The Candle That Burns At Both Ends... 2014 Wilderness 101 Race Report.

The candle that burns at both ends...gets hamstring and quad cramps at mile 35 of the Wilderness 101 and gets to deal with them for the rest of the race. The 2014 Wilderness 101 Back Country Mountain Bike Race marked my second showing at the awesome Shenandoah Mountain Touring event. My previous race, the Stoopid 50, had not gone to plan and I crashed out with a taco'ed front wheel at mile 4, so I was anxious to actually finish a race. I had gotten myself a much more robust set of wheels and gone over my rig, stem to stern, at the shop before the race to ensure no gremlins could gum up the works.

The rig, ready to rip!

 I arrived at the race in the mid afternoon the day before and set up my camp. It went quickly and then I was off to acquire nutrients to fuel my endeavor. I rolled out and picked up a large pie at OIP in Millhiem a mile or so down the road for my traditional pre-race meal. Sausage, pepperoni, and black olives.

#pizzadome

I crushed about 3/4's of it in my tent and then went out for a little pre-race ride. I cruised up the Siglerville-Millhiem Pike at a fairly easy pace and stopped at the overlook to talk to another rider that was on his way back down. I invited him to follow me for a more fun way down than just cruising back down the pike. He followed me back up to the top and we rode Tower Trail to Poe Paddy Drive and then out to show him Penn's View. I pointed out the finish of the race from there and gave him some pointers on Fisherman's Path and the Coburn Tunnel.

Penn's View

After that we bombed down Rider Hollow and rode back to camp and parted ways.


I realized I needed some things from home that I forgot to pack so I drove back and got them. When I got home I took the opportunity to take a shower, got dressed, put on my running shoes and drove back to Coburn. The problem with this is I drove home in my mountain bike shoes, resulting in a third trip to my house immediately after arriving at camp for the second time when I realized what I had done. Luckily I only live about 25 miles from Coburn.

By the time I was done, it was around 11:00 PM and time to sack out. I got my drop bags together and placed them in the proper locations, said hello to my friend Jesse Stauffer and went back to my tent to go to sleep. It was going to be an epic day so I wanted to get a good night's rest.

I awoke the morning of the race at 3:00 AM with a strong need to use the restroom (I was definitely hydrated) to the sounds of rain pitter-pattering on the fly of my tent. It would drizzle all the way until just after the start. I got out of bed at 5:00 AM for coffee and breakfast, mixed my bottles of go-juice, double and triple checked my gear, and got dressed. It was very cool in the morning, around 60F, so I opted to wear my light rain shell for the start of the race. This proved to be a mistake that I believe contributed to my cramping early in the race. I got to my starting position about 3 minutes before the start and picked a spot on the left about half way between the front and the back. Then we were off! I decided to get up to the front asap and really went out hard and fast to get up to the front pack going out the paved road to the first climb. Once I was up there, it was easy cruising at 22 to 25 mph in the slipstream of the pros, the elites, and the overeager. Guess which one I am. I'll give you a hint: I'm not a pro or elite.

Once we made it to the first climb I decided to hit it at a slightly greater than threshold pace, and this is what ended up costing me big time in the rest of the race. I wanted to get in with a relatively quick group for the long gravel descent after the first big climb. The matches I burned on the climb probably weren't what really destroyed my legs, it was trying to hang in with the paceline I was with on the gradual descent to Aid Station 1. I really killed myself trying to stay with them and I was also feeling pretty good so I was pulling too much. Much of the group I was with were the lead singlespeeders, who really had no way of doing any work on the front on the long descent.

I hung in with this group to Aid Station One where I dropped my empty Perpetuem bottle and asked for a HEED. The volunteer gave me a water by mistake, and I was stuck with no electrolyte replenishment. I rolled through and didn't stop, leaving my rain jacket on unzipped. I was way too hot in that thing after the climb, and all the work I was doing to stay with that group didn't let me cool off on the descent. I lost the group I was with when I hit Thickhead Mountain and lost a couple places there. I had a ripper of a run down Detweiler Run which recharged me a little and I hit the Bear Meadows road climb WAY too hard. I think my VAM on that was something in the 900's, which is an absurd pace for me that early in a 100 miler. I then ripped into Lonberger Path. In my head, I could hear someone chasing me through that trail, but it turned out to be my mind playing tricks on me. When I got to Three Bridges I made the first two bridges, then stalled out in the middle of the third one, and promptly fell off of it. I landed softly, for falling off a 3 foot drop into a pile of rocks anyway, but got tangled up in my bike and immediately both my hamstrings cramped up. One of the spectators helped me get untangled and on my feet. I finally took off the rain jacket, but I had been sweating on overdrive for the first 2 hours of the race and the damage was done. I ran the last bridge and the following rock garden. The hecklers gathered there must have taken pity on me after seeing my fall as it was fairly quiet. I was quickly out on the Laurel Run Road climb and the cramps came back. I got my first taste of how over my head I was racing when BMC pro rider Aaron Snyder passed me at mile 35. I looked at my garmin, trying to distract myself from the pain of trying to stomp my way through some seriously bad leg cramps out of the saddle, and did a little math. I was on pace for a 6 hour 30 minute finish! That was some seriously bad news and also helped explain the leg cramps. From mile 35 to about mile 80 I would be in pure survival mode, always on the verge of cramping up.

