cause; research on Traumatic Brain Injuries. My wife, being a physical therapist, has had many patients who suffer from TBI's, unfortunately many of them are young people. In any case, all of us involved had a great day. Erich's son, Fischer completed his first 5k and fell asleep in the stroller with his arms in the air as if he had just won...perhaps a foretaste of the feast to come!

Erich and I ran in the non-challenger race. The challenger race has a stop about halfway through in which the competitors must eat a half dozen of Krispy Kreme's glazed donuts. I can hardly eat one of these even while not running, so I opted to forgo the pleasure of vomiting two miles into a three mile race. I put no training into this race, and was counting on my fitness from cycling to carry me through. Fortunately, 3 miles is a short amount of time to suffer. The course started off pretty much entirely uphill for the first mile-ish, and with the rest of the course being pretty much low rollers, I knew that my time wouldnt be great, but I was figuring around 23 minutes. I was almost spot on, 23'05". I came into the finish not knowing how I had done, it was hard to tell with the pit stop in there who I was running against.

The results are already up, I managed an eighth place finish (out of about 500), and first in my age group. I know that quite a few donut-eater types would have beaten me had they not been wretching in the gutter after eating fried dough, but overall I felt pretty good about my result. Perhaps I should actually start running? Erich and I are already planning our next few running events...Mistletoe, yes. There also happens to be an interesting 17k trailrace at Hanging Rock in March, I plan on toeing the line there, too!

Dark Mountain

Perfect conditions today on the trails! Fallen leaves really do a good job of hiding roots that are lying in wait to throw a tire exactly where it shouldn't go.

Round Two

Well, round two of embro diaries is in effect. Consistency looks good on this batch, maybe could add a bit more beeswax. I'm still working on the heat factor though...looking for some weapons grade heat.

Update

So, on a whim I decided to sign up for the Matt Gfeller 5k this weekend, hoping merely to survive. I snagged this photo of this rather interesting looking plant while on a run the other day in Bethania:



Also, back to cooking things up in the kitchen...this tincture should remedy the problem that E and I had last year with our homebrewed embro; HEAT!

MST Trailwork

With the start time of the P2P at Dark Mountain being moved back, it put Erich and I in a spot where we wouldn't be able to get back to town in time for other plans...so we ditched the race, and decided to do some trailwork with the Moore's Springs crew. After 4.5 hrs or so of trailwork, and an aching back and hands, we had accomplished building about 80-100 yards of trail, with another good section cleared of debris. The best part? Manhandling rhododendron roots with John after a scorched earth policy was enacted by Tony.


A beautiful morning with the clouds hooding Sauratown


E macleoding it up


I found this gem hanging in the cabin!


Me and my murder tool. (photo cred: E)


Sunk in the dirt. (photo cred: E)

Jasper!

Ever since I had to put Arwen down a few years ago, I was hesitant about getting another dog for myself. The bond followed by having to see her suffering like she did was terrible. But with Lorien being such a spaz, we decided that she needed a companion to help her expend more energy. After some research, and some thinking towards other future outdoor pursuits I decided on getting a pointer. I looked around for a while trying to find a reputable breeder and was able to find one (oddly enough) about twenty minutes away. Jasper is a German Shorthaired Pointer and is just under ten weeks old and about 11lbs. I'll be posting up some other photos and some details about training over the next while. I really hope to train him for what he was bred for...hunting quail and pheasant. Perhaps I can bring a bit more to the dinner table this way too!

Doughton Park

Photo dump works better than words sometimes.

Brushy Mountains!

Leaves changing is the harbinger of good rides. Embro on the legs, and chill in the air, we departed to ride into the Brushies. At the general store, we ran into some people we knew from the old Paceline days...it's been noted that no one can escape the mafia. Who knew that Mark would be hiding in Amish country trying to escape us...the mafia did. Dude can almost pull of mid-eighties Harrison Ford. (I hope someone gets this reference, it took me forever to think of something even remotely funny for this circumstance). Four hours into the ride and my legs were shot, like, Johnny, the horse went lame and there's no vet to be found shot.

View from the top!


Mitch, work it, Hopkins on the swinging bridge at Linney Mill.


Amish bakery fried apple pie.


Random road in the Brushies.


up Windy Gap.

Chick-fil-a made everything better. And now, burrito time. Later, cake time. Even later, ice cream time.