Google Earthlings - 24 Hours of Riding

Crashing While You Smile

2007-06-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we embarked on a series of shuttle rides in Downieville, CA. It has been some time (five + years?) since I've done the popular trails up there, so the experience was fresh for me. I wanted to refresh memory of the trails before the race. See our rides in Google Earth.

First run involved Sunrise > Butcher Ranch > Second Divide > First Divide. This was fun, but I took a nice endo when I wasn't paying attention the first time I tried the big rock outcropping on Butcher (I had success the second try). It was one of those surprise endos when you don't expect it and go down fast. The result was sizable bruise on my forearm :-(

Second run was Sunrise > Pauley Creek > Third Divide. Again, I took a stupid, very painful spill on Sunrise that left me cursing at myself. I managed to gouge my shin and slam my hip into the ground :-( Regardless, I tried to shake off the negative thoughts and keep focusing on having fun. We loved the Pauley Creek trail. Like everyone else who rides 3rd Divide, we believe we both set world speed records on this section of singletrack (actually, I hit 36MPH).

We ended up back home at 10PM very sore and tired. I spent Sunday nursing my wounds and puttering around the house, which is all I was good for after my crashes.

Next Up: Downieville

2007-06-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

The Earthlings will stray a bit from our usual kind of event next month when Dave B and I race up the Sierra Nevada mountains as part of the Downieville Classic. This isn't a team effort, but an individual race.

Downieville is a small, isolated town that was discovered as a mountain bike destination some ten years ago. It features some fun riding and the annual race. Downieville's claims to fame include its consideration as the state capitol when California joined the Union in the 1850s (wikipedia). If you visit Downieville now, you'll chuckle to think about this tiny town as the capitol of the most populous US state.

The cross country race course starts in Sierra City, ends in Downieville and in the process, climbs some 4400' and descends 5600'. The challenging race is infamous for causing flat tires and severe muscle cramps. Sounds fun, eh?

Meet Bob

2007-06-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

I feel just terrible. How could we have told the tale of Laguna Seca without mentioning the newest Google Earthling Bob. He joined us when Tasha learned that she could not make it last week.

Bob is an accountant here at Google and rides a road bike but in spite of that, he is a very cool guy ;-) Actually, he has a lot of experience on a BMX bikes, which makes hims a bike-handling fiend. But then again, he annoys me by having the same exact bike as me, but this year's model. He also has a singlespeed like me, but again, the color of his is nicer. And he has better posture. OK, maybe I don't like Bob all that much.

Bringin' it back like Jerome Henry

2007-06-13T20:34:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a couple days since the race and I think we've all pretty much recovered. After a total of three hours of sleep during the 48 hours leading up to and including the race, I made it home, slept for about 15 hours and managed to get up and make it into work on time on Monday, proudly wearing my 24 Hours of Adrenalin shirt. I think at that point all the Full Sail Ale was out of my system and a double americano was way overdue to hit my bloodstream. As a matter of fact, it still owes me some interest.

The campsite was all but the polar opposite of Moab. Dry, sheltered, powered. All in all quite civil and not resembling a Jurassic dinosaur-killing mudpit in any way. We camped next to three other friendly teams from the Bay Area, including the women's team "Tits of Steel" (no kidding, that is what they named themselves) who managed to take first place in their division. I think they're sandbagging though, word has it they're actually titanium, which we all know is way faster than steel.

Shannon, our group cook, kept us well fed with pasta, cheese, salami, bagels, tea, fruit, trail mix, and all sorts of other delicious snacks to be stuffed in hungry mouths at all hours of the day. And all the volunteers who came did a great job keeping us company throughout all hours of the race.

The race itself was great and team Google Earthlings rode every single lap on singlespeeds. David kept it old school riding the first lap on his fully rigid 29er. On his second lap, his freewheel exploded and he was forced to hike to the next checkpoint and cancel his lap. He borrowed and critiqued bikes for the rest of the race. And volunteered to ride the very last lap of the race after we had each ridden 4 apiece.

Even with the lost lap, we managed to score 12th place in our division, which isn't too shabby. Had David completed that lap, we would have been top 10 and beat our good friends and arch rival 24-hour-race-veterans, the Velonerds. But hey, it gives us something to look forward to for next time.

The course was fast; 12 miles in just about an hour. Starting with a series of steep climbs and fast, hardpack, singletrack descents, the course finally peaks atop Hurl Hill, a short steep fireroad climb with an aid station perched at the top. After Hurl Hill you breathe a little easier and rest your legs as you cruised down a gently rolling fireroad. After a couple of miles, a right hand turn dropps you back onto twisty, rolling, sandy singletrack as you pick your way past riders and around bushes. Dropping back out on the fireroad and another aid station at around mile 8, the course is pretty much done, the only thing left is The Grind, a 3 mile fireroad climb back to the Laguna Seca Racecourse. From the top of The Grind you drop in and cross a bridge over the raceway, ride down the stairs to your teammates cheering you on, do a lap around the track, grab a free beer from the guys on Team Hamana, and run the bike into the scoring tent to pass the baton on to your teammate who's awaiting anxiously for his lap. All that's left after that is to tell your buddies how great the lap was, grab a Full Sail from the keg, and repeat.

There has been a lot of posting about David's pot-lap dancing antics that won him a new lighting system. And I don't want to beat this dead horse much longer. However, although a lot of attention has been paid to the simple fact that he performed the act, not a lot has been paid to the artistry in which he did so. If you're easily offended, under the age of 18, or David's mom, you might want to stop reading and go here instead.

Now those are authentic, San Francisco hipster dance moves folks, no doubt about it. Congratulations, David, and congratulations, dear readers. Next time you're using those moves in a club or to win some fabulous prize, give credit where credit is due.

And, with that, I bid you all adieu. Until the next 24 hour event, I'll be working hard to keep your Gmail up and running and chock full of cool bug-free features.

Smooth Moves

2007-06-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

Word is that we left Laguna Seca without any victories. Not true! Dave B landed first place in the prestigious post-race dance contest. And just to prove it, we have both this video and picture. Boogie down Dave!

Dave may or may not be embarrassed, but he walked away with a high end bike night light for his efforts. He left the rest of us wishing that we had smooth moves like him.

Lap of Fear

2007-06-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

We have a lot of amusing anecdotes to share from this race. Given our disorganized nature, they will appear on this blog non-sequentially and perhaps without sufficient context. Bear with us please. Some of us were drinking a bit much through all of this (see picture).

The Earthlings raced four laps each at Laguna Seca. My final lap occurred at about 4AM in the morning. At this point, I was dead tired and cranking up the hills on my singlespeed had reduced my leg muscles to quivering balloons of lactic acid. So when I approached one tricky descent about 1/3 of the way into the lap, I let my concentration lapse and tumbled off the trail where my bike lay on top of me. I twisted my ankle pretty badly and thought to myself: oh this is great... I can't even walk back now. So I waited a few minutes, contemplated my options, sucked it up and kept riding.

This was definitely the strangest lap. I was half awake and the nighttime brought enough critters near the trail that I started to wonder if I was hallucinating them. I witnessed a snake, rabbit, countless beetles and I think I saw a bobcat. But eventually I made it back to the finish and collapsed into my tent for the night.

Apprehension

2007-06-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

I'm due for my first night lap in about 1 hour. It's 9:00pm or so, so that leaves me with a 10ish to 11ish lap, under the moon and stars. Being 8 or so miles from the ocean, it gets cold here damn fast once the sun is gone. The sun is gone and it's damn cold here.

So my 2nd lap was amazingly inspiring and amazingly frustrating. Birdsong's cousin offered me some Ginseng + B12 cocktail right before I hit the trails, and it really gave me an energy buzz to that got me all the way from the start to the top of Hurl Hill (aptly named) before I was really feeling tired. However, I was absolutely plagued with mechanicals from about the top of Hurl Hill all the way until I got back. My chain must have fallen off at least 10 times, always at the worst times as I was bombing down single track or down fire road. I was really frustrated by this as I was on target to make an absolute killer lap time, probably 1:03 or so. But it wasn't meant to be, as not only did I drop my chain a bunch, but I actually lost my rear brake about 4 miles from the end. Ugh...

Lap highlight was barreling down some single track and hearing my name called out. Turned out to be none other than Forrest Arakawa taking pictures of the riders. He made a point of screaming to the 3 people behind me that they were 'riding behind a legend, an absolute legend!'

Awesome.

Anyway, I'm in my tent now, well fed, hydrated, and hopefully prepared for a lap in the dark.

Here's a picture from earlier today. Possibly our competition, though who knows at this place.

And here's Bob + Birdsong, doing something that I am unsure of.

And We're Off

2007-06-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

We are four laps into our race at Laguna Seca. As in Moab, I started the race by volunteering to complete the first lap. This is a somewhat thankless, unfun task. It involves starting the race by sprinting on foot several hundred yards to your bike. Then you get to get stuck behind clusters of riders who have.... ummmm, less than ideal bike handling skills.

But I have to say that it is great to be out here. The weather is gorgeous now that the morning California coastal fog has burned off. And we have a lot of Google-supplied goodies: a keg of Full Sail beer, snacks, energy drinks and bars.

Thus far, all the Earthlings have ridden single speed bikes. These rigs put us at a disadvantage on the downhill sections where we can't pedal. But they do force us to ride faster on the some of the hills where there is simply no other option but to crank away other than getting off your bike.

Stay tuned. And btw, that flask is not on our bikes, I swear.

Running Laps on Empty

2007-06-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

So it's 1:53pm and we've completed 3 total laps, with Birdsong about half-way through his lap now. We arrived last night, setup camp, tapped the keg, and relaxed. Oh, and we pre-rode the course.

About the course: fast, picturesque, windy, frustrating, tame, fun. The headwind is tough...right in your face throughout all the climbs. But the single track is really sweet - swooping, fast, tight corners, everything you'd ask for in a trail. But then the course takes a turn for the worse, and the last 5 miles or so consists of a miserable fire road climb out.

My lap wasn't breaking any records, sadly. I think I pulled about 1:10 or so, while Cohen pulled 1:05 or so and Gardener pulled about 1:10 including the lemans start.

It is hot here - really really hot. And there are Skip Barber race cars riding the race track.

Some photos, for the visually unimpaired:

Here's me starting my lap - there's this bridge over the race car course you need to run across:

And here I am coming back down the stairs, finishing my lap:

And here I am about to deliver the baton to Cohen:

With hours to go before his first lap, Bob is understandably relaxed, hanging with his wife and talking smack about my lap time.

