Sweet Home Alabama

Here are some pictures from last weekend in AL. First off- The first sign we see when we get into AL is in the picture. " Keep Alabama The Beautiful". What does that mean? The beautiful what? Did the corrections facility that made the signs have budget cutbacks and not finish them, or is AL trying to catch up with the literacy rate in Mississippi? Anyways- The other picture is me pedaling around the racecourse for awhile.

On another note- I'm getting mobility back, I can hobble around a bit and move my knee more everyday. Hopefully it won't keep me out too long. Later-DH

New Crutches

After all my health problems the last 3 weeks I thought I was in the clear. Went to Birmingham for Bump and Grind, great course- fun to ride. Had no expectations and didn't get last so it was a good weekend. Pics to come. Had a good time with Liza that weekend, got some travelin and good food in too.
Had a great week riding too- feeling so much better, fast without trying on Tues. Group ride and good rides all week.
Till last night. Went out on the Sycamore Cycle's Group ride. Actually one of the best I've done- nice and mellow with everyone riding a good pace. Stopped to regroup on Hickory Knob and start the DH. 1st right hand turn and I get off line and clip a log. I have to jump over the bars, land and roll in the soft grass to a stop. Not a hard fall and a very soft landing. I think I was even laughing while I crashed.
I go to stand up and notice my knee is hanging wide open and I can see stuff in it that I'm not suppose to see- like cut muscle and tendons. So with the much appreciated help of the Sycamore crew I got "patched up" with a sweat band, tube , and electrical tape. Wes D and Stephen carried me back to the top of Hickory Knob where I got back on my bike. One legged all the way down Black Mtn. Trail, then Clawhammer back to the Stables where Chris was waiting w/ the truck.
Long story short- got 20 stitches w/ 5 inside my knee. Tendon got smashed and briused but not cut so I'll be alright. Got home At 1:30 am .
Anyways- So looks like Cross season is rapidly becoming my focus due to my compounding innability to train this year for the normal season. Guess I am suppose to get some rest this year. I'll post pics as soon as I can pick my van up (the camera is in it.) Later- DH

What Next?

Well I'm 90% over the cold, allergy, sinus infection whatever mess it was that crushed me the last 2 weeks. Rode yesterday and the day before. Last night I got a stomach virus and was in the bathroom every 1/2 hr. all night long. At least I've lost some weight- but I doubt I will feel good enough to race this weekend. We are still heading over though- maybe I can recover in time. I'll know soon enough! Later-DH

Like All Good Train Wrecks- Gotta Get Back on Track

OK- disregard last night's post. Got some sleep, got talked at, and re-focused cause you know what? I've got too much unfinished business! There are too many races left out there that I haven't won. Time to get it together and go win em.

180 degrees

Couldn't sleep last night. I was so stressed out and restless I only got about 2 hrs. in. I was so bent out of shape that I decided to quit riding. Not just racing but riding all together. It's been so long since I felt fast and honestly, good about ANYTHING that I felt like I couldn't take anymore dissapointment. If I can't race well ( and it's been a couple of years since I have ), then I don't want to waste my time with it. In fact if I had my camera at work today, my bikes would be on E-Bay right now.

But Liza convinced me to ride today and race this weekend. Since it is our anniversary this weekend, I decided to ride if she wants me to. So I came home and rode the rollers for a half an hour tonight. I feel a little better now but only time will tell how it all works out.
Stay Tuned.... DH

Memorial Day weekend

Lots of stuff went down this weekend. 1. Cookout at Kent and Mary's place Fri. night- good food, fellowship, horseshoes, and stupid humans on bike tricks.

2. Got out Sat morning for a ride with Robert. 1st time on the bike in a couple of weeks- finally felt well enough to ride. Or so I thought- nice day but I was miserable- felt like I was riding at 13,000ft.- just couldn't get a full breath. So Robert unintentionally worked me over all morning. 3. White Squirrel festival this weekend, hung out downtown for a while- it was packed. The major excitement there was the soapbox derby car races down Jailhouse Hill. Checked out Wes D's car and saw some practice. Already some good wrecks in practice. Should be plenty of carnage to be had when the real racing starts this afternoon.

4. Ate lunch and went hiking at Black Balsam with Lisa and Jim who were up from Bufort, SC for the weekend.

5. Got out this morning for a hike with Liza. Left from Black Balsam on the Art Loeb Trail out to Shining Rock. It was a beautiful day out. Came back on Ivestor Gap Trail for about 8-9 miles round trip.

Planning to resume training tomorrow- I can finally breathe and think I can start getting some efforts in on the bike again soon. Later- DH

Hiawassee Trip

Had to go to Hiawassee, GA to pay a speeding ticket today. Actually it was in Hayesville, NC. Rode over on the moto last night to stay at uncle's house. Nice ride over - 100 miles on nice twisty roads. Finally starting to feel better, been out of action all week with a sinus/ allergy infection. It got so bad that I had to bail out on my team @ 12 hrs. of Tsali. Really bummed out about that but I was so bad off that I was bleeding out the nose from it.

