Mountain Biking 101 (and 102)

I figure if I'm going to finally try Mountain Biking, I might as well pick somewhere to have a good experience. And Puerto Rico seemed like a good choice. It's low 80's, mostly sunny. The mountain biking is through the rain forest near the resort we're staying at. I guess I'm never going to get more ideal conditions to give it a go.

The Mountain Biking recreation activity that I chose as part of my stay wasn't as popular with the rest of the sales people as it was with me. There are 540 people at this event. 5 of us chose to go mountain biking. There was a young (20's) guy from Texas who "started biking about a year ago and is really into it". Showing up in his Castelli jersey, he was glad to see the small number of people, hoping that "we could get a good pace going and not have to wait too much". Frankly, I was hoping the same thing. There were 3 other guys from the Bay area; one tall, slender guy, clearly fit in his late 40's or early 50's, the other two were 40's or 50's and "did some riding".

I was the only one with shaved legs.

So, we ride the shuttle bus to the starting place with much joking about how everyone feels they're going to be left behind, etc. etc. I decided to just keep my mouth shut other than to comment on how this was going to be a lot more fun than riding in sub 30 degree weather. When we got there, I was pleasantly surprised to see half-way decent bikes (Specialized Hardrock hard tails). We were picking out helmets and gloves that fit when the guide showed up. He was riding a Stumpjumper, but wearing a Liquigas kit. He was maybe 25 and looked like a pro. His legs were shaved, too. I found out later he placed 2nd in Puerto Rico for MTB in 2006 and he races all over the Caribbean and Central America. He was taking us out, had another group to take later, and had ridden 80 miles earlier in teh day on the road. What a life!

So, we headed out. It was all rutted, bumpy, rocky fire roads or ATV trails, but it was very nice. Huge groves of bamboo. It looked like a scene from House of Flying Daggers. It was pretty cool. There were a few short rises, but nothing I would really call a climb. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that the big talking Texan was mostly a big talker. The two of the guys for California were regular MTBers, one of them a racer, so that was great. We had to stop several times and wait, which is a bit challenging once you get warmed up.

Then we hit the Hill. I've never ridden at Afton, but I'm guessing it was pretty similar. 8 - 15%+ grade for at least a kilo if not longer. Every time you came around a corner, it just kept going up. I haven't pegged it like that in months! It felt good after it was over though, and once I recovered, I was ready to do it again. Which is a good sign I'm ready for training.

Now, several of my cycling buddies have suggest that I really should try racing MTB. "You'll love it!". "It's perfect for your style!". "You'd think it was great!" And I have to tell you, the climbing, even over the rocks, gravel, loose soil and uneven roads was pretty fun. However bombing down a 15% grade, through trees over rutted roads around blind corners is something I will NEVER do at any thing resembling race speed. I got down no problem, but I would have been way off the back considering how fast the guide and the California based MTBer flew down. I just watched them disappear.

I think I'm just going to sit on the beach today or by the pool and enjoy the relaxation and the sunshine. Maybe swim a little. Puerto Rico is a beautiful place. But when it comes to mountain biking, what happens in PR, stays in PR.

Your flotation device may also be used as a seat cushion

Although I'll probably be damned for even complaining, my sit bones are sore. I'm somewhere over the mid-Atlantic on my way from a short layover in Charlotte, NC to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Hardly something to take issue with. But, over the last 10 days, I've spent 24 hours on my bike in an effort to build by base. Due to the lovely weather of last weekend and mid last week, 9 hours of that time has been on a trainer. Then Friday, Saturday and Sunday with 4 hours, 4 hours and 3:30 hours. I was getting sore anyway.

But, I thought, what better way to spend a rest day, and a rest week than on at a tropical resort, begun of course, with the obligatory relaxation of 6 hours or so of airline travel. Normally, this would have bothered me, but I was actually looking forward to getting a chance to be off of my legs. At the end of the ride on Sunday, I could barely get off the bike. Great plan, right?

