andyscott999

Someday?

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Keira and Aili got their surf stoke on recently in Santa Cruz.  We caught a Junior High surf competion going on on a Saturday morning (in the background of picture). . . gotta love California.  The scene was awesome, only about 1000x better than watching a 'traditional scholastic ball sport' -- esp baseball/softball related (snooze) or basketball (inside).   

8 Hours of Cool

The 24 Hours of Cool actually took place in Soda Springs out of the Royal Gorge Cross Country ski resort 20 minutes from Truckee, providing opportunity for new record Race Value Ratio (RRV).  This is a simple calculation I make where you divide the time it takes to drive to/from a race by the time actually spent racing.  So a crit in the Central Valley might be RRV = 10 hours driving / 1 hour racing = .1.  Non-starter.  Road races in the "1" range are good.  The Cool race offered 8ish hours of racing / 1 hour commute = 8!  (Of  course the Boca Road Race Tuesday nights riding from the house are of incalculable value ;-)  
Anyway, August was about going long on the dirt (Leadville, 8 Hours Cool) . . . And I'd never done a solo 8 Hour so this was a great opportunity.  My brother and some friends were planning on doing the 24 Hour relay division — but a couple guys pre-rode the course and reported high on moon dust and low on single track so they punted.  They were right.  But for me it was not about a killer course given the back yard location, it was about seeing what I could do so why not.  
I was self-supporting so put a small cooler and mechanical fixing doo-dads in the pit area and rolled out bright and early at noon on a 90 degree day.  This was gonna be attrition.  Lap one was about figuring out the course and how long laps would take so I could figure out pacing and refueling.  There was one section of insane off camber downhill moondust — 8-12 inches of "fresh"!  Oh wait, that is skiing.  Turns out that was the right mental model for this section.  After washing out on the first lap and dabbing on the 2nd and 3rd I finally figured out how to 'fall line drift' the bike through this section, and it made for great theatre on every lap.  Pure carnage, people 'down walking', just nuts.  The rest of the course was pretty fun.
I spun 2 laps and stopped for fresh/large bottles, and went for 3 more, making a longer stop at 4 hours, dousing myself w/ water and feeling ok if a quite dusty and spanked half-way through.  2 more laps pushing the pace, no idea where I stood in the field, but staying in the 48ish minutes/lap pace.  At 7 laps down I was at 6:20 or so, no way I was gonna get 10.  So I settled in to a dazed 2 final laps and finished the 9th at about 7:30 — again no idea where I stood just racing myself and the course.  Turns out 9 laps in 7:30 was not only good enough to win my division but take top honors for the whole thing.  At least as much mental triumph as physical.  Cool scene at the end with cold beer and food before awards, and the 24 hour teams heading out into the night.  I was glad to be taking a short drive home.  
Overall the effort was harder than Leadville, because I made it that way, not racing as conservatively.  And because the course offered no respite or recovery or drafting/pacelining/long smooth descents.  Psyched to have these kind of races under my belt, and to do more in the future.  

Screen_shot_2011-09-11_at_6

Leadville 100 Race Report: Thank God for Magic Pixie Dust

Photos on Flickr:

Sitting in the medical tent while a crew sprayed water on my bibs to get them unstuck from dried blood and dirt and trail rash was not how I envisioned my Leadville experience.  

Hypoxic at altitude, cramps, general bonking, wrestling mechanicals — these were all things I thought about pre race, but not taking a massive beater on the non-technical course.  So of course that is exactly what I did at mile 20, descending the upper Pipeline section in traffic on a rutted and steep and rocky section.  Easy riding until I was passing a guy and in hindsight didn't give him enough room in case he slipped down off the one primary/smooth but off-camber line, which he did, sliding down into me at speed in the romper room and here we go!  Launch over bars, look out below, wow that spot doesn't look very soft, in fact it looks like a rock garden.  It is a rock garden, There Will be Blood.  [Note: Other dude was able to lay it down vs. superman, and ok. I apologized, won't go into fault but happy to take full blame/responsibility just on the premise I was passing] 

As if I needed more adrenaline after the shotgun (literal) start w/ 1700 other riders.  

So I popped up and did the old once-over, deciding not to actually look at what I knew would be a thorough gouging / rashing of the right side, but confirming it was all superficial, which it was, good. The bike, ack.  My bottle cage had been ripped out of the frame, dangling/attached to the inter-connected cable guides.  The (empty) bottle was still in it but the cage was unusable.  The (full) bottle that had been in my jersey was gone down the hillside.  Sweet, so now I'm gonna have 1 bottle to do another 80 miles and stop at every aid station and have to dig it out of my jersey pocket.  Obviously a big challenge of this kind of race is getting hydration and calories in your system early and often so you don't explode, and I'd just made that challenge even bigger.  Lost the front shock lock-out, and rear shifting was off.  But the bike was ridable so back on and get to mile 26 aid station and catch up on hydration/etc.