Anyways- $140.00 later I got the ticket taken care of and headed home. Sort of. First I headed to Murphy to locate the Tellico ORV area. Couldnt find it but I did get a 70 mile loop in in the middle of western NC and TN. Headed home. Nice day out so I took the long way home. Headed off of 64 towards Standing Indian Campground. This was good because there was free water there at the campground. After Clay County had taken all my money and then some I didn't have, I had Zero dinero. Free water coupled with the huge package of 89 cent generic fig newtons worked out well. 20 miles of beautiful scenery and gravel switchbacks later I popped out on 441 south of Franklin, NC. Got back to 64 and rolled on back to Brevard. Hungry and tired, I took a shower and now I'm going to bed. Later- DH

Pics

New Moto- Forest road mayhem.

Yeti- still the coolest bike I own.

Technical difficulties

Something has been wrong with my account for a couple of weeks. Finally got that straightened out now so I can post again.

Quick 3 week wrap-up. I'd like to post more but can't right now.

1. New bike is up and running- rides great.
2. Won the Circle the Bald (20 miles solo and a new course record)
3. Hung out w/ my family in Hiawassee, GA
4. Had a great day on Brasstown Bald watching TDG w/ my uncle
5. Didn't have a great day at Cohutta 100 ( a long day, OK but not great) WAY too much gravel road riding.
6. Funeral
7. 2 new motorcycles
8. Drove to Charleston Fri night to race on Sat- Race cancelled w/ no notice- Nice!
I'll elaborate more soon- Later DH

It's days like this that make me glad to ride my bike

Beautiful day today. Low 60's, cloudless, but 40 mph gusts. After 3 hrs. on 45 degree rain yesterday I was ready to roll out! Headed up 276 to the Blue Ridge Pkwy. Got my 3 intervals in on the steeper sections on the way up. The wind was not an issue and I felt great, easily turning over 3 taller gears than I normally use on this ride. Got to the top and the wind showed up! I guess when you are on a ridge 2500 feet above anything else you might get some wind every now and then. Snapped some overlook photos back toward Brevard ( couldn't see my house from there) and headed on up to Graveyard Fields. I figured if I made it there I would have a 28 mile, 3,300 foot climb done- plenty for my sorry climbin' self. Passed some ice and a quick check found the temp to be 49 deg. @ 5000 feet. Got up to Graveyard, ate a Clif bar and hightailed it back down to get home. Feeling good this week, hope to rest up, get 3-4 hrs. in on Sat, then rock the house in Athens on Sunday. Later- DH

Spring in the Mountains

I rode Tuesday- It was sunny and 80 degrees out. I remember thinking " I could probably go for a sleeveless jersey today". Woke up this morning and it was 25 degrees out and snow was covering everything. I thought spring had sprung and it would be warm from here on out. I was wrong- Old Man Winter got us with another sneak attack! I think I'll wait till tomorrow afternoon to get my long ride in, maybe it will be warmer then- probably back to 95 degrees out if these weather trends stay consistent. Later- DH

Rough Week

Finally feeling better now. I hate rest weeks- they always leave me feeling like garbage. I seem to do the best when I am putting in 18-20 hr. weeks consistently. I know I need to rest but man do I feel awful when I do- sore all the time, I eat bad, and I can't sleep. Anyways, been averaging 2 easy hours a day this week. Yesterday's ride had my legs feeling like poopsicle sticks. I tried to do a few sprints to open them up but that only made things worse. Sometimes I wonder if I should jest increase my hours every week without resting and see how long it takes to ride myself into oblivion.

Got to work yesterday- there are alot of changes going on lately- can't use the computers at work anymore so my updates may get slowed a bit. I think we may be getting house arrest ankle bracelets to wear at work too- got to keep track of everyone! I need a new job soon- any leads, please let me know.

Anyways- stressed out enough from work and from my rest week sluggishness I decided to get out on the SS today. Rode Caney Bottom and Butter Gap trails. Legs are coming around again so I had a great ride. Gonna try to get 3 hrs. in tomorrow and get back to 18 hrs next week. Only one more block of Base training left- them I get to go fast!

My FS frame will be in Monday or Tues. so I'll get to build that up- fired up about that. Other than that not much else going on here- headed to Athens for SERC #4 next weekend- that should be fun. Heritage park was a good course last time I raced there (2001). Later- DH

Tsali Race Report

I am too tired to write much now. Had to clean up too much clothing and equipment from the race. It was the most disgusting mud slop I've raced in in a long time. Also the best I've felt in a loong time. I'll give the weekend's details tomorrow but I will say that I got 5th and that qualifies me for Nationals- so that's a load off. Won some money too- good thing because I'll have to use it all to get my bike running again.....ah the vicious circle of racing. Later-DH

What have I gotten myself into?