Cohen riding like its 1942:

No idea who this guy was:

John's a better man than all of us for volunteering to run the Lemans start:

Sea-shell Things (an ode to Youtube greatness)

2007-06-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

Last night a group of us went night riding up in an undisclosed Marin country location. We left the parking lot around 9:00pm, and got back around 11:30pm. In the intervening several hours, boys evolved into men as we each grew individually and collectively, emotionally and existentially.

Two of us rode our single speeds. I love single speeds. They rules. I like single-speed things, like bikes with only one gear, and placemats and tablecloths with single speeds printed on them. I want to throw a single speed party and invite you.

Whose single speed is that? I ain’t never paying for no single speed ever again. Not once, not never.

I am Mr. single speed. If you need single speed things sorted, you come to me.

However, in spite of my amour for single speeds – their zen-like simplicity and almost meditative quality - I often times think that it would super cool if they made single speeds that, at the flick of a thumb-mounted switch, allowed one to swap out rear cogs from, say, 16 to 18 teeth. That would be super cool and would make me love single speeds even more.

Lighthouses rule.

Breath With Me

2007-06-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

While riding hard, pushing yourself, having fun, and ‘getting at it’ are all important qualities to pursue whilst racing mountain bikes; equally if not more important is looking damn good whilst pursuing them.

Admittedly, this isn’t that much of a challenge for me. However, I have made some moves lately to assist with my already graceful on-trail style and grace.

The first of such moves was to replace my old CamelBak with a new one that matched my hazel eyes, appreciation of fall in New England, and that would provide me with the confidence needed to enter any room and/or trail looking my best.

As you can see, a dramatically significant change from what I used to use for hydration purposes. I’m not even certain my team-mates will recognize me.

In laying out my new CamelBak last evening, I had the pleasure of selecting which of the items that I would be riding with would go in which of the two pockets available to hold them. While to many this might seem an overwhelming and perhaps daunting process, with a degree of decisiveness not seen since Napoleon’s determined march on Russia despite the harsh climate, I quickly placed the items where they most naturally belonged, and where they were most likely to best define me as a person.

Here is what I decided upon (with a swiftness) :

Your feedback, my analytically pedantic readership, is most appreciated.

Wildcat.

Race Course

2007-06-06T17:50:00.000-07:00

This team being sponsored by Google Earth and all, I thought it was time for me to post a Google Earth (KML) file depicting the race course at Laguna Seca. So here it is. Note that this GPS track only shows an approximate depiction of the course.

The course has about 1600' of climbing and is a combination of fireroad and singletrack. Word is that it is suitable for single speeding, but the jury is still out about penny farthings.

Risotto for the Race

2007-06-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

Last night, Shannon and I spent some time discussing how we will keep the Earthlings well nourished during this weekend's race at Laguna Seca. Shannon is one of our team's volunteers, a great cook, and my partner. She is very conscious about diet and the role it plays in mental and physical health. In fact, following her recommendations, during the past year, I have lost a lot of weight and gained plenty of muscle. This has mostly come about by avoiding wheat gluten (bread, etc.) and dairy.

So for this weekend, Shannon is planning on preparing a large risotto dish and having lots of fruits and quality high energy food for the racers. This will be addition to the keg of beer that my teammates have spent much time discussing. Personally, I can't imagine drinking any until after the race is over, but perhaps that is just me and my crazy ideas about... ohhhh dehydration and needing to concentrate.

Gearing Up

2007-06-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

Or gearing down? That is the question. You see, there has been a debate on our team whether we should do this race on bicycles with many gears on one gear. One gear would undoubtedly be mas macho. But this is a loooooong race for each of us (+50 miles with +9000' of vertical climbing), so riding one gear might be a bit much for us.

I converted one of my bikes to single speed late last year and have really dug this ride since. Riding single speed is something like having a wrestling match with your bike, especially on the hills. It can take everything you have to get to the top and it works every part of you, including your upper body.

My friends who don't ride SS wonder how it could possibly be fun. It is just one of those experiences you have to have before you comprehend. Pain is just part of it all. It isn't fun because it is easy, but because it more often difficult. Which reminds me of my favorite quote about riding a bike:

Cycling is like church
Many attend, but few understand

Taking the metaphor a bit further, riding a single speed is like leaving church and enlisting in a monastery. Yeah kinda like that. Sorta.

1972 ABM Treaty

2007-06-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

It is my unfortunate journalistic responsibility to inform you, my most loyal readership, that founding Google Earthlings team member Tasha has withdrawn as a member of our proud organization. Commencing immediately, she will bear not affiliation nor association to our team and/or the moniker under which we’ve collectively united - at least with regards to our forthcoming race.

I think there must be some kind of rock band analogy I could present to you in an abstract sense; something about a member of the band leaving for lame reasons and then seeing the band rise to greatness. I'm not clever enough to think of one, however.

You might wonder why such a drastic maneuver on her part? Why the sudden career suicide with respect to corporate athletic-sponsorship in the name of fun? Why one would purposefully withdraw from such a well recognized, well respected, and well organized group such as the Google Earthlings?

Email snippets to the team by Tasha dated May 17th, 2006 provides but only a small clue as to her true rationale:

so sorry to be lame, but I am exhausted from traveling…and I'm not bailing b/c of the concert...in fact, I already sold the tickets.

Apparently, 7 weeks prior to the race, Tasha feels that she is too tired to compete in the event and that 7 weeks time isn’t sufficient for her to catch up on sleep such that she would be physically capable of joining us for 4 or so 12 mile laps over the course of 24 hours.

I almost fear for her general well-being given her concern over not being able to rest up for the race. I just read that Lindsey Lohan withdrew from the cast of a forthcoming film due to ‘exhaustion’. I wonder if her and Tasha are similarly afflicted.

On a brighter, less betraying note, we’ve quickly made moves to spread the world throughout the industry and have recruited a new member to our proud team.

Please take a minute to welcome our newest team member: Bob Mohan. I’m sure Bob will take a minute soon to introduce himself to you, our most excitable readership. Bob is a stand-up guy who wears a size L jersey and rides a red Spot single speed.

Next Up: Laguna Seca

2007-05-31T18:16:00.000-07:00

The Earthlings will race again at the 24 Hours of Laguna Seca on Saturday, June 9th. This is a different adventure for us in that it is practically in our backyard here in Northern California.

In the past moth or so, I have largely forsaken my mountain bike for the skinny tired road variety. The idea is that some quality time on the road bike will up my fitness for this event. None of this has won me any respect from my team mates, who call me unspeakable names for not joining them on more fun local trail rides. But what do they know... maybe I really am a weanie.

This is not to say that I have not done some great dirt rides of late. Check out these pictures from our recent ride on the Tahoe Rim Trail. Can you guess which one of us is shown wrecking in this picture?

Moore Fun

2007-05-03T18:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is the name of the trail: Moore Fun. Apparently, this is in reference to the person who helped forge this trail. On Saturday, Dave, Shannon and I embarked on this aptly named route.

I love riding very technical, slow trails. Getting your bike over and around rocks and obstacles is less about strength and endurance than it is about finesse, concentration and fear management. Sometime a lot of stupid luck helps too. Watching the best riders I know, I've learned body language (throwing your weight around on the bike) can make an impossible section of trail suddenly become rideable.

Or not. At one point on Moore Fun, I looked ahead to inspect the formidable rock pile ahead that was supposedly the trail. I looked up long enough to miss the small-but-big-enough-to-stop-my-front-wheel rock in front of me. So I went hurtling (or is "hurdling" a better description?) over my handlebars. Fortunately, I landed on a rare smooth, soft spot on this otherwise menacing trail and was left unscathed.

At that moment, I could have collided with some sharp rock, absorbed some intense pain and become fairly useless the rest of the ride. But, no, I laughed and kept on my oblivious way down the rest of trail. So it kept being Moore Fun and not Less. See what I mean about stupid luck?

Monkey Wrench Gang’in

2007-05-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

While it’s true that often times when filming and/or shooting photographs of yourself and friends riding seemingly steep and/or otherwise precipitous trails, the resulting media doesn’t seem to do the trail and/or riding skills demonstrated justice? Thankfully this action shot of myself in Fruita, CO during the Fat Tire Fest managed to eschew this typically unavoidable cinema graphic fraudulency, and conveys the sickness with which I hit this jump with not only a high degree of accuracy but with a still photographic astonishment that is in a word, prodigious.

In its purely unaltered form, you may see for yourself the staggering awesomeness that I refer to:

However, despite the grandeur of this photographic achievement, I do feel compelled to highlight several possibly non-obvious elements that can only provide clarify to the possible dissonance established by the brain’s skepticism at comprehending just how ill this jump really is.

Allow me to provide you with further details:

Note the distance between each of my two wheels, and further note the presence of an active rock slide not more than 20 feet behind me.

And as final annotative evidence, I would like to elaborate, if only ever so slightly, on the complete spatio-temporal trajectory undertaken by me as I “droped-in” to this somatically treacherous, naturally-formed half-pipe from hell:

You'll notice the severity of the initial drop-in with respect to the near immediate upwards slope that I have launched off of. Please don't hesitate to comment on the ridiculousness of this maneuver if you would like me to pontificate upon it any further.

And yes it is true, that is a single-speed steel Kelly you see me on. I will expound more on my new two-wheeled Pegasus later, once I’ve had time to collect my thoughts and calm myself.

Fried After Fruita

2007-04-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

I will tell the tale of our trip to Fruita in reverse. After five mountain bike rides in three days, I decided to spend our last day away from the bike and enjoy the incredible terrain on foot. Shannon and I dropped into the Colorado National Monument on the Monument Canyon Trail.

This trek yielded some amazing scenery, as depicted in the photos here. We were rather fried after so many days in the sun and in the saddle, but the mind boggling scenery of this park made us forget about all that. Incredible natural beauty always melts away our myopic, self important views of the world.

Enormous red rock canyon walls surrounded us as we explored the life on the canyon floor (see green lizard) that inexplicably thrived in such an intense environment. It is always impressive to see how tenacious nature is in its ability to survive in crazy conditions. And to think that this poor lizard had neither Clif Bars or a Camelbak, let alone sunscreen.

First Day in Fruita Photocollage

2007-04-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

Beer and fries in Denver

Our connecting flight

Touching down in Fruita

Bike building outside Over the Edge Sports

Ready to hit the dirt tomorrow

Fruita Gallery

2007-04-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

Few areas show off the stunning capabilities of Google Earth as the American Southwest. So I dedicate this blog post to a few images near Fruita. Click one to make it big:

Bound for Fruita

2007-04-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

Tap, tap, tap... is this thing turned on?

We are breaking our silence to announce our planned trip to Fruita, Colorado for the Fruita Fat Tire Festival. The Earthlings will reunite for a 4-5 day extravaganza of desert mountain bike riding. This event is not a race, but an excuse to suck down some fresh air, ride a lot and drink tremendous amounts of high quality beer.

