My Peculiar Cat

My cat has an unusual habit. He gathers all his toy mice and deposits them in his food bowl from time to time. He also has the uncanny ability to find rubber bands and places these in his food bowl with the toy mice. I’m not sure if this is a recessive predatory instinct in action or a territorial thing, but it’s darn peculiar.

New Bridge at Whirlpool

I finished a new bridge on the Whirlpool Trails yesterday with Jason, he's from England and races cat-3. This new bridge spans a spot that is always a muddy mess during the Spring and Winter months. I've wanted a bridge here for a very long time. We now have a way to connect the Fruit Loop to the Weldy Trail. ... The blur riding across the bridge is me doing the test run. Yeah, I'm desperate for post material.

A Stinky Stanky Fail

Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed. This was one of those days.


I came into this race with low expectations and pretty much got what I expected against a field of 10 riders in my category, one of who made the trip all the way from Waco, Texas. The Waco rider bitch slapped everyone in the time trial yesterday, so I had him pegged as the odds on favorite for the cross-country.

When my group rolls up to the line, I take a spot on outside left of the front row and instantly realize I picked a bad spot due to a small mound of dirt right where the path makes a slight left bend. Oh, Perfect!

The race official explained the rules about outside support, passing, and giving way to faster riders, then began the countdown. My start was sloppy, but I manage to make the single-track in the fifth position. The pace was fast, just like I expected, but whoever was driving the train turned on the jets about a mile into the Blue Trail and instantly fractured the group. I manage to latch onto the caboose and hold on for dear life. It wasn’t long before the course turned extremely narrow and twisty. This is not something a tall person on a big bike considers fantasy material. The leaders begin to pull away from me until they are out of sight. By this time, two or three other riders close the gap from behind and latch onto my rear wheel. The trail eventually opens up a bit, and I'm able to pickup the pace. Unfortunately, I'm not able to shake the riders on my wheel despite my best efforts. Roughly, three or four miles into the race, I start running out of gas and grow weary of dragging my competition around. They eventually pass me and I find myself riding alone for a while, so I decide to settle down into a more comfortable pace to grind it out for the first lap and into the second lap.

It isn’t long before someone else closes in on me, so I kick it up again. He literally gets RIGHT ON my wheel and we even rub tires at one point through a series of small drops. I attack on a straight section of trail and briefly open a gap. My heart rate feels like it is off the charts as I push down the trail and eventually end up catching the two who got around me earlier. There are now five of us in a tight pack hammering down the trail at breakneck speed with my heart beating against the top of my helmet.

The lead rider in the group of five soon clips a tree and goes vertical in the most spectacular fashion. I roll off the trail and manage to dodge the carnage, but also find myself out front with a small gap. My escape is short-lived as I soon have two guys firmly locked in behind me. We battle for what seemed like an eternity until both get around and attack, leaving me to ride solo again.

Something weird happens during a race when you are riding alone and you know you’re not going to place. Call it acceptance or even a shitty attitude, but you begin to think about everything but going fast. All you want to do is finish the race. You just want to ride down the trail without puking your guts up and cross the line. The downside to this is you, knowingly or not, slow down too much.

As I’m riding down the trail, I soon pass someone in an orange kit leaning against his bike as if he just finished smoking a cigarette. A little further down the trail I pass someone changing a tube. This shakes me out of my fatalistic mood and I start going a faster. Roughly halfway into the last lap, I pass the tail end of the 30-39 group. For some reason, this really helps my sour attitude as I leave him further and further behind. Then it happens. Someone closes in on me from out of nowhere and settles in directly behind me. I’m literally dying on the vine with about two-miles to go and now find myself in a battle I don’t need or want. SHIT! I speed up and manage to get the occasional gap, but nothing I can hold for any period of time. I figure it will come down to a sprint, so I settle down and just ride my own pace. I know he is long gone if he gets around me, so I just ride and try not to worry about it too much. He’s about 12-inches off my rear wheel when we go through a section of trail studded with big roots and small dips. That is when I hear a loud thud quickly followed by the sound of a bike crash. Glancing back, I see his rear wheel in the air and know he bit it on a big roots just above a sharp dip in the trail. This seals my escape, and I ride the last two miles to the line solo.


I didn’t stick around for the results, but I’m sure I placed well into the bottom half.

