Soggy Day 1

Made it to Alleghe, a couple hours behind schedule. Not everyone's bikes and gear made it to the airport with them. Quite a group to ride with, 26 total, all guys. Forecast was spot on for today. Rain in the evening, becoming heavy. We built our bikes up in light sprinkles. We went out for a 30km "shake-down" ride to make sure the bikes were good to go for the 110km loop on Sunday. It started to pour out as we began the 1600ft climb out of Alleghe. It was also about 50F out. I went up in short sleeves but grabbed essentially winter layers for the descent. I got almost as cold on the 15km descent as that one time Dave and I tried to ride up Mt Evans. Many of the views were obstructed by clouds and rain. I took just two pictures on the ride. The roads are incredible though. Just a taste of things to come. That's all for now. I'll leave you with a couple pictures. Oh, Blogger spell checker thinks this should be Italian, so it gives me a 99% failure rate. Ignore mispellings this trip.

Bike build

Lago Alleghe from in front of our hotel

Beginning descent back towards Alleghe

36 hours and counting

I have to say, the Paris airport is probably the most F’d up airport I’ve been through. I flew over the pond on a large A340 that seats upwards of 400 people. I was second to last row. We left Boston late because our plane came in late. So I figured I would have to run down the terminal to my next gate to make my connection which was originally a scheduled 1:20 layover. I had no idea.


You deplane out in the middle of nowhere. Literally. No buildings around. You are bussed to the terminal from the tarmac. When the buses filled, those of us remaining stood for another 15 minutes for the buses to come back. When I finally got to the terminal when my next flight was boarding, I was relieved to see it was in the same terminal. I ran.

Then I hit another long line. Guess I don’t understand international travel. I wasn’t staying in France, so why did I have to go through French customs? It was interesting to see packs of guys walking around with fully automatic riffles though. I cleared that hurdle and had just enough time to get to my gate before they closed the door.

Again, not so fast. I had to leave the secure area. WTF! This meant I had to re-enter the secure area again, which meant the whole security checkpoint thing. And there was a line there. I pretty much was resigned to missing my connection now. The girls behind me also came from Boston and where going to Venice, but on a much later connection. They helped me get the attention of staff, and I was ushered to the front of the line. That would certainly help.

I didn’t even bother to re-lace my shoes. I grabbed my backpack and booked. I was one of the last few people to board the plane. I wondered if my bike and gear made it.

I didn’t sleep a wink overnight. I even took a Xanax, which did absolutely nothing. I gave up half way into the flight and watched a movie instead, “The Adjustment Bureau.” Friday was going to suck. We were fed decent food on the red eye. Dinner was at 7:30pm, breakfast was just 3hrs later. It was light out both times. There’s just something not right about less than three hours of darkness.

I got to Venice on time. My bag and bike even made it. Major score. I wasn’t sure of the best way to get to the hotel I spend one night at before Thomson Tours picks me up, so I took a Taxi. From Airport entrance to Hotel is 900m. It is a busy highway with no shoulder or sidewalk. I would love to have walked it. It cost me 15 Euro (about $22 to go half a mile)!

Second major score was that my room was ready at 9:30am. I dumped my bags and bought round trip bus ticket to Venice for 2,40 Euro. That was like 25km round trip, so a bargain relative to a cab. I think that same bus goes through airport too. Wish I would have known that it stopped so close to my hotel.

This ain't Cow Hampshire

Basilica di San Marco

Venice was worth seeing, but it essentially is one massive tourist trap. I did not go through Basilica di San Marco. The wait looked very long. Instead, I wandered around completely aimlessly for two hours. I brought my GPS just so I wouldn’t repeat anything. The maze of water cannels, bridges and alleys is bewildering. You can't always get there from here in Venice.  I’d like to see Alex orienteer something like Venice!

While I was heading back to the bus depot, some nasty lightning storms moved it. I was satisfied, and called it good. I’ve already learned shops that deal with tourists handle English well. The bus stop was a few hundred meters from my hotel, so I stopped in at a small café to get a coffee and slab of pizza to dodge the rain. The woman did not know any English, and I haven’t had a chance to learn any Italian. She had to write down the price to communicate it. The coffee was espresso and extremely potent, the way I like it. The pizza was chocked full of olives, which I normally don’t like, but it was good too.

