Moab Rocks 2022: Stage One

I'm still choking on the dust...

Moab truly doth rock.  That question has been answered.

Best to start at the beginning?

I've already complained about my rearranged travel before I left (thanks, American Airlines!).  Despite the challenges before us, Dahn did a diligent job driving us four hours whilst I sat in the passenger seat starving and dehydrated to get us to the registration table with fourteen minutes to spare.

After having our presence acknowledged, we checked into the Adventure Inn... which would put a roof over our heads and be serving breakfast... after we'd already be heading to the start line... but it's just a Frogger hop across four lanes of Moab traffic to a convenient store with XL coffees and preservative pies... so okay.

Stage One:

We're rolling out the door and we make it about fifteen seconds from the motel before Dahn realizes that the gear he swapped over to after the True Grit (the last time he rode the bike) was popping and clicking on his full squish SS, so...

Ominous pre-race gear swappage.

I'd already mapped the route to the start line at the school in my head, but we fell into herd mentality and followed some people who didn't know where they were going.  You know, as you would.  We eventually got to the school and sorted ourselves into the starting chute.

The day started with a no-shit thirteen (or fourteen... apparently the Canadians still haven't figured out wheel sensors since the last time I did a TR race back in '06) mile climb out Sand Flats Rd.  Once the neutral rollout vehicle pulled aside, I quickly found myself off the back of the haves and falling into the strung-out have nots.  I was more than eight miles into the climb before I remembered that I'm in one of the most beautiful parts of our fine country, and I should probably take a look at my surroundings.

My surroundings being the four inches in front of my tire.

Round a turn and I can see the road clinging to the side of a rock wall ahead and the ants climbing up it in the distance.  Further along, the surface turns visibly gray, an indicator that the road is paved... because it's too steep to hold up to erosion to not be.  I end up walking about fifty yards of blacktop.  Meh.

We finally turn off the road and on to Porcupine Rim.  I've only ever been a tourist here.  Stopping at every overlook.  Sessioning technical bits.  Taking photos.  Not this time.

I pucker my sphincter every time I can sense that I'm closer than twenty feet from potential death.  I know I can't logically fall off a cliff from this distance, but... aliens?  We get to the Snotch, and it's comical to watch grown adults sit on the steep rock face holding their bikes in awkward positions slide down on their lycra covered backsides.  From that point on, I got the experience I was looking for when I decided to come here. 

I'd never been down the Porcupine descent on a rigid single speed.  I've wondered what it would be like for more than fifteen years.

Now I know.

Great googly moogly.  I'm so used to just slam banging my way down 99% of this trail, just leaning back, pulling up, and launching off the ledges.  Now I'm hunting and pecking and doing my best to stay outta everyone's way.  I have to remind myself, I wanted this.  I needed this.  I've wanted to see how bad the Moab Rocks Stage Race would be in a turgid manner, and it's delivering in spades. Eyeballs loosening in their sockets and kidneys getting tetherballed around my spine.

Hold on for semi-dear life, and then in the most unceremonious of manners, the finish line is just there at an odd point in the desert where the land goes from one government agency to another.  We still have to ride the rest of the way down (which is 50% harrowing for me due to my fear of heights and also death) and then back into town for a 34 mile day in the legs (and arms and lower back and upper back and neck).

Lunch, beer, nap, racer social, beer...

Costco beer is still beer.

And early to bed.

I'ma hold onto the rest for next week.

Moab, doth thou truly rock?

I love being other places.  I do not embrace the "thrill of travel," such as it's called.

I want to get where I wanna be with all the things I'm going to need.  Just having to find a toothbrush in Sedona the moment I hit the ground on vacation was what I'd call an "unsettling event."  I prefer my adversity to occur in the wild places on my bike.

So it was less than amusing to me that when I anally checked on my flight status this past Monday, I was surprised to see that my non-stop flight to Salt Lake City had been swapped to a flight with a layover that would have me in Moab building my bike at midnight (my time traveling body's midnight) or so.  I never got an email.  I had no idea.

Poop.

