First Century of the Season

Winter will just not go away.   This Saturday morning greeted us with 23 degree air temps and a stiff 15mph wind coming out of the NE contributing to a 12 degree windchill.  It is just freakin cold outside ... a whole 25 degrees below normal according to our perky weatherman.   I just need miles, there is no choice. And it did not precipitate today, so out I went for a century.

John wanted to ride from Granville, up to Mt Vernon and then connect with various parts of the Ohio to Erie Bikeway.  Our ending destination was Fredricksburg, some 49 miles away from Mt Vernon.  I was only good for a century, so I drove up to Mt Vernon and met John there after he had already logged 30-40 morning miles.  Just fine with me as the extra 2 hours would allow things to warm up just a little bit more.

Our first section is about 12 miles of paved rail-to-trail called the Kokosing Gap Trail.   This is an awesome trail with a couple of scenic highlights including pretty bridges, a retired steam locomotive, and this lovely old red building next to the stone tunnel pictured here.  It looks like an old mill except I could see no waterworks nearby.  But a very classic looking old building.  This first section of trail ends in Danville OH.

Our next section is a brief piece of trail called the Mohican Valley Trail.  It picks up right in Danville and extends for 4.5 miles toward Brinkhaven.  This is a true dirt pathway and, in these spring conditions, was very soft and mushy.  We got a good covering of mud on everything and, even on the cross bike, parts were a real slog in thick, muddy goo.   The only memorable feature of this stretch is the "Bridge of Dreams" which is a 370 foot span crossing the Mohican River.  Supposedly Ohio's longest covered bridge and the nation's second longest span.   This bridge is in the distance of this photo.  Don't let the gravel here fool you, it is only a 1/4 mile stretch; everything else on this path is mud.

Since the Mohican Valley Trail is mostly unfinished, we now had an 18 mile road stretch to make it to Killbuck where the trail picks up again.  There are big hills here; we had several long climbs that lasted multiple hundreds of feet which is fairly rare for Ohio.  We weren't exactly expecting this, but the elevation was a nice change of pace from a long day of flat bikepath.  

In Killbuck, you rejoin the trail as the Holmes County Trail.  It is all paved and the unique feature is that there are separate trail lanes for horses and for bikes.  Lots and lots of Amish live in this area and we passed a dozen or so horse drawn buggies on this stretch.   You do have to keep your eyes open for the road apples.   This section goes from Killbuck to Millersburg to Holmes to its terminus in Fredricksburg.

John had business in Millersburg.  He was after a new frameset and had looked up a bike shop in Millersburg.  The shop was a few miles outside of town (away from the trail).  It is run by Amish (who don't answer the phone).  Since I was low on energy and needed badly to eat, and the shop was near closing time so John wanted to make time there, and this shop was up in the hills with several long steep climbs to get there, I skipped this part and parted ways with John.  I figured he would catch up to me on the trail at some point since he is a faster rider than me.   I snarfed a powerbar and sucked some go juice from the hydration pack before heading up the trail.  

Today's ride was constantly characterized by a stiff headwind and bitter cold temps.  The unusual NE wind blew right at us the whole way up.  I sat on John's wheel till we split in Millersburg and then had to face the ferocity of the wind on my own.  I had a thick base layer and then a riding jacket over top.  I had lobster gloves on and alternated between putting bar mits on too or not.  When you are only out for a few hours, you can kind of suck it up and be cold.  But when you are out for a hundo, you need to be warm.

In Fredricksburg, which is heavily Amish, I found a small general store (run by Amish), parked my bike outside (between two Amish buggies), ate a sandwich (made by Amish) and then headed back.  There was a decent tailwind push but it just didn't seem strong enough to make it "fair" for all the hardwork we logged to get there.   About 3 miles back, I meet up with John who is still coming from his Millersburg bikeshop excursion.  He wants to go to the terminus, so I shout out to him my route and expect him to catch up to me about half way back; that's 6 extra miles for him within a span of 49 -- yup, he should catch me.   Except that between Killbuck and Danville I stick to Rte 62.  It is more traffic, but it eliminates many of the climbs and bypasses the muddy Mohican Trail.  So I make good time and end up beating John back to the car by 20 minutes.   He also has to stop and refuel since he didn't stop in Fredricksburg.

A good long ride.  I was tired but not wasted.   Could have gone more if needed but didn't want to in that wind and cold.  Cohutta is looking good but there is a huge difference between a hundred miles on mostly paved bike path and a hundred miles with tons of gravel road climbing.    I had 97.4 miles, 3100 feet vertical, 16mph average, 145 bpm heartrate and 5001 calories.  

