Smooth

I was standing in line at the drug store last week and Smooth by Santana came on over the muzak system.  Those little guitar riffs were stuck in my head all week.  I'm a guitar player so I probably hear that song a little differently.  Santana is a bad dude.  Very smooth.  Santana and I both play PRS guitars. Coincidence? Yeah, probably....

Guess I need to figure out how to post 

music clips without stupid YouTube ads.

With no races planned for two weekends it was a good time for a rest week. I generally do exactly what my coach tells me. The only exception being rest weeks when I'm supposed to take it easy but end up on a fun ride that turns into a knife fight. Knife fights are not easy. I made it all the way to Sunday before screwing up my training plan this week.

On Saturday I missed a mountain bike ride that Brian K posted up for Elk Neck. It would have been fun, but it would not have been easy. I rode my cross bike from home up to the C&D canal and over to Lums Pond.  I didn't realize trails were closed but I was happy to get in a mile on the trails before I encountered the ACTIVE HUNTING TRAIL CLOSED sign.  On the return trip I went bushwhacking on some of the old fire roads that run parallel and above the newly paved Mike Castle Trail along the canal. There's an old railroad lift bridge that still operates.  It's the only way trains get into "slower" Delaware.  I've always thought it was a pretty cool engineering feat and one of these days I'd like to catch it in operation and watch a train make the crossing.

Oh, was there a sign?

C&D Lift Bridge. Yeah I know Lux, my hoods are too high.
And yes, a bottle cage...

On Sunday I still had the jones for a mountain bike ride so I met some guys for a White Clay/Middle Run ride.  The mountain bike felt heavy - I was not riding smooth.  I hadn’t ridden it since my last mountain bike race in August.  Middle Run and White Clay trails have some great flow.  So smooth. Ryan Stahnke had the lead and he laid down a blistering pace for the whole 26 miles.  I refused to budge off his wheel.  It hurt.  A lot.  And it was not easy.  So much for the training plan.  But man it was a fun ride.  Sometimes when I’m pushing way into the red on a trail ride I forget what part of the trail we are on.  I mean, I still recognize the trail and know the best line for the next turn...but I’ve momentarily forgotten just where the hell we are exactly.  That happened once yesterday.

Ryan crushing my soul. This dude is riding pretty smooth
these days. Hey, you try to get a better picture at warp speed.

When I got home I watched the World Cup cross race that had aired earlier that morning from Belgium.  When I see these European races I kind of wish our races were tough and wet and sandy and muddy.  Then I think, screw that…that would take a lot of time to clean and cost a lot of money in damaged parts.  I haven’t watched many World Cup races but this race, to me, was the best I've seen so far.  I was pulling for Sven.  The “old” guy.  The master.  Sven slowly, calmly came from about fifteen deep up to the front.  Yes, you have to have world class power and endurance to pull that off - to ride up to the front like that.  But it’s how he did it that was so fun to watch.  The guy is really smooth.  Sven and I both ride Trek Boone cross bikes.  Coincidence?  Yeah, probably...

Sven Nys. Smooth.  Dirty, but smooth.

I had always imagined the song was named Smooth because the guitar work was so smooth.  Nope.  Someone else wrote the music and Rob Thomas wrote the words and named the track Smooth after stripping out the original writer’s words and title.  Then he handed the song over to Santana to perform.  The song had been playing in my head all week - time to take it for a spin.  Like my mountain bikes, my guitars had been sitting untouched for a long time.  Months.  A year?  Maybe.  I rounded up my gear, plugged in and dialed up a nice vintage half stack kind of sound.  I was clumsy.  I’d forgotten how to ride smooth...but I hadn’t forgotten how to ride.  I sat there for almost an hour working it out.  Getting smoother.  Just that little intro lick.  Fifteen seconds worth.  Over and over.  It took a lot of work but it was really fun when I started to get it down.  When you hear it played it sounds pretty simple – it should be easy.  But it’s how it’s played… Santana plays it so smooth.

Binge Racing

A couple years ago I took a random photo in the parking lot of Elk Neck State Park after a really fun mountain bike ride. Fatmarc was talking to a couple guys about the ride and making animated gestures. I snapped a photo and posted it up to Instagram with the caption Tales of Radness. The end of a ride or a race is the best part...everybody has their tales of radness.