I’ve been wide awake for about 36hrs now, a complete zombie. I’m killing time by writing this, holding off going to sleep as long as I can so I’ll adjust more quickly to the 6hr difference. I’ll probably be up early Saturday and may go for a 5k run before breakfast. Then it’s a long haul in vans up to the Dolomites.

Frankenbike for Italy

The bike I'll be taking to Italy is a real piece of work. It is the bike I typically keep built up for hillclimbs in one form or another. The bike is based on a Trek 5900 OCLV 110 frame. Very light, very stiff.

Starting with the wheels, they don't match. I have a Rolf Prima Vigor on back, a Velomax Ascent II up front. The tires don't match, and the tubes in the tires don't match (one is green, one is black).

The 9spd shifters are Dura Ace. At least they match each other. The rear derailleur is 9spd mountain bike XTR. Gone are the days where you could mix and match Shimano road and off-road stuff. That is why this bike still sports 9spd hardware. The rear derailleur services a 32t XTR cassette. I probably don't need anything this big for the climbs in Italy, but it's on there and I'm not messing with it.

My standard hillclimb crank is a first generation FSA carbon compact crank. It is old, and many of those early carbon cranks had reliability problems. So I just replaced it with a 10spd Ultegra compact crank. Seems to work fine with the 9spd chain. I did have to fuss a bit with the front derailleur since the chainline offset was a bit different. I hate the outboard bearings, as that pushes the center of the crankarms out and now I bang my ankles on them. I've caught the two screws in my left ankle pretty hard on the crankarm already. I'll probably have lacerations with screwheads poking out when I return from Italy.

The frankenbike setup is not very lightweight by today's standards, tipping the fish scale at 16.7 lbs. Still my lightest road bike setup though, and I'd rather not take my more expensive and still nice Ridley on a plane.

I leave Thursday evening. I surely will not sleep on that plane. I hope to see historic Venice on Friday. Maybe I'll sleep Friday night before Thomson Bike Tours picks me up early Saturday in Venice. I'll be travelling solo. This trip was planned last year with Brett. I got hurt, Brett went solo, now it's my turn to go solo. I'm grateful Peter Thomson extended a substantial credit for me to go this year. Last year was paid in full and past the refund date when I got hurt. Turns out many participants of these organized tours come solo.

I had hoped to get in one day of off-road riding during the trip, but this year's itinerary doesn't support it. The tour is one day shorter. I'd forfeit some of the best climbs of the trip to ride off-road, such as Motirolo and Gavia. I'll save off-road riding for a subsequent trip dedicated to off-road. Here's a profile showing the climbs we're riding. It represents about 51,000ft of climbing:

Stelvio is the climb I most want to do in all of Europe. Brett didn't get to ride up and over it last year due to snow and rock slides. Webcams show it is open now but still lots of snow up there.  Not sure if our first hotel has WiFi. Blog and FB updates could be spotty from the Dolomites. I'll bring the running shoes along and maybe run a lap around the Lago Alleghe since we'll spend three nights in Alleghe. I'm psyched to get out of Dodge for a while.

Bagging bigger peaks on foot

I opted to run up Mt Kearsarge today instead of doing the Mine Falls 5k Monday night. My next planned event is an uphill run. I have just a couple more opportunities between now and then to get in some hill training on foot. I leave for Italy on Thursday and plan to do little if any running over a 10 day period.

I took a chance that the gate would be open. Cathy came out with me. The gate was open, we pre-paid (honor system, no ranger there), then drove 1 mile back down from the park so I could maximize near monotonic vertical gain. Cathy drove up and planned to come down part way then run back up.

It was a cold, drizzly day. Temp was below 50F up top and clouds shrouded the summit. Perfect for a run. I was still damaged goods from Friday's epic day in the White Mountains, so I plan to run no harder than threshold pace. The gradual increase in grade 1mi from the toll gate would be a perfect way to ease into the run, as just after crossing the gate, the grade averages 12% for a mile with many bits at 15-20%.

