First mountain bike race

Bethany and Silas supported me during my first mountain bike race. It was the Fat Tire Challenge outside of Sigel, PA. The sport category was 14 1/2 miles of single and double track trails in the wonderful forests of northwestern Pennsylvania. There were some nice technical sections and lots of mud. I survived my first flight over the handlebars after solidly planting my front wheel in hole dropping down from a large boulder. There was a long (reputedly 2 mile) climb in the middle that didn't turn out so bad, but the mile-long climb near the end was pretting grueling.

My goal was to finish within 2 hours, because I had no idea of what to expect. I missed it by 10 minutes (2:10 total). I'm ok with that. I didn't get hurt (which was my highest priority goal) and did lose 3+ of those minutes due to thowing my chain off the small chainring and wedging it good between it and the frame. I was almost to the point of giving up on fixing it and running the bike the rest of the way to the finish.

I think if they'd have normalized the field by either inverse cost of the bike or bike mass, I'd have been in the running for a medal. My bike was probably $400 new and cost me $150 used. The guy I was talking to setting up next to our car was riding a frame that cost $1,800. That's without the components and wheels and whatnot. Granted, he was good enough for that to make a difference. He placed 2nd in the expert class single-speed division.

Silas checked my gear over for me.

Setting up the group start. The expert riders were already 20 minutes into their race.

Transition to a jeep road about 7 miles into the race.

Beautiful part of the world to be riding!

Survived with a smile.

Final gear check by coach.

First adventure race

Between our kid's blog and facebook, it's hard to keep up on this blog as well. Nonetheless, I wanted to document some of the fun I had in my first adventure race. It was the HVAC race put on by Grass Roots Racing, a group out of Pittsburgh that runs a series of entry-level adventure races that don't require the crazy levels of skill and dedication of the multi-day big events. Besides the 'orienteering' and whatnot, the race was about 15 miles on the mountain bike, 100-200 m swim, and about 5 miles of trail running.

It was my teammate, Arn's, first adventure race as well. We had a brilliantly fun time. We didn't intend on winning or coming close to being competetive. It was more about the exploration into this type of racing. I'd like to do the next in the series, but have a schedule conflict. Hopefully, I can do the August one in Pittsburgh with Bethany, and then the last two with Kevin or Arn. Kevin is by far the best runner I know, and I think we'd work as well as a team as Arn and I did. We've talked about doing this for more than a year now, without getting our schedules to work out.

I bought a very low-end, used mountain bike to get me through the race a week before. It's an ok ride for this, but can't put up with the beating for too long.

Crush the Commonwealth

This morning, twenty-some riders took off on the annual, no-prize, Crush the Commonwealth race. It's a self-supported race between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Odd years, it starts in Pittsburgh (as it did this year), and even years in Philly. My friend, Kevin, and I got out early to see them off on their 5AM start.

Not in PA anymore

This picture captures why moving to Pittsburgh was such a culture shock for me. It was taken at a highway rest stop in Wisconsin last weekend.

I am happy to report that recycling has finally reached SW PA, and one can commingle much of their recycling, requiring the use of few receptacles.