"It's not that bicycling is so important, it is that everything else is equally unimportant."

WAW #1 - 6/22/05  
Well the first race of the four race Wednesdays at Wakefield series is done. PVC and specifically Larry Cautilli did an incredible job making Wakefield race worthy again. They fixed a ton of problem spots like creek crossings and muddy spots, combined with the new sections of trail and you have a great flowing and fast course.

I decided to race in the Singlespeed category, but by the time I got out of work and home to let the dog out and grab my stuff it was already past 5:30pm. The race started at 6:00pm, so I would be missing it. No worries, the second round of racing was at 7:00pm, I'd just have to race Sport. About the time I left the house around 6:15pm, the sky opened and let out a deluge of rain and wind. I was worried that by the time I got there the race would be cancelled. Lots of traffic, but got there with about 7 minutes to spare. Registered and suited up and spun my way to the starting line. Only saw a few people I know as this was my first time ever racing a category other than singlespeed.

We started off the first lap with the climb up the loose gravel hill. Always a hard start, people are slipping and yet still pushing as hard as they can to get to the singletrack first. As it was I had to slow down as soon as I hit singletrack due to the traffic jam. I guess if I was really competitive I would have jumped off my bike and gone running past people, but honestly I'm not that hardcore. I waited the line out and was soon heading into the woods. Across the first creek crossing and right on a group of four guys wheels. They all took the easy, but a couple feet longer route around the big log and when I saw my chance I grabbed it. Full speed up and over the log, I honestly don't think my tires even touched it. I almost wish I had been behind myself to see it. Landed and pulled right in front of the other riders, heard a couple of explitives, but I think they were more speaking of going over the log than going over to cut them off, ha. Then up the new section of trail and around the hillside, back out of the woods for some fast paced fire road stuff. This is my only downside on the fixie, well on a singlespeed...I can't big ring it like the others and therefore I'm trying to spin as fast as possible to just stay ahead and not get passed. Everytime I hit these sections I almost always got passed by someone and then would have to pass them again in the technical stuff, so I guess it all works out. Creek trail to powerline trail, back into the woods to finish off the new trail, then out to the 495 trail, up to the fire road and that's the end of the lap. I ran it pretty hard and felt really good. Surprisingly well.

Lap two was pretty much exactly the same. Passed a few people and got passed by a couple more. I had started the race in the back of the sport pack, so I figured I was doing ok, not great, but good for me. Made it up all the hills without slowing too much before or *after*. Just spun pretty consistently. Had a couple of good back and forth battles. On the third lap I rolled a tire off a groove on an uphill and had the bike slip out. It was the powerline entrace hill so there wasn't much sense of trying to get back on and ride. I just ran to the top and hopped back on, only to start getting passed by a couple of experts just before I could cut back into the woods.

Being that I was not only getting passed, but also passing people - kind of a new thing for me, I was having a blast. Made the last climb out to the fire road for a full on sprint against an expert guy who was ending his race (expert = 4 laps, sport = 3 laps, ha). He told me he wasn't sure what category I was in so he was racing as hard as he could. No lie, I was sprinting my ass off and that's actually where I hit my high speed for the day, not on some downhill, but on a finishing sprint! I hit 20 mph. He edged me out by about a wheel length, oh well.

So all in all, a pretty damn good race for me. I really like racing sport seeing as how I actually have people to race against. Usually in singlespeed I'm all alone at the back of the pack playing with myself. In the end I placed 26 out of 38. That's a few days after Big Bear and the next day after a Swill ride. Hopefully I'll get better as the race season goes on and I'll slowly move up in the pack...

DT
posted by DT at 4:55:00 PM
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TNS #20 6/21/05  
Got some catching up to do...

Rode from my house to the meeting spot. We headed into Rosslyn, climbed my hill, and then hit Dremos for a pitcher of Chocolate Donut beer. Then back to the streets to Baileys for some 60 Minutes and dinner. Then back to the cars where Steve gave me a ride to the house.

DT
posted by DT at 4:53:00 PM
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24 Hours of Big Bear Pics  
Haven't had a chance to do a write up yet, but hopefully I'll get to it today. Basically we came in 7th out of 10 teams in the Single/Rigid class. I took a lot of pics early on in the race and once I started doing laps sort of forgot about the camera. Check out what I've got though and hopefully I'll get some pics from the other guys on the team.

DT
posted by DT at 12:02:00 PM
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The Big Meats  


It's on like Donkey Kong. Off to WV for 24 Hours of Big Bear. That's our team logo, designed by Spearmint. Wish me luck, hopefully my fatass doesn't cramp up and die on the side of the trail in the middle of the woods.