The grade on Kearsarge varies a surprising amount. I don't notice this as much biking up it. I learned it is harder to hold a steady effort on foot than it is on a bike. I estimated this 4.5mi, nearly 1800ft climb would take me 40 minutes at sub-threshold pace. Half-way distance-wise, my time suggested I'd be way slower than that.  I failed to account that well more than half the vertical is gained in the first half.

I picked the pace up just a tad as I neared the summit, just tipping 160bpm on the Garmin.  I hit the dirt parking lot in 40:03, almost exactly my estimated time.  My average HR was a fairly pedestrian 146bpm. In contrast, my avg HR for a flat 5k last Monday was 165bpm. I haven't used an HRM in so long, I feel like I have to learn things about myself all over again now that I started running. Not a killer workout, but I'm sure it had solid training value. Kearsarge more than doubled any vertical run I've done to date. Cathy and I had planned to hike the rest of the way to the summit, but with zero visibility and rain picking up, we called it a day.

The Perfect Ride

Dave and I took advantage of decent weather Friday to spin pedals in the White Mountains. After a sustained hot, dry spell, we hoped for superb riding conditions even though it rain the day before. We headed up early and parked at Joe Jones sport shop in North Conway.

My favorite trail in New England is the Red Tail Trail up Black Cap Mountain. The designers of this trail are geniuses. The trail works equally well in both directions, equally engaging as a climb or descent. I hoped we had it in us to climb Red Tail starting out, then finish the ride by climbing up Black Cap Mtn another way to descend Red Tail.

The climb was a bit more challenging than usual. The roots and rocks were still wet. With grades at 20% in many places, this meant dabbing every so often. Red Tail intersects with Cranmore Ridge Trail, which picks up Black Cap Connector further up. From town, the nearly 2000ft climb took us an hour to reach the summit. I still managed to clean the uber steep section on Connector, despite some newly installed erosion control measures.

Dave cresting Black Cap Mtn

The high peaks in the area were socked with the low cloud deck. The mosquitoes and black flies were pretty insane up top. I grew up adjacent to a blueberry farm. The bee hive to pollinate the berry bushes was also quite close to my house. I had no idea what it was when I was around 6-7 years old, until I got attacked with multiple stings. A bee hive has a very distinctive buzz.  The summit of Black Cap mountain had a similar omnipresent buzz from so many bugs in the air.

Looking north from Black Cap. Not shown: 10,000,000 bugs.

The descent down Connector is quite technical. Big travel bikes certainly make easier work of it. I was on my 4" travel dualie with 1.95" balding tires. Less than ideal equipment. I still managed to carefully pick my way through the sketchy parts. I'm heading to Italy in days now, so my mantra was Italy... Italy... Italy. I couldn't afford to wreck and do something stupid like last year.

Black Cap Connector.

Once down Connector, we picked up Side Hill Trail.  This contours along the base of Rattlesnake Mtn and is quite captivating. Dave hit the giant rock again before I could get me camera out. The risk didn't warrant a repeat for the camera.

Side Hill runs into the Redstone Quarry Trail. This trail meanders through an old quarry.  The biggest lathe I've ever seen sits rotting in the forest there. I bet it can turn 20 ton columns of granite. Instead of bailing out to the power lines, we hunted for more trail and found some. A lot, actually. There appears to be a whole network of singletrack on the other side of Rattlesnake Mtn that climbs quite high. There were many steep, punchy climbs that were quickly taking a toll on our legs. But the riding was sweet. At times we were riding barely-there singletrack with ferns up the handlebars. Eventually we ran out of singletrack that went up and took a mix of singletrack and ATV trails back down.

Having ridden over three hours, we needed a refill on fluids and fuel. We looped around on Rt 302 to stop at a small store. Then it was back into the woods for Sticks and Stones, a mountain biker's playground. This trail's surface is almost entirely decomposed granite and can be ridden at crazy speed. There are many entertaining rock stunts to test yourself on too.  I stuck to my mantra, Italy... Italy... Italy. Dave played a little though.

Play things on Sticks and Stones.