Gravel Rouser Classic

Yesterday I attended the 2011 Gravel Rouser Classic in Athens, OH.  It is a fun group ride with an informal race interspersed in the middle.  20 miles of road/dirt out to Lake Hope St Park, an optional short single track race, and then a 25 mile ride back in to town.

The ride out was nice and relaxed, with about 60 riders spread out over a 30 minute window.   About half participated in the single track race.  It started after a slow paced group ride to the top, so we had a massive grouping ready to drop onto the down hill single track.  I think I got in about 10th wheel and worked my way up to 5th at one point.  I pulled over to let a SSer go by and then stayed on his wheel.  I finished in a small group that placed 4th - 6th.  Pro rider Brian Matter started near the back and then worked his way through the field to finish first; the guy is amazing on two wheels.  

This was a hard, ultra intense effort that was very different than my long steady distance work all winter.  I realized that I had more endurance left at the end, but didn't have the burst-ability to get by people when I needed to.  Still, my goal races are all 100 milers that take place on lots of wide roads, so I need endurance more than burst passing.  This kind of intensity is good for building overall speed.  And I really needed some time on the mtn bike to work on bike handling skills which were better than expected.


2011 Gravel Rouser, Athens OH from Matt Kretchmar on Vimeo.

I put in a hard effort with two other guys on the return trip.  We really hammered it home and it felt good to get in the extra work.  This was my first mtn biking expedition yet this season and hopefully the sign of good things to come.  

Karate Monkey Nirvana

The cold rainy drizzle of all day yesterday vacated our area around 2pm today, the sun popped out, things warmed up and dried out quickly.  And I got out on my new Surly Karate Monkey with my son, Eli.  It is loads of fun.  Pretty much what everyone says -- it is not super light but hides its weight well and rolls nicely.  The large bars give good climbing leverage.   It feels like a tank in that it just keeps moving forward regardless of what is in front of it.  I can tell there are millions of smiles to come.   Tomorrow morning I will try to climb the big hill to work with the 34x17 to see just how bad it is.  I notice it  is faster than my 26" faux SS that I've been using all winter, so it is definitely a higher gear.  But the extra leverage of the bar might allow me to still scamper up the hill.

Oh and I got 54 miles in with T.F. on the cross bike.  A nice ride today with pushing a stiff headwind on the way out and an easier spin on the way back.  Now two days of "rest" so I am ready for the Gravel Rouser race on Saturday.  The weather looks very promising.   I'll probably take the Superfly out tomorrow for a quick spin to make sure all is right.  But I've been throwing some TLC at it, so all should be good to go.

Christmas in March

I've been eyeing an old fashioned, steel, single speed build for quite some time.  I hopped on a Surly Karate Monkey back in November for a "test ride" and was smitten.  I've spent too much of the last four months surfing online tests and discussion boards for the merits of a Niner SIR 9 vs JabberWocky vs Singular Swift vs etc.  Way too many good choices out there.   But my imagination exceeded my budget.  Finally my friend J. G. tells me he can get a stock Surly KM SS for less than half of what I could build frugally on my own.  So I pulled the trigger and my new KM arrived partially assembled yesterday.

Hey, how did that beer get in the picture?

There is just something amazingly simple and practical about that bike, very unpretentious; even after looking closely at the other very special frames, I kept coming back to the KM.  I bribed J.G. with Chinese take-out to help me with the build tonight.  The whole thing went together in about 90 minutes.  The only tricky part was cutting down the fork and getting the headset right.  Everything else went together easy.  Of course, it is raining hard tonight so I only got a 30 second test ride on the dark, wet driveway.  I can guess that I'll want to swap out the stock, swept back bar, for a straight one and change the 34x17 stock gearing for something more friendly to the 20% grade that separates my front door from my office.  I'll have to wait till tomorrow for a full maiden christening.  More pics coming soon, I promise!

Spring Riding

I've been trying to pack on some more miles.  On Saturday, I aimed down toward Zanesville and then turned North to Dresden.  There were 25 mph winds coming out of the west so the ride down was pretty quick.  But turning back west I got slammed by a horrid headwind ... at about 50 miles into the ride.  I managed just 8.5 miles over the next hour and then realized I wasn't able to make it home in time to take over kid duty so Laura could go to her concert.  So unfortunately I had to waive the white flag and call her to come retrieve me, still 25 miles outside of town.  

Today was breezy, annoyingly so, but still much better than Saturday.  I went up Northeast to ride hills.  I tackled at least 15 of them in the 100ft to 250ft range, some with grades in excess of 20%.   I managed 4 hours of pushing hills and wind, a good ride.  I can feel the last few days of hard work in my legs, they are getting tired but I am still able to keep a good spin on the pedals even after 4+ hours.  A good sign but also an important reminder to rest fully before Cohutta.  