Many chats were had and now I'm going to be up at 3:00AM to catch my flight tomorrow and still have a nerve-wracking layover... and I'll still probably not make the pre-reg on Friday.

All this for a three day stage race with "only" 76 miles (plus a mebbe ten mile ride back into town on day one).

It has yet to be determined where the "fun to stress" ratio will land.

I'm taking my fully turgid single speed bike cycle... for "reasons?"  

The stupid ones first.

1. It's the least hassle.  My Vassago Meatplow V.9 has the shimmed handlebar which makes centering all that shit while rebuilding a hassle.  I realize I can take the stem off the bike, but I'm using the EDC tool/preload cap... and it's not always easy to get it right on the first try IME.  I don't want a rattling headset coming down Porcupine Rim on day one.

2. I'm still kinda paranoid (more so than before) about trails with exposure.  Turgid bikes have a constant bottom bracket height making me less likely to pedal strike and end up 500 feet off the trail in the Colorado River... and yeth, I'll be walking even more (than usual) of the lower part of Porcupine after the race stage ends when the trail hits the Wilderness Study Area.

The stupidest reason last:

3. It's what I do.  Even tho I'm in the 50+ class, riding the geared bike that I've yet to master in terms of all the aspects of the clicking and squishing would be a no bueno.  Plus derailleurs = failleurs.  I've been to Moab what seems like a billionty times on all sorts of bikes (heavy big squish, heavier bigger squish, FS XC SS, and long travel frok'ed SS), but I've never done it in a rigid manner.  I know the upper part of the descent down Porcupine is gonna be "interesting," I haven't ridden the Klondike Bluffs area in a very long time, and the Mag 7 will just be "doable."  So if anything, I'm just ticking off the box of another stage race that I'll have done on a rigid SS.

I'm going with 32X20... because when I said I was going with 32X19, the response made me feel like I was underestimating the course or more than likely overestimating me.  I have zero chance at a podium, so a pleasant ride sounds better than more walking.

So Dahn Pahrs is scooping me up at the airport on Friday, and he told me to bring a bunch of CDs for the drive to Moab... because he knows a guy like me owns CDs.

Unfortunately, I purged my collection during the last move three years ago, and my selection is limited to mebbe my twenty or so "favorites."

I hope he's ready for the greatest hits of Led Zeppelin, Billy Squire, and the double CD of Neil Diamond Live.

See yinz next week.

Triple Dip v20.22: Part Two

On our way over to the next stage, we stop under an overpass to let the group kinda tighten up after the long, singletrack transfer.  I stand in the sun and someone hands me a beer to wash down my pizza and then someone says "we need to go" and I chug my beer and make my way to the hot dog stop... and another beer.  Urp.

Minutes later, we're lining up for...

Stage Five: 
With a belly full of anger (and pizza and hot dog and beer) and a head full of haze, I line up behind the tryers once again.  Off the line and I'm rubbing elbows with a local who I know races motorcycles, so I acquiesce his non-verbal request to go in front of me.  He takes a "locals only" line and I follow.  It's the way... I guess.  He gets a pass out of it.  I don't.  Minutes later, he's washed out in a corner and on the ground.  Works for me.  The e-bike passes me... only to lose power on the climb out of the valley.  I finish without barfing up any hot dog, pizza, or beer... and I get a playing card?  Probably?

On our way over to the final stage, we stop to regroup.  Again.  As a famous cycle sport doper used to say, "why stand when you can sit, why sit when you can lay down, why be conscious when you can be unconscious?"

Doooooo you... feel like I do?

Stage Six:
Unlike last year, the Shirtless Club for Men was not universally accepted as tradition (this is how we lose our legacies).  I declare there may be points involved, not really thinking there would be, but whatever.  An empty threat is still a threat.  We line up one deep and very wide with our tires on the edge of a greenway, so essentially the whole field has an even shot at being first to the single track twenty yards away.  I give 'er, and I feel the moto guy's elbow contact mine once again, and the little angry person in me goes for it.  I'm first into the trail.  