After finishing Sticks and Stones, we encountered our first trail user at over 3.5hrs into the ride. Really cool to have such a vast riding area to ourselves. We headed on over to our finishing climb of the ride via the powerlines. This took us to the Cranmore Ski area access road, an uber steep, loose gravel 1200ft grind. Strange creatures were encountered at the base of the climb.  At the top of the ski area, the Cranmore Ridge Trail is climbed hundreds of additional vertical feet to the Red Tail Trail.

Father of Sock Monkey. Have to follow Dave on FB to understand.

What this was doing out here is beyond me.

I imploded spectacularly on the climb. Dave, being one of those slow twitch freaks, just lit it up and was gone in a minute. One time I looked at my Garmin, it said 26% grade and I was doing 2.9mph. The walk of shame was looking pretty attractive at that point. Cramping barely stayed at bay as I approached the top of Red Tail Trail.

The Red Tail descent puts a smile on your face no matter how trashed you are. Virtually no pedaling is required the whole way down. It just flows. It can beat your wrists and arms up. I had blisters on my hands upon reaching the bottom.

We got back to the car with 35.3mi, 4:45hrs riding time and 5000ft of climbing on the Garmin. That was one of my most statisfying local rides in a long time. As Dave said, everybody should do this ride as least once per year. It's that good.

Entirely different beast altogether: Mine Falls 5k

I finally obtained a running benchmark of sorts. A couple young guys I work with convinced me to come out to Mine Falls Park in Nashua, NH for the trail running series held there on Monday nights. The race is put on by the Gate City Striders.  When I hear trail running, right away I freak, as I think rolled ankles. However, the 5k course is held on fairly tame gravel and packed earth surfaces with just a few rocks and roots here and there. There's also a 5 mile course that gets a bit messier.

I have a lifetime total running of about 25 hours now. Almost all of that is since the beginning of the year. Should I even be pushing myself at a 5k pace yet? So far I haven't noticed any lingering effects from running. Just the normal good kind of pain that a healthy level of stress induces. I knew from lunch runs I could run 5 miles at 6:36 pace without pushing myself at all. Could I break a 6 minute pace in a 5k if I pushed myself? I had absolutely no idea.

I'd guess over a hundred people lined up. Only a couple dozen looked like serious runner types. I was mentally prepared to get beat by 10 years old girls and 75 year old men. We go off, and in no time about 20 runners dart ahead of me. Maybe I wasn't mentally prepared enough for the schooling I was about to take.

It didn't take long to recognize that many of those runners were on borrowed intensity and were soon paying the intensity gods back with interest. I started passing people, in a foot race. Imagine that! Even my mother said she can't imagine me in a running race. Somebody was giving split times at the 1mi mark. I was 5:47. Wow, there's no way I'll maintain that pace.

During my second mile, I started to get that legs-moving-through-molasses feeling you get in bad dreams when monsters are chasing you. I feared imminent implosion. I still managed to pass another guy at about the halfway point. I had no idea how I was going to keep him behind me. My respiration was flat-out hardest of any effort I've done so far this year. And my chest hadn't yet recovered from inhaling all that dust at the Big Ring Rumpus the day before.


I heard my GPS beep at the 2 mile mark. If I could just hold on for another 6+ minutes, I could hurl after I finish. I managed to hold my position for the last mile. I finished in 19:02, good for 6th place overall, at a 6:08 pace. I think with a little running intensity and fresher legs, a sub-18 minute 5k is possible. Not sure what I'd be giving up on the bike to achieve this, but a morbid curiosity may push me to find out.

Looks like my left calf is back. Photo by Meg Turner.

Not your typical MTB race: Big Ring Rumpus

It's been over a year since I raced a mountain bike.  With second attempt for an Italian cycling trip just 11 days away, I was apprehensive signing up for the Big Ring Rumpus. Last year I signed up in the elite category, then promptly broke my ankle. Neither the Italian tour nor race happened. I chose to race expert this go-around.  I didn't want to race outside my ability, risk injury or get dropped in the elite field.

We've finally had a string of dry days. The weather was perfect for racing, but this also meant the course would get loose. There is nary a hill in the circuit. It runs four miles, a mile on cinder rail trail, three miles on fire roads. There's a small bit of cyclocross style course taped off in a field with some off-camber turns. The race also sported a large CX field, almost certainly the biggest field of the day with upwards of 50 riders.