I upped my water intake and trudged up Laurel Run. A singlespeed rider, Chris Joice, passed me on the climb and asked, "Do you ride singlespeed?" to which I replied, "Yeah, how'd you know?" since I was on a geared bike. He remarked that only singlespeeders climb out of the saddle with a low cadence the way I was. It was the only way that the cramps would allow me to continue to pedal the bike up hill. Maybe next year I'll do the race singlespeed. I did a lot of training on the single speed and I think It would have held me back a little, probably enough to let me have a better middle third of the race. Later I would run into Chris at the post race festivities and find out he was from Tennessee and is planning on riding the Trans North Georgia race this August. So looks like we'll be seeing each other again in Georgia!

I survived Laurel Run and cruised down the long fire road descent to Aid Station 2. I briefly stopped and mixed two Perpetuem bottles and grabbed more shot bloks from my drop bag and ate a fist-full of salt tabs. The cramps subsided but I was always on the verge of cramping and I could feel that annoying pre-cramp going on in my quads and hamstrings everytime I had to climb at a steady pace. After Aid 2 was the Greenlee climb. Greenlee sucked, I had to spin up it in my easiest gear occasionally shifting to a bigger gear for some low cadence out of the saddle work to stretch my legs and keep the cramps at bay. I got to the top only losing a place or two. I was with a group at the top and kicked a little bit to get into the Croyle singletrack descent first and I lost most of the group on that descent. Apparently my descending has improved dramatically since last year, I never got passed or even had anyone close to my wheel when going downhill and I entered singletrack multiple times with decent sized groups. I did a good job of taking advantage of this since I couldn't climb to save my life with my legs in the sorry state they were in.

Right after the descent on Croyle comes the Alan Seeger climb. Chris Scott, being the excellent race director he is, routed the course so you hit two Category 2 road climbs back to back with almost no recovery time, thanks to Croyle being so rowdy that it kicks your ass six ways to Sunday if you come down it fast. A great way to force selection by fitness for the front of the pack guys, nightmare for the guy who is racing over his head. I survived Alan Seeger and then hit the Ruff Gap Descent. Ruff Gap lives up to it's name. That trail would make for a great enduro segment and is even rowdier than Croyle, which was used as an enduro segment in the Transylvania Epic mountain bike stage race on Enduro Day (Stage 3). Going fast down that on a hard tail with your legs on the verge of cramping is terrifying. I survived it without crashing and made it to aid 3. I stuffed my face quickly with some pringles, Swedish fish, another fistful of salt pills, and washed it down with some coke.

I took off up the next climb, only to notice a weird rattle coming from my back brake. I looked down to see all of my brake rotor bolts were partially backed out and the rotor was loose. I rode back to the check point and my friend Misha was doing technical support. I borrowed a T25 torx wrench and tightened everything down again. I was missing a bolt, but I figured it would be fine until the finish now that I had really cranked down on it. After that it was off to the Rag Hollow Climb, a category 3 road climb, I had gotten a little rest while repairing my bike, and I decided to really back off going up Rag Hollow and recover a little more for Coopers Gap. Two of my favorite trails were coming up, Pig Pile and Lewistown Contingent.  When I got to the top I really wanted to put some grunt into riding the flat section of Sassafras and Sassy Pig but I could tell the legs just weren't there so resolved to just pedal it out on the flats to the downhill section, Pig Pile. I was riding with another guy, who I wasn't sure if I had run into earlier or not, but I suspect we had been leapfrogging a little because he offered me the lead on the descent, so either he knew I was a faster descender than him, or he was just very uncertain in his descending ability.

I ripped it down Pig Pile, that trail is always fun, and then turned up the juice a little down the fire road to Flat Road. On Flat Road I could feel my legs coming back just the slightest bit. I put some work in on that ending up in a group with three other guys popping out on to Lewistown Contingent, my favorite trail of the race. I was behind a rider going into it, but I was soon right up on his wheel. He let me pass at the first clearing and I led him and the rider following us through the trail, bobbing and weaving, hopping and popping through the ferns. That trail re-energized me a little and I had better legs climbing Cooper's Gap Road. I made the turn onto Beautiful Trail. I love Beautiful Trail when I'm just out for a short fun ride, but at mile 70-something of the 101, it's always too technical for me to handle in some sections, and I ended up falling once. Nothing serious though, so I soldiered on to No-Name Trail, another crazy technical super rocky downhill. Last year I walked most of it. This year I dabbed once and was pretty happy with my riding on that. No-Name has a bit of exposure and is extremely rocky and steep. It's probably the most risky trail in the whole race, so I was happy to get it over with.

I want to note that when I say something is rocky, technical, and rowdy here, it's coming from a central PA mountain biker. If I'm talking about a descent, it probably means the ideal bike for it would be a 6 inch travel bike or even an 8 inch downhill bike if you didn't have to pedal to the top. I've been to places like Mountain Creek and ridden the lift-served gnar there, and our fall line trails are easily just as rowdy and gnarly as that stuff.

After I came out of No-Name I was happy to have a relatively flat gravel and paved surface ride over to Aid Station 4 before climbing Stillhouse Hollow. I noticed my bars were a little off kilter so I stopped and wrenched them back to a semi straight position. When I got to Aid 4, I borrowed a 3 mil, to straighten my stem out properly, from Justin of Freeze Thaw Cycles who was doing neutral support there. I got two fresh bottles of water because I was sick of Perpetuem. I need to find a new drink mix, I can't stomach the taste of that stuff anymore. I still had two packs of shot bloks and a clif bar. I grabbed two packs of Perpetuem from my drop bag, stuffed them in my jersey pocket, ditched my rain jacket that was still my pocket into my back, slammed a coke and got the show on the road.

