Winter Short Track Race 1 BikeSouce Team Recap

Expert Men
4th Matt Moosa
7th Bobby Bryson
10th Chris Audet
12th Chad Hollingsworth

Super Sport Men
9th Jake Arthur

Sport Men 19 – 39
9th Paul Cunningham
DNF Jake Arthur (broken chain)

Sport Men 40+
16th Jeff Smith
30th Wayne Holden

Clydesdale
3rd Ryan Kelley

Expert/Sport Women
11th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
7th Daniel Lenis
Full Results with team names
Full Results with fastest laps
Team Standings

First Ride: Specialized Epic Expert Carbon EVO R 29

Road my mountain bike, which I will refer to as an Epic Evo29er in the future to avoid having to type it’s full name, for the first time this Friday.  I’ve got to tweak the suspension a little, but overall the bike felt great and I’m really looking forward to riding it this year.  My initial thoughts:

-The Formula R1 brakes worked great, felt really smooth, very good stopping power, nice quiet.  I’m not really sure what else you could look for.

-It was surprising how quiet having a brand new drivetrain was (I guess that says I should take better care of that this year).

-I’m really excited how confident I felt on the Fastrak29x2.0 front tire that I put on the bike, last year I used a much knobbier and wider Captain 2.2. 

-I need to tweak the front suspension a little, it felt a little harsh (then again it was Francis Beatty, which if you’re not from the Charlotte area, is super rooty), but I don’t think that will be a big issue.

-The bike pedaled awesome, nothing different than last year’s model, but it always surprises me when I ride an Epic how well they do pedal for being a full suspension bike.

My New Bike: 2012 Specialized Epic Expert Carbon EVO R 29

2012 Specialized Epic Expert Carbon EVO R 29

First of all this bike might have the longest name I’ve ever seen, but what’s beyond the overly long name.  It’s built around an Epic 29er Carbon frame, with a 1x10 drivetrain setup, and is the 2012 version of the same bike I rode last year.  The three changes of note from the 2011 version was going from a Reba front fork to a SID (2012 is the first year that Rock Shox has made their race fork in a 29er version), switching from Avids to Formula brakes, and coming with a set of Roval Control 29er wheels.  All three of these things I see as upgrades over the components they are replacing, after riding I’ll have a better idea of how much of an upgrade we’re talking about.

I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like the paint scheme on the bike:  the online picture looked odd, but in person it is AWESOME, gloss black with neon yellow.

30th Birthday

Today I turned 30, I was sure how I would react.  When I turned 25 it bothered me a fair amount. . . I was no longer in my early 20’s.  Somewhat surprisingly a bigger milestone: 30 I haven’t really been bothered by it at all, I hope the same is true when I turn 40.

Today hasn’t been all that different than most other week day.  I ran for 1:20 this morning, it was relatively hard since had done a hard interval run workout last afternoon.  Worked until mid-afternoon, and then go home and ride on the trainer for about an hour.  I will go out to dinner with Sakshi (my wife) but it won’t be to anywhere fancy, right now chicken fajitas are sounding good but we’ll see.

Thanks to those that have wished me a happy birthday.

Random Thoughts

It's been a couple weeks since I've posted. Work was very busy for Christmas. . .everyone wants a new bike for Christmas. I actually got a new one just this week, more on that to come. Had a good Christmas and New Years.


Training report cards: I've been doing terrible filling them, but my training has actually been going really well, swimming, biking and running all seem to be progressing. The only thing that I may have been a little lax with has been my mountain biking, but that should get much better with a more routine schedule (no holidays), and having a brand new bike to play around on.

The "winter" weather here in Charlotte has been extremely mild this year so getting out and running has been much easier than it has been in the past. Most days we've had highs in the upper 50's or even low 60's this year. . . you can hardly call that winter, at least in my experience growing up in Vermont.

I've been getting a little antsy to race, I've only done 2 races since the start of September. In the past I've done cyclocross this time of year, but felt I was concentrating on it too much instead of focusing on swimming, biking and running (I would do a bunch of biking but little to no swimming or running). Also not having to travel all over North Carolina to go to races has been nice this fall and winter.

Mountain biker versus Road bike racer

I'm not sure if I have Matt or Jake to thank for sharing this with me, but I think this is pretty funny (especially their voices).  Is it bad that I identify with both of them?. . .what stupid things would the "triathlete" say if he joined the discussion.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6007635/road-bike-racer-meets-mountain-biker

Race Report: Jingle Bell 5k

Last Saturday I did 5k to see where my run training was.  I showed up in plenty of time (my Mom will be proud), signed up, warmed up. . .which was really needed because it was in the upper 30’s, and was all ready to go.  About 200 yards into the race it was pretty clear that it was going to down to me and one other guy, as we had already open a significant gap on the rest of the field.   I dropped right into second place, the guy leading was going right about the pace I wanted to go to start with (5:45).  The two of us continued on like this following the motorcycle showing us the way (which was pretty cool, I’ve never been near enough to the front of a race that had a motorcycle to be able to follow it), just after the mile marker the guy I was following began to slow slightly and I eased into the lead.  I stayed in the lead until just past the two mile mark, where the guy I was running with eased past me.  I really had to work but I just tried to stay with him, thinking that if I could stay with him that I could probably out sprint him in the last 100 meters.  When we reached the finishing straight I opened up my stride and pulled ahead, finishing in 18:09.  A time I was happy with, especially given how cold it was and that I hadn’t rested for the race at all.  The only downside is now I have to do my training at faster paces; previously my training paces were based on running about 18:45.

Link to results