Stanky Creek Time Trial

I placed third at the Stanky Creek time trial today in a field of six riders for my group. My time was 14:24 over three miles, which is just absolutely pathetic. I know climbers are notoriously bad time-trialist, but I’m still disappointed with my performance. I never knew how hard to push it so basically raced my regular cross-country speed.

Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow in the cross-country race, but I doubt it. This trail is pancake flat (except for one downhill on the XC course) and doesn’t favor me at all.

This is one of the monkeys scattered around the course.

This is the "big downhill" on the XC course for Sunday.

Racer Wins Road Race - on a Mountain Bike

Here's a cool story I found on bikemagic.com.

Whyte racer wins road race - on a mountain bike
By Mike Davis
It's hard to beat a road bike on the road. Generally the best you can hope for is to grab a wheel and then time your attack so that you can pull off into a side road and hide before your lungs fall into the gutter. But Whyte-sponsored Luke Smith has managed the reasonably impressive achievement of winning a 75km road race on a mountain bike.

Having travelled to South Africa with just a Whyte 19 (and some clean pants and socks and stuff, obviously. And probably a toothbrush too), Luke had been doing a fair amount of training on the road. That's one thing, actually racing on blacktop is another. We're not quite sure how it happened, but Luke ended up on the start line in Gabarone, sat on his knobbly-shod 19 next to a load of skinny blokes on carbon road bikes with deep-section rims and all that stuff.

Over to Luke:

"The race started off a fairly decent pace with everyone keen to establish a good spot near the front of the peloton. I managed to work my way up front without too much difficulty, much to the surprise of many competitors as I rode past, my big knobbly tyres buzzing as the pace was wound up.

"The route was a fairly straightforward out and back circuit with a few corners near the finish. The wind was on our back as we headed out on the circuit which meant we would face some fairly strong winds at the turn.

"There were a couple of guys whom some friends of mine had told me to watch, one of them is apparently a pro roadie in South Africa. It was no surprise that it was these guys that made most of the attacks. What was surprising was the fact that I was able to go with them! Each time, though, we were pulled back by the main group.

"As the race neared the finish some of the riders made a last ditch effort at getting away but it was destined to come down to a sprint finish - however the guys trying to get away had done a pretty good job at stretching the field out. I managed to constantly hold second wheel behind the lead rider with the pro road rider sat closely on my wheel.

"As we hit the finishing straight I launched my attack and as I glanced back I realised I'd gapped the others. I even had enough time to make the most of the win and celebrate in style.

"The crowd and other riders were shocked that an MTB had won a road race. When they later asked what was the secret I replied, 'Whyte - Great British Mountain Bikes, they can't be beaten!' Too be honest, though, I'd really surprised myself.

Hopefully I can keep some of this form for my imminent return to the UK..."

What does this tell us about the relative merits of MTB and road bikes? Not a lot, really. We can safely conclude that Luke Smith's a pretty strong rider, though - if you want to emulate his feat we suggest that you pick your opponents with care...

Weight-Weenie Bike Lust

I love my Mavic Crossmax wheels. They are lightweight and completely bomb proof. These things have hit some seriously nasty stuff and kept rolling like a stolen truck. My Shimano XTR crank isn't shabby either. However, I’m a weight-weenie and am prone to love anything that sheds grams.

I recently stumbled upon two items that have my gram shedding heart all a flutter - the Stan’s ZTR Race wheels hovering somewhere near 1300 grams and the Race Face Next carbon crank at a slender 730 grams.



All I need to do now is win the lottery.

Six Weeks to Clear Creek Challenge

Click the image for a larger view.

The Clear Creek Challenge is 6 weeks away and it’s time to start getting serious with my training. I have a good history on this course and I want to keep the streak going. Clear Creek is an important race for me because it’s my home trail. In fact, I put this race right up there with Chickasaw Trace and Bump ‘n Grind on my value chart. This is race #7 in the SCRCS and #4 in the state series, so the big guns from Memphis should be coming down for the event as well as the usual group from Mobile and south Louisiana. I’ve given some thought to trying the cat-1 group for this race. I’ll more than likely do it if there isn’t any good competition registered for my USAC category.

My next race is this coming weekend in Memphis at the Legend of Stank Creek. I really don’t have any expectations for this race since the trail is flat & twisty, which doesn’t favor me at all, so I’m treating it as a tune up race more than anything else.