CX in June? Chris Plummer finishing lap 1.

We went off in age group waves, one minute apart.  There were about 15 riders in my 40-49 age group category. We were doing 7 laps, or about 28 miles.  The pace was pretty furious down the long rail trail drag strip. There was no hole-shot bonus on this course. It was all wide doubletrack. Sketchy corners abounded though. We raced after the novice and sport riders loosened things up a bit. I ran Stan's Raven tires with a barely there tread. I ran them with high side pressure too, 32 front, 36 rear. They were screaming fast on the rail trail but sucked in the corners.

Our pace stayed pretty high through the first lap. Several times I looked down and we were doing 25mph.  Half way into the second lap, we had shelled half our group. A pretty select group remained, and nobody was getting away from this group. So what happened? We just kind of sat up for the next four laps. I can't say I volunteered to carry the torch, but I did take a couple good pulls at the front. The only guy I knew in our group of seven was Keith Button (CCB). The others were unknown quantities to me.

After putzing around for four laps, I was feeling pretty good, except for my lungs. I was quite sure I'd have coal miners lung after this race with all the dust in the air. My plan was to bolt free at the beginning of our final 7th lap. I could bury myself for 12 minutes.

My launch was a bit messy. We caught other riders just as we passed through the start/finish on our bell lap.  Probably wasn't the best time to attack.  I had to grab fists full of brakes a couple times, and the other six were not about to just let me ride away.

Once on the rail trail, I had a clean shot. Head down, massive Watts ensued. Geoff McIntosh (NHCC) dangled precariously close behind me, partially in my draft. I had to severe that cord. The rest of the group quickly fell way back. I figured Geoff could be a great guy to work with, but he didn't latch on quickly enough when I let up for a bit. So I went it alone.

More than half way through the lap, I didn't see any of my group behind me anymore. It was hard to tell, as I was passing a lot of younger riders staged ahead of us. I thought that was it, I had it in the bag. Perhaps I got just a tad too comfortable.  With less than a mile to go, Alby King (Bikeman) bridged up to me. Dang, where did he come from? He certainly had some fitness goods. So I immediately relinquished the lead and re-assessed my strategy.

About 200m from the finish, things got messy. We caught another bunch of riders just as a few elites caught us. Doubletrack is wide, but not wide enough for three groups of riders to all pass simultaneously when the slower group is already riding two-abreast. We got through it.

Entering the taped section, I made a sweet, sketchy pass around slower riders and was now ahead of Alby. Awesome! Just don't biff in the sand now. Alby has been doing nothing but winning these things this year, and he was intent on not letting this one slip right through his fingers. Some very aggressive racing ensued, with plenty of body contact. That is not my gig at all and I was surprised I stayed upright. On one of the last turns, Alby executed a particularly aggressive move that got him back out front. I ran out of course to do anything about it. I missed the win by a bike length.

At first, I was pretty pissed with the aggressive tactics. Then I realized this is probably common in 'cross racing, and we were essentially in a 'cross scenario at the finish. It's not like I got intentionally pushed into the tape for no reason. There was a lot of traffic in the finishing chute with the other riders we caught. Alby and I talked afterwards and it was all good.

Results suggested I came in 5th place overall expert with a time of 1:30:08. I'm pretty happy with that. We were faster than last year's Vet-II race. Not only did I use the big ring for the whole race, I think I used only half the cogs in back too. An average speed of over 18mph is not your typical mountain bike race.

There were more than a few tattered jersey's and bloodied knees at the finish. I braked going into the corners, drawing the ire of those behind me I'm sure. My biggest fear was somebody stacking in front of me. There were many close calls. Heard tires rubbing many times during the race. There were wrecks in other fields.

I completely underestimated how much drafting would matter in this race. It essentially is a crit on dirt. Sketchy turns, attacks, pacelining, it was all there. After the race, Alby commented that had we not lollygagged along for four laps, somebody from our group (I wonder who?) would have claimed the $200 for fastest expert. We were only a few minutes down. The firepower we had in our group of seven could have easily erased that gap.

It was a great day on dirt. My next off-road event might not be until August 21, the Hampshire 100, where hopefully I can have a rematch with Alby.