Well boys, break time's over.

All of my winter training and suffering in the bitter conditions finally paid off. No I'm not talking about a race...that stuff is much easier. This was my family vacation on GOBA, and this year is was in southeastern Ohio, chock full of long, steep climbs on the heaviest bike on the ride. I knew the climbing would be tough but I was in for a real shock after about day 3.
Never in my life have I ever had the fear that I would not make it up a climb. Not only did I have that feeling, but it occurred almost every day that week. I did find a new all time low speed... 3.8 mph without falling over. The hills were so long and steep that I fried the rear disc pads out on day four.
My legs are now burnt to a crisp after 18 plus hours on this torture machine. However I did get to eat a lot. I ate so much that I gained 3 lbs despite all the hard riding. Now that's what a vacation is all about.

The mud is your freind

More good times were had at Vultures Knob #3. It was a smaller turnout likely due to the recent rains that just won't go away. I'm sure anyone who raced at Mohican the previous week had seen enough mud to last them a lifetime.
I have been swearing at the weatherman for weeks now but had finally made peace with the mud just a day before the race. Since I was the only over 35 expert they lumped me in with the young guys. And to my delight it was a sprint to the rock tunnel since they did away with the prologue lap. YEEESSSSS! I actually enjoy it when the first 200 meters are like a bmx race that narrows into a bottle neck. That's how racing should be.
I took off hard, and tried to stay with the top guys as long as I could but faded back to a sustainable pace after half a lap. I sure felt better this race compared to the last one. I guess the intervals have been paying off. The trail was pasty like last time so the overall times were slow again. By the third lap the course been whipped into a cake like batter in some areas.
I was on the new Groovy and didn't have any mechanicals despite the conditions. The Kenda Nevegals front and rear turned out to be the right choice again, and I never went down once. In fact I was able to drift a lot of turns without losing control.
I ended up 4th overall and still got my vet/expert points for the series. All in all not a bad day.
The real fun was watching the bikes of days gone by race down and up the fire road. Mike Colona gets the sweetest bike award, but Feeman sure had the best outfit.

No longer too fast for paint

The finished product is coming together. The Groovy frame has a sweet paint job, I will almost feel bad getting it dirty. Speaking of dirt...I haven't seen any of that in a week. Nothing but torrential downpours here in Ohio. It will take a solid week of sun to have decent trails again, hopefully next weekend's race will be dryer this time. Have I mentioned before that I hate Ohio?









































This is a trick setup for the rear brake. It should distribute the braking forces between both stays and makes it easy to pull the wheel straight back for removal.

Fixin' problems

There has been quite a bit of road rage from motorists against cyclists this spring. I have been pondering the reason for this and the only thing I can think of is this:
All winter long the local paper has been trying to outrage the Wayne county citizens over this bike path issue. They have worked hard to paint an ugly picture of the land grabbing cyclists who they think want nothing more than to ruin some farmers livelyhood by placing a multi-use trail on the already existing rail bed.
This of course makes no sense. If a motorist doesn't want to share the road with a cyclist, then they of all people should encourage the use of bike paths. But these ain't the smartest folks out there anyways. Stupid is, stupid does.