Winter Base Miles in Greece and Germany

Just thought I would share a few photos of my winter rides so far.  I kicked off the off-season with 2 weeks in greece over xmas where it was colder than in Germany, but sunny.  I managed to get in a handful of rides in the hills on the 3-speed steel Hercules.  I forgot my pedals so i just rode with flat work boots.  I love riding in Greece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rides in Greece set me up to feel good start of January and I have been in Berlin finding new off road routes with my GPS and  http://www.velomap.org/de/download/ base data.  The weather is grey and its sometimes hard to tell which way is north but the gps opened up the new routes imported on the google map below.  Just trying to put in as much as I can and looking forward to the CremaCycles shorttrack in Berlin!

Commuting on my new bike

On a clear but cold winter afternoon I rode my new Singular Gryphon home from work. Temps were in the low 30′s, no wind. Perfect.

Got in three hours and 40 miles, not too bad for an after work ride in the dead of winter.

Riding and Running at Weißwurst Race Külsheim

The First Sunday in Advent is racing day: Every year the Külsheim Cycling Club sets up its traditional Weißwurst Race, a Cross Country Race over the fields and forests around town and down a steep singletrack besides the Külsheim Castle. This year five Singlespeed riders, among them Wedigo and me, had made the way to the north-eastern corner of Baden-Württemberg. Dry 22 kilometers of grass and singletrack, clear pre-winter weather and a little surprise awaited us: What had been the steep downhill next to the castle in the last years was an uphill this year. For a singlespeeder it was a run-up of course.

As the SSP-race started together with the main race for the geared folks, I catched Wedigo’s backwheel, followed him for some hundred meters, overtook him and soon enough realized that this was too much. As he made the pace again, I had to let him go. Around 2 k later Lomo, another member of the SSP-family, overtook me. I was on third position now and felt really bad and demotivated. As I saw the guys on position four and five behind me I pretty much gave up and decided to ride my own pace to an unspectacular finish.

However, during my second lap I started to feel a little bit better. As I looked over my shoulder a few minutes into the lap I couldn’t see number four behind me, so I thought place three could be mine. Not bad at least. So I rode on into my last lap and after the first climb I suddenly spotted Lomo a couple of hundred meters in front. It was around 4k left. I rode, I rode, I rode as fast as I could and tried not to listen to my screaming legs and lungs. When we hit the town of Külsheim again I was able to catch him. Two by two we rolled down a short singletrack and then hit the final steep run-up back to start and finish.

On top of the castle wall Petra, Wedigo (who had finished as SSP-winner a couple of minutes earlier) and some other friends had gathered to scream us up the singletrack. As I saw them standing there and yelling I decided that this was the moment to really give all I have. I rode up a bit, jumped off the bike at around half of the climb and run as fast as I could. I heard the spectators screaming, I thought of place two and somehow I was able to switch my brain of. Must have been because of the lack of oxygen. With 30 seconds ahead I made place two and stood on a podium for the first time in my glorious racing career. After a Schnaps with the other Singlespeeders and two Weißbiers I was fully wasted. What a day! For sure I will remember this little race forever.

Here’s a pick of the Singlespeed-Gang. From left to right: Zahnfee, Lomo, me, Wedigo, Rolf

Congratulations to Wedigo who really dominated the day – and to Lomo from whom I could learn how to ride a constant pace (as if I would be able to adapt basic strategic skills). Thanks to all the nice people in Külsheim that make the race there not just a race but a cool day among friends as well. And thanks to Petra for driving home her drunken husband.

Christian

It’s time to CROSS!

The leaves are falling and the days become shorter and shorter – it’s the time of the year where we can meet for cyclocross! And that’s what we did last weekend. Ken Bloomer, the man behind the inspiring Crema Cycles, had set up his Crosstoberfest in a little village close to the Austrian border. It was a brilliant day with a very relaxed atmosphere and perfect weather, full of racing, meeting cool people, chatting about cycles and cycling. Also we had the chance to see some of the most beautiful (and fastest) cross bikes availabe. And, of course, it wouldn’t be Ken and Crema Cycles without some cups of the best Espresso you can imagine.