I survived the Stillhouse Hollow climb. It's a rough double track. Last year I had super bad cramps here and had to walk sections of it, this year I rode the whole thing. When I popped out on Sand Mountain road, somewhere in my body a switch flipped and I felt great! My mood lightened and my legs felt better, I climbed up to the dual-sport trailhead, catching a group that passed me on the Stillhouse Hollow climb.  I got stuck in behind them on the Old Sand Mountain road trail, but as soon as it turned back to doubletrack, it was time to attack! Hammertime! I ripped around the group coming out the singletrack and never looked back. I drilled it up to Sand Mountain Road and kept the pedal to the floor. I passed a few more people on the slightly downhill fireroad section, being very careful not to pick up any wheelsuckers. When I turned off on to the Siglerville-Millhiem Pike to climb to Panther Run, I passed a few more people. Once I got onto Panther Run Road I really started regaining some places. Being a bigger guy, I do well riding chattery loose stuff fast downhill. It just doesn't kick my ass quite as badly as it does the little guys and gals. I must have passed 15 people on Panther Run and Little Poe Road. That section is 5 miles of ass whuppin. It's not that technical or steep, and it's a wide double track and it's very rough. It's a section where a big guy can lay down some power and make serious time, so that's what I did. After the Old Sand Mountain Road double track, I never got passed again. One rider caught me while we were hike-a-biking Fisherman's Path, but once we got back on the bikes I dropped him and ended up putting about a minute into him by the time we made it to the finish line. I ended up finishing with a time of 9 hours 30 minutes which I'm pretty happy with, especially considering how much of a disaster my pacing was. My goal was under ten hours. I think next year I can definitely go under 9 hours.

The post 100 miler collapse

The most important equipment decision was going to a SRAM XO1 11-speed group instead of continuing to run the 1x10 setup I was on last year. Having that 42T cog saved my butt when I started cramping. That said, next year I might train to run single speed, as that will have a natural way of keeping me in check by only letting me put in work while I'm climbing. Also, it's more fun. Nutrition was good except for the taste of Perpetuem suddenly not working for me halfway through the race, but I had a back up calorie source that worked great so no problems there. I learned that it's definitely better to be wet than hot, so I won't make that mistake again. This was the first race test of my Brooks B17 Ti rail saddle and it was amazing. I had not a hint of chafing or soreness. I could have easily rode another 100 miles as far as my taint was concerned. My bike was way too heavy this year coming in at 26.5 pounds dry. Next year I'm going to find a way to get it down a little bit. Maybe ride rigid singlespeed. Finally, next year I need to dial things back a little in beginning. It's important to get a fast start, as the beginning of the course is very fast compared to the rest of it, but I can't get carried away trying to hold wheels I have no business being on. All in all, I learned a lot again this year and a lot of my experiences here are going to help with Trans North Georgia. That's it!

Adrenaline Fix: My Introduction to Downhill Mountain Biking

Long before I was a cyclist, before I ever threw my leg over a 29'er or a road bike, I was a downhill skier first and foremost. In my later teen years I got into freestyle skiing. Big jumps, big drops, and most importantly shredding downhill fast. I pretty much stopped skiing after my sophomore year in college, but I still dabble from time to time, at least once every other winter, I still have most of my chops. My number one problem with being an East coast skier was that the season was short, and being in PA, I was too far south to really get the snow for great skiing unless I wanted to travel. I moved around a bit and ended up in the South for a while and didn't do much skiing at all during that period of my life.

When I returned to PA, I picked up road cycling, and then eventually XC mountain bike racing and trail riding. I always related descending on a bike to skiing. the mechanics of executing a good turn is the same as it is on skis. Yet even with my background, I never had decided to see just how close the two were by trying downhill mountain biking.

My friend Jon was an experienced Downhill and Freeride mountain biker and was guiding me through the process of getting comfortable with the new style of riding. I had taken him out bikepacking for the first time a few weeks before and now it was his turn to show me something new. The one of the best things about not being cliquey as a cyclist that you get exposed to some many new and different things just by hanging out and exploring other riders' interests. Actually, scratch "cyclist" and "riders" from that sentence and replace it with "people." The point is, get out there and try something new, it makes life more interesting.

Jon getting rad. Really rad.

Mountain biking disciplines these days seem to be broken up by the ratio of climbing to descending and the weight placed by the rider on which end the bike is most optimized for. XC mountain biking for instance is very climbing oriented. XC bikes are designed to handle technical climbing very well and are very reliant on the skill of the rider to descend through technical terrain. Trail bikes are more balanced bikes for this same sort of riding, with a little more emphasis on descending. They have a little more suspension travel than an XC bike and slacker geometry to make them handle steep rough terrain on descents a little better. All Mountain/Enduro bikes and riding are descent oriented, with even slacker, longer travel bikes, up to 6" suspension travel. These bikes often have lock-outs for the suspension and are still quite capable of technical climbing, though not ideal. The most descent oriented discipline of mountain biking is fittingly called Downhill.