Oh wait... there is a race involved: the Clunker Crit. This race is all about costumes and bikes with major funk. Check out the video.

The Fat Tire Festival has occurred annually for some 12 years and enjoys a widely-held reputation as a great time. Interestingly enough, Fruita is only 100 miles or so from Moab, the site of our last (mis)adventure.

Unofficially Official

2006-10-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

The preliminary results are in and I've got some good news and some bad news.

The good news? My 1 and only official race lap was actually 1:29. Pretty sweet.

The bad news? Dylan's lap wasn't even counted, leaving a 1:36 idle time between John and myself and putting your beloved Earthlings in 3rd to last place in the 5 person coed category. Before the race, the organizers announced that they had technical difficulties with some of the RFIDs and some small number of racers had been deleted from the database. They assured us that the problem would be fixed.

And they've decided to call the race at 8pm, making it 8 hours of Moab. It was probably the fairest call to make, but definitely a tough one. The official communique has more details on the decision;

The race course had some of the scariest conditions ever encountered at this epic event. Racers on-course during the deluge experienced waist-deep flash-floods, chain-binding, brake-pad wearing mud that forced many into walking mode, gaping erosion ditches that seemed to appear out of nowhere and most dangerously of all, bone-chilling cold that brought many to near hypothermia.

...Some teams asked if the canceling of a lap (allowable under the rules in normal racing situations) would be allowed for this course closure situation. The race director allowed lap canceling, as per the rules. Canceling a riders lap would allow a team to forego a very slow, cold, night-lap that would create a late starting split time at re-start and instead give them the opportunity to start early in the re-start and race that lap in much faster conditions in the morning. However, not all teams were aware of this strategic choice and some teams, in fact many of the teams in the lead who had just gone out on their lap were not able to take advantage of this strategy and significant inequities where created.

I've been in touch with the organizers to try to get our results fixed up before they're finalized. Either way we all had a great time riding our bikes, hanging out in the desert, and talking Google. Here's to seeing Dylan's lap counted!

Tomfoolery on the Inflat-a-Slide

2006-10-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

While Granny Gear is working round-the-clock to crunch numbers and determine the race winner, the Google Earthlings have moved on to new and greater challenges. First up was a stop at the giant inflatable slide to further demonstrate the team's acrobatic superiority. Here, Dave C. arcs into a front flip:

Dylan's front handspring was sick:

Even on the slide, the competition was fierce. This guy pulled off a mean gainer while Cohen and Dylan looked on in shock:

Donal's so damn tall, this is actually a difficult move for him. Really, how coordinated would you be if you were 7'12"?

Always the innovator, Dylan introduces the face flop:

And this guy takes it up a notch. Once he upped the ante with this tremendous performance, nobody could touch him. After a brief stretching/calesthenics routine, he exploded off the top...

...flew through the air...

...and fell 30 feet onto his face.

He's ok!!!

Spectacular.

Sufficiently humbled, team Google hit the road.

As Promised...

2006-10-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

As I write this, we're somewhere in Western Nevada a few hundred miles from home. We all had a great time at the race, despite the weather which, incidentally, was absolutely gorgeous on Sunday.

The Google Earth expo tent was a big hit. We handed out hundreds of water bottles, Sketch Up socks, and blinky pins.

Most of all, people loved out Google Earth demo. I pre-rode the course on Friday and uploaded the GPS data so we could display a 3D aerial flyover. For everyone who asked how they could see it at home, here's a link for the course. To view it, you'll need to download and install Google Earth (it's free, of course).

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the Earth tent, we had a lot of fun. See you next year!

Aftermath

2006-10-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

As you may know, the 24 race was postponed for some 12 hours because of insane, dangerous conditions. Organizers decided to hold off on sending out racers at night because of the muddy, rutted and occasionally flood-like conditions. We heard a lot of racers complain about this, but I dunno... something about riding a bike out into a remote area of the desert during a major rainstorm just does not sound like a good idea to this Googler. Call me crazy.

This morning, I awoke ready to ride at 6AMish only to learn that the race had been postponed again. In fact, we didn't get a racer (DaveB) out until 11AM! By then, sunshine had broken through the grey desert canopy. Just thereafter, I had to leave to catch a plane back to NorCal and it was really, really hard to leave Moab just when nice weather returned. Argh!

I guess I wish the race organizers had made their mind up about when they would resume the race much earlier, as that would have saved myself and hundreds of others from getting up @ 6AM for absolutely nothing :-(

Despite all this, I had a killer time through most of this event because of my fellow Googlers and supporters. Everyone was super helpful, kind and fun to hang with.

Best line of the trip: while getting up this morning when it was very cold and very dark outside, I heard one racer shout:

"Hey, does anyone have any sun block?"

Mud-Fest / Mechanical Bonanza / Sean Invents the 4-speed MTB

2006-10-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

Lap 4 - Stads and Sean got talked into riding along with Tasha for the peak of the mud-fest. Tasha hit it hard and after mile 4, we never saw her again. Meanwhile, the rain and the mud were brutal.

Sean and I broke every part of our bikes that could be broken. My saddle is done for, my brake pads are cooked, and I can't shift into my granny. Meanwhile, Sean finished with only four working gears -- but he pretty much matched my time on his fifth mountain bike ride ever, so I'm officially humbled.

Sean soggy after the finish. And to the right: I'm not even sure whose foot this is, but you get the point.

Right after we finished, Birdsong headed out for lap 5 and we got the news that this would be the last start until 7am because of the weather.

The team reacts to the tragic news.

While we slogged through the course, the kiddies rode the 24 Minutes of Moab race - this little monkey put in a strong showing.

One good thing - I got to rock my short new stem. 70mm, 5 degrees... I can't even tell the difference climbing, but it's way easier to get my wheel up on the drops. Fit Kit be damned, I like me the short stem. Check it:

Crepuscular Times

2006-10-14T21:04:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, I am not destined to ride nocturnally this evening; rather, I will be riding crepuscularly, at or around dawn. This is most unfortunate, as despite my butterflies, I was actually rather looking forward to riding through the pitch-black torrential rains, if only to look back on it and raise my fist in triumph (triumphantly in my mind.)

We've done our best to hang as a group tonight, emptying the keg and learning about each others deepest and darkest secrets. We met our neighbors as well. They helped with the keg while we sat around their campfire.

I yearn for warmth and to ride soon.

Paddle, paddle, paddle your bike

2006-10-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Lake Moab. I am warm and content here, rocking gently in our rental RV Ark. Thought the muck, mess, and soiled bike gear is piling up like Katrina refuse. As the team sous chef and general support wench I have spent a wet day running between said craft and the start line with warm food, drinks and snacks; as well as waiting in the mile long bike washing line which started in the upper expo area and ended in lower lake moab. This trip has been by far my most extreme cooking experience ever. It all started with cooking breakfast at 75 on I15. Pancakes and bacon and coffee form Dave's sweet new french press:

My only request was a call out for left hand turns, so as to be prepared to catch the pots and pans sliding off the propane stove, and to brace myself.

The pre-race dinner was pasta with spicy tomato sauce and sausage, which disappeared before the entire team could get back. Every cooks dream - to have hungry masses to feed and for it all to gratefully disappear.

Disaster struck in the morning when I set about washing all the dishes piled in the sink. The leak was discovered by Birdsong when he ventured to the back and stepped in a mud puddle in the bathroom. Up until now the mess had only consisted of desert dirt, and a lot of it. But now there was water too, turning everything to mud, and possibly coming from a questionable source. We tracked the source down to the crappy kitchenette sink. Which explains why the bathroom door doesn't shut anymore as the cheep fiberboard wall has warped. The greater ramifications being that all dishes must be now washed either in the bathroom sink or by carrying water from there in a largish tupperware.
It's been interesting to say the least.

Breakfast consisted of hash browns, which took forever to cook, but as most of the group were scurrying around setting up the little Google earth tent, no one seemed to notice. Though when the taters were finally golden brown there were hungry riders who licked their plates clean, making the wash up not too messy.

Tonight's dinner was a little spread out as team members were coming and going at staggered intervals. So as team members staggered in drenched, muddy and cold they were greeted by the childhood favorite: Mac n' Cheese.
Now, as the race is on hold, we are hanging out here in the filth that has engulfed this poor piece of American craftsmanship.

Thought you'd enjoy a glimpse of the mess and mayhem that is...

We'll show you the progress we make once task force Google earth descends with their scrub brushes and aprons on the drive home. Till then may the cleaning fairies and speed demons be with us.

From 24 to 12

2006-10-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

We're awaiting the arrival of Dave from the last lap of 24 Hours of Moab tonight. They've shut down the course for the night because rivers have sprung up over sections and thunderstorms are threatening for the rest of the evening. 24 Hours of Moab continues tomorrow at 7am. Until then, we're hanging out, keeping warm, and trying to polish off this keg.

Clearly You're Not a Golfer

2006-10-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

This weather sucks. I'll say it again as if to imply its suckiness...this is quite miserable. While it comforably drizzled during my first lap, as I anticipate a midnight departure for my second lap it is torrentially downpouring; and not a warm rain, but a really rather cold, bitter kind of rain. The kind sadness and melancholy prevail on.

I am dreading this lap. Dreading it like the day I left the womb (that was the worst.)

Race Day Blues

2006-10-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I was brimming with excitement and anticipation. So far on race day, I've gone through a roller coaster of emotions. I awoke to rain. When I stepped out of the RV, it must not have been falling long, because the ground was still somewhat sandy. My first reaction was, 'this sucks, but we'll manage.' With the race start just half hour away, the drizzle shifted into a mild downpour. Our sand turned to soup. Despite the total crap weather, I got a charge out of the race start. This is it, we're off to the races!!..literally.

With the race underway, I snapped out of my funk and manned the expo tent for awhile. People were really stoked to see the course in a 3D demo on Google Earth and even more excited to learn that they could create their own course flyby. Our tent was small and lacked the shelter that all the other tents had, but this did not stop many from crowding around a laptop in the rain. A race organizer from Park City hung at the tent for almost an hour describing his race in June with hopes of gaining Google Earth as a sponsor. His race sounds pretty cool, I hope to go next year.

After about an hour, Dylan started preparing for his ride. I hung out with him in the race tent and tried to get him to confess any pre-race jitters. He was cool as a cucumber and before long, John rolled in with the baton.

And then he was off.

