This weekend Cornbread, Good MD Scott and I headed to Arkansas for some great single track riding that was Ouachita Challenge.  This was my first time in the state of  Arkansas it was pretty interesting. Ouachita area reminds me of Slovakia and Czech republic… people not so much. I can say this much dudes can sport some serious upper lip fur… Like civil war picture good.

But I can say this much the single track there is pretty sweet. It’s pretty technical in spaces (okay like a giant  or rocks in places) but it has great flow and there is a lot of  it. We got there Friday afternoon and rode the womble trail.  Pretty sweet. couple nice 800-900 feet in change  climbs creek crossings and spectacular views.

If you don’t blog it,  never happened…. Scott shredded his brand new Racing Ralph on womble. After some gorilla tape and park boot and creative use of 29er tubes we got him rolling.

Saturday we rode the big Brushy descent to blowout mountain.  I broke a chain about .25 miles from the trail head. So I had to get to ogden get chain install it and get back to the trailhead. Big Brushy is 1200 of descending and 700 ft of climbing. I wasn’t going to catch the guys ahead so I just rode to the big brushy as out and back. This is the view of the last climb before single track.

Race Day

Race day was going to be hot 90 degrees, staying on top of hydration in endurance races is key. Eating is almost secondary.. you have to drink drink drink. or you will end up laying in ditch sounding like wookie wincing in cramp agony.  The start was fast, 25 mph up the gravel to the single track. I always make point to be in the chase group after the leaders. Who knows how many people are riding over their heads to get to the single track. Let them pass and pick them off one by one. I got the singletrack about mid 20′s and proceeded try to pick off people.  This is when two things happened,one I proceeded to lay it down on some loose leaves and I lost one of my water bottles.   The crash wasn’t that big of deal but loosing my 2nd water bottle was.  This changed the plan a bit. I had to stop pretty much at every aid station and fill out my bottle and drink extra to compensate for the lost bottle.

chicks dig scars… er… wait MK digs scars

Up the blowout mountain

Blowout mountain sounds bad, and it is bad.  The climbs are okay  nothing crazy about them.  The rocky descends… oh i don’t mean like Clinton lake rocky… i mean like steps for Mordor rocky sections.  During one  the descends junior ran into my my rear wheel and promptly bend my der hanger. I only realized this after the ankle bitter left. SO i could mope and walk to the aid station or say  f-it and try to make it work.

Something is not right.

Well I had to stop readjust the cable and  go ahead. That worked for while but i realized this was not going to last and I had just my high gears, crap that’s not good. 40 minutes into it  made decision to take as much slack out the cable and limit myself to 4-5  low gears. Reasoning was ,Womble only has 2 manageable climbs and hey I know how to ride a SS.  I still had 38-26 front to change my gearing and I knew there was some gravel sections.  That worked well enough. I only managed to walk 2 sections of womble two switchbacks and i could still put solid tempo on gravel.

I did manage to pick a lot of people on gravel, womble sections.  I think I could have done the womble  faster if I could use all of my gearing but it worked out okay.  I rolled in at 5:49. Corey rolled in at 5:13

Flying the Omaha colors

Loosing one bottle and the derailuer cost me good 20-30 minutes I was shooting for 5:20-5:25 and I think i could have gotten that time minus those issues.  The nutrition and pacing was right on time hammer gels and fizz were right on time.  PLUS the checkpoints had pickles how awesome is that.   After the race we had some beers and long conversation about DK with Peat. I would say watch out DK SS he might be the dark horse for that category.

Thanks to Corey and Scott  for being awesome travel companions.  My capo kit kept me nice and comfy whole day so thank you Trek Stores for that.  I would say that Ouachita race is good one to attend great volunteers great prizes great vibe.  MK scored a sweet new bike-pack  for when we go to Colorado this summer .

p.s. Pictures arkansas outside

So when on group ride Sunday, Shim told me a secret. “Man when I jam out to Zen Arcade I get hungry ” he said, that’s understandable that is a long punk master piece double LP goodness. He probably got hungry when switching the LP 1 for LP 2.  Well I have you covered homie…

Brussel Sprouts pizza to the rescue. Leah shared this recipe.  Make/ buy your dough. Saute some onion/ Brussels sprouts and deglaze with with balsamic vinegar. Cook some Italian sausage assemble  and bake. Result  is awesome.

We cook econo… BTW  the following double LP was the response to Zen Arcade.

My big passion in life is cooking. If didn’t bike I would probably just cook and eat. Minus Indian, Thai and sushi I find myself being able to match most of the local eateries with food made at home. I wanted to learn how to make a pizza a learned to make dough at home.  Want a steak I’ll cook stake at home. Cooking is really not that difficult  find what goes together get ratio right adjust repeat. Baking on other hand is difficult,  it’s exact science where measurements, temperature and timing do mater.

Anyways we don’t go out for valentines, I cook at home. This year we got some wine and  i made steamed mussels with croutons and flourless chock late cake.  It was super easy and awesome … and MK liked it as well .

This weekend we are going to MN not for Frost bike but to hangout with the Stampers and their junior, Jasper.

If you ride your bike for while you will hungry. Now supplying athletes with nutrition is big money business. You can pretty much get yourself 500$ worth of supplement to keep yourself going, and for the most part they do work pretty good. However at some point you got to wonder, how healthy is all that sugar in your body. It seems pretty silly for me for people to work so hard to eliminate carbs from their diet but having no issue popping gels like they are diabetics.
One of the goals for this year is to rely a bit less on those supplements ( minus the electrolites) thus far it has been going pretty good. If you rode with me you probably will see me eating beef jerky and drinking a soda. That’s about it.
Weekend was pretty good.
Saturday was windy but the tail wind made it for fairly nice and quick ride back. That night MK and I visited new middle eastern restaurant in midtown and saw descendents. Good food good movie.
Sunday I watched CX words and rode a MTB for about 4 hours. The new XTR 2×10 is pretty nice for sure, it really shines in place like Jewell there you can run pretty much all the gears in matter of 5 miles…

So here we are last weekend of January.  For most part is has been pretty uneventful,  I went to couple of swim meets and some team functions. Yeah teenagers are weird. I have been on a solid riding grove. Getting some good 12-15 hours  weeks or about 200 miles +/- 20. That’s the plan for February as well, then trying to get some solid 300 mile weeks in March and April before T.I.  The riding has been pretty good and we finally getting everyone back on the same page for bigger groups. Bigger groups can mean either fast moving or slug fest depending on mechanical. But it is a lot more fun than riding by yourself which  still like as it lets me listen to all the sound opinions I want…

The race registrations are getting up there with couple more to go… Looks like Wassua 24, Breck 100 and Dakota-50 will all be on the list. We will see what happens. I’m fairly sure that there might be Arkansas river basin vacation this year. It should be good time.

Looks like the Ponca ride is out for me, the race is that Saturday… Ponca State park Is my favorite race on Nebraska Mtb schedule and with the race being 4 hours it just adds 3 more laps to that sweet track…
I’m also very excited to build this little fella for my wife.

It will get all my 9 spd sram stuff as I have went to the 2×10 xtr… It will look nicely for most part. Hopefully Megan will get to “shred” some single track in 2012.  The frame size is ubber small it looked comical when i loaded the box in my back seat..

More about  equipment choices for T.I.  some winter/spring riding.

Gravel Magic Happens you just need to look hard.

BTW the SOPA is a big deal.