Downhill mountain biking is typically lift served or shuttle served riding and is done on similar terrain to downhill freestyle skiing. The most common bikes have at least 8 inches (200mm) of travel front and rear, dual crown forks, and extremely slack geometries. Compared to other bikes, they just soak up small bumps and impacts. They do it so well that you actually need a fairly decent sized feature to get them off the ground. They are extremely heavy, many weighing in at over 40 pounds and extremely unpleasant to impossible to climb on. Downhill trails are typically either designed to be ridden at high speeds or is extremely rough and treacherous. We get plenty of rough and rocky on my home trails so I focused on riding the flow/freestyle oriented terrain, which adds difficulty with features such as jumps, ladder bridges, drops, wall rides, and tight turns with generous berms.

An advanced downhill trail

The same trail section from the top.

I borrowed a downhill bike from a friend and we loaded up the car with our sleds and lit off into the rising sun. I had never had much experience jumping bikes or 'hucking' as downhillers call it. Big drops and ladder bridges made me nervous and I wasn't even sure if I was going to be able to get air on a bike without crashing and burning.I was pretty nervous actually.

Up before the sun for mountain bike adventures

Are we there yet?

We got there and suited up, got our lift tickets and headed for the top of the mountain. I was excited, nervous, and loaded up on caffeine, which was not helping. I would soon find out that nerves were unjustified.

Full-face, check. Goggles, check. Attitude, check.

My first run I rolled over all the jumps without catching any air just getting a feel for the bike. I was initially kind of uncomfortable with how much was going on with the trails. It was one berm after another, into a table, to a drop to a small set of whoops into a steep bermed turn, etc. At the end of the run there was a set of three ladder bridge progression drops. the smallest one was only about a 1 foot drop, the medium one was about a 2 foot drop and the big one was about a 4 foot drop. Then next to that was a 'real' drop that was about 8 feet to a transition. For my first 3 runs I hit each progression drop, the final of the three hitting the four footer. Jon hit the 8 footer right off the bat, and I was pretty impressed. I didn't think I'd be hitting that today. We did a couple more runs and  we played around a little on some wall rides. Here's Jon showing me how it's done:

When we got to the bottom, I asked him, "How much harder do you think the 8 foot drop is than the 4 footer?" He responded "It's pretty easy, you don't need a lot of speed or anything, you just have to stay to the right 'cause the landing is a little messed up on the left side. Why, are you thinking of hitting it?" I told him that we'd see. I hit a few tables and was now feeling a lot more on top of my game, popping off of bumps in the trail, riding some of the elevated ladder bridge features. My skiing skills were definitely transferring over. I rode down to the deck for the 8 foot drop with Jon and we scoped it out and he explained to me how to hit it. He told me to wait so he could get to the bottom and take a picture of it. I watched him hit it from the deck. I was still on the fence. Another rider came up and scoped it out and then decided against hitting and rode away for more practice at the progression drops. I couldn't blame him. It looked really scary from the top! I decided to roll up to the take off and just get a feel for it and stop, I rolled up and told Jon I was just scoping it again. I forgot to tell him I was definitely going to hit it and rolled back, turned around, and rolled it!

My heart was pounding in my chest but as soon as I was in air I felt completely natural. I had done this exact thing hundreds of time on skis, many times from much greater heights, but doing it on a bike was a little different. On the landing instead of the harsh slap of skis on snow and sucking up the whole impact with my legs, the 8 inches of front and rear travel swallowed up the impact. It felt downright gentle compared to hitting something like that on skis. I got down to Jon and excitedly asked "Did you get that!?" and he replied "No man! I thought you bailed when you stopped at the edge the first time!" I was a little disappointed, but we could always get more pictures next time down since it was at the very bottom, right by the lift, we could hit it almost every time down the mountain. I did hit it again, and again, and again. On the way up the lift, he said "I definitely didn't expect you to hit that today! I'm stoked that you tried that!"

We kept hitting the trails hard was getting more comfortable with higher speed and I took my first tumble, I was glad I had knee pads on. I messed up a wall ride and went down, but I escaped my crash unscathed. I broke the zip tie holding the brake line to the fork so I had to slowly roll down to the shop and get a new one. After a few more runs the rear brake on the bike I was borrowing from another friend had a melt down, and we couldn't fix it on site, and didn't want to pay the mechanics to fix something that I could fix at home, so I rented a bike for the rest of the day.

The rental was set-up much better than my friend's bike for me and there was an immediate improvement in my riding. The rental had a lot more pop than the previous bike and I found myself getting a lot more air and having much better take offs on tables and step-ups which was awesome. Suddenly I was jumping off the lip of one berm directly onto the next berm, The rental bike's suspension set up was a revelation to me compared to my friend's bike. I was finding flow where I previously though the trail was too busy and was having fun catching some bigger air. I started feeling a lot more comfortable in the air and was hitting more stuff instead of just rolling over it.

It rained briefly, twice, in the afternoon giving us an opportunity to stop for some food and chill for a minute while trails dried out. After the second shower the place was deserted. Everyone had left thinking the rain was going to last longer I guess or the trails would be too muddy, but after two runs the trails really firmed up except for a few muddy spots and we had hero dirt pretty much everywhere else and the place pretty much to ourselves. The weather was the nicest it had been all day after that with clear blue skies ready for us to launch into.

I spotted a ladder bridge drop and and pointed it out to Jon. It was maybe a little taller than the 8 foot deck drop, but it had a better landing. The added degree of difficulty came from the long ladder bridge that you had to stay on to get out to the landing of the drop. I asked him if I should try it. He said the trail that led up to that was really cool and that it wouldn't be much harder than the deck drop so we tried it out. I had found a new favorite trail that was basically an intermediate jump line at the with about 6 or 7 table tops and a few assorted other jumps at the top of the mountain and then a swoopy super steep bermed section that lead into a few more small jumps. Then we bombed down around hit the new trail which was a cool swoopy berm section with a bunch of step ups and then we got to the ladder bridge drop. John went first and got my picture as I dropped in.