The laps are uber short, but we're doing ten of them... and we're supposed to keep track.  Since I'm on the front, I start counting.  There's not much space on the flat course to pass without taking a risk, and the corners are so close, there's not much room to ramp up for an attack.  I figure if someone wants around, they're going to have to take the risk.  Santana gets past the moto guy and is now up on my wheel, but every tight corner with heavy breaking or randomly placed 4x4 laying in the trail keeps opening a gap that would need to be closed and overcome before the next sudden corner or errant lumber obstacle.  

I'm keeping the lap count in my head, and with three to go, I'm signaling to what I would loosely call the "officials" my semi-official lap count. I figure Santana's either going to let me win or make a dicey move on the last lap... but now we're running into difficult-to-get-around lapped traffic.

Me either signaling one to go or telling the spectators to keep it down, my baby is sleeping.

photo cred: Lee Flythe

Come around for the tenth time...

slam on the brakes, yell "we're done" back to Santana but he thinks I yelled "I'm done," and believing he needed one more lap, he kept going.

"Where's my card?"

"Guess you weren't listening... you're supposed to bang a right after your tenth lap.  First guy to the cards wins."

Doh.

Fortunately, no one was close enough behind me to make the turn before I did.  I finally won a "thing."  Pretty sure I got a power up bonus card for being shirtless... as one should.

FWIW: I still doubted my ability to keep track of the laps and had to manually recount using STRAVA Sunday morning to be sure I wasn't off (one lap was a pre-ride of the course).

It's a long schlog from whence we were and wither we came.  Back at the parking lot, clean up, head over to Hobo's for the awards.

And then it gets interesting.  

You see, as opposed to how the Faster Mustache playing card scoring system used to go (Ace= 13, King = 12, Queen = 11... etc), they decided an Ace was worth 11, all face cards worth 10 (like Blackjack), and then number cards had their numerical value... thus making second through fifth place all worth ten points...

Ouch for extra efforts and whatnot but certainly a twist that takes the race right outta the "race."  You either won (and earned a point more) or got an attaboy for trying.

Also not considered were bonus points for the wheelie contest, shirtlessness did indeed pay off, points earned on social media in the days leading up the race, and Stephen got a Joker (worth ?) for eating what looked like a gallon of reaper hot sauce on a hot dog.

So Jason ended up third after a few missed turns changed his day while also being the King of the Mountain (by winning a pushup contest), Stephen got second bolstered by his consistent close enough finishes and ability to effortlessly choke back all that hot sauce without breaking a sweat or shedding a tear... and somehow I got first by two points?

Which I guess I'll attribute to probably taking off my shirt, staying consistent'ish throughout the day, being seconded only by Stephen on the podium for trail beers, and... dunno?  Best hair?

Always a great way to spend the day in the woods with frands regardless of the outcome.  Just to add another twist, while everyone else on the "podium" that day took home artisanally crafted prizes to display proudly on their mantles, I have to come back in 2023 and return my trophy and/or defend my title.

I'll be back... but defend?  

I don't think I like hot sauce that much, but will take my shirt off at any moment for a good cause.

All images (except as noted) from Mary Kaye Zugelder expect for the one of ded me.

Triple Dip v20.22: Part One

Mang.  Life-altering events led to a couple of restless nights of sleep before the Triple Dip 20.22.  Leaving the house that morning, I only got about seven minutes from the into my drive before I realized I forgot my moneys/cards/ID and also realized I'd probably only take 3/4 of a shit before jumping in the car.  I had time to go back and grab my financial instruments but not address the other issue.  Guess I'll just carry that with me the rest of the day.

I'd decided that since I'm heading to Moab at the end of this week, I'd better not get caught up in the argy bargy scrum to be first into any singletrack.  There were more riders gathering in the parking lot this year than last, and some former Tour duh Charlotte podium occupiers from days gone by that are familiar with this type of racing, and also some SC locals who might actually know where they're going.

Party pace ride through a park and over a highway to the first race stage of six?  Seven?  Eight?  Who knows?

