Two big trips over the last few weeks. I took Vivian back to Ohio where she wants to try and make a go at independence with some help from Fiona’s family… 3 days of solid driving through fog and snow then a couple days of rest and Christmas Day flying home. Didn’t get any riding in but I did meet some of Fiona’s family and got to spend a day playing on a 4 wheeler in the snow!

Second trip, right after Christmas was a bit of house shopping. We’re seriously looking at getting a place in Oregon. Haven’t quite knocked out all the details but we’re trying to get as much cash together as we can to make a go at it. For now it’s likely to be a summer home or maybe even just a summer campsite ;) I did manage to get a nice ride in with Fiona on the Eugene bike trails which are very nice, comparable to the ones in Redding or Sacramento. Eugene is apparently a very bike friendly town which is quite encouraging. Finally on the last day up there I managed to wing a ride with the Disciples of Dirt and Randy from MBO on Larrison Creek trail. The weather report said rain most of the day but we were almost completely rain free. Overall a great trip, hopefully we’ll be able to get a bid in on one of the properties shortly.

My struggle with post recovery weight gain continues, I’m still about 15 pounds heavier than prior to my injury in June. All the travel and Christmas sort of bumped me back a bit but I’ve been riding more since getting back and while far from perfect my eating has been better. Hopefully come spring things will pick up.

My winter ride tip for everyone: If you can’t go where you want to ride, ride where you are.

I haven’t been able to get out much to ride so I’ve been doing a lot of local riding from the house. My suggestion is simple, find local close in routes you can hit on a moments notice. When you get bored jump on the bike.

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Having crashes while mountain biking is considered normal. You come to expect road rash, cuts, and scratches. Broken bones are not common, thankfully.

Usually Ogre only enters a couple races a year at the most.  His primary race is the Coolest 24 hour race.  It’s a cancer fundraiser held on a trail system fairly close to home.  The promoter of this race puts on several others and  offered an entry in the Boggs 24 hour.  Ogre chose to enter in the solo 24 hour category, a first for him, having raced in the past on teams.  I would be the team support, making sure he ate, slept, hydrated at the base camp.  He would suffer through the riding.  His plan was to ride like an adventure racer, push himself, but not over-do-it and to take breaks to recover as needed.  I was more concerned that he maintain his eating regiment as this had been a problem in past races. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ok, seems like every year it gets harder and harder to ride in the winter time. This winter seems a little colder and wetter early on than the past few. This is generally good news around here since we’ve had a few dry seasons, but it does make it a little tougher to ride. I used to be pretty gung ho about winter riding.  The last couple years the idea of riding in the rain and cold has lost it’s appeal. To make things worse, after avoiding the scale for a couple months I finally weighed myself and discovered I’m at a 2 year high.

So the problem is, how do you get back in shape when you aren’t motivated to get out and ride. My solution has been twofold, short high intensity exercise and radical diet change. Read the rest of this entry »

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A 525 acre fire started in the Mamoth Bar area in the Auburn SRA. I haven’t seen the damage but it appears it was mostly contained on the south side of the ridge, primarily burning the OHV area. It appears that most of the Auburn trails are unscathed but I haven’t heard from anyone who has ridden in there yet. The Fire fighting effort was staged in a large part near Grizley house which is the primary Forest Hill Divide trailhead so it’s entirely likely that some of the beginning sections of the FHDL are damaged by bulldozer and perhaps backfires.

KCRA has some pretty decent video footage of the fire and thread on MTBR where a few of the locals have seen the damage a lot more first hand than I have.

Looks like it’s going to be another rough fire year for Norcal.

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Today and Yesterday are my best days since getting home from surgery and pain is continuing to be less an issue. It’s still plenty of work moving around and if I move wrong the pain ramps up quite a bit. My appetite has returned but I’m trying to keep my eating pretty minimal. I see the next 3 months as a huge challenge fitness and weight management wise so I’m trying to get an early jump on things. I tried to weigh myself on the Wii Fit today but I couldn’t hop up onto the balance board fast enough to get a weight.

The other big concern is weaning myself off the pain meds. It feels like right now beyond being tired a lot during the day I’m not seeing a lot of side effects any more. More important, my alertness and focus is nearly back to normal so I can get back to work and some of my non-cycling hobbies.

On Friday Char and I changed out the bandages ourselves. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with the home health situation but we can certainly do a comparable job to the clown they sent out here before so until I get someone else arranged we’re going to take care of that end of things and just keep an eye out for anything unusual. The staples should be removed on Friday which means the cut should be mostly healed by then.

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My days seem to be broken up into little chunks. For a while I’m feeling nearly ok. Then I’ll use the bathroom or just pass out asleep and then feel horrible for a bit. Sometimes sitting at my laptop, I’ll be IMing folks and just drift off in the middle of a conversation. It’s quite frustrating to be completely reliant on folks around me. I’m a pretty independent person and now I need help using the mens room (when I’m not stuck using a bedpan). Read the rest of this entry »

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Last week someone offered me free entry into a race near Clearlake, CA at a great park called Boggs. I’d been thinking of going to the race and getting the free entry sort of tipped me over the edge. The race is a 24 hour endurance race.  I did a solo entry and figured on taking it easy and just seeing how many laps I could in 24 hours. Never really thinking in terms of it being a “race” more just an endurance event.  I started out at a fairly moderate pace. The first lap was a pokey 1:12 minute pace. Between laps I recharged my nutrition and did a little tuning of the bike.

The second lap was more fun than the first. Folks were spread out and I was rolling at a good pace and chatting with other racers. Nearing the end of the lap, there is a long climb then a really fun section of singletrack. It’s not very challenging, in fact I often recommend it for beginning riders. It’s called Gail’s trail. Primarily just fast, smooth rolling trail with occasional easy to avoid rocks or trees. The only tricky bit about Gail’s trail is the fact that the edges are soft and covered with slippery pine needles. I was cruising down Gail’s at a good clip, really enjoying myself. I’d just passed someone and the fun meter was set to about 8, then my front wheel found those pine needles. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in MTB Events, Mountain Biking, recovery | 5 Comments »

Had a great ride today… a friend took me to a place called Pipi Valley east of Jackson. It’s an OHV park but we had lots of fun. There was plenty of mud, a few creek crossings and Bruce broke his rear derailer. Overall not a bad time.

No real ride report but perhaps once I’ve been there a few times I’ll put something together. We rode trail 25, about a 15 mile loop. I would suggest if you ride this place you do it soon or wait for another rain, it gets lots of moto traffic and turns to moondust early in the summer.

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