The Bottle Ride - 2nd Annual Race

It's Monday morning and I find myself in the office feeling both sore and good, not unlike other Monday mornings. Recounting Saturday's race, I wash down a couple of Aleve with a sip of mediocre coffee from the kitchen here at work. In my cube, I shuffle my legs a bit to keep my slacks from sticking to the giant raspberry on my right leg. I loosen my tie in hopes of reliving a little tension from my shoulders. What an awesome race.

Above left: my left leg in 2010 after The Bottle Ride. Above right: my right leg in 2011 after The Bottle Ride.

Saturday morning I raced in the 2nd Annual Bottle Ride at Blue Mountain in Peekskill, NY (See last year's race report here). This time, I raced on my rigid single speed. Why? Because I love they way it rides: the flex of the steel, the direct connection to every impact that travels from the wheels up through the frame. Again this year, Georges's efforts in the race preparation, organization, and enthusiasm really paid off! Where else can you find a free race, comprised of a bunch of random cool cats, strong riders, prizes and on trails as brutally epic as the ones at Blue Mountain? Nowhere, mon frere. And so again, this year I raced.

So how did I do? Racers were sent off at 30 second intervals; the race followed the time trial format just as it did last year. Just, like last year, I started off aggressively, over excited and clumsily. I crashed hard, 50' into the race in almost the exact same spot as last year. The start of the course skirts off-camber, along the side of a steep hill and runs through a large rock garden. This is where I stalled, balanced for a moment, then slowly started to fall to the right, down hill. Looking downhill at my landing zone I saw nothing but boulders! And over I went, unable to disengage my cleat from my right pedal. I fell in an almost sitting position, still clipped in on the downhill side. Without a smidgeon of grace and with my arms flailing wildly, I plummeted downhill reaching out at the last second, bracing for impact. Luckily my upper body landed in a wonderful little soft patch of leaves while my hips and legs landed hard on the rocks. Adding insult to injury, my bike came to a stop on top of me.

Calm down.

While I scrambled back up the hill to the trail, I noticed my legs were scraped up but other that, they felt fine so I was eager to get pedaling as soon as possible. A race is no place for standing still you know. It's also not the place for hyped up, adrenaline fueled, clumsy riding. I had to calm myself down and ride smarter. A few minutes further down the trail and I had settled into a rhythm and started to feel very "on". My lines through the technical sections were precise and smooth as I lofted the bike over small rock patches, logs and slippery roots. I passed about 6 people in the first half of the race, and was able to stay ahead of the people behind me which was a really good feeling. My legs were loosened up and I was feeling great. So I began to push it. When I reached the long climb up Ned's Left Lung I just put my head down and chugged up the hill with a steady but ambitious cadence. I puked up a little coffee from earlier that morning, without loosing my focus and continued to turn the cranks.

Half way up Ned's Left Lung, I lost the ability to clip into my left pedal. The 2-year old wings in my Crank Brothers Candy pedals seemed to be stuck in the "open" position and would not close around the cleat in my shoe. I stopped half way up Ned's Left Lung, a grueling climb over loose baby-head sized rocks, grabbed a rock the size of a baseball and gave the pedal a few hard blows (TWSS). the wings snapped back in place and I was able to clip in for a few more feet before the pedal failed again. This time I just kept riding. Riding with only one foot clipped in is very aggravating. Every rock and log I hopped, had my left foot flying off the pedal, so I had to take them much slower than I usually would.

In the end, I think I did pretty well. The winner won with a time of 45:15. I suspect my time was probably somewhere around 60:00, but I won't know until Georges posts the times. Regardless of my time, I had a great time and even made a couple of friends who I plan on riding with. You can never have too many riding buds. Lastly, I want to thank Georges for all of the work he put into the second, Bottle Ride. Thanks G!

