I completed my second hotter'n hell last Saturday and while I did complete it faster and with fewer stops than last year but I did not enjoy it nearly as much. About 15 miles into the ride I was in a line of riders that shifted to the left and I had no choice but to shift with them which put me off of the road in the dirt. While my transition to the dirt went relatively the transition back to the pavement did not. A gap between the pavement and the dirt appeared and grabbed my rear wheel sending my down. I am told that I was out for a little bit but I got up angry so my friends were not too concerned about me. I did finish the ride with out another stop but the crash tore my bib shorts, scuffed the edge of my saddle and cracked my helmet. Not to mention the road rash on my hip.
I already have a new helmet, I have retaped my handle bars, and I am looking to see if I can get a new saddle cheap on ebay. My only real issue at this point is that my team has no extra bibs or jerseys. So I am somewhat stuck. I may be able to get a jersey from last year but no bibs. So the delema is this....do I just go with a jersey from last year and some black bibs, find a kit from a non-local team that is not too expensive to last until March, or option C go back to my last team kit for 6 months.
Ideas, suggestions, team offers????
Showing posts with label Hotter'n Hell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hotter'n Hell. Show all posts
Monday, September 7, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
2nd half of summer
My summer has really been divided into two halves plus a little at the end. The first half was spent writing a few papers and getting ready to teach. The second half was very busy and spent finishing a paper and sending it to a journal and teaching. Tomorrow I am heading to NC to get Nici and head back to TX with her. It has been a long summer with her working in NC and me working in TX. It is amazing to think that we just had our 4th anniversary on Thursday. It seems like yesterday that we got married.
While I am not looking forward to summer being over I am looking forward to Nici being back in TX with me. I will still have 2 weeks until I have to start teaching in the fall and about a week until I will have to be back in the lab full time.
I had hoped to get 1000 miles in on the bike and a tt and a MTB race but I settled for 800 miles and no racing. It is odd that about the times that the races came around my legs were feeling pretty weak but afterwards they were feeling better. This last week I was able to make it to the KOW ride (race) and I stayed on the lead group much longer than usual. I was able to stay at the front and watch a bunch of cat 1 and cat 2 racers play out team tatics. Amazingly I am a member of one of the two teams that was controling the ride. When I saw a teammate being pulled back to the group form a break away, I came very close to attacking and trying to form a break of my own. I quickly realized that I was doing everything that I could to simply stay with the group so attacking was out of the question. At least my head knew what the right thing to do was, even if my legs could not do it.
Hotter than Hell is coming up and despite my plans to not do it this year I am ready for another shot. Hopefully I can finish in under 4 hours this year. I was very close last year so maybe with my legs starting to come around I can do it.
Well I am off to North Carolina in the morning and I can't wait to see my wife and not have to just talk on the phone.
North Cakallacky here I come!
While I am not looking forward to summer being over I am looking forward to Nici being back in TX with me. I will still have 2 weeks until I have to start teaching in the fall and about a week until I will have to be back in the lab full time.
I had hoped to get 1000 miles in on the bike and a tt and a MTB race but I settled for 800 miles and no racing. It is odd that about the times that the races came around my legs were feeling pretty weak but afterwards they were feeling better. This last week I was able to make it to the KOW ride (race) and I stayed on the lead group much longer than usual. I was able to stay at the front and watch a bunch of cat 1 and cat 2 racers play out team tatics. Amazingly I am a member of one of the two teams that was controling the ride. When I saw a teammate being pulled back to the group form a break away, I came very close to attacking and trying to form a break of my own. I quickly realized that I was doing everything that I could to simply stay with the group so attacking was out of the question. At least my head knew what the right thing to do was, even if my legs could not do it.
Hotter than Hell is coming up and despite my plans to not do it this year I am ready for another shot. Hopefully I can finish in under 4 hours this year. I was very close last year so maybe with my legs starting to come around I can do it.
Well I am off to North Carolina in the morning and I can't wait to see my wife and not have to just talk on the phone.
North Cakallacky here I come!
Sunday, August 9, 2009
A tale of two rides
It is amazing how different two rides in the same week can be. A few weeks ago I was planning on doing my first time trial as a way to get back into racing in a way that would be very unlikely to result in a crash. The weekend before I had done some very good hard rides and my legs were feeling good. I was unable to do my usual Monday night recovery ride because I got stuck on campus later than I should have been. By Wednesday I went out on my usual KOW (king of Wednesday) ride (race) and my legs felt horrible. I got dropped much earlier than I had wanted. After a slow ride home I decided that it was not worth the $40 and getting up at 4am on Saturday to drive 2 hours to go to a 40K time trial just to come in dead last.
That Saturday I got up to do my usual ride and felt much stronger than I expected. In fact I stayed on to the lead pack about 10 miles longer that usual. My best Saturday ride the year!
I was disappointed with not racing that day until I looked at the time for the cat 5 racers and the winning time was around 1 hour. I know that I could not have finished in 1 hour so I felt ok with my decision. Hopefully some consistent training over the next couple of months will put me in good shape for a possible TT in the fall.
I have decided to give the Hotter than Hell another shot. After last years ride I figured that I had checked it off my list and was not planning on going back but I am getting than itch to go again. Plus a number of my friends are planning on going so I can't pass it up.
One of my riding friends is planning on making his racing come back (to a cat 3) next year and will be training to do so. I am going to try and put a training schedule together for us and get my self in back in racing shape so when I can start racing again I will be able to get to a cat 3 in a season.
Enough for now, time to go to sleep and attack the last week of being in TX without Nici.
That Saturday I got up to do my usual ride and felt much stronger than I expected. In fact I stayed on to the lead pack about 10 miles longer that usual. My best Saturday ride the year!