For the last few hours, I've been pretty shiftless. I have no idea what to do with myself. I'd like to be hangin out with other teams around campfires talkin about the race and bikes, but the weather is relentless. The rain clears from time to time, but the clouds never part. Any hope of sunshine is quickly dashed by another downpour. Despair. My first lap is coming up and as the rain falls harder, the ground turns more mushy than ever and the sun gets lower.

With all the money spent and weeks of planning all the tiny details(like trapsing all over the Bay Area scoping out rental RV's), I feel somewhat ripped off by mother nature. Rain in the desert!!

The First Few Hours at Moab

2006-10-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Early Friday morning, we pull over to a lookout in western Utah. It seems like we should be able to see Moab from here. 13 hours down... a few more to go.

First stop in Moab; the legendary Poison Spider cycles. We stock up on all the little things we forgot in the packing chaos the evening before.

We pull off rt 191 and travel a few miles down a rough dirt road. As we crest a peak we can see the festival spread out below us, with tents, campers, and cars all collected in a flat spot like a puddle of water. We park the rv and get the bikes ready for our practice loop. By the time we hit the trail it's already 5:30. About halfway through the preride we see the sun dipping below the horizon.

Everyone rises early on Saturday to help set up the Google Earth tent. I import my GPS data from the night before into Earth. It's an instant hit with the crowds as people come by to watch the course play through in 3D.

John takes the first loop and Dylan takes the second. Before the race even begins the skies open up and rain starts coming down. The festival grounds turn into a a mud fest that would make Woodstock jealous. I take the third loop and the rain lets up a bit. I decide to ride the single speed, based on the conditions being so hostile toward derailleurs, and the fact that the guys in the single speed category are turning out lap times of 1:10. I make it back in 1:36. Not too bad for a computer geek.

I'm sitting inside our nice and warm, but incredibly dirty rv. Wet clothes are sprawled over the furniture in the meager hope that they'll dry before our next lap. Tasha's out now riding and Dave waits in the race tent as the rain comes down and the sun sets on the desert landscape.

Until next time...

Hesitantly Jovial

2006-10-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to torrential downpours. Actually not; but it was raining somewhat strenuously. What a downer that was. I had no desire to leave the comfortable confines of my sleeping bag. And yet I did, and as it turned out, it wasn't that miserable out. But it did get pretty miserable while I was on my first lap. Just a cold, bitter rain coming down, as I shivered my way through 15 miles. But in the end, my time wasn't all that bad. I pulled a 1:37 and that was with a drivetrain that I'm positive was out to spite me. And I was spited; slightly. But nevertheless, it was pretty damn fun.

Here's me right prior to my first lap, evangelizing Google Earth to the passers-by from our Expo-tent-like pulpit. You'll see my retinue standing back behind the Google Earth Expo tent, watching closely as I espouse the Earth message. This inter-personal dynamic between the members and extended members of our team, clearly demonstrated by the way they stare intently at me, is leading me to believe that we've begun to form an almost simian-like caste-system between us.

I may not be team captain, but I am clearly Alpha.

Lap One is over!

2006-10-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

John got a time of 1:40, Dylan is out, the rain is working us!

The Night Before

2006-10-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

In the last hour, 'Behind the Rock' campgrounds outside of Moab, Utah have quieted. Bonfires smolder, RV generators killed, gone is the occasional figure walking behind the glow of a headlamp. Everybody is bedding down for 24 Hours of Moab which begins in twelve hours. Except Tasha, Dylan, and Andrew who, from what it sounds like from the other side of the RV, are having a slumber party complete with chocolate brownies and scary stories.

Just 2 hours prior, the Google Earthling's campsite was alive and bustling. Bloody knees were mended while gratuitous bike porn glowed in the background from our luxurious RV's television. Lagunitas flowed freely which brought about much rejoicing of our first ride together as a complete group or...team. We had set out to complete a loop on the course to explore the terrain that we'll be so intimate with for the next 24 hours. Sunset was quickly approaching. Our departure was long and drawn out with nine riders, their complicated drivetrains and fancy forks needing attention. A few thought to bring a light while others held out that we would tear through and complete before sundown. Like goldilocks and her middle ground approach, I opted for a small camping headlamp not meant for biking to avoid yet another device requiring another half hour of tinkering.

Before arriving, I had examined the course on Google Earth to get an idea of the terrain features and most importantly elevation profile; to be quite honest, I was not expecting much in the way of technical challenge. As if this foreign soil had sensed my arrogance, in the second mile, the climb turned into an uphill gruntfest over rocks. I had to pop many a wheelie over ledges and the occastional baby heads to keep from toppling over. 'Behind the Rocks' trail continued like this for a few miles with
rolling yet jarring obstacles.

There were more than a few sections marked with XXX where I had to call upon my freerider within me. Where others dismounted to hike-a-bike our crew blazed down the craggy ledges and drops. Perhaps this is where our team will shine and stand a chance against the pro XC racer endurance androids. I'll be forever in John's debt for snapping this pic of me navigating the lower half of 'Nose Dive', a notorious section that ate this guy for breakfast(I hiked down the first half.)

On the way out of another XXX section was a tough set of uphill ridges. John and I jumped off and watched a skinny guy on a fully rigid single-speed 29er effortlessly fly down and up what we had just cleaned with all we had.

Not to be outdone, Dave appeared moments later on his own single speed to show us some of his grit.

Tasha was right behind Dave. Armed with her new Yeti, she forces her way up the ledge.

After snapping this sunset pic, John and I both agreed the sun was about to leave us. My GPS had measued our distance so to be around 7 miles which meant we were only half way through a lap. Without my glasses or a proper headlamp, the ride back would become more of an adventure than I'd bargained for.

Deciding not to wait for the others to show up, John and I set out at a brisk pace. The route merged with a jeep trail and flattened out and John broke away for about ten minutes -he must have been really mashing in the big ring! As we approached another XXX section, I tried to size up considerable ledge drop with a rough landing. The point of this trip was to get a feel for the course, but I also wanted to avoid injury. My inability to turn anything down pushed me to drop my seat and go for it. I came away unscathed, but I'll have to decide during the race if I take it or dismount.

Only a few minutes after the ledge, the sun was completely gone. John was pretty adventursome riding at a moderate speed in no light conditions, but without my glasses, I couldn't see much of anything. I broke out my little Petzel headlamp which was very mediocre and for a few miles we crowded around its glow trying to feel our way back. John continued to be daring and strayed from the small spot of light that I could barely provide. After a few close calls on my part of skidding through unseen ruts and ditches, the glow of camp lit up the far off valley. With our destination in sight, we both picked up the pace and reached camp. My GPS tells me we completed 13 miles in 2 hours 5 minutes. That time included a few stops for pictures and regrouping; my race time should be consdierably faster than that.

It's now around 1:30am Saturday morning and I'm sitting next to a wide open window in our RV listening to the now quiet desert. Nobody stirs, but I can feel the excitement that tomorrow will bring. We will ride tomorrow and we will not stop for a full day!

White Lightning

2006-10-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

So mid-ride tonight, around 6:30pm or so, darkness prevailed. At least in the sense that I was pre-riding the trail without any lighting and suddenly I couldn't see a thing. And so much like the scene in the epic Jean-Claude Van Damme (JCVD) movie, Bloodsport, where he is suddenly blinded during his final Kumete by his opponents nefarious chalk powder maneuver, I was placed in an almost identical situation where I was forced to focus inwards and amplify my non-visual senses in order to finish the ride and make it back to the RV in time for beer. And make it back I did, indeed. When you're riding fast desert trail blind, you tend to think that while although you might at any second severely endo upon hitting a rock whilst front-weighted; you also gain a sense of confidence such that because you are unable to see the undulations of the trail before you, you tell yourself to proverbially "fuck it" and hope to hell you're picking the right line.

And speaking of the RV and beer, what a brilliant move it was to eschew individuality in favor of our driving in the aggregate. I almost feel like I might spend some time trying to articulate the range of emotions I went through during my time in the RV (mostly ranging from sober to not), and compose them into their own blog entry (surely of the highest journalistic caliber), rather than just nonchalantly mention our road-rules-esque journey as if almost an afterthought. And most likely I'll do this, in a sort of "On the Road" esque literary memoir. Yes, yes indeed. I will do this shortly, in a day or tow, once I am less inclined to drink beers and watch movies with my team-mates.

Godspeed to us.

Blogging from the road

2006-10-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

3.49PM: One for the road: David picks up a keg of Lagunitas from Google.

6:35PM: Dave, Andrew and Erinne on the sofa, David driving, Dylan up top, and Sean.

6:14PM: Sunset colours, somewhere south of the Sierra Nevada Mountains

6:04AM -- Sean's at the wheel, the rest of the earthlings are asleep in the back, napping between shifts. ait, make that 7:04am, we're on Mountain Time now. Sean's at the wheel, Donal's playing co-pilot, the rest of the earthlings are asleep in the back, napping between shifts. We've been skipping across state lines. Right now we're in Arizona, but we're not going to stop in this state -- Utah beckons!

4:23AM: Sean couldn't stop in Vegas without just a little bit of gambling action.

11:37AM: First stop in Utah.

12:26PM: Erinne's at the stove. She's making pancakes and bacon. This requires exquisite coordination, because we're driving down a twisty 6% gradient road at 80 mph. She's looking up from the frying pan to look through the front window because Dave's shouted that there's a left turn coming up...

En Route to a Slog Fest?

2006-10-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

I write this as Tasha and I hurtle west on I70 from Boulder toward Moab. The Subaru Outback is packed with Google swag and bike gear. We are using this race as an excuse to eat as much a possible, including my personal favorite: beef jerky. Hey, an athlete has to prepare, right?

We decided to stop at the Pearl Izumi store in Silverthorn to pick up some extra layers, as the race forecast is for wet, cold weather :-( I am hoping that this does not turn into a cold miserable experience, but who knows.

Right now we are at Parachute, CO (yes there *is* a town named Parachute in CO). We hope to pre-ride the race course as soon as we arrive in Moab.

Blur: A Love Story

2006-10-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

It is important to me that you, our loyal readership, are absolutely clear that in Dave's post below where he references an image of two mud-caked bikes stacked side-by-side, that the one on the left is his, and the one on the right is mine.

I have a Nabokov-like obsession with my bike, and do not want anyone thinking I ride anything other than my dearest citrus-green Lolita.

Give me a Kerouac-esque Keg of Beer (with Big Red Eyes!)

2006-10-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

You know that scene in Teen Wolf, where he's on the roof of the van and is acting all cool to the music - surfing and whatnot? Well, my plan today when we pull out of the G'Plex, is to act all cool to the music.

And by act all cool, I mean this:

Bling Bling in Moab...