Pre-race strategy to achieve sub 9 hour/gold buckle: Go hard, don't crack, never panic.  Time to focus on the final piece of the equation.  And the Magic Pixie Dust my daughters had coated me with (Quotes: "it won't wash off even if you take a shower" and "when you get a flat tire you won't care").  It worked.  The Pixie Dust overcame my penchant for Mountain Bike race adventure.  I did have to stop at every aid station for liquid and food (note: they don't hand out bottles, and my support crew (thank you Katie (teammate Matt Chappell's wife) and Ann (Katie's mom) and Mike (Katie's Dad) did have my bottles, but carrying two in the jersey pockets wasn't going to happen given they were already stuffed w/ food/supplies/etc..  The rear D issue had me off the bike 5 times from shifting the chain into the wheel and getting it wedged and trying to barrel adjust to fix and blah/whine.  I thought hard about a longer more focused stop but mostly avoided the granny ring on the rear and really tried to feather things but every now and then the stars aligned poorly and well, I'm just glad I didn't break my chain or worse and these stops had a 'fixable mechanical'.

The race actually went by pretty fast, and I went hard but was fairly conservative, feathering bike and body over the final 80 miles.  Highlights were the top of Columbine views and high alpine beauty, zoning out in the couple miles of singletrack, the PBR hand up crew (in hindsight I really should have grabbed one), paceline/peleton at 30MPH on dirt road in a sea of gravel, powerline crowds on the inbound/mile 80, and the guy from Marin who knows my teammate Chris that came up behind me on the Boulevard when I was alone and spacy and knew I was a mile or two from the finish and would end up inside of 8:30 – he was hammering and rode me off his wheel, nice one.  Next time, more Pixie Dust.  Finish time 8:24ish, Gold Buckle.

Thanks again to my family and Matt/Katie and Ann/Mike, and to all the peeps that sent cool messages and vibes.  Leadville is as advertised: big event, hard, cool, beautiful.  Looking forward to giving it another run someday.

Meeting with CalTrans Monday 8.15, Chance to Make Truckee/Tahoe State Roads Safer for Cyclists

FROM THE LOCAL CYCLING ADVOCACY COMMUNITY:

Caltrans has listened to your concerns, emails, and web based messages regarding the  conditions of the shoulder/bike lanes on Highway 89  between Truckee and Squaw Valley.  A public meeting has been scheduled.  It is this coming Monday, July 15, at 6:30pm at the CalTrans Truckee North Maintenance Yard on Keiser Ave up above Old Town Truckee (next to the freeway, just off of Jiboom St.).

If you can, please come and express how important, and how well used, the bike lanes/shoulders on this section of 89 South are. That they are now essentially unuseable as well not safe. [Editor note: I consider 89 South excellent training for Copperopolis, Leesville, and Challenge Road Races.  Roubaix style.  By that I mean the tarmac is battered!]  These lanes need to be repaired and repaved now. It is also be an opportunity to express that the lanes/shoulders on 267,  on the north side of Brockway Summit, need repaving too. This roadway was repaved this summer, and the shoulders were not touched.  Hwy 89 North out of Truckee, at minimum to AlderCreek Rd,  needs wider shoulders/bike lanes. The cycling infrastructure up here at Truckee/Tahoe, on state roads, is poor and unsafe for cycling.  A huge turn out will go a long ways here to getting Caltrans to hear our needs as cyclists.  With Caltrans, this is a big opportunity that hardly ever comes along.

Thanks, as always.

FROM CALTRANS:

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Truckee Area Cyclists,

Dave Wood and myself would like to invite everybody  Monday  evening , August 15  at  6:30 p.m. to the Truckee North Maintenance Yard located at  10152 Keiser Ave, Truckee CA 96161.  We look forward to meeting everybody and discussing the bike lane and bike trail/paths concerns on Highway 89 south between Truckee and Squaw Valley Road


Who: Bicyclist
What: Bike lanes, trails, & path concerns
When: Monday  August 15
             Time: 6:30 p.m
Where: Truckee North Maintenance Yard
10152 Keiser Ave,Truckee CA 96161
Why: We care : )

Sincerely,
Deanna  Shoopman

Public Information Officer
CalTrans District 3 / Tahoe Basin Outreach Coordinator
703 B Street, Marysville, Ca 95901
530-741-4566
deanna_shoopman@dot.ca.gov


Leadville Trail 100 Tahoe Qualifier Race Report

(download)
The stars aligned this year to see about doing the Leadville Trail 100 bike race and start to explore the world of marathon mountain bike racing, with an eye towards someday doing one of the big multi-day stage race epics.   A qualifying race for the LT 100 was happening in North Tahoe, and I figured if I qualified cool, if not that would tell me something too.  So after a great June series of road racing my gaze went dirtward.  