I was disappointed with not racing that day until I looked at the time for the cat 5 racers and the winning time was around 1 hour. I know that I could not have finished in 1 hour so I felt ok with my decision. Hopefully some consistent training over the next couple of months will put me in good shape for a possible TT in the fall.
I have decided to give the Hotter than Hell another shot. After last years ride I figured that I had checked it off my list and was not planning on going back but I am getting than itch to go again. Plus a number of my friends are planning on going so I can't pass it up.
One of my riding friends is planning on making his racing come back (to a cat 3) next year and will be training to do so. I am going to try and put a training schedule together for us and get my self in back in racing shape so when I can start racing again I will be able to get to a cat 3 in a season.
Enough for now, time to go to sleep and attack the last week of being in TX without Nici.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Hotter'n Hell-WOW
So yesterday I did Hotter'n Hell and all I can say is wow. The distance, the crowd, the temperature, the effort all of it was bigger than what I had done before. Ok so it was not so hot and the wind was not too bad but it was still crazy.
We left Lewisville at 3:30am to get to Wichta Falls by 5:30am and eat and get ready for a 7:09 start time. We made it there in plenty of time and picked up our packet and shirts (Good thing that we pre-registered b/c the line was long). As we were getting ready the sun had still not started and folks were already gathering at the start by 6am. The races left at 6:40 (still no sun). We lined up by 6:45 and the crowd was already very very large. We moved up as close as we could to the start but we were still aways back. The crowd of riders stretched for 11 blocks. After a jet fly over and a cannon blast we started walking our bikes for a little while before we could get to the point that we could get one and ride. Shortly after we started I saw 4 pairs of spare tires on the ground and I would have stopped to get them if I would not have been run over! When we finally got started I spent most of the first 20 miles in the oncoming lanes of traffic (thankfully there was no oncoming traffic) passing folks who had started prior to us. I would have hated to start any further than the half a block back that we did start.
I guess that is what happens when you have 11,000+ riders!
After about 60 miles we actually stopped for more water and gatorade. We made it to the 62 mile "Hell's Gate" several hours before the 12:30 cut off. They stop letting people pass and do the 100 mile route at 12:30 for heath safety concerns. After the 60 mile rest stop we powered on and kept up a great pace. Other than stopping for a flat and a lose crank (neither on my bike) we did not stop except for the 60 mile rest stop. At mile 80 the only thought that I had was what Todd had told me about never having a good ride over 80 miles. I kept topped off on water and gel and other than the hot spots on my feet I felt great. I took some really good pulls from mile 90 to the end and kept the pace over 20mph. We finished in 5 hours and 7 minutes and had 4 hours and 44 minutes of total ride time. An average of 21.3mph for the whole ride goes to show how flat the ride was. The roads were either flat or a false flat. Many of the roads were very well paved but the rest were typical harsh chipseal. The number of polar water bottles that I saw on the ground was astounding. I stopped counting after 20 bottles.
I still can't believe that I finished my first 100 mile ride in about 5 hours and I still felt fresh enough this morning to do strong ride ( I just could not hold back on the hills and sprint points- my legs were screaming but I had to go for them).
It was pretty nice to do something big like this the weekend before classes start up and the grind begins again.
We will see if I decide to do Hotter'n Hell again but I am very glad that I did it and it was, as they say, "An Experience Fundamentally Texas!"
We left Lewisville at 3:30am to get to Wichta Falls by 5:30am and eat and get ready for a 7:09 start time. We made it there in plenty of time and picked up our packet and shirts (Good thing that we pre-registered b/c the line was long). As we were getting ready the sun had still not started and folks were already gathering at the start by 6am. The races left at 6:40 (still no sun). We lined up by 6:45 and the crowd was already very very large. We moved up as close as we could to the start but we were still aways back. The crowd of riders stretched for 11 blocks. After a jet fly over and a cannon blast we started walking our bikes for a little while before we could get to the point that we could get one and ride. Shortly after we started I saw 4 pairs of spare tires on the ground and I would have stopped to get them if I would not have been run over! When we finally got started I spent most of the first 20 miles in the oncoming lanes of traffic (thankfully there was no oncoming traffic) passing folks who had started prior to us. I would have hated to start any further than the half a block back that we did start.
I guess that is what happens when you have 11,000+ riders!
After about 60 miles we actually stopped for more water and gatorade. We made it to the 62 mile "Hell's Gate" several hours before the 12:30 cut off. They stop letting people pass and do the 100 mile route at 12:30 for heath safety concerns. After the 60 mile rest stop we powered on and kept up a great pace. Other than stopping for a flat and a lose crank (neither on my bike) we did not stop except for the 60 mile rest stop. At mile 80 the only thought that I had was what Todd had told me about never having a good ride over 80 miles. I kept topped off on water and gel and other than the hot spots on my feet I felt great. I took some really good pulls from mile 90 to the end and kept the pace over 20mph. We finished in 5 hours and 7 minutes and had 4 hours and 44 minutes of total ride time. An average of 21.3mph for the whole ride goes to show how flat the ride was. The roads were either flat or a false flat. Many of the roads were very well paved but the rest were typical harsh chipseal. The number of polar water bottles that I saw on the ground was astounding. I stopped counting after 20 bottles.
I still can't believe that I finished my first 100 mile ride in about 5 hours and I still felt fresh enough this morning to do strong ride ( I just could not hold back on the hills and sprint points- my legs were screaming but I had to go for them).
It was pretty nice to do something big like this the weekend before classes start up and the grind begins again.
We will see if I decide to do Hotter'n Hell again but I am very glad that I did it and it was, as they say, "An Experience Fundamentally Texas!"
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