2006-10-11T23:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight I went on my first night ride and lucky for me, the Google "blinky pin" saved my life! No really, we used them as back lights on our camel paks and they looked pretty cool. These LED pins attach to clothing, hats, ear lobes or your paks with a nifty magnet. Stop by our Expo Text in Moab this weekend to pick one up. Let Google light up the desert...

Tomorrow night I shop and pack and Friday early am, John G and I make the trek. Next time I post will hopefully be after my 1st loop! Eeeeecks...

Preparations

2006-10-11T19:48:00.000-07:00

I will start packing tonight, around midnight, right after I get back from the bar. One can only imagine what things I will forget.

I am excited.

[Editor's Note]
It's midnight; I've finished packing and can confidently say that I've forgotten nothing. Can one proclaim such bold statements without having actually left yet, and therefore have possibly not realized their logistical errors? I'm not sure. But I do know that were I to follow Tasha's list of items to bring, our team would be well equipped with coffee and medical supplies; but I would be lacking in two-wheeled devices required for cycling.

I am excited.

National Geographic and Google Earth

2006-10-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

The Layers feature of Google Earth provides you access to all sorts of interesting information about places around the globe. One particularly neat collection of layers is called Featured Content. Currently, this layer shows you information about National Parks trails, video city guides, Jane Goodall's Gombe Chimpanzee blog and more.

My personal favorite Featured Content layer is National Geographic Magazine. This shows you places that pertain to specific National Geographic stories. For example, there is a National Geographic feature on Moab that displays a very neat photograph of a local mountain bike mural outside of Poison Spider Bicycles shop.

To view the National Geographic layer and other Featured Content layers, in the Layers panel, check Featured Content. Look for National Geographic yellow rectangle icons around the world.

Learn more about using Layers.

Into the Darkness

2006-10-11T02:12:00.000-07:00

I don't often get butterflies in my stomach before a ride unless I'm racing or downhilling, but I got them tonight driving deep into the woods for our night ride. Even though the moon is almost full, it's pitch black deep in the forest. Strange shapes flicker and leap across the road as we drive deeper and deeper into the woods. The trees press in around us as I turn onto the fireroad and kill the engine.

Sparky darts in and out of our lights, leaping and crunching through the dry leaves as he revels in his superior night vision. It's cold enough to see your breath, and Dave and I concentrate on gearing up. A quick light check and we're ready to go.

Night riding is an interesting beast; the darkness swallows your landmarks and the lights flatten the terrain. There's little to no contrast and the 3rd dimension is inferred through color alone. Trails your know like the back of your hand become strange and unfamiliar creatures under the glow of your headlamp.

We hit the first climb with enthusiasm and make the top faster than usual. The singletrack descent is a bit slower going. We're more careful on jumps and cautious on blind switchbacks and gnarly rock gardens. No contrast means picking your line more carefully while, at the same time, keeping loose and letting your bike feel the way. The flipside of not seeing things is not worrying about them.

We bleed our altitude like a bad brake job, twisting and turning, pressing farther into the darkness.

Afterwards, Dave and I have a little chat about our first and only night training ride, as well as our predictions for team Google Earthlings:

Lights, Lube and Libations

2006-10-10T21:43:00.000-07:00

With 4 days left till the race, we've got some serious packin' to do! A friend of mine who did this race last year sent me her packing list and I've added some things after visiting Skull Sessions on the Granny Gear website.

Here's our suggested packing list...and of course staying within the Google theme, I created and edited my doc with Google Docs. Off to organize my stuff..super excited about this race! (below is a pic from my trip in 2002)

Nutrition

2006-10-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

Our team nutritionist has provided the following advice:

get pre-hydrated and stay hydrated - it'll help you stay focused when you're trying to figure out what you're doing on a single-track at 3am. Eat small, but frequent carb meals

Sound advice indeed.

Exploring Moab

2006-10-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

Moab, Utah is in the high desert of southern Utah. The area around the town has become a hugely popular playground for outdoor enthusiasts. With two nearby national parks (Canyonlands and Arches), the Colorado River, gorgeous rock formations and world class trails, Moab is a magnet for adventure seekers.

Specifically, Moab is great place to ride a mountain bike. Trails there are challenging, but offer incredible traction on the smooth ancient red rock that dominates the landscape. If you have never been to southern Utah, Google Earth can give you an idea of the unusual colors of the terrain there. To this end, open these placemarks to check out the following locations (Google Earth required):

Slickrock Mountain Bike Trail
Arches National Park
Canyonlands National Park

You can check out other cool Moab locations by checking "Featured Content" in the Places panel. This allows you to view features in nearby Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.

Counting Down

2006-10-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

I use Gmail chat at work. Actually, I helped write it. Tasha's on my contacts list and I've been watching her count down the days to the race in her status message. 6 days left. 5 days left. Today we're down to 4 and it's finally starting to sink in.

There's still so much left to do. Dave and I are doing a night ride tonight to help prepare for Saturday. We each need to pack up all our individual stuff as well as coordinate who's bringing tools, bike stands, spare parts, medical supplies, food, and all those other little necessities. (Tasha will be posting a nice thorough list later tonight for anyone else heading to the race). We need to pick up our RV. We need to cram 7 people, all their stuff, and 8 bikes into it. Oh, and we need to drive there.

The drive isn't trivial. As a matter of fact, it's a bit ridiculous. Take a look at that map. We have to go all the way south through Las Vegas and back up into Utah to get there. Thanks a lot, Sierra Nevadas. I'd be a lot more upset if your beer wasn't so tasty. Google Maps estimates the drive to be about 1000 miles and almost 18 hours. Hopefully driving through the night we can cut it down to about 15 and make it to Moab early enough on Friday to preride the course.

See you soon, 24 Hours of Moab. We hit the road in less than 48.

Sussudio

2006-10-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

As if to document the evolution of my cycling career, I now present to you the University cycling team webpage I created for the squad I co-founded.

http://www.student.richmond.edu/~cycling/

Do you fear that my skills with web-page design and graphics manipulation just might be indicative of my skills as a 24-hour mountain bike racer? Does this worry you?

How about now?

Do you not see the determination in my face as I attack the trails of Virginia?

Witness my growth:

Our little Dylan's all grown up!

The Fear

2006-10-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Are you kidding me? Does this not sincerely strike fear in the hearts of all teams that will compete against us? Do you not see the style and gracy that I bespeak of?

Questionably Laudable, Possibly Derisible

2006-10-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

I started a novel the other day, and in the first paragraph, came upon a line that fundamentally resonated with me and within me. “I fear absurdity” was the line, Rushdie’s Midnight's Children being the novel. Now, what struck me to the core was not my own similar fear of the absurd; no, and nor was it my apathy to absurdity, indifference if you will. Rather, I stand directly opposite this statement, across the river, a wall between us, diametrically opposed in the concrete and abstract. Now to be fair, I certainly don’t loath normalcy either; nor do I abhor the sanity of mundanity. No, that would be absurd in and of itself. But as it turns out, I do vehemently dislike the unwillingness to relent to the inane from time to time. And so last Sunday, almost exactly 7 days from here and now, we the people yet again sojourned to the Soquel Demonstration Forrest, where I starred down absurdity under that most Tuscan of suns, and declared it unfashionable in the most figurative of senses. Indeed, I fondly recall previously responding to enquiries of my motivations to ride questionable sections of Soquel trail, with resounding negatives, stating that “no I wouldn’t be riding them” and that it would be “absurd to think otherwise.” And yet there I found myself, riding a panoply of previously unrideable portions of trail, and doing so with a style and grace reminiscent of red-dressed, pack-a-day lounge singers sprawled across black pianos with champagne glasses in hand.

And so while riding these superlative sections of trail that I would have otherwise declared absurd only seven days earlier, my subconscious must have set a flag (subconciously) such that later that evening as I began said novel, I realized that I fear absurdity no longer.

And so as it turned out, I shamefully avoided riding this past weekend (aforementioned Soquel sojourn being 2 weekends ago.) Rather, I went hiking near Tahoe with friends; and I will admit that I possibly bordered on the intolerable after my seventh or fifteenth declaration that the trail we were hiking on would be, “really rather incredible to bike; much better in fact.” But self-loath and unconditional regret over missing my teammates “two loops” notwithstanding, I quite enjoyed my hike and time spent with friends in the Sierras.

Enjoyed the time, yes, but never again. I’m full of regret over missed opportunities, missed connections; and am left with a sadness, a despondent melancholia, that prevails deep within me, greener grass be damned.

And so how did I address this melancholic condition I found myself in Sunday evening after arriving home and reading my teammates blog post about their 28-mile epic ride? I made several well-informed purchases, I did. Yes indeed, I acquired new mtb shoes, riding shorts, and most excitedly, some new pedals.

In that order:

Babies don’t sleep this well.

A Tale of Two Loops

2006-10-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

It was the best of rides, it was the worst of rides, it was a ride of tradition, it was a ride of aberration... I'll spare you the rest of the Dickensian hyperbole, but let's just say today's ride was little short of epic.

This morning Dave, Sparky, and I did two loops at Soquel Demo Forest. And, while other rides have been longer, this is the first time I've ever seen Sparky tired.

The road to Soquel is almost epic in and of itself, precipitously carved into the edge of the Santa Cruz mountains. Every winter, the seasonal rains trigger enormous mudslides which, if we're lucky, cover the asphalt with tons of mud, debris, and uprooted vegetation. If we're not lucky, the slide carries the road along with it.

As the road winds farther from route 17, it narrows to little more than a car width and the scars of the slide seasons become more and more apparent. A section of road gone here, half the road covered my a mountain of rocks here... Once you get to the road closed sign, you're almost there. Drive on the left hand side and don't look down.

We ride Soquel on average once a week. It begins with a 5 mile, 1000' climb, a nice warm up to get the legs limber and the blood flowing. From the top, your elevation burns away like magnesium as you twist, turn, and drop through the new growth redwood forest. Rocks, roots, obstacles, and plenty of big air options await between you and the valley floor 2000' below. There are only a few trails but they all have the identical outcome: an eye-blink adrenaline rush to the bottom followed by a tedious 1000' fireroad climb back to the car.

I said there are a few trails but there are only 2 really viable options to the bottom; Braille and Sawpit. Sawpit is longer, swoopy, jumpy, and drops you about about 400' feet below Braille. Braille is the stuff of mountain bike videos -- nonstop technical brake-pumping downhill. There's another trail nestled between them, Tractor, which is smooth and windy and makes a great climb option to link the two. Today's ride was like other rides in that we would do them both, but that's where the similarities ended. Instead of taking Tractor, we were going to do the full loop with the 2000', 10 mile climb between them. Today, Dave had retired his Stumpjumper in favor of his new, shiny, delicious Intense 5.5. Today, Sparky would be tired.

