JB's Adventure Blog: January 2006

Hey folks.

This week the Spider and I met up with Jeff Shalk (Trek East Coast Factory team) at out buddie Ian Davidson's in sunny Clemson SC. We logged some 25 hrs this week and did the toughest loop in Clemson (trails) twice on tuesday! Ouch.

There is a weekly Saturday ride that rolls out from the house of the host at 9 on the dot. . Not only is Ian masters World Champion for X-terra, he is a master Chicken chef and can cook while he is riding. The key to this ride is staying on a brisk schedule but not too fast as to attain the perfect slow cook for the chicken. Truly one the nice things about comming to camp is the social hangout after the chicken ride.

Below is Ian's E-mail that he sends out about Saturday ride. Check it out. For now it is some big hrs here in the Burg.

Later: Jeremiah

A very eventful Chicken Ride # 12 took place on Saturday January 28th with 14 Chicken Riders in the pack. Should have taken note of ominous air when the morning temperatures predicted by the weatherman were off by a whopping 9 degrees. A low of 37 degrees was in the forecast, but it was 28 degrees at 8a.m. when Zdenek started his 1 hour pre Chicken Ride Trans Rockies training. That 1 hour in the cold would later come back to haunt Z. We started with 30 degrees and sunny skies, but with quickly warming temperatures. Bunkhouse Training Camp Campers and pro's, Jeremiah Bishop, Nick Waite and Jeff Schalk joined us for our ritual. They being on a super charge training program decided that they would do the Chicken Ride on their mtn bikes with full knobby tires. Also joining us and becoming the first woman to complete the Chicken Ride was one of United States fastest women mtn bikers, Sue Haywood. Sue arrived at the Essex Drive Training Cabin a couple of days earlier. She had the decency to ride her road bike.

Before the first Check Point, NathOn mentioned that he could feel some competitive spirit in the air. No sheit Sherlock. We have the pro guys starting to move to the front of the pack and pushing the pace on their rumbling knobby tire mtn bikes, along with a world class female pro, this all enough to get everyone wired up to defend their pride by raising their performance. About 1 hour in to the ride the chef was barking at Clint and Zdenek for not being a good host by giving our front riding guest the proper directions at turns in the course. 50 minutes later, most of which was a constant rather hardish all out effort that blitzed the middle section of the Chicken Ride Loop, the chef could hardly care if our pro friends knew the turns and secretly wished that they would make a wrong turn to make them use extra energy to get back on course or maybe just to disappear all together!

At the top of the cow farm hill on Shackelburg, Zedenek absolutely exploded and was left behind to crawl the remaining 20 miles back on his own. We used a sundial to time his effort for the 55 mile loop, three sticks and a bunch of pebbles was the duration of his ride. The chef and Billy were well in the rear as they started up the 2mile climb to Five Forks. Chicken Riders were spread out before them on the hill further than the eye could see. Billy gloomily moaned that he was going to do A Ride Of Shame and short cut back home that he was not feeling too great. However, when the chef shifted into bigger gears, stood up and began the methodical pounding up the climb to close the gaps, Billy went with him. They picked up a couple packs of two and soon they were all making a last gasp effort to get back with the front of the ride. Every body got back together at Check Point 2 when the lead pack circled up and waited. Circled up and waited so they could pound us one more time on the last leg of the loop. Over all a tough quality type effort which yielded the 4th fastest time in the 6 year history of The Chicken Ride.

RIDERS: Zdenek, Ian, John F, Billy, NathOn, Eric, Charly, Clint, Abhay, Greg, Jeremiah,
Nick, Jeff, Sue

Check Points: Ride #12 59:15 50:24/1:49:39 1:00:50/2:50:28

Ride #11 Reverse. No Splits 2:57:00 (53miles)
Ride #10 1:03:36 56:06/1:59:43 1:08:25/3:08:08
Ride #9 1:04:37 58:50/2:03:26 1:06:00/3:09:26
Ride #8 1:01:21 55:43/1:57:05 1:05:32/3:02:37
Ride #7 1:03:48 56:33/2:00:21 1:04:18/3:04:39
Ride #6 1:06:14 58:37/2:04:52 1:10:00/3:14:52
Ride #5 1:03:28 55:17/1:58:45 1:07:34/3:06:20
Ride #4 1:04:08 57:46/2:01:54 1:05:58/3:07:53
Ride #3 1:03:36 56:56/2:00:32 1:06:10/3:06:42
Ride #2 1:01:54 55:44/1:57:38 1:17:51/3:15:30 (58miles)
Ride #1 1:04:27 57:27/2:01:55 1:06:00/3:07:54