Well, US Airways had other plans for me, at least for the first 2 hours. My flight left MSP at 7:05 Monday morning, which is only about 30 minutes later than I usually get out of bed. So I was happy to get on the plane 20 minutes prior to departure and take my seat, hoping to sneak in a nap prior to take off, maybe even sleep through the sometimes-anxiety-causing process of getting up to altitude. We were on a CR9 or some such thing: a small regional jet to fly from MSP to Charlotte. I had an aisle seat (my preference, usually) so I was all ready to plunk down. When I sat, however, I was unpleasantly surprised. My seat was somewhere between a seat cushion life preserver that's been left on a boat in the sun for too many years and a phone book. Some padding existed, or had at one time or another, but not much any more. It was a challenging 1 hour and 45 minutes.

All was far from lost. My Charlotte to San Juan fight (where I'm writing this, off line of course) is on a 767. Much more comfortable. And after being assigned to a window seat, the ticket agent in MSP managed to get me an exit row aisle seat. MUCH BETTER.

I thought there was some big deal about how airlines had to carefully vet movies they showed on planes to make sure the content was universally acceptable, etc. Either US Airways has a different view of what's universally acceptable or I do. They're showing some fairly recent film with Cameron Diaz and Jude Law and Jack Black and some British actress about where the women switch houses and end up switching boyfriends or some such thing. There are quite a number of kids on this flight under 12, and I'm confident that everyone of the boys between 9 – 12 has enjoyed the scene, head phones or no, with Cameron Diaz in bed wearing a bra. Plus the scene where Cameron punches out her cheating husband was real family content. Of course, I'm getting the benefit of watching this without the sound. I plugged my headphones into the plane sounds system and finally got some sleep by turning on the classical channel, even though there were 2 volume settings: inaudibly soft and nearly unbearably loud. Ever notice that if you're listening to anything else and watching a movie and there's no dialog that you can see, what ever you're listening to becomes a plausible sound track to the movie?

Tool

This weekend was almost a loss. Mid 40's and raining. Consistently. From Friday morning until Sunday morning, it didn't even stop long enough for the patio to show the slightest hint of light gray at the cracks and high spots. As I mentioned in my last post, I am woefully behind on my base due to The Sickness (also know as the yack, aptly named by my cycling buddy Steve Laurel). I'm not too worried about the base endurance for racing, as I'll be mostly focusing on track this year and with the longest event I'm riding coming in at about 15 kilometers (or 20 if I have lost my sanity enough to try the Madison), being able to sprint or ride solo after 2 hours of riding isn't as big of a deal. But I am worried about having enough base to really pound the intervals for sprints and for threshold training for Team Pursuit.

So Thursday, my gift subscription to Bicycling magazine shows up in my in box. Bicycling magazine always has a few articles that remind me more of Redbook than an athletic magazine. The 5 things you can do to loose 10 lbs fast! Ride faster while training 2 hours a week and breathing through a drinking straw! You know, the classic too good to be true stuff. So the cover article about building your base in only 10 days left me a little dubious. I looked it up anyway. Well, it was by Chris Carmichael, which gave it credibility for me. I've based most of my training off of one of his books, so I wasn't straying too far from reality. And it was actually 3 weeks, not 10 days, when you include the rest leading up to and following the main endurance block. So, I decided to give it a try.

Which is where Tool comes in. I was supposed to ride 2:30 Friday and 3:00 Saturday. Due to the aforementioned weather, there was no way I was going to start out if it was raining that hard. So, to the trainer. And so as not to go crazy, slightly shortened sessions, with long Tempo intervals. There is no better music to ride Tempo to than Tool. The short songs are 5 1/2 minutes long. From there it's 8, 9, 10, 17 minutes. When your doing an hour long interval, having a nice steady build from the tunes makes a real difference. Plus the sound is so complex and layered that you can hear the same songs over again and always find some section or part that you didn't notice before. Very, very talented guys.

And when I could take that any more, I watched some Cowboy Beebop. Too fun. Speaking of Japanese animation, has anyone ever seen Kappa Mikey? He's an American cartoon character (heavy outlines, bright colors) working on an Anime cartoon show. As the theme song says, "lost in Japan". So I'm thinking I'm going to start the Kappa Mikey Keirin team. Let me know if you want to join. I'm sure we'll have t-shirts or socks or something. Maybe I can get Chris Hoy to join....