Then the next run I got an awesome photo of him on it. I'm seriously as excited about how this photo turned out as I was about nailing the drop.

I think that photo probably best captures what our day was all about. We were just having a blast. I can't remember the last time before that I had such a flood of adrenaline going all day. I loved it and I'm lucky I don't have a bike park nearby. I'd be even more broke than I am now. For our last couple of runs we were just crushing it. We tried one of the more gnarly rock and tech oriented trails, and I almost OTB'd a full on downhill bike, which is not an easy thing to do, but I was astonished at how crazy gnarly and rough the trail was and how well the bike handled it. I have a lot of experience with rock riding and I think that helped too. After that trail I told Jon that we could stay away from that stuff and stick to the 'groomers' and he was just fine with that. We shredded a few more runs, but my legs and forearms were taking a beating. Downhill is very physically intense and great workout. It will really test your grip strength and will let you know if you've been skipping leg day. So after 25 runs we called it a day and packed up and headed home.

I'm so glad that I let Jon talk me into coming out and trying Downhill. It's a completely different experience from the XC/Trail riding that I normally do and I think I'll be making a few more trips to bike parks this summer. Downhill is great for developing a flowy riding style and awesome for working on bike handling skills and body position. I can't wait to go back again!

Escape Velocity: Cooper's Gap

This past weekend my friend Jon and I were planning on going up to ride Cooper's Gap. Cooper's Gap is located in Rothrock State Forest in PA and is comprised of about 35 to 45 miles of some of the best single track on the East coast. The trail system was recently designated as an IMBA Epic and is the location for several XC and Endurance races I plan on doing this season. The problem I faced was that Jon, while a much better technical rider than me, was not ready for the kind of all day epic this early in the season that would be required to show him everything I wanted to show him. With that in mind, I remembered a sweet campsite accessible only by foot or bike and proposed that we try bikepacking out there. Not surprisingly, having just received the Revelate Designs frame and saddlebags he had ordered a few weeks ago, Jon was up for it.

The plan was to leave a bit early from work at Earl's Bicycle Store on Saturday and head up there with enough time to get about 20 miles in, then camp out at a really scenic campsite I had found at the end of Beautiful Trail. Here's a quick tip about trail signage. If there is a sign on a fairly remote trail that says "view" and points with an arrow off the trail, go check it out, you'll rarely be disappointed.

View

I made up a route on a Purple Lizard Map, but it was mainly a suggestion not a rigid plan. I just wanted to remember which direction to ride certain trails in, having been out here only twice before and only once without course markers.

Note the very precise and professional language.

So we had a plan and got all of our gear tuned up the night before. Rylan probably would have come with us, but his wife wanted to go ride this weekend and that was an opportunity he could not pass up. We all stayed a little late on Friday night and got the rigs ready.

Bike Shop Work Party!

I got a new Brooks B17 for my El Mariachi Ti on the same shipment as Jon's bags, so I mounted that up and hoped for the best. My last Brooks saddle took a long time to break in so I was prepared for a sore butt when we got back on Sunday, but my fears turned out to be unfounded.

Pictured: The Best Saddle in the Universe

Midday Saturday we left the shop for Cooper's Gap. We stopped and got some supplies along the way and then got to riding. When we arrived, quickly got our rigs loaded up and off we went! The first trail we took was a short connector to Dutch Alvin Trail which we rode from the top down. I wanted to give Jon a chance to get a feel for riding a loaded bike on single track. Dutch Alvin is very buffed out and has a lot of twists and turns but not a ton of rocks or super technical roots so I thought it would be a good chance for him to make the adjustment. He was pretty surprised at the trail. Most of his PA trail riding was done in Bald Eagle State Forest which has a decidedly more technical and primitive character, so to find something so smooth and fast was nice change. After that though, we rode back up the gravel road to where the car was parked and ducked into Peep Trail, which promptly reminded him we were indeed still in PA.

A weeeee bit sketchy.

 Peep trail was a pretty gnarly climb and I walked a lot of the last section the last time I was out there on my singlespeed. With gears, it was all much less difficult even though my bike probably weighed 3 times as much. Peep Trail is a pretty technical climb, and a really fun descent as we would find out later in the day. At the top we pedaled a little further up to the vista on Kettle Road and took a break to have a snack while I went over the importance of eating on long rides.

Kettle Road Vista

After we ate, we went up and over the ridge to Sassafras Trail and we took that to the top of the ridge. We decided to take the trail on the left when it split and ended up on a pretty crazy steep downhill section. It would have been a lot more fun on an unloaded, much more slack geometry bike. There was a strong smell of hot brake pads when we got to the bottom. It was definitely worth it though because it spit us out at what is probably my favorite trail in PA right now, Sassafras Extension. Sassafras Extension rips and swoops and dives through the forest, eventually bringing you down to a small stream, which you cross back and forth over a few times. Punctuated with a few rooty sections to keep you on your toes, this trail is chock full of flow and leaves me grinning ear to ear every time I ride it. The ferns haven't grown up yet, but once they do this trail is just incredibly beautiful. I wish I had picutres, but I'm always too in the zone to even think about stopping and taking any. I'll have to borrow a go pro camera sometime or something.