Fatmarc Tales of Radness. With Brian K, Josh and Shindler circa January 2013

The year before that picture, as I was plotting my ascension to the CAT 1 mountain bike ranks, I ended up sidelined with an injury and binge-watched the first four seasons of Breaking Bad. I was addicted. I would tell myself, "just one episode, I need to get some sleep" and four episodes later it would be two in the morning. I think I finished those four seasons in one week. I binged on a bunch of other series as well that year - it was just too easy with Netflix and Amazon piped to our TVs and Fios serving up anything they didn't have. All the shows, all the time. Night or day.

Say my name.

Here in the mid-Atlantic we are fortunate to have a ton of bike racing options. It's like the Netflix, Amazon and Fios of racing except you can find it all on one menu - BikeReg.com. So many racing options you have to make choices. This? Or that?  I'm having a blast racing cyclocross this year and every week I look forward to taking in a new episode. "Just one" I tell myself but by the middle of the week I'm signed up for two. And so it goes. I've raced seven double weekends this year including a run of four in a row that just wrapped up. Double weekends are great because it doubles your chance to end the weekend on a high note. I need all the at-bats I can get with this group. It's a tough tough group.

This past weekend was the Kutztown double weekend. I raced it last year and didn't really like it. I can't really put my finger on it. Just didn't really like anything about the course. For the Saturday MAC race I felt a little flat so even if I hadn't started fourth row, probably no chance to get up close to the top ten group. I ended up in a solid group of bad asses to start with: DLowe, Johan and then Luxxy leading us around. Reglar came around after one and we all tried to hitch a ride but he was rolling too fast. Lux took over on the Reglar chase and shook me off in the process. Johan wasn't done either and he came around me and things kind of stretched out like that from there. Lux and Johan were laying it down. I had nothing for them. Well done boys.

Luxxy pulling us around on Saturday. Photo credit: Dennis Smith

On Sunday the race was PACX and a lot of the super fast boys sat this one out. The day before Luxxy said "this course is going to ride a lot better the other way" and so it was. Not just a lot better - a totally different course. Ripping fast turns and everybody was railing them. The straights seemed much more strategic and all the turns and switchbacks had more flow. I was loving it. And I was feeling good and I had a front row start. At Sly Fox the week before I felt like I stayed in line too long. I didn't take chances to bridge up and try and get on the lead group. At Kutztown Sunday it seemed like the same thing might play out - there was a threat of a gap growing as Gerry moved by and Barry, Kelly and Reuther started pushing the pace. I kept thinking "I gotta go."  I was pretty winded and a few bike lengths opened up between our groups. "Gotta go. Now."  I put in a dig and got myself around and attached just as the pace picked up. Kelly had kind of coached me on it the day before and there I was on his wheel. On the rivet but on his wheel.

Gotta Go.

Soon after, Reuther sketched out and flatted so now it was Barry and Gerry leading and Kelly and I chasing.  Barry and Gerry started really putting it down on lap two and Kelly and I were coming detached. Kelly and I traded pulls back and forth for six laps. It was fast, fun and there was a lot of suffering. Hetrick started pulling up on the fourth lap but he trashed his wheel on a bad barrier sequence and that was that. I was in front of Kelly going into the last lap. I tried a couple digs but Kelly stayed right there. I knew I was in trouble then because I had laid it all out trying to shake him off. Kelly attacked with 1/3 of a lap to go and I just couldn't get my legs to respond. He caught me just right. I remember shaking my head, knowing it was over. But it was a good day. A great day.

This happened. And then I got dropped. But let's not focus on that last part.
Photo credit: Dennis Smith

 A couple weeks ago Tyler came home with a nasty stomach virus. We both laid around for two days moaning and throwing up. It sucked, but I dialed up Amazon...see what's new. I hadn't binged on any series in a couple years. Apparently I haven't lost my touch. Binge like a pro. Amazon had a couple shows, Red Oaks and Mozart in the Jungle. Highly recommend both (if you have Amazon Prime I guess).  There was also a single pilot show, Highston which I understand will be a series soon. The first episode has Flea and Shaq - you can't beat that and it was really great. Go binge. Well, binge on cross first. Save the couch for post season.

Peace all.