We hit the initial climb with the enthusiasm of a teen-age tarantula wrangler. Even with an extended stop so Dave could work the kinks out of his derailleur, we were at the top in no time. Diving into the woods we cruise down Ridge and through Sawpit. We usually stop and session jumps on Sawpit, but today we hit them and moved on, we were on a mission. I took a pretty spectacular endo at a particularly gnarly section of trail, slamming my forearm on some rocks and landing on the hip I hit on railroad tracks the day before (don't ask...). Before we know it, our elevation's spent and we're cruising back up the fireroad to the car. Any other day we'd have been pretty tired at this point but today we're feeling great. A quick stop at the car to refill camelbacks and munch on some Kettle chips, and we're back in the saddle.

We're back at 2600' before we know it, looking down over the Santa Cruz bay. Even though Dave brings along gourmet cappuccino chocolate, this isn't a romantic picnic. We drop back down into the forest. It's been a while since I've ridden Braille and it's more gnarly than I remembered; super tight turns around huge redwoods, nice built up jumps to tranny, and steep rocky downhills. I'm watching the scenery fly by, dropping logs and manualling the roots, thinking the whole time how sweet this would be if I only had a helmet cam. It's a steep, relatively smooth section so I let go of the brakes and allow gravity to have it's way with me. My GPS data says I reached a max speed of 27mph and I probably hit that on Braille. That descent drops into a turn, and I'm sure I was going at least 20 when my front wheel hit the loose edge of the trail and the bike washed out from under me. I think my rib is a bit bruised and my forearm has seen better days, but if I had landed on rocks or roots it could have been a lot worse. Usually Dave is the one falling, today it's me.

Back on the bike the air stings like bees as it flows over my cuts and I'm a bit tentative, but I see Dave ahead of me and am quick to catch up.

The climb out that went by so quickly on the first lap is now the climb I'm used to; never ending fireroad taunting my cramping quads. Landmarks pass slowly but, at last, 27 miles later, we're back at the car polishing off some sandwiches and the rest of our chips. Most days you'd never even think about eating with hands as dirty as ours, but after a long ride we're licking salt off them without a second thought. Who would have imagined roasted red pepper and goat cheese could be so good?

The Search for Motivation

2006-10-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

I'm sick. Not like bad-Chinese-food-sick or flesh-eating-bacteria-sick, but the lingering sick-that-sits-in-the-back-of-your-throat-for-three-weeks-sick. It seems like it's the only kind of sick I get these days. The itchy throat in the morning, gone with the first cup of coffee, back at night kind of thing. Not that I'm complaining, it could be worse.

It's not going to stop me from racing and it's not going to stop me from drinking this hefeweizen in my hand. However, I did miss three days straight of pre-work rides this week. It was more lack of motivation than anything else. Where's the motivation in the morning when it's cold and dark outside, when the alarm goes off at some ungodly hour for a solo ride and you're sick. You think to yourself, "I can get up, probably have a good ride, and then head to work... or I can sleep in another three hours and see if I can shake this cold." At least I do. And guess which choice usually wins.

I'm riding tomorrow morning, and earlier than my other planned rides this week. I'm going to make it though. I'm meeting riding buddies. My legs are itching to spin. My brain wants to lose itself in some singletrack. I've found my motivation.

What keeps you moving forward toward the end of a long ride, when your quads are cramping and it's that last, long climb back out? Is it yourself? Your friends? That kick-ass sandwich and six pack waiting for you at the car?

What's the motivation for the solo 24 hour racer? You're 12 hours in on your second night lap. It's cold. You're sweaty, wet, hungry, and tired. There's 12 more hours left. What keeps those legs spinning? The thought of food? Sleep? Just finishing?

What's your motivation?

Adding Content in Google Earth

2006-10-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

People tend to look at Google Earth as just a neat way to look at satellite images of your house, school or the Golden Gate Bridge. Which it is. But folks don't realize that it a tool for creating and sharing geospatial content as well.

Perhaps the best example of this is the GPS upload feature (available in Google Earth Plus and Pro). This allows you to upload your tracks from your GPS device to Google Earth. You can then view a visual depiction of your mountain bike ride, favorite trail or hiking trip and share it with other Google Earth users. In fact, you can even show this information in Google Maps (example).

How do I know this stuff? I write user documentation for Google Earth, including this user guide. I consider the mission of my job to educate users all about the amazing stuff you can do in this software. Create and view 3D models, measure distances, view weather maps, add placemarks of cool locations, visit Burning Man, etc. And look at satellite images of your house.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot... you can view the 24 Hours of Moab course here :-) We will have more 24 race content here soon.

Sunrise at Walker Ranch

2006-10-01T11:23:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Rocky Mountains! Tasha here from Boulder, Colorado. I'm late for posting on our team's blog but I do have a valid excuse...like riding every chance I get (breakin in the new bike) and spending the daylight hours outside before the snow starts to fall. This weekend was our peak for fall colors and the gold, orange and red colors were absolutely gorgeous! The temps are in the low 80's...yesterday on a road ride up Lefthand Canyon, my friend and I couldn't stop smiling as we passed all the golden aspens. Okay, so enough about the weather and now about the biking...

At 6:00am Friday, my roommate and I geared up for a ride at Walker Ranch. Loading up the bikes in the car and piling our gear into the car took longer than we thought so no stop for coffee (bad idea). My new car has heated seats and they came in handy as the temp was in the low 50's. Walker Ranch is about a 30 min drive up Flagstaff and west into the Indian Peaks. Some crazy Boulderites do "Super Walker" which is a grueling climb up Flagstaff Rd, over the top and down to the trailhead...on a road bike it's not so bad but on a mountain bike, it makes for a long day. Since it was a work day, we opted for the drive to the trailhead. I created a placemark in Google Earth and used the Image Overlay feature, click here for a kmz file of Walker Ranch. The main trailhead is closed for construction so we started at a different point in the loop called "Ethel Harrold Lot." I use TrailCentral.com for local trail descriptions and maps. Here's a cool page with maps, kml file, and GPS mapping. The ride was longer than I anticipated but that's because we stopped at the technical parts and pushed each other to clear some tricky sections, took in the views of the snow-capped peaks, and snapped lots of photos. Back at the trailhead, we agreed to make this morning ride a weekly thing but allow an extra 10 min to grab coffee on the way.

Ooooh, I forgot to mention that this was my 4th time riding on my new bike: Yeti 575 (made down the road in Golden)! I was riding my trusty Trek 8000 (first mtn bike) and now that I'm on a full-suspension...I find myself saying things like "Weeeee" and "Wahoooo" - and the best part is now I LOVE downhill whereas before I was shy and easily sketched out on my hardtail. I found it at a great local shop, Sports Garage, and it was a demo bike for the summer, so got a screamin' deal. Now, the hard part is selling my trek. Lots of memories and miles on that bike...hopefully Craig's List will find me an owner who will love it like I did. Sniff. Sniff.

My other excuse for not posting on this blog, is I've been working on our team jerseys. Well okay, it hasn't taken up too much time but since I was asked to help out with the marketing and team sponsorship, I can see how it could be a full-time job! I'm on the marketing team here in the Boulder Google office and work on the SketchUp and Google Earth products. Our jerseys are being printed by Borah/Custom Sublimation in Wisconsin. Our design had to be changed due to art specs and seam printing issues, but Greg, our patient designer, worked with those guys to make it happen. I can't wait to see them and wear them with Google pride! I'll soon post about the cool stuff we'll be showing in our tent and schwag we'll be giving out. Well, I'm off to the Sourdough Trail for a Sunday afternoon ride....

Riding the Gap

2006-09-29T17:27:00.000-07:00

The Saratoga Gap trails sits high up in the mountains around Saratoga, CA. It's not too far from the highway, but to get to the trail head you drive through the quaint town and begin the long, windy drive up into the mountains. After 6 miles of slow, serpentine, California road you crest the peak and the trailhead is there on your right.

I woke up to my cell phone alarm this morning at 6:30; my regular bedside alarm is set for 9:30. Why change a good thing? I tried to snooze but Sparky was already up. He knows an early morning alarm means a bike ride and he was ready to go. He bounded up to my bed with his exuberant full-body wag and started licking my face as insurance that I wouldn't be falling back asleep.

Outside it was dark and cold. I threw on a hoodie, grabbed a Naked Juice and Odwalla Bar, and hit the road. I meant to leave at 7:00 and was running a bit late but luckily the early-morning the traffic was a sleepy as I was.

In an earlier post I talked about how Bay Area trails are "one big up and one big down" -- well Saratoga Gap is an exception to that. It also has some of the best views in the area and as I looked up at the hazy skies on my drive in, I worried that the scenery would be sub par today.

I made it to the trailhead just a few minutes late to find John there and ready to go, sessioning obstacles in the lot. A few minutes later my buddy Chris arrived. The last time he rode this trail, his rear wheel ate his derailleur on the first climb, snapping spokes like toothpicks and taking him off his bike for a couple weeks while it was fixed up. Would Lady Luck be on his side today? Erinne and I finish suiting up, I turn on my brand new GPS device, which finds almost a dozen satellites in a few seconds, and we're ready to go.

I'm riding my single speed, so Sparky and I take the lead. There's a short steep climb at the beginning of the trail that dumps you into sweet, flowy singletrack that runs through switchbacks, over rocks and roots, and into nice banked turns. It's one of my favorite sections of the ride. I let the bike take off under my weight and float through the first couple miles hammering the short climbs and flying through the descents.

There's an official speed limit on the trail of 15 mph and when I stop at an intersection to regroup, my GPS says I've reached a top speed of 26mph. It's tight, twisty singletrack that's popular with hikers too, so I keep a vigilant eye and ring my bell at blind corners. Most days I use the bell to antagonize friends on climbs, but it occasionally has a practical use as well. As it turns out, this morning we'll have the trail all to ourselves.

John and Erinne catch up with some bad news; Chris got a flat in the first mile and, without a spare tube, he decided to hike out. For him, Saratoga Gap will have to wait.

We ride on and, as we crest the highpoint of the ride, all my fears about the view are assuaged. Below us usually stretches rolling, grassy hills which meld into forested mountains and finally drop into the Pacific Ocean. Today there was no ocean but the sea of clouds blanketing the valley floor and coastline.

After the vista point, we pick up a little fireroad and link up some more single track. We dive back into the forest, and descend a couple hundred feet to our lowest point in the ride. Up on the fireroad it was sunny, dusty, and warm. Down here the thick smell of the forest floor fills your nostrils and the cold wet air envelops your body like a glove, a nice refreshing breath of literal cold air before the long switchback climb back out.