After a rip of a descent, climbed back up to the car via Shittaka Trail and took the high route up to Kettle Road so we could ride down Peep Trail. We stopped at the car to grab some bug spray. If you are ever in Cooper's Gap area, bring bug spray that repels ticks! Cooper's Gap has tons of them. We headed out after that to that connector trail we used to get to Dutch Alvin, but instead this time we bombed down into Lingle Valley Trail. Talk about a rush! That trail is straight up crazy. So technical of a decent, but fast and fun. Lots of steep sections and rocks, roots, skinnies, and insanity. We rode it to Bear Gap Trail. There was a lot of hike a bike here. We were both on 1x10 drivetrains and the bikes were starting to feel a little heavier at this point. We hiked up bear gap and then rode all of Chicken Peter Trail out to Conklin Road. Chicken Peter Trail is a really neat trail, it starts off on the first half being a pretty smooth and fast trail. The second half is a lot of big slabs of rock that are somewhat technical but pretty cool to ride. At the end of that we crossed Conklin Road to Beautiful Trail, which again is rocky and techy and we rode that out to the aforementioned "View" trail marker. We hike-a-biked up there where our campsite waited.

We have arrived.

Darkness settled in quickly as we were setting up camp. Jon was stoked to try out his new Vargo titanium stove and cook up some ramen noodles.

Unpacking camp.

I got a camp fire going and put on some warmer clothes before setting up my sleeping arrangements and chowing down on a sandwich I had brought.

I got my bed ready for the night. the weather was nice, if a bit chilly in the evening and morning. My sleeping gear consisted of my NEMO 40 degree sleeping bag, my full camelback bladder as a pillow, my Static V inflatable sleeping pad, an old rain fly from a tent as a make shift bivvy sack all on top of an old shower curtain that served as my ground cloth.

Luxury.

You may notice the giant void to the left of my sleeping arrangement. That's a sheer cliff, so in a way, we were doing some bike mountaineering. You'll see it better in the pictures from the morning! We both ate and went to bed. I slept well.

In the morning we were up with the sun.

Shaking off that groggy morning "I just slept on a rock" feeling

Bears did not steal our bikes or our breakfast.

Pictured: A mess.

More mess.

Ahhhh, fire! It was so cold in the morning!

Jon was planning on having clif bars for breakfast, which wasn't going to work. So I shared one of my super secret energy cakes with him. I packed two just in case and it proved to be a wise move.

Super Secret Energy Cake: 660 calories

In the not so wise move category. Jon cooked his ramen the night before with unfiltered water, it remains to be seen if he boiled it (he doesn't think so) or if there will be consequences for this. Giardia is a son of a bitch...so I hope not. Good luck with that bud, hoping for the best here.

It was another beautiful spring day. We rode down Deer Tick Trail to the road and rode up Coopers Gap to the car and dropped off our bikepacking gear to hopefull get some light bike shred time in, but Jon's knee was acting up, so we cut things short after 20 morning miles. We rode SassyPig and Pig Pile trail and then Flat Road Trail back to Sassafras Extension (again, it's that awesome) then back up Cooper's Gap Road again and called it a day.

Jon said he definitely wants to do more bikepacking. I knew he'd like it from the start, so I have another person to get out with now. Coming up soon we're going to do a fat-bike camping trip and Rylan will be coming along this time. This trip was just what I need to get my stoked up for the upcoming riding and bikepacking season. I can't wait to get back out there!

Long Term Review: Salsa Fargo

Photo by Brett Simpson 2013 - http://www.brettsimpsonphotography.com

So I've put more than a 1000 miles on my Salsa Fargo now. I've lived out of it for multiple days at a time. I've ridden it on just about every type of terrain I would choose to ride on it. I've raced it. I've toured on it. I've done a combination of the two. Short rides, long rides, in between rides, recreational rides, commutes, and pretty much every other kind of ride you would try on a bike like this, and probably some a lot people wouldn't. Now it's time to pass my thoughts on this workhorse bike on to all of you!

First off, lets go over the specs of the bike. The bike is a slightly upgraded Fargo 2. The only modifications I made to the stock spec were to replace the SRAM Apex shifters and Avid BB7 Road mechanical disc brake calipers with SRAM S700 road hydraulic shift levers and disc brake calipers. Yes, the ones that got recalled. Currently they have been replaced with SRAM Force 10 speed shifters and BB7S road mechanical disc brake calipers.

Specs:
Frame: Salsa Fargo - steel
Fork: Salsa Fargo Fork - steel
Wheels: Stan's No-Tubes ZTR Rapid rims built up on Salsa Hubs by Formula
Disc Brake Rotors: Avid Clean Sweep G2 rotors
Disc Brakes: SRAM S700 Hydro Road (currently BB7S)
Shift/Brake Levers: SRAM S700 (currently Force)
Front Derailleur: SRAM X9
Rear Derailleur: SRAM X7
Crank: unmarked SRAM X7 crankset
Seatpost: Cane Creek Thudbuster ST 27.2mm
Saddle: NOS 70's(?) Brooks B5N (same shape as current B17N)
Fender: SKS ShockBoard
Pedals: old Shimano pedals I bought off my buddy Rylan for $10, not sure of model.

