Ridge Trail: Great western trail, American Fork, Utah section

I just got back home from my three weeks in the west. My goals while over there were many, the most important was to see my brother in the bay area get married. But personally, after a year in the flat cold of eastern Canada, I wanted to reconnect with my friends and the western mountains that I love. Over the years of living in Utah, one persisting quest that emerged was a goal to ride as much as I can of the Great Western Trail (GWT), specifically the Utah section.

The ride here I planned to take from alpine loop pass, separating Sundance canyon with AF, and traverse the Ridge Trail north toward the Tri-canyons associated with the Salt Lake City section that I and everybody has ridden too many times to mention. The ridge trail section, on the other hand, is seldom ridden, or hiked that I can tell. Most people in Utah valley are motorized. With my sea-level lungs, my father-in-law dropped me off at 8,600 feet.

Everything was slow except my heartbeat. Through the aspen glades and single track. I hike-a-biked over motorcycle rutted loose climbs soaking in the mountain environment, riding where I could. I was home. My plan was to try to ride into the Tri-canyons and find a friend to drive me back to Utah valley where I was staying. But plans are just that. After hiking up terrain to rugged to ride in Mineral basin, looking up at the Snowbird tramdoc at 11,000, a mile or two, and many hours away, I decided to turn back at the 5hr mark and ride home.

Night riding, commute pace

The light set has not been out of the box since last August. My night mountain biking skills have seen a similar degree of attention. I recruited a riding companion who loves nighttime trail riding and talking about the Great Glen race, and we did a lap of the Fells mountain bike loop last night. I even managed to swap out my rear cog so I could test out the race-gear. Except for the fact that the chain guard was bent enough that it interfered with the wider chain I installed (I managed to bend it back into submission), everything went pretty smoothly. My battery charged right up, I only had to adjust my helmet mount once, and I felt like a total spazz on anything remotely technical. I'm hoping to get out again Wednesday night on some new trails. I've been ramping up the pace on my daily commute rides, knocking four to five minutes off of my usual time (<30 minutes rather than 34 or 35). It's probably a bit late to get any real training benefit from this exercise, but psychologically it is a boost to feel like I'm riding fast right now. I'm very glad that I am familiar with the race course, having done the race for the last three years in a row, so surprises should be minimal. We should have a good window of time to pre-ride the course on Saturday morning.

This Ride Was Long

My overall goal this season was to do Long rides. My definition of a long ride comes from the wise one, Ben Sukow: A Ride is anything under 4 hrs. Longish rides are under 8hrs. A Long ride is anything longer than Longish, but still within reason, while a Redicuride is any ride that is going to make you hurt real bad and make you wish you never liked bikes. My strategy was to titrate my rides, do a bunch of Longish rides, slowly cranking it up, and never overstep into Redicuride territory. Today I did another solid Long ride. Nearly 11 hours on the bike, of which less than two hours were on pave. I will call this ride the Gatineau Tour, since it pretty much links up every one of the disparate trail systems in the park into a ~75-mile mega loop that swings to north and south of the park, and into Wakefield. To do the link up you need to do a 1/2-hour hike-a-bike and traverse a little-used equestrian trail that is overgrown and consists of two water-filled OHV tracks. Sometimes you don't see what you are rolling over exactly, but you know it has water in it because your feet sometimes get soaked, and sometimes your front wheel shoots down into a mystery rut. All in good fun.

On a remote piece of trail, I encounterd my first mama black bear.


I didn't have much food at the house, so I went empty handed for the first 4 hours till I got down from the hike-a-bike to le depaneur. This was the first helping.


Very healthy. Once I blew through the glycogen and started on a good feeding cycle, the miles clicked by. Every climb the legs were there, even at the very end. If I eat, drink, and take electrolyte tablets regularly I think I could go for a while. I got my system dialed now. Still, after 11 hours I will be wiped tomorrow. To think that GDR racers pull down more than that 20+ days on end. Well, I think I am ready for Great Glen at least...