The race was a great experience, 60+ miles of fun riding, mostly fireroad w/ some fun singletrack mixed in, well supported and organized and really turned out to be a 'destination event' with folks from all over the region and even country.  Many actually already had spots in the LT100 and were doing the race for training.  

Here is my summary:

Conrad, Jesse and I warmed up a road too far and almost missed the start.  Of course those dudes got (well deserved) call ups to the front, and I started at the back of the 300 ish person field.  I felt good on the first lap and finished it in the top 20.  About a quarter of the way into the second lap I was still feeling good and dreaming of an age group podium and belt buckle, when I suffered the most serious mechanical bike issue I've ever had on a mountain bike mid-ride — let alone in a race.  My drivetrain siezed and I of course stopped pedaling.  Somehow my rear D cable housing had failed or been introduced into the front chainrings, w/ the result a crazy birdsnest of shifter cable wrapped up in my front d and front rings.  The force on that cable when it got caught in the front rings ripped the rear d sideways bending the hanger like soft cheese so the rear d was literally laying against/parallel to the rear cassette.  I tried to chill out and analyze what to do to get the bike ridable, but really thought my race (and LT 100 bid) were out the window.  After a few minutes I was able to get the cable birds nest disentangled from the front d and rings and tried to bend/pull/manipulate it out of the way so at least the front of the drivetrain could turn over w/out catching in the nest of mangled cable. Then the focus was to the rear d.  Well, thank goodness I've seen folks do torturous things to a rear d and rear d hanger — I knew if I could get it somewhat straightened and aligned maybe I could have a single speed and at least try to finish.  The reefing and
cranking I put on that thing was serious, I expected the whole shebang to blow apart at any moment.  But it didn't, and low and behold I had a giganticly geared single speed, like huge track bike gearing or something.  But, at least I could ride the flats/downs and grind slight ups, dismounting on almost anything uphill.  I made it to the aid station 5 miles later, where a field medic I mean mechanic took over.  I asked if he could maybe zip tie the birds nest out of the way so I could get a three speed w/ the front rings/d in effect, and lube/straighten/etc. on the rear. He was awesome.  I was able to 3-speed ride almost the rest of the race, albeit grinding and walking some ups, and freespinning many flats/downs, with the chain constantly jumping around between a few of the cogs on the rear d.  Sorry to anyone around me on the trail, I was humming the sanford and son theme somewhere between junkyard and singlespeeder!  

But I finished.  On the plus side I ended up 23rd overall, and 7th in my age group, good enough for a qualifying spot.  On the "woulda shoulda" front, I was off the bike w/ the mechanical a combined 17 minutes, and my time minus 17 minutes (and a start at the back penalty and suboptimally geared bike for most of the 2nd lap?) puts me on the age group podium and gets me a belt buckle.  Oh well, like in life, no excuses in bike racing, and if you can't make it about the journey vs. the goal well you're probably already living in a TS Elliot poem.   And besides, maybe that 17 minute off the bike lets me rest/recover in a way that I would not have could not have otherwise?  Whatever, the motivation for sub 9 hour at LT 100 is high, no excuses.  Jesse was 2nd and Conrad 7th, those dudes are amazing and inspiring, no excuses.  

Links:
Strava / GPS Route / Race Stats: http://app.strava.com/rides/1010421#

Post Race Shot of Zip Tied Birds Nest Rear D Cable:

The Goal, But Not the Journey (Sub 9 Hour Finisher Gold Buckle)

-- 

Andy Scott | 140 Proof | http://140proof.com | mobile: 415-509-5915 | @andyscott999

 

4th of July Dirt Ride

Nature 1, ManBridge Zero. (www.truckeetrails.org)

Posted by Andy Scott on Monday, July 4, 2011 · Leave a Comment (Edit)

There are three beautiful bridges on the Donner Lake Rim Trail climbing out of Negro Canyon towards Summit Lake.  Every time I would pass over I always thought wow, these bridges are nice . . . maybe more than is necessary (overbuilt?) but I’m not complaining, these are really nice.  Well, shows you what I know.  Which is nothing.  Maybe this was some kinda Black Swan winter but this thing is munched!  Should be an awesome Good Dirty Fun or other trail work project . . . fwiw the bridge appears totally stable, even in its compromised state.  But keep in mind what I said above (about not knowing anything ;-)

 

In other news, the trail is like disappearing with the mad foliage bursting forth.  Gonna have to bring my machete next time, Danger Island style.  Its gorgeous out there, and the trail is clear from the I-80 interchange trailhead to Summit Lake and the Tahoe Donner (Glacier Way) trailhead too . . . couple of minor snow field and fallen tree crossings, but friendly to all comers.  Summer is here, could be short, go get some.