So that pretty much covers the meat and potatoes of the build. I really really like hydraulic disc brakes (who doesn't?) and so when I had the opportunity to run a set on a bike with an offroad dropbar and still have integrated brake/shift levers, I couldn't resist trying it. Even though they were recalled, I have almost nothing but positive things to say about my experiences with them and eagerly look forward to my replacement set. The Force/BB7S combo gets the job done, but I yearn for my hydros every time I use the mechanicals. the only tricky thing about them was setting up the SRAM X9 front derailleur with them, as they are designed to work with a SRAM road front derailleur with Yaw technology. This means they lack a trim position. A little fine tuning, and little bit of cage bending and it worked like a charm though. When I rode the Fargo to The Great Gravel Gathering, it generated a lot of buzz among the riders I ran into, partially because the SRAM road hydro stuff was so new. I have to say I recommend them in this application, the increased power is greatly appreciated when descending on a loaded bike, and the better tactile feedback is welcome in off road riding. Modulation was great and they were reliable as can be for the time that I had them.

If I had to describe the Fargo, I would say it's the perfect bike geek's bike. It doesn't really look much like the bikes that were actually designed for the single use tasks that I used my Fargo for, but it did really well at most of them because it was designed to carry a light load and cover a lot of ground while keeping the rider comfy and happy. I loved commuting on my Fargo, my bags carried the the things I needed for work like clothes and lunch without being to bulky or slow feeling. At the same time, the 2" Continental Race King 2.0 are fast rolling enough to not feel like a huge detriment rolling on pavement, but feel solid enough on rough stuff that you can be confident if you want to take a little light to moderate level single track detour on your way. For touring, the bike handles well with a full heavy touring load and has every mount, boss, and feature you could ask for. I can't really think of a better off the shelf bike for mixed terrain touring in the US. For unloaded gravel riding, I can ride this bike all day long and come off the bike ready for the next day without any weird soreness or unnecessary fatigue thanks to the many hand positions offered by the Salsa Woodchipper off road drop bar. It isn't the fastest bike you could choose, but for big miles, or really really gnarly gravel roads, it's my weapon of choice. You can carry a max of 5 water bottles with mounts on this frame, which is pretty great if you do any rides with limited access to water refills in the summer. I personally prefer a filter and stopping more frequently to fill up so I'm not carrying all that weight. It's definitely a fun bike for bikepacking, which seems like what it was really designed for. It does best off road with a light load. A little weight on the frame seems to actually make it ride a little better on the rougher terrain, too much though and the bike becomes a handful in the rough stuff.

I didn't particularly care for the off road drop bar for single track riding. Here in central PA where I do the bulk of my riding, most of our single track is very rough and rocky, and I felt that I had to be in the drops to stay in control of the bike, which put me too low and out in front of the bike and made it difficult for me to keep the front end of the bike light and resulted in a lot of fatigue.  Overall, I didn't care for the bike for unloaded mountain biking. It felt very springy, and also a little harsh compared to my El Mariachi Ti with a rigid steel fork and riser bar. It also didn't feel all that nimble. It's a different story if you load the bike up with 15 to 20 pounds in a frame/seat bag combo though, the ride softened up a little and felt a little more responsive. I don't normally ride the Fargo for primarily single track rides anymore but I would like to try putting an 80mm suspension fork on it and see how it does.

The most fun I have had with the bike is on really really long mixed terrain bike packing trips. I went on a nice 200 mile ride that spanned a variety of terrain from pavement to single track and I think it was the most fun I've had on a bike. It's really cool to never be held back by the bike when you want to go somewhere. The Fargo is now my go to bike for exploring.  If I ever got rid of my Fargo, it would probably be to upgrade it to a Ti version, as I really like my Titanium El Mariachi. I could even see myself upgrading to a more current steel model with the alternator drop-outs and carbon fork.

Ultimately I can only highly recommend this bike for anyone interested in a bike for bikepacking or mixed terrain touring. The bike excels at this role. It has also become my go to commuter and gravel rig as well.  If you are looking for an endurance steed that will go anywhere you want to go, look no further.

Goodbye Trans Iowa, Hello Trans North Georgia...I've found my A-Race for the year.

Earlier this year I was planning on attempting Trans Iowa as my first ultra-endurance event. Trans Iowa is a 320 to 350 mile gravel road race on some of the crappiest roads in Iowa, in April. Sounds awful...which is why it was perfect. If I plan on doing the Tour Divide mountain bike race, I'd like to build up to it with some truly challenging, but shorter ultra-endurance riding events. So far, all my ultra distance riding has been solo and purely for fun. Last year this culminated in a week in October where I rode over 500 miles in 5 days, with a decent amount of elevation. This was no race, and while I was riding with a lot of other people for a decent portion of it, there was a lack of urgency to the whole thing. I'm looking forward to doing this kind of riding with a group of like minded people, point to point, with the intention of doing as fast as I can. Trans Iowa was to be my opportunity to ride with a bunch of like minded nut jobs over a really long distance in a really short amount of time.

Unfortunately, even though I got my registration in on the first day of registration, before noon, the event had already filled up. Due to the way the event is run, there is no wait list. I fear that Trans Iowa may have jumped the shark and that it's popularity may have out grown the grassroots nature of promotion that gives the race some of it's charm. So it was on to find another ultra-endurance event to cut my teeth on.

Somehow, through one of the many facebook groups I subscribe to, Trans North Georgia was brought to my attention.  The route is 350 miles long across the top of Georgia from South Carolina to Alabama. Along the route a rider gains over 56,000 ft of elevation. This is no gravel race. This off road, single track, awesome, mountain bike ultra-endurance racing. A local rider, tour divide finisher, and friend of mine, Brett told me he thought it would be a great preparation race of the tour divide.  I put in my registration for the race and ended up 3rd on wait list which pretty much assures that I will get a spot in the event. Now I just need to train up to it and get my rig in order.