Stage One:
I line up in the second row behind the real "tryers" in the group.  Seems like the safe place to be.  We listen to the route instructions (and by "listen" I mean "not listen")...  something something, trail splits, something, lake, something, trail... two laps... finish?  I dive into the woods in mebbe sixth of seventh place?   The lake we're circumnavigating is pretty straight forward... at least 3/4 of the way around.  The other bit?  There seemed to be as many creative line choices as there were riders.  Mebbe my "interpretation" caught me up a place or two.  Mebbe I got passed by a guy on an e-bike (I did).

I cross the finish line after two safe laps, and I'm handed the nine of Clubs (I think).

Pretty sure that photo is from Stage Two, but whatever.

Oh yeah.  The scoring system.  They're using the old Tour duh Charlotte method of just handing out playing cards as you finish, Ace to the winner and down to the lowly two.  Hold onto your cards and they'll add up the scores at the end of the day.

Stage Two:
More instructions on the start line that I think most of us remembered a few words of... creek crossing, log drop, go-around... rock garden?  In that order?  Apparently former Faster Mustache teammate who had crushed Stage One didn't hear the first part and missed the first left turn to the creek crossing.  I get caught up behind the e-biker coming outta the creek, smack my ankle on a pedal, and hop back on.  I'm looking out for this "log drop" but never see it.  Come into the spectator pit, and before I realize it, I'm in the rock garden.  Finish the stage, get my card... don't remember what it was or how I did at all.

Stage Three:
Dammit.  It's the flat stage from last year except backwards.  The geared riders are gonna crush.  The e-bike might jump over the whole field.  More instructions that we're supposed to listen to, and minutes into the two lap race, the front of the bunch missed the first turn.  Mebbe I'm sitting top three now, but I'll be spun out at 17MPH or so, all I can hope for is that when the lead group goes back by me, they don't bowl me over.  I hit the wide open section and kinda wave my hand in the air to let them know I'm submitting... but only Santana and mebbe another guy get back around me and where they belong.

Stage Four: 
Well... they said it would be an uphill individual time trial... and they said they had a way worked out to time it?  How, what, when and also how?  We'd start in groups of self-determined threes, one fast rider, one medium, and one slow... in order to make it easier to time?  I went off in something like the third wave as the "fast guy" in our group, determined that if I could win any stage, I'd make it this one.  No worries about getting pushed into a tree tryna be first in the woods.  Just a 135lb guy on a 20lb bike and a stout gear and a penchant for hurting myself going uphill.  So I give 'er... had to pass a rider from the previous wave on the way up... come through a rock garden...

and when I finish, someone hands me a five of Clubs.

"What is this for?" 

"Yeah, we couldn't figure out how to time it, so it's cards."

"But five of Clubs... ?"

And even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I realize this is backyard bandit enduro racing.  No gods and even fewer rules.  Complaining about how a free event is run only gives you one leg to stand on... and it's a pirate peg leg at that.  

So, five of Clubs it is, but mebbe someone handed me another low card to make up the difference?  You try to remember every detail from a foggy, seven hour day and tell me how that goes.

Part two tomorrow.

All images from Mary Kaye Zugelder

Tour de Droopy 3.99999 - ∞

I think this is the last part of the "I told you so" gloating victory tour about drooper post champion Mohorič and his major (to me... prolly him too) victory at Milan-San...

This gave me a headache:

That twisty collar bit is what the team at Bahrain Victorious came up with to operate the Fox Transfer SL drooper post.  I don't get it.  It's like the drooper post was some kinda alien technology they found in some spacecraft wreckage, and they had to invent some human mechanization to make it work.  Are there ten or more better options at this point, including one from Fox's sister company Easton (who has their own version of the Transfer SL called the EA 90AX)?

I know he's gonna want something he can operate from the drops and not one of those stupid levers that clamps on the flats, but the garvel bike egghead engineers have been working on the drop bar specific lever for years, so mebbe give that a shake before digging into your Erector Set tryna reinvent the wheel?

Then again, he's now won the Milan-San Remo and I haven't so...

And my final takeaway... I hope.

I know Mohorič looked at this ONE race with the climb up the Poggio near the end, followed by a harrowing descent, and then a short run to the finish that might make it hard for a chase group to close the gap and decided this was HIS time to use a drooper post FTW.

But here's the thing.