Oh, I should probably say something about the race as well. Petra won the women’s category – wooohhooo!!! Well, she was the only woman, but nevermind, not having been on a bike for weeks she fought herself over the course and has definetely earned her Biciclista shirt she got as a price. And me? Michalis from Zürich had borrowed me a wonderful cross bike that I used on the the course. I rode, I run, I finished, I managed not to puke and I had a lot of fun!

[All pirctures copyright Ulf Kress.]

BWR Rocked SiS 2011

SiS 2011 is the house!

Well, last weekend was our favorite annual trip to SiS in Weidenthal, Rheinlandpfälz, Germany. If you don’t know where that is, start at Kaiserslautern, go east to Frankenstein (yes, it really exists) and keep going until you hit Weidenthal. It’s a really small town with a giant heart!

Herr Förster being serious about racing

Our heroic friend Ausilia from Italy

I’ve been to SiS (Schlaflos im Sattel) 5 times if my count is correct. From the very first time, it’s been the highlight of my ‘racing’ year. Everytime, I get to see some of my favorite people and reconnect with singlespeed fanatics, team mates and others. Along with that, I get to be part of a truly unique event.

Schlammbein World Tour

This year, was extraordinary for a couple of reasons: 1) I didn’t get to race last year due to injuries but went to watch anyway and getting to in 2011 made me really happy 2) I ended up racing solo for the first time since my first SiS 3) It was the first time it had rained A LOT in all the years that I’ve gone.  It not only rained but it poured and poured and poured. Because of that, the number of people on the race course dwindled at an amazing rate. Some quit simply because it was raining. Others, because it was time to drink beer. People like me, quit because the sandy mud accumulating in my brakes simply ate my brake pads. Considering I just installed new pads last week it kind of gives you an idea of what it was like.

Yuck! Photo borrowed from the SiS blog

My original goal was to just do one lap, judge how I felt and either stop or continue. That was my first goal. Well, after my first lap, I thought “that was a lot of fun, why don’t I do another?” So, I did and did and did until my fifth lap when I started to realize that my brake levers where getting closer to my handlebars with each use. I have Avid Juicy’s which are adjustable and I did so while riding. Then I hit lap number six. Everything went well throughout the lap. Even the long technical downhill that ends each lap and ushers you into the start/finish area. On the previous laps I’d been able to do a controlled skid/slide down the hill but on lap six it was more of a matter of holding the levers of my now completely shot brakes to the bars and make my way down the hill. After that lap I decided that it was no longer safe to continue. My only regret was not being able to continue and see how many more laps I could have done.

In any case, I was quite satisfied with my performance in that I rode as long as long as I safely could without cramping or feeling like I had hit the end of my endurance. The only limiting factor was my brakes.

Christian Förster and his better half Petra

We had fantastic results. Bryce placed 3rd in solo as his longest ride ever, Jelles team placed 3rd in 4′er team, Longos team placed 2nd in 4′er team, Wils team did well as did Christian Försters 2′er team. Most importantly, we had a great time!

Back Row (L to R): Kendall, Jelle, Longo, Christian Förster, Michael Front Row: Bryce, Jochen, Phil Not Pictured but in attendance: Wil

Honestly, the members of the team can’t thank our various sponsors enough. A couple of them that really stand out are Supernova Lights for giving us multiple lights to use for the event, our teammate and sponsor Jelle who owns Singlespeed.nl keeps us in parts, Geax tires for keeping us rolling on dry days and on wet nights like this one was. Others of note, Home Brewed Components, Carbo Rocket and Crema Cycles and Biciclista.it for putting us in the coolest uniforms I’ve ever seen.. Everyone of these sponsors had a hand in getting us all safely and happy through SiS 2011. THANKS FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HAPPY LITTLE HEARTS!