We hit the fireroad again and begin to retrace our ride, back to the vista point, and then descend the other side. What's my favorite section on the way in is always a challenge on the way out, a long drawn-out climb sprinkled with roots and rocks to finish. There's a couple making out at the trailhead, "on your right."

Back in the parking lot Sparky prostrates himself on the cool pavement and we look over the initial GPS data. The moving time is pretty good, although the 10 mile ride can usually be done in about an hour or less solo. Plus we spent about half an hour stopped for photos, but data looks nice and matching the pics (most taken at the bench waypoint) with Earth's rendering (KML) gives a fresh perspective on the trail.

GPS Enabled

2006-09-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

I finally took the plunge and picked up a GPS device. I've wanted one for a while, always just a bit envious of Dave's sweet GPS tracks of every ride we do. The real kicker was a couple weekends ago; After a weekend backpacking trip in Big Sur one of the people in our group uploaded her GPS data to Google Earth and sent the KML file around to everyone.

I don't want to sound like I'm plugging Earth just because they're our sponsor for the race... I work on Gmail and I have actually had very little change to play around with Earth. But I was absolutely amazed when I loaded up our hike data. Whenever you're biking, hiking, boarding, or whatever, you're pretty much living in 2D. Sure there's rocks, descents, climbs, and the occasional huck but you don't really have a perspective your overall progress. The GPS device helps a bit -- it can show you your altitude profile, your moving average, and your tracks... but go home and load it up into Earth and you have a birds eye view of everything. I could barely contain my excitement as I rotated, zoomed, and panned our tracks, watching them snake along the edge of mountains, drop into valleys, and finally come to rest at our campsite 10 miles into Big Sur National Park.

I was hooked. If a 10 mile hiking trail was this cool, our epic rides must be killer. I immediately started bugging Dave to upload his GPS tracks into Earth so I could see what the trails we ride look like at a scale larger than that of the next switchback. But, what it came down to, is that I needed my own GPS.

So, like the computer geek I am, I started doing online research. Dave has the Garmin Edge 305 which is made for biking. It's pretty sweet, tracks all the pertinent data like altitude, displace, average moving speed, etc., and even lets you race against yourself. The drawbacks are that there's no overall map and he occasionally loses signal deep into our ride as we sweep under thick forest canopies and down into valleys. After reading dozens of reviews, rants, and suggestions, besides the Edge, a lot of people recommended the Garmin eTrex Vista Cx which has the small size plus mapping capability but lacks the Edge's advanced SiRF chipset. I finally decided on the Garmin GPSMAP 60Csx. It has a nice big screen, mapping, the advanced SiRF chipset, and has gotten some great reviews by cyclists. The drawback over the edge is that it's a bit bulkier and with it's external antenna, you probably wouldn't want to mount it on your bars.

Garmin is offering a $50 rebate on most of their GPS devices, so now's a great time to get one. Plus, with a $20 upgrade to Google Earth Pro, you can import your data directly from any Garmin or Magellan GPS device. We'll have laptops running Earth at our booth, so swing by with your GPS device and we'll help you load up all your data so you can experience it for yourself.

I only wish I had a GPS years ago... there are so many places I've ridden that I may never see again.

Greek Stones

2006-09-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

"Sisyphus"? My team colleague waxes on as Camus, while back here on planet earth, a bunch of us did a fun ride at Skeggs this morning. Just kidding Dylan... don't be sore at me; I am full of love for you... although it is a deeply flawed Sophoclean love full of great pathos. I was writing you a Hemingway-esque poem in my mind mid-ride, but it was lost when my front wheel washed out as I descended Leaf Trail.

This morning, we learned about the re-route of Giant Salamander at Skeggs. Previously, this trail was a fireroad grunt up seven steep sections that depleted you before you tackled the climb up Manzanita Trail. The fine crew at Mid-Pen have embarked on an admirable project to replace this unpleasant climb with some quality singletrack. Great stuff.

Dylan is especially quick on the climbs, while Birdsong and I suffered enough to know that Moab will bring much more suffering, like we will be pushing great stones uphill. Isn't there a Greek story about that?

Irrationally Exuberant

2006-09-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

I’d like to think that Hemingway - were he alive and younger, perhaps less inclined to drink and womanize, and more focused on outdoor adventure sports - would have dearly approved of Sunday’s quasi-team ride at the Soquel Demo Forrest. Yes, indeed he would have approved of it (cigarette in mouth, drink in hand), and subsequently would have written about it tersely, as he did. But lest I confuse you, I’d like to clear up a misconception that I have perhaps already perpetuated with my idiomatic prose – we drink and womanize too. But I digress, for this journal entry, practically coerced out of me by my teammates, is meant to address strictly those matters pertaining to our preparations for the forthcoming 24-hour race we’ve entered. And physically and mentally ill prepared as we might be for this monumentally diabolic peregrination to the outstretches of humanity (Utah), where we’ve plans to cycle for a straight 24 hours, we’ve certainly spent a lot of time discussing our jersey design. And so despite alarming similarities between this race we’ve entered on our own volition, and to the mythical damnation of Sisyphus to a perpetuity of misery, at least we’ll look damn good and team-like.

And Sisyphean as this whole thing might be, I must confess that I am quite looking forward to my first lap under the moonlight - headlamp strapped in and cold desert wind in my face. I suspect that I might rethink a lot of things about my life after having completed several laps as such. And truth-be-told, I, asymptotically approached these same feelings Sunday driving back from the trail, music blaring, during what I fondly refer to as the ‘post-ride meta’ period. This was after our proverbially epic sojourn through the hearts and minds of the Soquel Demo Forrest; and indeed after a ride like that, one can’t help but rethink, in a pseudo-metaphysical fundamentalist sort of way, their current needs as they relate the importance of material wealth and its direct impact on ones general well-being. And the conclusion my dear readership? The conclusion that I so elaborately and enigmatically concluded? That given the option of 5 hours straight on nothing other than euphoric single track, I realize that mostly nothing else in life matters. Nothing, least of all material wealth. So what am I left with, you may ask, aside from my minimalist temperament? I’m left with the notion of eschewing all that is material; in favor of concentration on my next ride and hucking that next drop-off or plank-ramp.

And yes, I might agree with you as you ask how in the world might I even consider calling myself a minimalist, eschewing superficialities, when I ride a many thousand-dollar mountain bike, play my iPod full of obscure indie music for pre-ride enthusiasm, and like my lattes half-caff with soy milk (before every ride, indeed); and I might agree with you, and question this myself, as my definition of minimalist and minimalism quite certainly spits in the face of the cabin-dwelling loner living in the woods with only his axe and bare knuckles. But lest you forget, my overly pedantic readership, that we are by and far the Tyler Durden generation, and despite our obsession with the Ikea catalog and its cleverly shaped coffee tables, we’ve all our own set of priorities; and that as evidenced by the fact that up until very recently I slept on a mattress on the floor of an empty bedroom, it is clear that I’ve prioritized in favor of epic days trail blazing on my bike through the bay area’s finest.

And yes, I realize it was a very expensive Tempurepedic mattress on the floor. Minimalism at all costs.

Eating Dirt

2006-09-27T17:36:00.000-07:00

So what exactly do I know about racing a mountain bike? Very little. I've been riding for some 13 years, both on road or off, but have usually steered clear of the prospect of riding so hard I cough up a lung.

I guess that makes me a hedonist. All I usually care about on a mountain bike is zipping around, over or off of obstacles. And sometimes, I even negotiate such obstacles successfully enough that I don't dump myself on my head. I post pictures of these occasions on as many websites as possible. Gullible people are impressed.

But I do know that I like to try new experiences, especially on my bike. This is one of the reasons I own and buy so many bikes. Big, cushy downhill bikes. Fast carbon road bikes. Dirt jumping bikes. Another reason is that I break bikes. A lot. In fact, I am renown in the local bike shop for the rare and complete destruction I wreak upon my rigs. "How in the world did you break that?" I believe I have may have singlehandedly paid off the mortgage of the local bike shop owner. We joke that he should offer me frequent breaker miles.

All of this makes me sound like a fool. Rest assured, I am. But I make up for this by doing a lot of trailwork and trail advocacy. I am president of my local mountain bike club and a state rep for IMBA. You can learn more about my illustrious efforts here.

The Simple Life

2006-09-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

I like things simple. Grape Nuts. Scotch on the rocks. The White Stripes. Once things start to get complicated, anything can go wrong. In the year 2005, the most popular candy was still plain M&Ms. Know why? It's because people don't like complications. Who needs to risk an allergic reaction to peanuts? Who wants to spend a hard-earned buck on a candy bar that's just mediocre? Not me. M&Ms are a sure thing.

That's why I like single speeds. No derailleurs. No complicated linkage. No surprises.

I used to only own a single speed; a Gary Fisher Montare slowly converted over the years as parts broke and bent and corroded under the strain of too much mud and too many miles. First went the big ring, then the small one. I used to ride for the University of Maryland and I raced with that set up for a while, coming to find that I didn't really miss those extra teeth all that much.

Fast forward to regionals at the UVA home course. It's been raining all day and the team's been cooped up in a couple dingy motel rooms. The wall paper probably hasn't been changed since the 70s, the carpet is the same hard, matted stuff you'd find in an office building, and the room is so sparsely decorated that we feel no remorse dragging our dirty, wet steeds in for a little work the night before. We set up a gypsy-town bike shop and true wheels, lube chains, and give derailleurs some much needed attention. I can never get the adjustment screws just right, and end up tensioning the cable instead.

The next day it's still raining and we're wondering if we'll even get to race at all. We get to the van and the tire's flat. Someone whips out a floor pump and we take turns. The rain starts to pick up. 30psi; Good enough. We'll have to stop twice more on the way to the race and inflate the tire again.

Part of me, the weak side, wishes it will be called off, so I can avoid the hours of riding over slippery roots and rocks, the burn of lactic acid accumulated with every pump of my legs, and the dirty water kicked into my eyes, mouth, and nose through every tight switchback. The other part of me, the competitor, wants to get out there and give it everything I have; hammering the climbs until my chest feels like it's going to explode, and railing the descents, systematically picking off every racer in front of me.

The race was on.

I'll leave the details of the race to the imagination. If you've ever ridden East Coast terrain during a thunderstorm where the trail turns into a churning, muddy river and every root and fallen log becomes slick as ice, you know what it was like. It was one of the longest 6 hours of my life filled with cramps, exhaustion, rain that chilled me to the bone, and lots and lots of mud. By the time I finished, my brake pads had been worn down to bare metal and of the 8 gears I had left, I could use about 3 of them.