The Bottle Ride

Yesterday I competed in a "gentleman's race" at Blue Mountain. The race was one man's vision; organized by a local rider, racer and all around cool cat, he called it The Bottle Ride. He intended to gather a random group of like-minded individuals to race for fun. ... and wine (Prizes were bottles of wine!) The race was kept a mystery up until two days before the event, hinting that it would take place approximately 55 minutes, by train, from Grand Central Terminal. I knew it would be at Blue Mountain. Racers had to email to get a slot in the race and details were slowly divulged over the few days prior to the event via email and a special blog (See The Bottle Ride blog). The mystery of it all kept me interested. One for adventure, I knew this would be right up my alley. It turned out to be a very low key, time trial mountain bike race. Riders set off every 30 seconds from the top of Myx Monster and climbed up Ned's Left Lung for the finish. In my opinion, Myx Monster is the most technically challenging trail in the area. Several large rocks set at offensive angles try to pinch your bike and stop your momentum while you navigate your way down near-vertical sections of trail. Steep rollers and log build-ups are abundant and the obstacles just keep coming one after another. Extremely dry conditions and absurd quantities of fallen acorns made for very slippery trails likened best to marbles in dry graphite lube. I felt bad for one rider who informed me that it was her first time riding the Monster and I cautioned her to take it easy. There were a few speedy XC racers who took the wins for the geared and singlespeed categories. A handful of women raced as well, the fastest of which came away victorious in their category, wine bottle in hand.

I don't know what my time was, but I feel I did pretty well. I'm guessing I placed around 13th or so of the 30-some riders that attended. I did managed to lay the bike down and rough my leg up pretty good. It all happened before I knew it and I found myself face down in the dirt looking over at my bike laying on it's side; wheels still spinning. I was fine and got back on to finish the course. Funny thing about finishing the course: It was all up hill! Ned's Left Lung (Named, I assume, after Ned Overend) really kicked my ass and I actually walked a portion of it. And so this morning I limped out of the apartment scabby and sore but ready to start a fresh new week.

Beautifully orchestrated, the ride was a blast. I'm sure a lot of time went into organizing this race and it was clear that all who attended had a great time. From the hand painted number plates, clearly marked trails to the opening talk; this man made a lot of people happy! THANK YOU!

Edit: 9/29/10 The results were posted. Of the 27 riders, I had the 10th best time. Yay?!

Yesterday's Blue Mountain blues

Yesterday's ride at Blue Mountain was short & sweet. I had envisioned a long day on the trails but several factors worked against that vision. For starters, I'm still sick. I have had this false notion that I'm fine, despite my constant hacking (this cough won't leave me). So when I got out there and started the first long climb I was feeling completely drained and barely got my singlespeed up the hills. My pace was slow; that's for sure.

The other factor that worked against us was Marc's bike. He had sent me an email the night before saying that he was having problems with his brakes. I thought to myself, no problem, I'll get him rolling at the tail head. Having spent several years as a wrench in bike shops I was positive that I could fix whatever was wrong with his ride. Unfortunately Marc, not knowing any better, had sprayed an obscene amount of WD-40 on his brake calipers to try to "free things up". I was able to adjust his calipers so that they weren't rubbing so badly on his disk rotors but the oil on his brake pads make the brakes pretty much non existent. The other issue with his bike was that the cones in his hubs (both hubs) were loose. They must have been loose for some time because when I tightened them down, by hand, the bearings were super gritty. (Marc I highly recommend you pick up this book!)

We rode for about an hour before we called it quits. I was OK with that. I loved being out in the woods as it was beautiful. The drought we're experiencing has definitely taken it's toll on the forest. Several of the swamps we rode past were completely dried up leaving black leaves and dried out moss where swamp water once was (see pics below). This area sure could use some rain.

As per standard operating procedure we swung in to Peekskill Brewery before catching the train back into the city. I enjoyed a couple of their IPA's (my favorite type of ale) and we all talked about riding, work, life and exchanged ridiculous stories of times gone by. The brewery is a great place to end a ride.

