Candy Cranks

Have a good summer biking story to tell?  Enter the Summer Story Contest and maybe you will come away with some cool prizes.  Deadline is September 10th, so hurry!  More information here.

I’m finally recovered from Pat’s Peak 12 hour race.  The course was about 5.5 miles that crisscrossed up a ski slope and shot you back down.  The goal was to do as many laps in the 12 hour time period that you can.  The race ran from 12PM-12AM, so night time laps were included which usually aren’t my favorite.  I intended for it to just be training for the 100 miler on Labor Day, but I got caught up in the competitiveness of the race and managed to pull off a win over the geared girls on my SS!!  Here are a few pics from the race.

So last year I got my feet wet and did my first 100 mile (~160K) mountain bike race.  See my old post here.   As it seems with all races, once you sit back and reflect on the mental and physical challenge of doing it, it’s easy to get revved up to give it another shot, only this one will be a little harder.  I’m now registered for the Shenandoah Mountain 100 on September 5th and looking forward to digging deep and finding out if I can handle the 14,000 feet  (over 4000 meters) of climbing on my single speed!  I’ve got several races planned before then to help build up my endurance, so let’s hope it works.  I’ll also be praying to the Bike Gods to keep my bike mechanical free this time. 

This was the beautiful winning illustration by Anika Ahlberg in the competition for the Boston Phoenix’s 2010 Bike Bible.  See the rest of the illustrations here.

Holy smokes…the mountain bikers came out of the woodwork for the local Weeping Willow race!!  Over 400 riders competed in all!  Unfortunately and fortunately, there were only 3 in the women’s single speed division.  It was a terrible race for me though… serious cramps kicked in a little over half way through.  I barely made it to the finish!   Outside of the misery of the cramps, it was an incredible day with friends, bikes, and beautiful weather.  Photos from our teammate David Alden-St. Pierre, Steve Dipietro,  Seaside Cycles,  Doublehop, and Marty.

Get out those commuter bikes again folks because it’s Bike Week!!  I am doing a ton of stuff at work (Department of Transportation) to promote commuting in by bike and general bike fitness this week:

We are staffing a bike week celebration table to get employees signed up for the Mass Commuter Challenge, we are hosting a biker’s social and breakfast on Friday morning, and offering two bike maitenance workshops here at work.  One on the essential “How to Change a Flat Tire”, and one on “Drive Train Magic” to show those geared folks how to work on their derailleurs.  I’ll try to post a pic or two from the events.

Well, the guys at DarkHorse Cycles really know how to put on a fun event at the Singlespeed-A-Palooza Race.  We showed up the day before to give the course a test run and found it to be fast, fun, and swoopy.  Too bad the rain came in over night and turned the surface to thick greasy mud!  Here are some fun pics from the pre-ride through the end of the muddy event.

I’ll be giving this event a shot next weekend!