The 101, it came, it kicked me in the head and ruined my hands

Just before the ride started

I was hopeful for a good race and had one. I may write a more comprehensive write up in the next couple of days, but for the quick and dirty update here goes.

We were all still hopeful

As I rode out onto the course and up the first few climbs I had hope for a 10:30 finish, and personally I was hoping for a under 12:00 finish, but as fate would have it my body actually felt, might I say it, good. So riding, especially early on was fun and fast and me hopping in groups that would pull me along.

From the top of a climb early on

And to a point this was great, and to a point I decided that I don’t understand why a cyclist would cut you off going into some single track who cannot ride the rocks of State College. Personally I am not great at it, but I am getting a bit better and where this cyclist that cut me off got all pear shaped and in way over the cyclist head the cyclist didn’t hop off and let the faster riders by, the cyclist persisted in forcing those behind to try to avoid hitting the cyclist.

Well, in one of my attempts not to crush this cyclist I rode up a big old rock and came down and freaking pinched my sidewall between two rocks and tore a small hole my tire. Stan’s couldn’t seal it, and try as I might not to think about it and keep riding until I could get off the trail on the tire that was dying I didn’t want to destroy my rim. So I stopped, fixed it, got covered in Stan’s goop and lost my fast train. This was before Aid 2 and now I had to chase down this fast train to get back on the group.

Aid 2! Woohoo! I planned to stop and grab my food and relax for like five minutes and get going again, but the flat ruined that idea. I rolled in, grabbed my drop bag, stuffed in my my jersey and kept going. Being sure we had a good long gravel road climb coming up I planned to grab my food from the bag, put the trash in my camelback and just keep going, until I saw the beer aid station…. Yeah, I wanted a good time at the finish, but I also wanted to have fun, so I stopped and had three beers, watched forty people turn down the beer and look to serious, and then thanked the unnamed people several times and was off again. Wasted 10 minutes or did I?

I caught most of these guys, only a few from this point passed me

After Beer Station I just rode and rode and rode as fast as I could catching folks, saying nice stuff to people about how great they look… they don’t, and I roll into Aid 3. All I remember is Coke and cold water and cold HEED. Two bottles, drop two and move out. I must have left everyone who passed on the beer at the Aid Station wishing they had a beer. It was also at this point I put my camera inside my pack and took only one more picture.

Aid 3 to 4 was uneventful, really. I remember a couple sections of rocky single track, oh yeah, it was the sweet freaking trail that just rolled out in front of me like the most awesome, fun and enjoyable bit of single track I’ve ridden in a long time. It was great. I passed folks on rocky sections, I past folks on the slow climbs I past folks on rocky descents and got dropped down one descent like a chump, but all in all I had a ton of fun. Real life fun, 60 some miles into the race, I was grinning and smiling and truly enjoying myself, then Aid 4 showed up!

The climb right after Aid 4 sucked the life from my will to ride. I walked and walked and walked up that sucker. It was bad. In hindsight maybe I could have ridden more, but at what price? Burning out my legs? Yeah I don’t know. I didn’t ride and I think I lost 15 to 20 minutes with the decision to walk. Bad idea, but still what price would I have paid later? I’ll never know unless I go back next year.

So Aid 4 to 5 had one memorable moment, the descent down Panther Mountain. I don’t curse in my reports often, but if I did, I would have an entire paragraph of words that my mom wouldn’t be proud of to describe that descent. It was bad, it was worse than that, it was AWFUL, and maybe it made the race just hard enough to separate those willing to suffer a bit and push through what isn’t fun and fast to finish a race. The descent was late in the race and really killed the will of a lot of people that I saw at Aid 5.

