Following the Ronde v3.0 route

The warriors will be out in the coming weeks preparing the battlefield for April 15th. In the meantime, if you want to get the route loaded on your Garmin, go here and enter this link: http://app.strava.com/activities/4074045

I may not have a written cue sheet this year, so you'll be well served to load the route to your GPS and pay extra close attention to the road and trail markings

Ronde 3.0

The route for Ronde v3.0 is taking shape. Fair warning, it will be the longest one yet and will feature old and new trails. If you took part last year, you are invited again this year. Start gathering your teammates and then contact me at cxronde@gmail.com.

The ride will go off on April 15th, starting as early as 8am due to the added length. Same as previous years with teams of 3-5 riders, required to stay together. Small entry fee will go to charity once again. Dust off your cx bike and start logging trail miles. This year's edition is not for the faint of heart.

TCC Mansfield video

I doubled up at Mansfield, so I'll use that as my excuse for the slow start...

Also, skip forward to 1:20 or so to see where we actually start racing.

Lastly, I didn't have enough battery life left to catch the whole lap. I missed two of the more enjoyable sections, the slightly off camber spiral turns and the uphill/downhill collarbone section that Colin Murphy has vivid and painful memories of.

your loss

Last year I was a fool and sat in hours upon hours of traffic to race for 40 minutes at Granogue instead of driving 1.25 hours to the Thread City Cyclist's Mansfield Hollow CX race. This year I smartened up and stayed closer to home. This race is so much fun, and the promoters really enjoy hosting the event. I hopefully have some barcam footage still to come but in the meantime, here are some links to pictures and my lap info from Strava.


Not only is this race deceptively close to Boston, but you can eat your entry fee's worth of baked goods and wash it down with apple cider. And if you happen to be anywhere near the front at the end of the race, they pay very well, and give great merchandise prizes too. Heck, they hooked up DFL in the 1,2,3 race with a $30 multi tool. So next year, when you're sitting around listening to horrible music and not talking to all the unfriendly MAC people you don't know, you can remember that you could have been hanging out with #NECX and enjoying yourself in Mansfield Hollow. Maybe next year.

Single Speed World Championships of the World!

Waaay back in August, when the temperature was still above 70 degrees at all times, I went over to Ireland to race SSWC 2011.  Joining me for the race was Thom Parsons, Gerry Finnegan, and Rob Ide.  Of course my bike didn't make the connecting flight so I spent the first 30 hours trying to get updates of its whereabouts and having to stay close to the house. 

When it did arrive, the frame was sticking out of the cardboard box though nothing was missing or damaged

(note to self, look for packing material more than 6 hours before your flight).

I reassembled the bike on Friday night (yes, awesome way to spend my night in Dublin) so we'd be ready to go on Saturday morning.  Although I had free lodging with Gerry's family in Dublin, it was at least 2.5 hours away from the race sight.  We set out in two cars with bikes in the trunks and made it to the registration table about 10 minutes after they had closed.  Luckily this is SSWC, not a Verge race, so they were more than happy to re-open and get us squared away.  It also only took about 30 seconds per person because they don't have lengthy waivers and licenses.

Since it was SSWC, 90% of participants had a costume or bizarre attire of some sort and probably 50% were already drinking. 

We scrambled to change into cycling attire (we were all lame and without costumes) and get our race gear together in the 15 minutes before the procession out of town to the trail head.

Everyone left town together and we were escorted by local police some 6 or 7 miles to the trails.  It's comical enough to ride an mtb on the road, but to see a group of 500+ on single speeds with trail gearing was even better.  Beers were passed around, costumes got stuck in the spokes, and janky single speed conversions were failing left and right...and we hadn't even made it to staging yet!

Once at staging, we were told to leave our bikes and go over to the music/food/beer tents that they'd set up.  This gave people more time to drink beer and dance it up while the organizers disorganized all of our bikes.  An eternity later, we lined up under one of those inflatable arch things and were sent running up the hill to where our bikes had been left.  Slightly anaerobic from running, we all scrambled to find where they'd hid our bikes.  White bikes were all piled on top of each other (there were A LOT of white bikes).  Some were hung from trees, some were moved all the way from the front to the back, and some, like mine, were barely moved at all.  Despite my bike barely being moved, I still spent a ton of time looking for it because I expected it to have been moved.  Finally found it and set out on the two lap, roughly 20 mile course, behind at least half of the field.

We started with a long-ish fire road climb where those with janky single speeds that made it through the road ride began shooting parts into the air as their riders tried to grind the 34x15 up the hill.  Seriously, so many broken chains in the first .5 miles.  When I finally came to the single track, I had to dismount and wait as we funneled into the trail.  Not fun!  The single track though, was fun, and whenever possible I'd pass a rider or two and then try to pass a dozen on the next double track.  It went like that for the whole first lap until early into the second lap when I was finally clear of traffic for a bit.  Not much they could have done, but it did make for a less than stellar first half and reminded me how important it is to start well (and find your bike) if you want to take an event seriously.  Also, next year my bike will be neon pink so I can't miss it!

Anyway, the course was pretty fun, and it was impressively dry given that it's in Ireland where it is rainy and crappy 364 days of the year.  The winner was a local who apparently is in charge of mountain biking in Ireland and may well have built the trails.  Hey, I didn't want the tattoo anyway.  I did get a heinous neon orange shirt and stupid looking mismatched socks with leprechauns (seriously guys, save your money and give me a free beer or two instead) which were both used to clean my muddy bike before packing for the return.

Overall, I had fun.  We didn't get to immerse ourselves in the usual silliness of the event because we were staying far away and because we had to rush back to Dublin afterwards so I can't comment on who won the partying (though I know Thom won the pre-party). 

Next year is in South Africa which definitely is not going to happen for me.  It's ok because I think singlespeedapalooza and Dark Horse 40 are probably better anyway.

I didn't take many pictures, but there are some good ones here: http://acunamatadaar.blogspot.com/2011/08/sswc-2011-ireland.html

Quad Cross

Great job by Quad Cycles with the new venue.  Here's video of the first lap of the 3 race.  Yeah, I have some serious work to do.

Sutton mtb trails, aka, Matt Myette's backyard

Oh man, these trails are sweet.  They are almost reason enough to live in Sutton.  Maybe, if you ask nicely, you'll get an invite to ride them later this summer.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91369880

Mill Pond mtb

http://connect.garmin.com/dashboard?cid=5107671

I don't get to ride my mountain bike nearly enough.  Even though it's how I got hooked on bikes, I no longer make the time to ride in the woods as often as I should.  So this past Wednesday, when I had a window to ride new trails in Woburn, a little tornado wasn't going to keep me away.  If you haven't explored the Woburn trails yet, you should put it on your list.  Fun trails, close to Boston and pretty easy to navigate, even without a guide.  There's a link to my GPS file at the top.  We doubled back quite a few times because none of us knew the trails very well.  I'll be back.  From my office, it's only 10 minutes further than Bedford Paint Mines, and 15 minutes closer than Harold Parker.  A good alternative for a weeknight or early morning spin.