The "others" have to be looking now.

If you can gain time without the expenditure of any extra energy AND keep the bike at or close to the UCI weight minimum, what's the point of not having a drooper (other than aerodynamics)?  Obviously, there's a lot of road bikes out there that don't use round seat pipes, so they've got a problem.  If one rider decides to take advantage of "free speed" and has the potential to drop their rivals, they're going to have to use energy to close the gap back up when the mountain flattens out OR take risks that a rider with a lower center of gravity isn't taking.  Think about a rider like Remco Evenepoel, who is a super strong young rider, but he's not known for his descending skills... yet.  What if there were a way to give him more confidence and that "free speed" I mentioned?  So, mebbe now you got the top guns drooping, but what about their domestiques?   Can't be losing them on the descents if you're going to need them later... so do they get droopy too?

On a 1.4 mile segment of my commute home from trivia night, I lose about 105 feet of elevation at a pretty constant rate.  If I ride my bar bike/grocery getter with it's 34 X 18 gearing, I'll be spun out quite a bit, so I droop.  A lot.  Because it's faster.  Because it's relaxing.  Because sitting up in the wind on a single speed mountain bike feels 100% stupid to me after all these years of drooping.  Because... burrito.

In Matej Mohorič's own words, "I've destroyed cycling, now everyone will use a dropper post."

Keep in mind, the UCI declared them legal in 2014 (as long as they conform to setback rules in the up and down position), so let's see who destroys cycling now.

That's all I got to say about that (for now).

This weekend, the blerhg goes back to regularly scheduled programming with the first event of my "season," The Triple Dip V20.22.  Sort of a race.  Sorta not.  Absolutely the last thing I should be doing before leaving for the Moab Rocks Stage Race the next weekend, but whatever.

Tour de Droopy 3.5

Second part of the "I told you so" gloating victory tour about drooper posts and pro road cycle sporting.

Even just last year, I speculated on Facebook that this HAD to be coming at us in a year or so.  The only thing that let me down was that I assumed it would be a SRAM AXS drooper post, because of its easy'ish installation, and it can communicate with handily placed blips... but only two world teams (at that time) were sponsored by SRAM.

So no buneos for most of le peloton.

In recent years tho, there's been a fair amount of cable actuated, lightweight drooper posts.  All it would take is some creative finagling to get one to work on a road bike that's not necessarily designed to have one .. in a manner that would actually be useful.  That and someone to give it a chance.

“I tested it many times in training. I knew exactly how to use it, and I knew it was very hard for whoever was behind me to keep up, because it lowers your center of gravity a lot. It gives you more handling and more control of the bike. It’s probably not physically possible to go as fast without it.” ~ Mohorič 

Duh.

So here we are.  Someone acknowledged that mebbe it would be an advantage (that applied to his skillset, I guess), gave it a little testing time, and... the rest is history.

I did have a minor conniption when I read this tho:

"We tested a 12cm dropper but that was too much and meant the pedalling wasn't efficient anymore, so we opted for a 6cm device.. " ~ Mohorič 

A billionty years ago (2015), I had a couple things converge at once.  I had a lower back injury, Thomson had a new, longer 150mm travel drooper prototype they wanted me to try out, and Niner (formerly now Fox) Mike was able to lend me a ROS 9 that could accommodate the longer drooper AND gimme gears.

Yeth, I used it at work because just getting on and off the bike was a struggle, and the gears were a blessing since all I had were single speeds and my tarck bike.  This is back when I spent more than a month sleeping in a hammock I mounted to the walls of our junk room trying to alleviate the pain.  It was not a great period in my life.

What was my point?

Oh yeah, my feedback to Thomson at that time was 150mm of travel was "too much," at least for this four apple tall man child.  That's what I said then... when I was still less than two years into living the droop life... when I thought 125mm was enough.

But then as time went on, and I got very used to drooped pedaling to add speed while descending, I wanted the saddle even more out of the way when riding the chunk gnar, and more options became available for my non-internally rooted Vertigo Meatplow V.6.

Down the rabbit hole...