Flood Rides

After 1.5 weeks of shorter duration intensity rides, I went back to long turtle rides this last week. Great Glen is a week away. My legs have not been feeling tip top. I think there is a sickness going around. But I've been suffering through with a 4.5 hour ride last Saturday, tandem and work rides in the week, and a 3.5 hour fire tower ride yesterday to try out the new cog. If there are no flat long flat sections on the race course, I think I might go for a 20 tooth (did you pick one up for me, Justin?), but it probably won't mater for the race, but would be nice for the next adventure after that: a truncated two-day version of my Trans Utah...



Its been fugging raining here. Ark building sounds like a good career option now. Apparently its the wettest, coldest July in 70 years in Ottawa. Everywhere you go you find impromptu lakes and rivers, and lots of mud. Even in July, the rides can be cold here. Good thing you can eat your lunch in the unused winter ski huts along the trail in the Gatineaus. The forcast looks iffy for this week in North Conway, according to North Conway Weather .com, your site for Mt. Washington meteorology and Mariah Carey pics (seriously!).

This Saturday I'm planning the biggest ride yet. I do my 9-hour Gatineau Loop, but I stick in a side trip on trails out of the park to Wakefield then back in. This should put me into the 11-12 hour range, which is basically the duration of Great glen, although a few of those hours are mellow flat dirt roads as pave...

Finally getting around to it . . .

training, that is.

I got to get me a 19 tooth cog just like Will. Thankfully here in Boston there are about a million bike shops - one of them will have a cog in stock and I won't have to order and wait for months like I would if I lived in the frozen North.

I've been getting a little nervous about the small number of saddle-hours I've been logging in preparation for 24 hours of Great Glen, which is looming in less than two weeks. Saturday I got out for a terrific road ride with some HUP teammates. Saddle time: check. Intervals: check. Steady state threshold efforts: check. Avoiding the bonk: check. Excellent company: check. Average riding speed: 19 mph for 3.5 hours (4 hours elapsed).

My daily commute certainly helps me maintain a basic level of bike fitness, but it's not enough on its own. Pats Peak was a good effort and measure of my legs, lungs, and MTB brain, and the latest road ride confirmed that I can ride at threshold for a while and still put in good efforts towards the end of the ride. I'm aiming to get on the trails twice later this week, and a couple times next week. And I should make at least one of those a nighttime excursion, to check over the light system and re-acquaint myself with its workings and the sensation of night riding on trails.

Gear-wise, the Rig just needs its cog swapped out and I'll put a new chain on there for good measure. I'm also going to put the Univega singlespeed back together so we have that as our spare bike. That's just a matter of swapping out wheels (it's got geared SnowCat wheels on now) and replacing the handlebars, as the Origin-8 Space Bar (a cheaper version of the On-one Mary bar) was scavenged for Stacey's commuter bike.

I've already got my shopping list started. Lots and lots of food.

New Toys

I've been on a buying spree for various bike accouterments lately. My Rig came stock with a rather steep 32 X 18 gear, which I am finally changing to a 19 tooth. This should help for the upcoming 24 hour race. I got at 30W LED lamp as well for said race. I got a 9spd STI to put gears back on my cross bike, for touring and the Fall race season. I also now own real road biking shoes, but they are really uncomfortable (even though they fit fine) and I want to take them back.

I also replaced my broken heart rate monitor with a newer fancier one. Now for me I definitely like my mind free of distractions while riding. Single speed minimalism, without anything beeping, gears to shift, yada yada. In the winter however concentrating on your HR goes a long way at reminding you why you are on a stationary bike. And then there is focused training. The basic principle is that you go on a variety of rides, some intense, some not, in order to improve and maintain your strength best. I'm not a fast rider, so it does not really mater, but I like to pretend. The key thing to this focused training turns out to be helping you not overtrain. And this is where the fancy new HRM comes in. The old way was using HR zones; having the right proportions of different zones over each week is supposed to help the best. But this is sort of contrived if you are riding in an actual place, where the environment dictates the pacing, not a prescribed HR zone/duration. The fancy new HRM instead calculates a more global measure termed the training effect (TE). TE basically integrates HR over duration, as well as the natural variability determined by how you interact with your environment, accumulating in a single number between 1-5. This TE number is analogous to the 1-5 HR zones. So if you want to go out for a maintenance/recovery ride (TE =2) the watch will tell you how long at your average pace you would have to go if you wanted to reach TE=3. If you are going out on a ride for an hour, you keep your average pace low enough so that the time horizon to reach TE=3 is more than the time left that you have to ride home. This sounds complicated, but is much easier to keep track of on the bike than an arbitrary HR zone and it allows you to see the sights better. The watch also logs all the TEs for all your rides in a calendar and determines if you are improving or not.