DT
posted by DT at 12:01:00 AM
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TNS #19 06/14/2005  
Another TNS in the bag. The plan was 6:00pm, meet on one of the side roads near Panera where there was a little more shade to park the cars and then hop on the W&OD. After some good miles yesterday, my butt was dragging a bit. Spearmint was still strong, even after doing double the miles I did yesterday and Stoner was super fresh since he didn't ride at all yesterday. They started cruising at a pretty good clip and I was just holding on, occaisionally drifting back and eventually catching back up. Not real busy on the path, but definitely picked up a few riders here and there. Head down on slightly uphill grind, I almost missed the turn off for Old Dominion Brewery, just barely saw the sign out of the corner of my eye.

Once there we settled in for a few beers and some chili. Nick was supposed to show up at 8:00pm, but ended up being a no show, so we just closed the place down. Took a bunch of pics while at ODB. The Pedalshop boys didn't have their discount cards waiting for them and were a little perturbed...I mean they are sponsored by ODB...

The ride back started out pretty good. Fairly casual with me dropping off the back on every little hill and then working my ass of to catch back up. For the most part I was either with them or could at least see them. Then came the grinding uphill into Vienna. I lost all sight of Stoner's little red blinky. I accepted my fate and turned off my headlamp, got used to the darkness and the natural light glow. Once the eyes were adjusted I picked up the pace and tried to at least give it a good shot. I blast through several intersections, mostly without any cars coming, well except for that one, probably thought he saw a ghost appear 15 feet in front of him, ha. Once I pull into Vienna, I see the two of them sitting on a bench, Spearmint eating some gu. Evidently competition got the best of them and they had hammered it out, pushing it hard all the way, running close to the limit the entire time - at least according to Spearmint, Stoner never actually backed that story up. I might have been incredibly slow and they were trying to make me feel better or maybe they were knackered from hammering the whole way, who knows. I was trying to ride pretty hard, so it's still not all that comforting to know I was that far off the back.

Back at the cars and we clocked in a nice 40 miles. Chatted up Spearmint a bit before heading home. Home before midnight, which is always good. Didn't sleep well, but what do you expect when your landscaping neighbor is throwing empty buckets in the back of their truck at 5:30am. That and whenever I lay on my left side for more than a minute, my left arm basically goes dead from the shoulder down, which wakes me up. Had to drink some much needed coffee this morning. Today I'm off the bike, gonna rest a bit for this weekends race and spend some time with Busterman.

DT
posted by DT at 11:12:00 AM
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Quitting Time  
So I cut out of work a little early yesterday. Managed to get on the bike just before 4:30pm. Had a couple of options before me - Steve was riding the W&OD, as in all of it. He started at 11am and was on his way back from Magnolias at the end. I managed to catch him on his way back deep in Reston, just after he stopped at 7-11. We rode back on the W&OD all the way to Shirlington, got a gatoraid and a beer at Cap City, and then headed back to Falls Church. Steve totalled 91 miles, so I probably pulled about 45ish, since I rode from my house to the trail.

We got dumped on coming back from Shirlington, pretty much the whole way back to Steve's car in Falls Church. He hooked me with a ride back to my house so I could give him his wheel building book back. Kristin was nice enough to have her soon to be famous peanut butter and sesame seed noodles waiting for me. Seriously...these are one of the best things I've ever tasted...it might beat out my passion for pizza...almost.

Anyway, check out the couple of pics of our reward of riding in the rain.

DT
posted by DT at 11:28:00 AM
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Ocean City  
Ocean City was great as always. I didn't manage to string together the free hour I had here and there into a few hours of time to actually ride to Rehoboth and visit the brewery. I did manage to get out on the boardwalk with Kristin though. Boardwalk down and streets back. Later on I put together the tandem I took down for my parents. Figure it would make a pretty good boardwalk bike. Tried it out with my Dad and with Kristin, both had a blast. I let my Dad be the driver and I drove Kristin. Good times, check out the pics.

DT
posted by DT at 11:15:00 AM
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SSWC 2005  
So I was able to register for the Worlds. It's the weekend before my wedding, so we'll be throwing down the gauntlet safe style. I managed to sign myself, Spearmint, and Stoner up before heading out for our ride at Wakefield. Good thing, with all 400 spots going in less than 5 hours.

Somehow I've managed to place highly in an event that is still months away...check it out - I've already placed 3rd in the World...it's all in the results file...

