Arizona Adventures

I’ve never been one to shy away from biting off more than I can chew, so when Glen tossed out the idea of a one day epic 100-mile ride along the very remote Arizona Trail, I was in. I even started to train for it, but then, well, life got hectic, and “training” turned into drinking lots of coffee hoping that it would be a suitable replacement for proper sleep, diet, and exercise. 

It wasn’t.

2018 Carrabassett Backcountry Cycle Challenge [CBCC] 100K Race Report

Not much to say about this event, aside from the fact it absolutely rocked, was the ‘A race’ for my 2018 season, and exceeded expectations on all counts.

All roads led to the Carrabassett Valley this past July - starting last November ‘17 on the rollers, on the freezing porch, racing a bunch of other online hammerhead nerds in Zwift. The solid base built up through the winter with a mix of climbing, endurance, and 1-3 all out short race efforts (35-75 minutes) morphed into pretty good outdoor on-bike fitness, but it took some weeks to re-acclimate to the mountainbike. Late spring and early summer saw good gains and an increased ability to go harder longer out on the trails. This was key to doing well at the CBCC as it’d be a minimum of a 6 hour effort required (based on optimistic projections and a bit of good luck) to finish in decent shape.

Trail Boss

Another great Trail Boss ride at NEMBA Fest! Thanks to everyone who rode! #nemba #nembafest #mountainbike -#trailboss

A post shared by Jeff Lenosky (@jefflenosky) on Jun 24, 2018 at 5:50pm PDT

Read on...

2017 CircumBerzerk!

I like the idea of endurance riding / racing. With the planning, travel, logistics, and household duties to balance any cycling event, long races / rides dovetail perfectly into a reasonable sounding justification. Then there’s the actual ride / race… 26 miles and 3,500 feet of climbing - one large loop around the mountain - nuts! So why not do two of these epic laps? Well, at 4.5 hours in I knew why.

Kingdom Trails with some of the Crew

Kingdom Trails with some of the Racer-X crew, October 2017 from David Alden on Vimeo.

A Busy Weekend of Racing

It was a busy weekend of racing for Racer-X, with Dave Tufts taking 2nd overall in the Gulf South Mountain Bike Series after the Lungbuster north of Jackson, Mississippi, Glen Gollrad, tackling the CircumBerzerk, racing 50 miles with more than 6000ft of climbing in East Burke, Vermont, and Jeff Soderman racing both days at the Gran Prix of Gloucester in Gloucester, Massachusetts. More on all of that coming, but in the meantime, here are some more pics from GPGloucester...

3 weeks and 3 chances to inflict pain

I'm a bike racing whore. There. I admit it. If someone asks me to race - despite never having done an event - or a whole discipline - I'll likely say yes. Just don't try and get me into triathalon gear... yet. Such was the case a few weeks ago when a friend from the Velo de Mer group asked if I'd do a Team Time Trial. I had toyed with the idea last year, but never could get it on the schedule. This year I could - and did. I thought "hey, bolt on some clip-ons and don an aero helmet - and presto! I'm good to go. Well, our in house TT and Track pro, Mr. Jamie Ryan White would have none of it - and threw his tricked out factory KHS TT bike at me, and a spare set of wheels - as if the deep section front wheel and disk rear wheel with tubulars weren't enough...