The dirt roads are finally drying out.  I found a gem from Dresden to Frazeysburg that went up and up.  Today I attacked several of my favorites, only one was a bit mushy, the rest were tacky and nice.  The photo here is of the top ridge of Floyd Boyer -- one of my favorite climbs in the area.  But the pea gravel on top of blacktop really bites.  Somehow rural counties think it is a good idea to dump loads of the stuff on back roads in the winter.  Lots of spinouts on the steep climbs.  It could be worse, I could be on my road bike instead of the cross bike.

I managed to grind my bottom bracket into nothing on Saturday.  Probably a remnant of last week's major sufferfest in the rain.  It was making a holy racket on Saturday, not that I could hear much above the blasting wind.  So I got a replacement and managed to put it back in right on only the second try.  Very smooth action today, and quiet!  

The forecast is calling for 18 hours of rain starting tonight.  It is fine with me as my body is telling me to recover a bit.  I am supposed to log 60 miles of flattish riding with T.F. on Wednesday.  We'll have to see if the rain moves off early enough to get it in.  I hope it clears up after that as I am planning on "racing" the Gravel Rouser in Athens on Saturday.  My first day out on the mountain bike to shake off winter cobwebs.

82.5 miles of hell

Today was one of the physically toughest challenges I've faced in my 40+ years.  I set out for an 80 mile loop on a day the forecasters had promised rain.  And rain it did.  I covered the last 35 miles or so (more than 2 hours) in a steady, heavy rain.  And it was very cold too.  And herein lies the problem.  I quickly got soaked to the bone and spent two miserable hours fighting off hypothermia.

It started with the extremities, naturally.  I lost sensation first in my feet.  Then my fingers went numb.  And finally I lost contact with most everything from the elbow down.   The saving grace was that my energy remained high.  High enough that I could really work the bike and keep some warmth in my core and my legs.  Only when I hit Newark and had to slow for traffic did I really get in trouble in my core.   And Newark sucked because my hands were too cold to brake or to work the gears.

By the time I got home I was shivering and going in to shock.   My hands were too cold to function so I couldn't strip the wet clothing off.  It was 15 minutes or so before I regained enough feeling in my fingers to work loose the clothes and helmet.  I lay on the ground, naked, shivering in front of a space heater for another 20 minutes.   My feet didn't warm for about 45 minutes.  And when the did, it hurt something fierce.   I finally got enough courage to hit the shower and try to warm my body.  I was beyond teeth chattering and starting to shake more violently so I needed the warm water even if it meant excruciating pain in my feet.

A number of other stupid things all conspired today.  Despite going through my very careful pre-ride ritual of laying everything out carefully, I somehow walked out the door without my cellphone.  It was in a baggie with my credit card and money.  So I had no phone.  And no lunch because I didn't have any money.   I might have called for ride at some point had I a phone.  Of course I could have stopped at a convenience store and called collect or something.

I've been trying to take a day off work for more than a month with the intent to fit in a long ride like this.  I have to plan these days at least two weeks in advance or else they won't materialize in my busy schedule.  I've failed twice previously this year because of miserable weather ... yes, beautiful days while I am at work and then all hell breaks loose (snow, sleet, rain) on my day off.  So this morning when the forecaster was calling for a chance of rain during the day and real showers moving in later that evening, I figured I had a good shot at getting the ride in before any real weather hit.  Besides, I would have felt just lousy if I wimped out, went to work, and it turned out to be a nice day.  So I set out and had almost 3 hours of chilly, but dry weather.  The last 2 or so were much worse.  The other poor aspect is that the forecaster called for a high of 52 degrees.  It didn't creep above 40 during any of my ride.  So I was underdressed as it was.

If there was anything good that came out of this misery, it was my performance.  I've had a handful of rides in the 40s, one in the 60s and now I jump up to 80+ miles along with 3700 feet of climbing.  A big jump.  But my body was solid.  My legs stayed strong through the whole ride; good thing as I needed them to keep me warm during the end.  And I missed lunch.  I did have a bottle of go-juice, a power bar, and a gu -- and gladly used all those -- but I didn't bonk and I kept up a good tempo right through to the end.  I was hitting 18.5mph on the bike path (flat ground) pushing into a slight headwind.   I also didn't stop other than to gu up once or twice.  I am really psyched about the 100 miler coming up ... as long as it doesn't rain on a cold day, I'll never do anything that stupid again.

Sorry no pictures .. left the phone at home.  Not much to see anyway.