I recently sat down to plan out the next month's training and racing. In the immortal words of Mr. T from RockyIII- "Prediction?.....Pain!". I knew what I was doing when I planned my schedule but it hadn't sunk in now. This is what I am looking forward to:
April 15th- SERC#4- XC race, short and easy.
April 21st- Cohutta 100- that'll be 100 miles offroad,
April 28th- Dirt, Sweat, & Gears 12 hr- what's that- another 120-130 miles?,
May 5th- Cinco De Marrington 8hr- 13 mile loop (~1 hr laps)= 100+ again.
Then I get a luxurious weekend with no race before 12 hours of Tsali and a 4 day Stage Race the weekend after. I may have to take the whole month of June off to recover before the Cowbell Challenge 12 Hr. @ the end of the month. Vicious Circles I'm talkin about here.
I think I'll go take a nap now- I'm tired thinking about it. Later-DH

Updates Galore

Dark Mtn. Super D

Loaded up in Herndon's truck w/ Wes D, Chris and Alex for the trip to Dark Mtn. Stopped by McDonald's for some high quality sustainance. After we all felt like crap from said sustainance we rolled on up the road. Pulled up, did some practice runs, then race runs, Chris-1st Pro, me-2nd Pro, WesD- 1st 30+. Top 3 times overall, got back in the car with our Kenda tires and went home. That's all there is to say about that.

Secret Tsali Weapon

It's superlight and superfast. Come to Tsali next weekend to check it out. Nuff about that.

Assault on the Carolinas

What do you do to avoid the chaos of 700 riders leaving at the same time? You rip it through town @ 35mph ( courtesy of WesD). After departing town at a high rate of speed, the tandem-piloted by the Applegate-McCauley's dumped the clutch and was GONE. Over the course of the next 65 miles the following transpired:

1. 6 horses got loose and were seen running (drafting even) in the lead pack. They held their line better than most riders.

2. Dude flies off of Hwy 178 @45mph into a 100 foot crevasse. No major injuries but vehicles with winches were required to get him out.

3. Went off the front on SC228 for 12 miles hoping to get a big head start before having to haul my large posterior up Ceasar's Head.

4. Only had a couple of minutes lead at the base.

5. Out of water and blew up like Hiroshima about a mile up, had to limp on up to the top feed zone.

6. Got my feed, went back downhill till I found Robert, rode back up feeling better now, and we drilled it back to town.

Yardwork

Mowed the grass, limed it, fertilized, seeded it. Watered the snot out of it and hopefully I'll have a beautiful yard in 2 weeks. I'll post a picture if so- if not I'll just rant about it. Later-DH

Oops.

No I did not wreck. I will write all about this later- I have a race tomorrow and don't want to think about stuff breaking.

All systems go.

Got out for a ride today. Wanted 2 hrs. so I headed up 276 to the parkway. Knee was feeling better and better so I kept opening up the throttle. Made it up as fast as ever even with turning a 38 across the 5-6 miles of flats before the climbing began. That's the hardest I have gone since the Wissahickon Cross race on Oct.22 of last year. It felt good, the snap from 2 years ago is back in my legs, they haven't felt decent in a long time. Time to train- gotta get that swagger back!

The Governator

My knee is feeling better now. Got some hard riding in over the weekend and feel ready to go. I am still a little apprehensive and don't want to aggrevate things so I installed a governer on my road bike. I like to turn big gears and am likely to stress the knee, so I put this on my bike so I will have no choice but to spin like crazy or go slow. That is my cross setup w/ a 38T ring, 3rd eye and the custom chainguard I made back in the fall ( AKA: The DH1 chainmaster 5000). Gonna ride it a couple of hours tomorrow so I'll let you know how it works out! DH

Bad Day

Rough one this morning. Rolled out to DuPont for a good ride. 1st half hour was fine, rode Burnt Mtn., that was fun- rolled over to Cedar Rock trail and started climbing. Got to the powerlines with the "No Tresspassing" signs. There is now a SECURITY GUARD in the middle of the woods to keep people off the AGFA property. Soo.. I pulled a 180 and bombed back down the hill before fatty could get out of his 4x4. Had to ride up the steeper part of Cedar Rock Trail now. Noticed that under alot of power my XTR cranks were flexing into the driveside swingarm on my frame, chipping the paint off. Gonna need a spacer I guess. I knew the cranks were close but had no idea they would flex that far- probably the swingarm too. The frame I'm on is a relic so no surprise there. Got to the top of the mtn. and went down Big Rock Trail really really fast till a Rhododenderon branch snagged my left brake lever yanking my front wheel into a huge rock. Fortunately, I got tossed far enough so that I landed in soft dirt instead of on the granite. Didn't really get hurt but that ended the ride for me. Later- DH

Update

It's been awhile since I posted. That's because not much has been happening. Cracked my kneecap hard on my stem 2 1/2 weeks ago, it hurts so bad I can't ride. So.. no riding, hiking, or other fun stuff. Had my birthday party fri night- big # 31. Well attended night with all the regular suspects present for Mexican food and bowling, fairly uneventful with nobody making a fool of themselves in public. My parents came up from Atl on Sat and I did get a short ride in w/ my dad. He just got his new bike and had to try it out. Thats about it for now- I'll write more when I have more to talk about.