Don't Forget To Tighten Your Chainring Bolts

Trial Run

I just got back from pre-riding the 24 Hours in the Sage Course. I took a lap in the day light this afternoon. It took about 1:50 but I was stopping to pull out the map to make sure I was getting the course straight, and chatted with a couple at the Sea of Sage/Rocky Ridge intersection. It was tough to figure out all the turns. I'm somewhat familiar with the Rocky Ridge/Sea/Broken Shovel/Becks side of Hartman but had never ridden Behind the Rocks and Alonzo's. I felt pretty good.

I waited for the sun to go down. Had a snack and a good chat with a couple of riders in the parking lot. My lighting strategy involves using a Cateye LED light on my bars and an HID on my helmet. LED lights have ridiculously long burn times with a good quality spot. HID lights burn extremely bright but don't have the long burn times. I planned to use the LED on climbs and switch on the HID only on downhills. Maximum light and battery life. So I'm riding along, enjoying solitude and the meditative sounds of tires on dirt, a whirirng chain, the occasional kurchunk of a derailleur, and long, slow breaths. I don't have a lot of experience with the HID light and learned the hard way that it has to go through 10 charge/discharge cycles before the battery is conditioned to take a full charge (I just learned this by using the google). About 3 miles from the trailhead the HID completely shut down. I say to myself "no problem" because I've been riding with just the Cateye light alone for about 4 years. Then that light starts to flicker because I'd neglected to fully charge it after my last ride. I had a lot of thoughts flash through my head: how would my parents take hearing that their son was eaten by a mountain lion, how many people would tell me that I'm foolish for riding alone/at night/alone at night, I was cold, it was too dark to find my way back, etc. But then the only thought that I could think was "I am going to make it back to the car". And I did. And it was close. I don't always go around calling God by his first name but this time I gave a personal parking lot prayer of thanks.

So I need to keep refining the lighting strategy. I wish that I could give you a solid estimate for an average lap time. My daylight lap was skewed. My night time lap needs to get thrown out because I was crawling along on a dying light and I took a wrong turn earlier in the ride (and bumbled into some poor guy's campsite and freaked out his poor dogs). 1.5-2 hours is my best guess.

I'm off to keep myself awake for as long as possible. I'm trying to fall into an extremely irregular sleep pattern to try to be ready for an all-nighter.

24 Hours in the Sage

24 Hours in the Sage is 6 days away. I'm registered for the 12 hour solo category. Stoked. The longest I've been on a bike is 8 hours. We'll see how this goes.

Just got in from my first night ride in a while. Wanted to check lighting systems, placement, and batteries. It's always spooky out there at night for me. Tonight I saw porcupines, deer, and cows. It's what I don't see that freaks me out. I also got to witness a very beautiful moon-rise over Mount Crested Butte. Sweet.

I start racing at 12:00am on Sunday August 16 and ride through until 12:00pm of the same day. The event is a 24 hour race but I've chosen to race the 12 hour option. I'm not sure if I aspire to ride a full 24 hour event. I'll have a better idea at noon on Sunday.

I've also chosen to ride for the Episcopal Relief and Development Fund. If you're reading this, you likely received the details. I'm asking friends to choose an amount to donate for each 13 mile lap completed. ERDF is a very cool organization. I struggled about the decision to ask my friends to donate to a faith-based organization but I'm confident in ERDF's work and their goals are solid. You can check them out here:

www.er-d.org

Donate here:

www.er-d.org/donate-select.php

There are several funds you can donate to. They range from HIV/AIDS, specific regions, Women's Development, Clean Water, or Greatest Need. After you select the fund, you'll click through and enter your information. Please select the option to give in honor of someone and enter "Dave Dolph" in the boxes provided. This will help us keep track of how much money is raised from the race. After the race I'll post on this blog the number of completed laps.

24 Hours in the Sage isn't connected to ERDF. My fund raising is something I decided to do independently.

Please keep visiting the site for updated info. We're going to try to do live updates through the night and morning of the race...depending on how coherent Jake and John are in the pits. I'll try to write a few words between laps while we're switching batteries and water bottles. Thanks for your support.

It's been a nice week of riding the classics. Teocali, 401, 403, and Snodgrass. Who gets to do that? Unemployment has it's benefits. Today was a nice journey up 403. Lots of riding on the road for a little bit of trail but worth it...an unbelievable descent. Very steep, very technical. Steep enough, in fact, that my brakes got hot enough to melt a retaining spring. No kidding.

I don't want a pickle...

I just want to ride my motorsickle

Ok, they are loud, obnoxious, and stinky...but so fun. I had the first ride since my cousin put me on a 50cc bike when I was about 9 and nearly killed me. It feels like a really huge mountain bike with an excessive amount of power. It has the ability to bring elation or destruction, all dependent on skill, awareness, and fate. It brings such a unique feeling of freedom. It's certainly different than a bicycle...a bicycle is about challenge, roaming, getting somewhere under your own power in a manner fast enough to feel a sense of accomplishment but slow enough to notice things along the way. A motorcycle is a different feeling. Such a sense of independence...like it could be ridden until there's nothing left to ride. Like you could go anywhere. 

Jared put me on his bike and showed me clutch, throttle, front brake, rear brake and sent me off. Brave. 

It was a nice night too. 

Wildflowers!

Fat Tire 40

The Fat Tire 40 is in the bag. Andy and Rebecca made the trip and John grabbed a spot. We lined up at 7:45am knowing there would be a long day ahead of us. It was pretty hard and I was on my bike for a long time. I had a good day mentally but not the best physically. The course was about 70% single track and we were only on pavement for a quarter of a mile. It had a great grass roots/local feel and an all-mountain type course. Big climbs, big descents; technical sections and buff single track; huge vistas; knee deep stream crossings. More camelbaks and 5" trail bikes than team kits and hardtails; more joking and smiles at the starting line than poker faces. The organizers put a lot of love into this thing and it turned out beautifully. I think this is the new CB classic.