Fat Tire Festival report

I came home from the Fat Tire Festival at Blue Mountain Reservation yesterday evening, so exhausted that I didn't have the mental stamina to throw up a proper blog entry. So here I am tonight, fully recovered and missing the super technical, adrenaline packed trails of yesterday. I used to think that Sprain Ridge Park was home to my favorite trails down here near the big apple, but now I'm convinced that Blue Mountain takes the cake. The trails are so chock full o' jagged rocks that you have to kick the rear end of the bike around and swing your hips through sections of trail. The closest thing that I can compare it to is swooshing through moguls. in some areas I found myself gapping small sections of baby-heads. Some of the decents are so steep and twisty that I found myself grabbing the front brake and swinging the rear end of the bike around to place it in a better position to complete the problem area. I love this kind of riding. There were also plenty of rollers to fly down.
I owe so much to the group of riders I bumped into on the trails. A really nice group of six riders from Connecticut. They let me latch on to their group and took me on two long rides through the park. Above is the route we took. At the end of the day I had 17 miles under my wheels, a bruised left arm from hugging a tree and some intense blisters on my hands from rock climbing on Friday and squeezing the bajeezus out of my brake levers all day. I have a feeling I'll be hooking up with them in the future for some more aggressive riding.

Holy Broken Elbows!

I'll be typing for Mike for a while... He's got TWO broken elbows.

After a great day of mountain biking with Alex at Blue Mountain Reservation (where he cleaned most of the gnarly sections) he almost had a collision with another cyclist 20 feet from our front steps. Avoiding the other cyclist meant stopping short after coming down a hill at high speed and flying over the handle bars (only to break his fall by putting his hands out in front of him). He got right up and carried his bike up all five flights of stairs to our apartment (the other cyclist didn't even stop!). He called me at work and assured me that he just had a bad sprain but...

When I got home from work he had already packed a bag to go to the ER and off we went.

Serious kudos to the people at the Columbia Presbyterian ER on Broadway...We were in and out in two hours flat.

Here's the prognosis: He has almost identical breaks in the tips of his radius bones, just at the top where they meet the humerus bone at the elbow. He doesn't have either arm in a cast because with this type of break it is important to keep his joints moving. He's doing alright but it's gonna be a while before he can ride again.

We'll report more when we pick up the digital x-rays we requested from the hospital.

-Mike's wife

Blue Mountain Reservation

Today I rode the singlespeed at Blue Mountain Reservation, which is about 40 miles north of New York City in the city of Peekskill, NY. [Trail Information here] After weeks of riding Cunningham Park in Queens, this was a breath of fresh air. The landscape and scenery are completely different.

I spent about 45 minutes on a Metro North Train to get up to Peekskill and then pedaled for about 2 miles to reach the park entrance. Once I got there I wasn't able to find any trail maps so I just set off into the woods. Wow, what an extensive system of singletrack!

Ten minutes into the ride the sky turned purple; shortly thereafter the clouds let loose with a storm of biblical proportions. Thunder cracked loudly above me and the rain came down in sheets. Leafy branches fluttered and sagged low. Rocks became slicker than snot. I huddled under a young sapling for a moment assessing the situation. While becoming soaked to the bone, crouched beneath a pitiful shelter from the storm, I decided I'd be just as wet swinging my way down through the trails, so I set the cranks in motion again.

The beautifully blazed 18” wide trail wound through dark, lush, pine forest cutting it's way though loamy soil, large fern beds and over large amounts of exposed rock. Logs, build-ups and rock roll-downs littered the trail nearly every 20 feet. There wasn't much in the way of elevation changes although it is much more hilly than Cunningham Park. At one point I stopped to let several PSI out of my tires to get better traction and I was happy for the suspension that it provided. While pedaling and exploring, a couple lines from a Robert Frost poem came to mind:

"The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."

I rode for about two hours before making my way back into town and over to the Train Station. A quick bike wash in the Hudson River cleaned the majority of mud off my ride and I caught an express train back to Manhattan.

Can't wait to head back there on Thursday after the trails have dried out!

More trail images here:

• Blue Mountain Reservation Pictures