6 hours of Pats Peak

Reminders of a long day in the saddle on Saturday:
Two sore toes
Stiffness/soreness in lower back, triceps, shoulders
Scrapes on left forearm, right shoulderblade
Open blister on right thumb, looking especially nasty
Tenderness in the sitting region

The stats:
9 laps of the Pat's Peak mountain bike course in 6 hours, 22 minutes, 8th place finish
5 miles, 895' elevation gain per lap
~4 minute break per lap at the HUP Headquarters, aka Jimbo's porch

The setup:
Gary Fisher Rig
32x21 gearing

Impressions:
This was a very "fun" race! It is well run and as an extra bonus, HUP teammate Jimbo lives on the course, so a large number of HUPsters (12 racing, several supporting) made his front lawn and porch into their race basecamp. Not only was it very convenient, it was terrific to have company and fellowship both at basecamp and on the course. The course was muddy in the woods and many of the grass ski trail traverses were soft and boggy, making it very difficult to maintain momentum. The grass climbs were difficult but rideable, and the 15-minute singletrack descent was an absolute blast. Crampy twinges and a hollow feeling in my stomach started on the fourth lap, but I stuck to my feeding strategy and the suffering plateaued for the remainder of the laps. On lap six I did some calculations (grindy climbs are a good place to do arithmetic, as they provide distraction and a measure of one's mental abilities) and figured I could get nine laps if I continued at the same pace. My goal, then, was to complete my eighth lap before 6pm, and then take it easy on lap 9. So, on laps 7 and 8 I walked fewer of the climbs and rode as efficiently as possible, and I made my goal. The "easy lap 9" part, though, was confounded by a competitor on my tail. I didn't realize he was there until he passed me as I pulled off at basecamp for my final bottle exchange, but I was mostly concerned with getting to my ninth lap on time. When I saw him one switchback behind me about five minutes into the lap, however, I resolved to beat him to the line. So I rode the climbs, groveling with my chin on my stem. In the rocky mudholes I walked quickly rather than trudging. By the top of the last lap, I hadn't seen him in a while so I felt some relief. After brushing a tree and then nearly crashing early on the descent, I backed off a touch, encouraging a singlespeeder competing in the 12 hour race to come by and lead on the remainder of the descent. Until - what do you know - my competition snuck up on me. I saw his red jersey through the trees a couple of switchbacks up the hill and I felt a jolt of panic. I went back around the other singlespeeder, explianing the situation, and hit the gas. I caught up to Graham, a HUP teammate of mine who was riding the 6 hour race on a 2 person team just before we passed basecamp, and we flew by to much cheering from the porch. I passed him and gave it everything on the final gravel climb, not daring to look back. I came through the finish tent feeling exhausted and exhillerated. My chaser came through 1 minute later.

I rode this race two years ago on my Univega singlespeed, geared at 38x22 (with 26" wheels). I had done lots more riding that year and the course was considerably drier that year, and I managed 10 laps and 3rd place. I was very pleased to keep up a good pace this year, and to remember what it feels like to push through some discomfort. It was an excellent shakedown of my new bike, and a good confidence builder for the upcoming 24hours of Great Glen. My right knee gave me no problems, and continues to feel OK two days afterwards. I was very glad that I had geared down to 32x21. I had the lowest gearing of all the singlespeed competitors I polled on the course. For Great Glen, though, I think I'll go with 32x19 or possibly 32x20.

After watching Stage 9 of the Tour de France on Sunday morning, I was cajoled into going for a recovery ride with Dave. My legs felt fine, but when I rolled away and sat down in the saddle, I got a very vivid reminder of Saturday's antics.