As far as training goes. My plan is to do what I do when it comes to training to ride far which is ride a lot. I'm lucky to have some time on my hands so this should be no problem. I'm hoping to work my way up to about 70 hours a month of riding by July. The main things I want to do is work some longer mountain bike races into my schedule this year. I definitely plan on doing the Wilderness 101 again in Coburn, PA but I'd like to work in at least one more 100 miler and a 24 hour race. Fitness should not be a problem.

The other side is the field craft of multi-day ultra-endurance racing. I plan to start getting out on over night rides on the weekends as often as possible as soon as possible in the spring. this is the area I feel I'm going to most deficient in. I don't have a ton of experience at bike packing so a priority is going to be getting some experience. Hopefully Brett and I can get our schedules lined up to try to tackle the Pennsylvania North-South bikepacking route. I feel like bikepacking with a tour divide finisher will be a good way to learn some new things about living out of a bike.

As far as gear goes, the major thing I thing I need to look into is a bivvy. I lived in South Carolina for a while I know it's going to be hot in August in Georgia...like really hot, with a humidity of 200%. I'm going to look at past weather during the time period of the event to see what kind of temps to expect and develop a plan for a sleep system. It will have to be light and easy to set up and tear down. I've heard some folks use hotels, I don't plan on it for such a short (in comparision to tour divide) event I can live outside for a week if I have to and I plan on camping at Mulberry Gap which is pretty much at the mid point of the route so I can stop there if I need to. My sleep plan is to not do it as much as possible. In other words, ride until I absolutely have to stop, crash out off the side of the trail for a few hours and wake up and keep trucking.

Bike is sorted, I plan on riding my El Mariachi Ti in geared hardtail mode. I considered a rigid fork, but this is still east coast mountain biking and that means rocky, rooty, and rough. I have my Revelate Designs bags and all my emergency kit dialed.

I'm super excited to start riding in preparation for this, but until this snow lets up, it's going to be mostly fatbiking and turbo trainer until spring. It's going to be an interesting journey, and I'll be posting about my training for this event here, so check back from time to time!

Update: Salsa El Mariachi Ti build

I finally got my Salsa El Mariachi Ti built up pretty much exactly as I want it. I'm so stoked with how this thing came out. It's my dream hardtail and I'm sort of sad there is so much snow on the ground right now, cause I want to take this thing for a real trail ride. This bike is going to be my do it all single track shredder. Allow me to walk you through my build!

Let's start with the cockpit!

Thomson everything! What else is there

I decided on a Thomson carbon riser bar mated to a Thomson X4 100mm 90 deg. stem with a red anodized dress up kit for the bling factor. I just love the finish on Thomson stuff. It's lightweight, stiff, strong, classic stuff.

On those bars I hooked up some SRAM foam contour lock-ons and Avid XX brakes with matchmaker clamp for the X7 shifter (yes, that's correct, shifter, singular, when there is one there at all.). I plan to upgrade to an X9 shifter at some point for the better shifting feel. This bike will be run single speed often, so the geared drivetrain was selected to be merely reliable, functional, and cost effective, rather than light weight and blingy. 11 speed was out off the question because the freehub body would make SS conversion more difficult.

The cockpit was securely attached to a Salsa Cro-Moto Grande fork with a tapered steerer tube with a 15mm thru axle, secured by a Cane Creek 40 series headset, I would like to upgrade to a Chris King headset when I wear this one out. The other bit highlighted in this picture I'm particularly proud of.

My first wheel build, pre-tensioning.

I built my first set of wheels ever for this build. Short of welding up the frame myself, I did everything from scratch on this build, and stay tuned, because that's the next step. The wheels are white 32 hole Stan's NoTubes ZTR Crest rims, laced 3 cross to red Hope Pro II Evo Hubs with DT Swiss Revolution spokes using brass nipples. I finished them off with yellow tape and stan's valves.

I mounted up a Continental X-King 2.2 ProTection front and Continental Race King 2.2 ProTection rear, set up tubeless, of course.

I stuck with a Thomson Elite Setback for my seatpost and secured it with this Salsa Lip-Lock seatpost collar. The red anodizing is a little off from the rest of the red parts on the bike, I'd be lying if I said it didn't bug me a little sometimes. Not pictured is the Fizik Tundra saddle with K:ium rails.

Down below, a Truvativ Stylo 1.1 crankset with 175mm arms hooked up to a RaceFace N-W XX1 style chainring and Shimano XT race pedals spins a SRAM PC-1091R chain.

Out back, the chain transmits power from the cranks to the wheels via a Shimano XT 11-36 Cassette, and shifting duties are accomplished via a SRAM X9 Type 2 short cage rear derailleur when the bick is in geared mode. In SS mode, the derailleur, shifter, cables and housing come off in one piece thanks to the full length housing and the cassette is replaced with a spacer kit and 19 tooth surly cog. White bottle cages complement the white rims.

The rear wheel is secured to the frame with a Pedro's Tulio skewer. I will never forget my multitool again. Also pictured are the fabulous alternator drop outs that allow for proper chain tensioning in SS mode and the highly manipulated chainstays that contribute to the awesome ride quality this thing has.

23.5 pounds as equipped.


I can't WAIT for spring!