 

I was in and out after dropping two bottles and getting two new ones. No stopping for me, it was time to blow out the legs. What followed was worse on my single speed than the descent down Panther Mountain, 4 miles of rails to trails! Sit and spin single speed guy and I did. And I got passed by three people, two I would catch, one would just fly by. I grabbed his wheel right after we got onto a gravel road and followed as fast as I could…. This guy and I wish I had seen his number or something, just pulled me along at an amazingly fast clip for a couple of miles until we hit the last climb. He stood up, shifted to a bigger gear and dropped me like a stone. I felt like a total loser, but pushed through until my legs just didn’t turn over again and I walked very briefly. It was the last steep pitch of the race and I bailed. If I had known where and what was left on the course I would have pushed through the pain, but alas, I had no clue. Oh well, I did walk again.

Dude, where’s the trail?

This was the last bit of trail. I walked, so did everyone else I saw. I feel okay with that. After we left the boulder field we hit some pretty buff single track and I had some rabbits…. two I could see and I chased hard. I had ridden (mostly) 96 or 97 miles and was spinning my single speed at 16-18 miles per hour! I felt great. After I past the first two guys I caught onto another SSer that had passed me early on in the race. He was riding a nice Walt Works and I told him to grab my draft. He said he didn’t have enough left and in hindsight I should have offered water or something, but instead I told him to finish strong and moved out. Then I caught the last rider, a geared woman. As I went by (I would have done this for anyone) I told her to grab my draft and sit in. I would pull her to the finish. I recognized where we were as we had walked Willie there the night before the race and put my head down. The woman held on until we hit the bridge in Coburn. She either gave up or didn’t want to pass me on the way into the finish. Either way she could have dropped had she tried, I was dead on my bike.

So where does that leave me? The Wilderness 101 was fun and really challenging and I finished in 9:48 for fifth in the Clydesdale category. Overall, no clue. Am I happy with the result? No. I could have ridden faster, at least I think I could have and I left a lot of time on the course. I did stop and help a couple of riders and that cost time, but in the long run helping out is a much better idea than leaving someone stranded. Will I go back? Not sure. It isn’t an Iron Mountain 100k which is a must do, but I think I can break 9 hours at the Wilderness 101….

Changing Disciplines: Triathlon Waiblingen

Last weekend I participated in my first triathlon. Why did I do such a strange thing? Well, I was talked into it of course, by a friend who is a triathlete. I hate running and in the last three years I was out running maybe 10 times. The last time I was swimming with an exercise focus was nine years ago in high school. Good idea, eh?

Luckily it was only a short-track triathlon, called “Volkstriathlon”, and consisted of 500 meters swimming in an outdoor pool, 20k cycling and 5.4 k running. I went out buying new running shoes, goggles and a bathing cap and made a training schedule. Unfortunately I only had two weeks for practice. In that time I was running 15k, swimming 1.5k and cycling 410k. Probably I could as well have skipped the swimming and running part.

We drove over to Waiblingen close to Stuttgart where we connected the race with a family visit and lined up for the start early Sunday morning. It was freezing cold, for July, with only 14 degrees and I felt really uncomfortable in my swimming shorts. However, the swimming part went much better than I thought. I was even able to overtake some guys and needed less than 11 minutes. We jumped out of the pool and ran into the transition area. While all those freaks were directly jumping on their carbon time trial bikes in their (wet) triathlon suites I had to change into my BWR-uniform and went out on the course. What I had estimated my strong part unfortunately became not as fast as I was wishing. My goal was to complete the 20k in less than 40 minutes which I clearly missed with 44 minutes. Additionally I wasn’t able to catch one guy in the end that I was chasing for the whole cycling part. Pretty frustraing. However, I have to add that there were some hills in the course, we had some head wind and slipstreaming was forbidden. All in all those triathlon guys have more pressure on the pedal than I thought. But it became even worse: Running. I was simply slow. My legs couldn’t keep up with my lungs and I really felt the lack of running training. In the end I finished in 1 hour 22 minutes as 101st out of 152. Nothing I am proud of.

