Shouldn't of changed the tires!

Two weeks after I change my tires I lose control and crash into a tree. Coincidence? Do you have more baking power without the nubs- like with a worn out tire- or with a new one?

Anyway, Carson and I were doing a night ride and were flying DOWN Canyon Hollow (still near the top) on our "last" descent when while I was minding my own Bidness a tree jumped out at me! So you have to picture that I had both my garmin 705 on the front and my AY UP lights just in front of that. Lots of expensive gear on top, but how often do you really hit something head on- Really? Well in my 20 foot skid while my slow mind was trying to decide whether to lay it down or just keep hoping that if I opened my eyes wide enough and kept staring at the tree I'd stop in time or it would disappear I did the later by default. I heard a bunch of stomach turning crunching and snapping with a bunch of dollar signs flying everywhere realizing there would be lots of gizmos to replace but surprisingly not even thinking of bodily harm. OH, I forgot to mention that I had a set of AY UP lights on my helmet which was also heading for the tree. I finally came to a stop, my lights on the bike were out, I did a systems check on the body and I was breathing and then I turned my undamaged helmet light on, on my broken helmet and surveyed the scene. As you can see there was enough of a hit that the brake lever snapped off and the light and the Garmin were gone. I found the light hanging by the cord off the front. Carson thankfully didn't run me over and was there to help. He plugged the light in and it was working. Meanwhile I unclipped from the Arantix and found the garmin on the ground intact and working! This was the same Garmin that I had just had replaced last week when I broke the last one- ON A NIGHT RIDE then too! Wow so I actually escaped that pretty well with only needing to replace the brake and maybe the shifter. The casing is broke but it works- so far. Anyone with a grip shifter for sale?

Yeah, Yeah, I know that was kind of long for something I could have just said, "I crashed" but I know anyone that has had a "good" crash can attest that there is a lot of stuff that flashes in your mind at that OH Shit! moment. It's all good when we can ride or walk away and tell about it.

Super Stans

Holes, Holes, Holes is what I had in my tire all year. And you know what? It wasn't a problem! The next day after every ride I would see these wet spots in my rear tire. There were at least twenty at a time. If you know these Maxxis LUST Larsen TT's (don't ask me what the LUST stands for) you know these are worn pretty thin. I've had the same tube ALL year starting last fall! You'd think with all those holes I'd be pumping it up every day. Nope- maybe once a month. So what's going on? Well as many of the converts know IT'S STANS notubes. This stuff is incredible! Normally with tubes I'd have had to change the inner tube at least a dozen times with all those annoying little holes. I haven't had a flat all year! The Stan's just plugs the holes. I've really only added stans twice since the initial set up. You'd think it would seep itself dry in a matter of months. I finally changed it last week before the 12 hours, figuring Carson wouldn't appreciate it if I did have a flat because I was running such thin tires. It still had a good amount of juice in it when I opened it up. Bottom line: Why would ANYONE use inner tubes?

12 HOURS OF SUNDANCE- 10

Last year Carson and I did at least 4 12 hour races, but this was our first one for this year, and it showed. We both crashed several times like we didn't even know how to ride, we were both ready to give up after lap 9, but we persevered and finished. Here's our reward...sitting.

It seemed like a smaller turnout over all for the race but the Mad Dog showing was strong, so it seemed like our own little 12 hour race.

Here's my account (from what I remember).
I headed out the second lap after Carson came storming in from the first lap. All was good for the first 6 minutes until up Archies there was a nasty stump and root section that in the past you could get enough speed to roll over, but this time the stump and roots were bigger and the pits deeper so that as I jumped/partly went around the stump I landed in the pit before the roots and endo'd. Not much damage done except a few scratches but I was dirty! It sucks getting dirty the first 6 minutes of a twelve hour race! There were no showers to clean up and the dirt was just gong to get ground in and fester. I really didn't lose too much time though and came in in about 44 minutes. Thats 1 minute slower than last year for the first lap. It was the same course and pretty much the same conditions so it was a good comparison and probably what I would have expected considering the late start to this season. But, unfortunately, Sundance does not have all the laps posted from last year for comparison since I feel I finished stronger this year than last. Keep reading.

The second lap was going GREAT! Things were flowing and I had a good rhythm going. I finished the climb strong and then was heading down when I hit a soft spot in the trees and went down. It was a soft fall in a bunch of dusty peat (now I was REALLY dirty) but something hit my left calf on the way down and as I got up and shook off the dust I was really hurting. It hurt more going down hill, especially when I would hit those nasty braking ruts before the turns. It hurt so bad I had to scream a few times. I got down wondering if I could go out again. I figured I'd try another lap and see, but I was limping around pretty bad on camp. I couldn't find my Alleve so I headed out. The climbing was good and I did well there but again once I hit the descents I was screaming with pain as my calf shook on the bumps and drops. Several times I had to look around in embarassement to make sure noone heard me. Luckily the course was spread out enough that no one was around. So that made me think of the riddle of the falling tree in the forest and I wondered if Karl screams in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it matter? Anyway, by the time I was down I was ready to quit. I heard Carson was not having the best laps either so I kind of proposed considering quiting after the next laps. He didn't argue that. I finally dug up some Celebrex (no it is non-narcotic) and going into lap 4 started OK and then I started feeling stronger. My quads were not sore for the climb and then I hit the descent with trepidation but only felt half the pain from the lap before! It was a good ride! By the end I was NOT going to quite and only hoped Carson didn't have his heart set on stopping. He went out with a look of resignation but he went. It's really hard to quit when only one of the duo is ready to do so. So he suffered on, but I left out some Celebrex for his next lap. The next three laps I felt great for. The calf pain was there but very tolerable (although the size of my calf kept getting bigger each lap from swelling) and my legs felt really strong without any evidence of cramping. Much of that I am sure was do to the CarboRocket I was almost exclusively drinking each lap. I was very consistant each of those laps at 47 minutes. So overall, it turned out to be a good race for me.

We were chasing Kevin and Keith the whole time and were within 6-15 minutes most of the time but just couldn't close the gap and finished behind them in 2nd for the 40+ duo old farts.

Next stop Moab!

ADDENDUM: 09-19-2010: Steve Washburn sent me the times for last year. So if I compare thos times with my Garmin times this year I actually rode faster by about 45 sec per lap and my fastest time was 1 sec longer this year! Go figure. I've got to digest this info to see what's up. I'll wait for the "official" times to come out to see if there is a discrepency in timing as well. Here are the times for seven laps:

LAP 2009 2010
1 44:08:00 44:15:00
2 44:18:00 44:09:00
3 45:23:00 44:14:00
4 46:19:00 47:00:00
5 47:01:00 47:45:00
6 49:12:00 47:03:00
7 51:02:00 48:02:00

Monster in the Canyon

There's a hungry, mysterious monster in Corner Canyon. It figured it had to be huge for it was leaving some really wide rolling tracks around and eating up the terrain like nothing. It seemed almost every month or so I saw evidence of this monster's trail. And coincidently, the tracks it left were awesome for biking!

I finally "ran" into it the other day. Luckily it was sleeping. Then as I silently slid away I found the monster's slaves trying to hide its tracks.
The tracks are hidden, but the damage is done- some great new rides have resulted!
I can't wait for it's cousin to finish boring under Suncrest to connect the monster trails!

Don't you wish you had a trail monster in your neck of the woods? Come and check out the new CC monster trails!