And I wasn't the only one. The finish line is usually a happy place, but I'll never forget the sight as racers came in, jumping off their bikes and throwing them over their heads into the mud in frustration. Any other day the bike was their pride and joy; a shiny, finely-tuned steed. That day it was their liability; a mud-clogged wreck of a machine responsible for everything that could have gone wrong and did.

That was the last day I rode with gears for a very long time. Instead of fixing my derailleur, I stripped it off, pulling the shifter pod and cables with it. I picked up a Surly 1x1 hub and built up a nice single speed wheel. I was lucky; even with the vertical dropouts I didn't need a tensioner. At 32x16, it all worked out perfectly.

The bike became a lot simpler, and a lot more elegant, without all the cables, shifters, and derailleurs; a series of lines and circles. Riding too, became simpler and more enjoyable. Instead of constantly worrying about being in the right gear, single speeding allows you the luxury to take it all in. Riding becomes more about keeping momentum, reading the trail, and enjoying the form rather than a constant struggle against mechanics. It's liberating.

I rode single for a long time. The rest of my time in Maryland. When I worked in New York. On my biking trips to Fruita, Moab, and all around the East Coast. I even took a winter and built up a brand new On-One Inbred from scratch. Winters in California are different. They're not really winters at all. Out East all you can do during the winter is snowboard, drink beer, and kill time on cold winter nights when it gets dark even before you leave work. I spent a lot of that time searching eBay and online stores for the best deals on all the perfect parts for my new ride. Simple things; Bomber air fork? Check. V Brakes? Crank Brothers pedals? Check. By spring it was finally ready and I hit the trails with all the fervor and excitement as I did the first time on my newly converted Montare.

Later that year I accepted a position with Google and relocated to the Bay Area. Just as the winters are different, so is the riding. Out East trails have a lot of flow, there's a lot of ups and a lot of downs. Here it's one big up and one big down (and, maybe another up). I rode it single for a while and finally decided it was about time to venture back into the land of full suspension. (I owned a Klein Mantra for a few months back in the day -- it went on eBay almost as quickly as it came). It wasn't the long, grinding ups that bothered me... but I wanted to really hit those downs hard. They were hard-earned and with the brake pump from the Vs, I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to. So I picked up my 575.

Getting back into gears was a lot harder than I expected, and I almost gave up on the bike after the first ride. Even today, I'm slower on my Yeti than I am on the On-One.

The Yeti just got back from the shop a couple days ago. During our last ride the front brake started to lose pressure so I figured it needed to be bled. I don't understand hydraulic brakes. I mean, I understand them in principle but not in practice. Why they work fine one day and not the next is a mystery to me. I figured I must have knocked the cable against a tree which let a little air leak in. And that's all you need -- a little. But who knows, there are dozens of ways hydraulic brakes can fail.

So I drop the bike off at the shop and get a call later that day saying that the caliber assembly is cracked and needs to be replaced. It was probably a little rock, but they can't be sure. See the crack in the photo above? How about in this one? All you need is a little rock, a little crack, a little air, and there goes your ride, your race, or your helmet. It's all too complicated. You'll never lose your V brakes from a little rock.

The caliper assembly was going to take, at the earliest, 3 weeks to ship from Avid. Lucky Dave had an almost complete Juicy 7 laying around -- sans piston, a part which probably broke from some little rock and was going to take weeks to ship. Weeks he didn't want to wait for his only bike.

I'm torn with regards to which bike to bring to the race. Do I take the Yeti for comfort and practicality or the On-One for speed and simplicity? It's a tough call. I'm leaning towards keeping it simple, but I have a few weeks to change my mind.

pick apart the day

2006-09-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

I looked around my room trying to figure out why there was music playing. My ipod had somehow chosen 'Daylight' by Aesop Rock to rouse me. While a poignant theme, daylight it was not; it was in fact a completely dark and uncivilized 530am out there. My pondering the lack of daylight was interrupted suddenly by the Nokia vibrating angrily on my bed side table while screaming out its increasingly louder alien theme song. "That must be Dylan calling me as promised." It's moments like these that I wonder "What did I agree to and why?" I usually pace in circles around my room for a few minutes trying to gather thoughts and equipment before I remember the answer: riding bikes because we have some of the best terrain on the planet.

My phone rings on my trek across town to pick up Dylan breaking the calm that I had on loan from the pre-dawn San Fran streets. It's Dylan, he's letting on about how he's not gonna make the ride -that he's gonna have to bail. He's a funny guy, I know he's joking but a small part of me is getting ready to restrain the other even smaller part that would reach through the phone to smack him upside the head if he's not -he is. After a quick rally in front of Noah's Bagels, we throw his recently shined up Blur on the roof and make for the highway -time to call Cohen to reassure him that the city kids are en route and that we didn't oversleep.

Dylan and I arrived in the parking lot a whole 15 minutes before we agreed to meet up with Cohen. This is a good thing because I'm slow. Dylan made good on this time with a display of balance and grace while I futzed around with my elaborate ankle brace.

While killing time, I decide to share with Dylan how crazy it was that 'Daylight' was the first track of my day, but he would have none of it. He kept saying something about how the production was really good, '...but when Aesop comes in, it just sucks...' I try to reason with him, but we were clearly at an impasse:

Luckily Cohen arrives just in time to get us back on track with Sparky who's also rarin to hit the trails. Having all decided to go with long sleeves to counter the brisk morning air, we eagerly set out for California's finest singletrack, the whole reason for early rise, for hauling gear from house to car, and the mad dash for the trails -the main event. This excitement always hits me the moment my mallets engage, my wheels and frame becomes an appendage; I get all hopped up on goofballs and bounce up and down on my suspension while rolling to the trailhead.

Once inside the El Corte de Madera grounds, Cohen let Sparky off the leash and we burned a mile or two of fire road keeping a moderate pace. Dylan led the way down the first stretch of glorious singletrack, the infamous Resolution Trail. For the next 20-30 minutes we continued our descent into the bowels of Skeggs over rocks and roots, under low hanging branches, catching air off the occasional whoops. The little sun that had risen fades behind trees the lower we go making it harder to distinguish the morning from what could otherwise be mistaken for evening. The air was pungent with the smell of dead leaves and moss; I'm sure of this because I'd started to suck more of it. I swear the trails must be growing denser; my GPS kept protesting with little beeps to warn me that it couldn't hold a signal. Our ride data bears no resemblance to other days.

Before long we reach the stream at what I've always considered the bottom of Skeggs -I've been told I'm wrong. No matter though for now it was time to pay off the elevation debt that we had been so recklessly accruing for the past half hour spending altitude like water, time to get lost in whatever might be on our respective minds, time to raise the seat and drop the fork, time to get your crayons and your pencils. If this were Burger King I'd have had it my way, but alas it was time to climb. I only cast in a negative light what all mountain dirt riders must come to respect and hopefully for their sake, cherish because on this day, it is the last I'll see of my bro's on the trail. Dylan felt the need for a head start and Cohen, well, Cohen's our token single-speeder -need I say more? I was riding the back of the pack so I affectionately referred to myself as 'the sweeper' for the rest of the ride.

The climb out of our loop at Skeggs is broken into 3 sections in my mind. The first, a series of brutally steep, but not very technical double track sections has a special spot where we almost lost Peter. The second is a stretch of fire road connecting the first and third sections that most have agreed to be unpleasant. The third section is Manzanita, a glorious rocky, rooted, rutted singletrack stretch ripe with sessionable spots to keep the mind sharp while the chest pounds out the beat of your favorite swedish death metal song. I spent my all on the first section, specifically a series of rolls that I've heard referred to as the '7 Sisters', '7 Witches', or '7 Bitches'... I cant be sure, but after cleaning the last roll I'm convinced it's the last of the 3. There was not much left in my tank for the rest of the ride. I don't think I left my granny gear until reaching dry pavement all the while the phrase repeated in my head "next time I'll have my mojo back.."

...Oh yeah, Cohen and Dylan were waiting in the parking lot for me.

Googlicious!

2006-09-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

We finalized our jersey design this week and it's pretty sweet. Props to one of our designers Greg for lending us a hand (although I did draw that little alien guy myself... that's about as artistic as I get).

Want to get your hands on one? We'll have an extra jersey or two at the event for a lucky and, hopefully, equally sized individual. Whether we'll be giving it out via raffle or some other means is yet to be decided.

And if you don't win, I'll be bringing an extra of my own along for trade :-)

Live Bloggin It

2006-09-13T23:46:00.000-07:00

I just got finished setting up the unofficial 24 Hours of Moab Blog. The plan is: get everyone who's coming to the race to sign up and blog, blog, blog. Ride reports are cool, photos are cool, and whatever other stuff you feel like posting probably pretty cool too.

Here's a little deja vu if you've already read my post over there... and if you haven't, enjoy;

"Races are pretty transient things. They come and go. Some riders podium, some riders pinch flat, and most probably go out and drink a few beers after the race. There's really nothing that survives from year to year other than chainring scars and some long lost posts on mtbr. The 24 Hours of Moab Blog is an attempt to change all that, with hundreds of riders posting before, during, and after the event. Candid photos, grueling laps on rigid single speeds, way too many Cliff Bars, lessons learned -- it'll all be there for posterity.

If you're riding or just gonna be there hanging out, sign up for a Blogger account, email 24hoursofmoab@gmail.com so we can hook you up, and post your heart out!

Tell us about yourself, your team, your booth, your training, and your bike. Set up Blogger on the Go and post from your cellphone while you're out riding or doing some team bonding over a pint (or pitcher).

We'll have a digicam, some laptops and, hopefully, an internet connection at the Google Earth booth and you'll be able to log in and post any time during the race. Tell your friends, and your mom, to keep an eye on the blog. She'll be so proud!"

Welcome!

2006-09-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, and welcome to the 24 Hours of Moab race blog! We're team Google Earthlings -- five Googlers who love mountain biking and will be headed out to 24 Hours of Moab October 14th and 15th.

We're not pro riders. In fact, none of us have ever competed in a 24 hours race before so we don't expect to win... but we do expect to have a good time. We put up this blog so we can tell everyone about our team and what we'll be doing at the race.

So far we still have a lot of planning left but one thing we do know for sure is that we're going to have a Google Earth booth and some free schwag to give out. We'll be bringing along some laptops with Google Earth so riders can play around and see what their home trails look like from space. We'll load up some flyovers of the 24 hours course and our team will be riding with GPS devices to keep track of our laps in real time. Other riders are welcome to swing by the tent any time to upload their race data as well. If all goes according to plan, we'll have internet access and be able to show everyone at home what's happening as it happens!

Until then, you can download Google Earth for free and check it out yourself. And Granny Gear even has even provided a course map KMZ!

Stay tuned for more...