All in all it was fun, but not as much fun as a Mountainbike race and so I didn’t get infected with the triathlon virus. Will I do it again? Maybe next year, maybe on a longer, the so called “olympic”, distance. Now I am looking forward to Christmas, which is in less than two weeks. At least in Weidenthal. We will drive over to Schlaflos im Sattel on Thursday and have some relaxing time: Hanging around with friends, going to the Schlammbein-concert, having a couple beers and doing some little fun-laps without any pressure – that’s what I’m looking forward to now. And tonight I will go for a group ride on some fun trails, hoping to find my motivation again.

Christian

12 Hours of Kühlsheim, by phil

12 Hours of Külsheim 2011

This is one of my favorite one day races in Germany; a fun course, great organisation and a cool atmosphere. Last year due to injuries sustained on the Tour Divide I had to sit it out. This year was going to be different.

Well, last month I took part in Grenzstein Trophy, a self-supported race along the old inner Germany border. I had to quit early due to knee problems. So going into Külsheim I was a little worried about my knee; would it hold up? Or would I have to bail on this race too?

This was to be my first race on my new bike: a Niner One 9 Single speed. On it some parts from various sponsors of Big Wheel Racing; like a White Bros. Magic 80 fork, ZTR Arch rims from Stan’s Notubes, Geax AKA tires and an assortment of parts from Singlespeed.NL. All worked flawlessly. The Geax tires roll really fast and have great traction in dry to moist conditions.

I started out as usual too fast but after two laps settled into a good rhythm. The weather was near perfect; maybe towards miday a little too hot but better than rain. The course was nice and dry and fast. My lap times were between 32 – 35 minutes through out the race. I took my first break at about the four hour mark and ate a sandwich. By then it was really beginning to heat up. I was popping Endurolytes from Hammer Products on every-other lap to keep me going. They worked too because I didn’t have an issue with cramps.

At the half way point I was starting to have doubts that I could go another 6 hours; after all I’d had ridden already 100 km. Somehow though you just keep going; taking it lap by lap, or better yet, section by section. I had my favourite parts; like the big whoop section where I could air it out a bit. If I caught it right I was able to fly over the last whoop motocross style.

At the eight hour mark I needed another break and I needed some food other than energy bars; something salty. So Eric got me a cheese sandwich, or the German equivalent of one, tasty nonetheless. I have to say though that the cliff bars are the best tasting energy bars out there and they’re effective. Also the Cliff Shots are great; my favorite is the double espresso. I was alternating between one bottle with pur water and the other one with Carbo Rocket; good stuff, not too sweet but very effective and easy on the stomach.

 

On my 18th lap I started to notice that my left side crank arm was loose, so when I came back into the pits I tightened it down. Rene, a guy I met on the GST this year, rode up to me; he was lapping me. Anyway, we rode our last lap together and had some time to chat a bit.

Out of a field of 35 solo riders I finished in 7th place with 19 laps. I was very satisfied with my result and wouldn’t have done better with gears. There is no single speed category or age categories; otherwise I probably would have landed a podium spot. The main thing is that I had a great time and my knee held up, no pain what so ever.

Part 2

Aid 3 and onto the mid pack!

July 21, 2011 by scarkinsmel

All I see is pain!

I hit Aid 3 feeling just a bit better, but they had Coke and I saw a rider looking so dejected that I was sure she had quit. She had, but it wasn’t her fault, her bike was broken, but it was her look of dejection that forced me to leave without so much as another thought of stopping.

Well walking was going to be something that I knew was going to be required, and knowing that I was prepared for the massively long climb out of Aid 3, but I am not sure what happened, Coke or I was just beginning to feel better, the climb was not so bad. I did hop off and walk for just a minute, but the thought came, why keep anything in reserve? Lets ride everything we can, the day is shot and I am not going to finish any better than last year. My first half of the race had been so bad…

Last good picture of the ride, and yes I looked much worse earlier!

I just rode until I just couldn’t keep the pedals turning over and to be honest, I really didn’t walk all that much. It seemed as if the trails had flattened out a bit and that even when I had to walk, my heart seemed to slow down as it is supposed to do when I was not killing myself turning over the pedals. My legs also seemed to just wake up and realized that after Aid 4 it was (nearly) all downhill! So I rode and kind of jogged and rode and kind of loped along until the descent into Aid 4.