 

Bro shreds kindergarten

(download)

This vid is my brother skiing Kindergarden Chute on peak 13121 this Spring.  Well, those of you who know, know we didn't really have spring!  Chalky and wintery conditions here.  It was great corn the rest of the way down.  Longer TR to come, we froze our asses off in camp but had a great trip on this one, doing Matterhorn East Couloir, Locke/Wahoo, 13112 Ior 121?) / Kindergarden and Basin . . . some photos here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/70237431@N00/sets/72157626938673338/

 

Mt. Hood Stage Race Report

Final GC Results: Andy Scott (4th), Conrad Snover (11th), Jason Walker (20th)

Last weekend a small crew of Masters (Conrad Snover, Jason Walker and Andy Scott) headed up to Hood River to test our form and build fitness against a strong field.  With 6 feet of snow on the ground in the Sierra and snow nuking the whole way up we were wondering was it really time to be racing bikes?  Our P12 squad was in full effect, we had a killer house, the weather ended up being SICK, the races and courses were fantastic, and nobody crashed.  Our results were mixed -- on the one hand Andy was fourth and we were all top 20 -- but on the other hand Jason was 2nd on GC going into stage four and flatted right as the race went ballistic up the first climb so his podium (win?) shot went poof in the 'that's bike racing' twilight zone.  The bottom line, Stage Racing with a TEAM is super, super fun and we are primed for more.  More deets and photos below!

Stage One: Road Race

Strava:

http://app.strava.com/rides/673483#10034650

The Good:

+course, roads, weather, views, organization

+working together on decisive climb and subsequent descent so that we all made the decisive selection of 20 riders, positioned for GC

+at least trying our leadout/spring execution plan to get a stage result

+good debrief and learning from the shank

+double barrel IPA and grilled meatball sammy in Hood River post race

+Honey Milk dude on the hook up -- thanks!

+Marc Pro recovery all the time.  Game changer on stage races.  Pump out the pain.  Legs actually felt ok every day. 

+Checking Strava KOM's and race analysis afterwards (both intra race + w/ P12 cats, fun!)

The not as Good:

-shanking the sprint, no stage result, Conrad and Jason relegated hah hah!

Back to the Good:

Stage Two: Time Trial (11 miles)

Strava: 

http://app.strava.com/rides/697366#10382546

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+Mt Adams (above day of), beautiful fast course

+Jason's time put him 2nd on GC, nice!  He slayed it.

+Conrad and Andy also put in relatively good rides that had them lurking around the top 10

+Jesse Miller-Smith loaning Andy his disc -- THANK YOU!  That dude is so strong, but so chill.  Is he so chill because he is so strong?  I digress.

-Andy and Conrad's aero TT position.  Yes, you need to practice this stuff, it matters.  Need to learn from Jason!

Stage Three: Downtown Crit

Strava:

http://app.strava.com/rides/697364#10382489

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+Jason's breakaway for most of the race

+Andy going steady and clean at the front and making it uneventful

+Conrad got a good workout ;-)

-Jason 'giving up' on the break just as it ended up staying away / counter breaking!

-Andy not covering some late moves  / burning some matches he had that may have ultimately cost him 3rd on GC (vs. 4th) -- every second counts

-Conrad suffering a little more than ya like

Stage Four:  Three Summits Road Race

Strava:

http://app.strava.com/rides/689357

The famous/epic/queen stage.  Pictures speak for themselves.  It was cool.  The plan was for Andy and Jason to ride with GC leaders, see if we could hang and survive, and let the carnage settle after the race and see where we ended up in the shuffle.

_

+Conrad made the race early in an attack, positioning himself with the leaders at the top of first climb, and helping Andy, and positioning for his stage and 11th place GC Result (note: we debated before and after the race whether Conrad should "ride with us/support in case of flat" . . . we're pretty sure that even if he'd been with Jason when Jason flatted they would not have caught back on, so we would have been 4th, 19th and 20th vs. 4th, 11th and 20th -- but debating and noodling this stuff is what makes stage racing w/ a team fun)

+Andy riding with the leaders as the group got smaller and smaller on each climb, finally finishing 5th on stage good enough for 4th on GC

-As mentioned, Jason's flat. Terrible luck. Probably cost Jason the podium, maybe even the overall GC win. Andy/Jason were together when it happened.  The split second decision was made as Jason said stick w/ plan, no stopping, you go . . . brutal.