30.9 150mm external Fox Transfer on the Meatplow V.6... a 185mm PNW drooper on the Meatplow V.8 (and also V.9)... and then Fox discontinued the external Transfer followed by a slippery slope decision to buy a 175mm travel AXS bleep bloop post for the V.6.

I have to charge my bike now.  Dammit.

Point being, I don't know when you get to the point of diminishing returns, but it doesn't usually start with the first try.  Keep in mind, it you wanna argue about pedaling efficiency while drooped, remember that they were all pedaling while doing the "super tuck" and WINNING back when it was still legal.

Adapt, overcome, survive... or whatever.

I still got more.  Don't worry.

Tour de Droopy: Part 3.0

I don't wanna come off as (too) smug, but I'm taking a victory lap because I told you so.

I was on my way home from Pisgah when I reentered the world of cell signal and was greeted with messages and texts about Mohorič winning the Milan-San Remo on a drooper post.

All because a fair amount of people remember that I said the drooper's day in the world of professional road cycling would come back in 2014, and I re-argued my point two years later in 2016. 

To say I was shitting my pants with joy would be an understatement.

In a nutshell, I've maintained the idea that if you're coasting on a descent, your gonna be faster with a drooper post than without one for a couple of reasons, aerodynamics and lower center of gravity.  Why and how did I figure this out back in 2014?

I bought my first drooper post back in November of 2013.

I guess I was taking photos with the camera built into my alarm clock back then.

The KS LEV was a short-lived experiment (because is sucked) and was quickly replaced with a Thomson 27.2 jawn in a manner of months.  The odd thing about any of this was I don't remember trying a drooper post beforehand.  Something about it just made total sense to me, and it wasn't long before I was full-commit, and every mountain bike I owned had to have a drooper.  Shortly after getting on a drooper, the Vertigo Meatplow V.7 was commissioned, and I was fully vested in droop life.

That year's Trans-Sylvania Epic was the real eye opener event for me.  Yeth, I enjoyed the drooper in technical and steep riding, but quite honestly, I was one of the few people showing up to endurance events with 600 grams (or so) of seat post, drooper button, and an extra cable.  By "few," I don't remember anyone else, save for the guys who were riding trail bikes... but as far as folks trying to get on a podium?  Not so much.

Yeth, I won the Queen Stage in 2014.

And I squeaked out a second place overall, because I used to be an "athlete."

Here was my big take away.  I'd been racing longer backcountry type events on a single speed ever since my first ORAMM in 2004.  One of the areas where I always struggled was that I could overtake riders on a climb, but only to lose it back (and then some) when heavier riders would just EFFORTLESSLY coast by me on open gravel or paved descents.  Back then, I was 120-125lbs, so just about everyone was heavier than me.  In 2006 (the first year of the NUE), I was late to the game of swapping over to 29" wheels, and that only made things worse.  I swapped to clown wheels (that was funny back then, emmaright?) in 2007, but that only brought the gap back to where it was before.  I would even do an insane super tuck position, sitting on the extremely sloped top tube of my Misfit Meatplow V.5, resting my bird chest on the top tube, and tucking my knees in so close to the violently spinning 2.35 Rampage tire that I'd end up bloody.

The results were the same.  Heavier riders would casually coast right by me... usually smiling... while I was wincing in pain from my uncomfortable position and knackered knee skins.

That all changed in 2014.  As I said, I was one of the first guys I'd seen trying to fight for the podium with a stupid drooper post.  I'd gained confidence in the technical bits and steeps, but the best part was that I was no longer getting dropped (or caught) on the coasting descents.  I would droop my post any time I hit more than 17MPH (best guess based on what I know now), put my hands next to the stem, elbows in, and just go.  It worked... for about a year... or so.

Then more and more and more single speeders started getting droopers, and now I'm back where I started.  It was good while it lasted... while I still cared.

But the writing was on the wall... and shortly after that, I wrote my first Tour de Droopy blerhg post in July 2014 basically saying that REAL drooper posts totally belong on road bikes and would someday make it into the world of Pro UCI road racing.

And now a drooper has stood on top of a podium in one of the big Classics.

Suck it, world.

Part two soon'ish.