Look into the distance and you should see a rider. I passed him on a descent!

To be honest I descend like a little girl afraid of her own shadow, well that isn’t fair, she would descend faster than me most days, but I had people I had been chasing all day and I could actually feel that I was making time on them. So I just let my brakes go and went for it…. Well as much I felt confident of, at least.

Last year I was cursing the descent into Aid 4, and then the descent to the end of the race, but this day I was wishing for more of descent. I finally felt like everything was working and I was finally passing folks. Mind you, for a better than 45th place, not first or second, but still, small victories. The run into Aid 4 is a bit treacherous and has one very bad corner. I thought I could ride it today, and likely could have, but in a moment of realization, I am not an ace downhiller, I am, at best, competent. So I hopped off the bike walked the crazy corner and jumped over the creek and back onto the bike. Then I saw Aid 4

Aid 4 was a great sight. I still have no idea how long it is to the end of the race, but I knew after this there was more downhill than climbing. I talked with the guys at the Aid station and joked for a minute and had three guys just ride threw the Aid Station without stopping. It was at this point I knew (and I am normally this person) I had victims to pass, I had rabbits to chase and I was positive I could and would catch them. So off I went.

So I picked them off one at a time up the next climb, and then started picking off riders on the slightly (for VA) rocky descents to the short climbs that marks the end of the race. This continued until I realized I was actually on the final descent to the finish. I just let the brakes go and figured I would either catch a few more guys or flat and loose all the places I had gained. As luck would have it I caught three guys for real, actually passing them on the descent and one who was fixing his tire.

The fellow sitting on the table flatted.

I rode with him on and off all day and felt bad for him, but such is riding. So I crossed the line in five minutes more time that last year. I blame the added time on the really bad start, and the fact it wasn’t worse on the really good last 25 miles. Next year? Maybe.

PS: I won the slightly larger than normal folks race. What did I win? The knowledge that among the bigger folks I am not the slowest. The winner beat me by two hours.

The first half

So just a bit about the Iron Mountain 100K

July 20, 2011 by scarkinsmel

Starting out, I and the people behind me still hopeful for a good race

Last year I had a much better early day and much worse later and this year it was much the opposite. As the race began I felt as if my heart, legs and lungs were all arguing with each other. While my legs felt a bit heavy and just a bit weak the lungs felt really good, and the heart, that thing was just racing from the second I woke up. My heart just didn’t seem to want to get down to a resting rate instead it seemed to racing constantly, and that made for some really hard riding.

After the warmup out to the trail we hit the first climb…. It was more a walk for a mile for me and most of the others at the race, but a few guys insisted of riding and falling over and causing a whole bunch of stop and go walking, which is almost as bad as stop and go traffic. Anyway we get to the top of the hill and I remember this really sketchy descent, but as it had rained the day before, it turned out to be a very fast and very fun descent, until I came up behind a rider who just wasn’t going as fast as I felt I could have. Now I could have been all angry and forced my way by, but we had a long race to go. I just wish everybody had been on the same page about the long race still coming up. Anyway, we all safely got to the bottom then this came up…..

A road

I drafted these guys for a few minutes and then my heart just seemed to start beating at 220 beats per minute, so I had to pull back and slow down just a bit, which was not cool. After a few minutes I turned onto a trail and started to climb. By this time my heart and legs just felt really bad and me riding just turned into me walking and wondering what was wrong. I still don’t know, but at this time in the race I wanted to quit. I told myself at Aid 2 I would quit if my legs didn’t start to feel better and on I trudged.

It was easy, last year!

So I arrived at Aid 2 and grab a couple of bottles ate a whole bag of Twizzlers and took off and was sure that by Aid 3 I would stop if I didn’t start to feel better. So tomorrow I will continue with the saga of my mid pack finish.

My terrible leg