This will be my third year at one of Roman's events and it only gets better each year. My first year I was running the '84 Giant Iguana. It wasn't but a few months later that I would rip the metal from the welds on that there bike. Next year I had my custom IF to take with me and I rocked it out fixed gear. I was the only one evidently to ride the whole thing fixie, so I was given a random spot (I guess that's 8th place) for racing the go karts. I'm hoping this year there will be a few other fixie riders...this is going to rock.

DT
posted by DT at 4:57:00 PM
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Good Week of Riding  
With no riding over the weekend, Kristin gave me the "you can ride every day this week" pass and I wasn't about to let that go without riding a lot.

Monday I talked with my boy Jon Burns who has been commuting something like 45-50 miles a day, two or three times a week. Dropping those pounds and getting in mad biking condition. He had commuted in, so we planned on him leaving AOL and me leaving from Falls Church around the same time and meeting out on the W&OD and riding back together. Made it down to Hunters Mill Rd. before we hooked up, turned it around and went all the way back to his place in Arlington. I got a bit knackered when he took an exit and I didn't keep him in view (I had taken a dirt side trail and popped out a little behind me). Took me a few minutes to work out where I was and where his place was once I took the exit, but I found it soon enough. Once inside his place we gorged ourselves on homemade Gatoraid popsicles...mmm...good. Shooting the shit, we noticed the weather was taking a turn for the worse, so I mounted up and headed back to Falls Church. About half way and the wind had picked up tremendously, enough to push me off course and almost into the wall. About this time the rain started to fall, so I pushed it hard and was able to make it back to the car before the sky opened up. Might have beat the heavy rains by a full 2 minutes.

Tuesday we ended up moving TNS again. This time it wasn't because anyone was gone, Stoner had done a pretty hard ride over the weekend and was hoping to do dirt. We were thinking road, so he pushed it to Thursday. That was cool. I mounted up and pushed towards Dremos and met up with Spearmint and Donna for some nachos and beer, before biking back over to Lost Dog cafe for some pizza. Then a little bit more riding back to the car.

Wednesday I actually didn't bike much. Took a spin around and did my quick neighborhood loop to pack in some hills and then back home to cut the grass. Gotta be done sometime, you know.

TNS - Thursday Night Swill, much better than the Wednesday Night Swill...I think we'll be keeping it to Tuesday though from now on. We had a pretty big group, Stoner, Spearmint, Ricky D., Butch, Sol, and myself. Lot's of hills and something around 20 miles of dirt at Accotink. After some parking lot beers, we headed to the Arlington Cinema N Drafthouse to watch "Off-Road To Athens". Definitely a fun movie, especially since it's mountain biking, but not people jumping off of 6 story buildings and whatnot. Mostly XC, all about passion! A fun night for sure.

Now it's almost the weekend, got 10 minutes to go before I'm out of here. Taking the tandem I got for my parents down to Ocean City for them. Hoping to ride to Rehoboth, about 30 miles away, and check out the Dogfish Head brewery, but we'll see. Boats and drinks might be calling...

DT
posted by DT at 4:39:00 PM
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Memorial Day Weekend  
Saturday - took one of Kristin's coworkers husbands out for some dirt action. Rob and I rode Colt's Neck. Took a casual pace and got in a good 10 miles. Trails were dry and we were cruising.

Sunday - I put the bike away and took a hike with Kristin and Buster. We parked at the Difficult Run parking lot and made our way along the side of the water, stopping so Buster could get his swimming on. Thought I must have passed the trail that bombs back down to the lot and took a random left off the ridge. Pretty sweet, yet sketchy in places singletrack trail dropped us back onto the carriage road for a short hike back to the cars.

Monday - No work! Did a ride around the neighborhood with Gary, Melinda, and Kristin. Rain was threatening, but we made it back to the house after some good exploring with only a little rainfall.

TNS moved to Wednesday night, the first time it's been moved. I had something going on for Tuesday night that was planned way in advance and Thursday night I was heading up to Maine, so Wednesday it was. We rode Wakefield/Accotink. Jason was laying down the good climbing loops when it all got knackered. First Steve got a flat. Then after he fixed it, about 4 feet later Stoner got a flat. Then we rode a section over on Accotink we never ride, I think it's supposed to be new. Got lost, ended up running through someones backyard, roamed around the streets for a bit, Stoner had another flat, more roaming, then pulled back into Wakefield.

I did the Maine thing over the weekend. No riding, no hiking, wanted to race, but just not in the cards. This was a "working weekend". We ended up getting a ton of stuff done for the wedding though. Photographer, DJ, rehearsal dinner, knick knacks, bridal shower...whew, that was a long one.

DT
posted by DT at 5:25:00 PM
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