CHICKEN RIDE OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION

The pro riders from the "north", sure whipped the butts of us regular Chicken Riders that reside here in the south in Clemson, SC. They sure showed great talent, toughness and fitness. I believe that all of us felt that in the end it would be a tough day for the pro riders trying to keep up with us on their mtn bikes especially if we turned the screws a few gentle turns here and there during the ride. Any screw turning that we did only resulted in our cries of UNCLE and mercy. Yes we were humbled, but we were not impressed that they could out ride us while we were on road bikes and them on knobby tire mtn bikes. Why weren't we impressed with their efforts? Well..........

CHICKEN RIDE TOP TEN
Why We Were Not Impressed With Their Efforts

10. Their mtn bikes are lighter than our road bikes.

9. They some how managed to disguise their road tires to look like big fat knobby tires.

8. Their bikes are more expensive than ours.

7. Their power meters are actually miniature motors.

6. Their bikes and cars have matching paint schemes.

5. They get paid to do this stuff.

4. Usually humble and helpful, they had to show us up in front of Sue.

3. Regina or Melissa probably promised to bake them some cookies if they worked us over.

2. They had a practice 7 hour ride the day before.

And the number 1 reason why we were not impressed with their efforts. Drum roll please.
DRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

1. They rode the entire 55 mile loop on the pavement instead of the grassy shoulder.

posted by Jeremiah Bishop # 6:17 PM 0 comments

Howdy .
Nick, Chris Scott and I had an awesome day riding in the area I have named the Augusta triangle. The wholy grail of road riding as far as I am concerned. Andy Rodes says this is his favorite area in the valley. I would say it is a close tie between there, Singer's Glen aka little Belgium and the land of Oz and Orchards in Shendandoah county. There allso is little Italy where the estate houses, vinyard and rows of cedar that will remind you of Italy with little strech of the imagination.

Ha the hand rails.. .of course. Chris Scott mentioned the adventure racers call it hand rails. The other reason the name of the triangle is in fact that it is an isosceles triangle made up of the route 11, 42 and 250. I really need to bring my camera more often.

So.. The last reason is that it it really easy to get lost because it is really hill and forested with many streams and glades.

The training is really starting to crank and we are getting ready to go to Clemson for the 1st man hours camp with Ian Davidson (X terra Masters World Champion and general hard ass).

We will see who has done there home work this spring.

I'll be back.

Jeremiah

posted by Jeremiah Bishop # 6:16 PM 0 comments

Hey peeps.

I will keeping up on my blog better from here out I just needed all the energy for the riding last week. The more I ride the more adventure there is to write about but with less mental energy. I had fun week and hooked up with some friends to go riding we cranked out the man hours. Keim would be proud.

Mini camp.

Day 1
Did the 3hrs outdoors. Though it was raining in the morning I managed to stay mostly dry despite the black bean splash marks on my face and limbs.. With Philip from Lynchburg I hit a classic route of valley hills.
It was misty and dank out. But the route of the Ardens was nice and had alot of tough 3-4 minute hills so it kept the heat up.
I was feeling tired and it didn’t help I was on my mtb and he was on his road bike. .Ouch that is like mountain bike motor paceing .

Day 2
4+hrs ,Massenutten loop on the road. I got caught down stream of a cold front moving in and I was running the fuel on the road. This made for a mean ride and I in fact ran out of food at the end still had a 220 w ave so it was rock solid.

Day 3
4+hrs Friddley’s Gap mountian dual sport ride with Jeff Shalk, and Nick. 2 Sick Hike a bikes.

Day 4
6hrs The Hot Coco ride.
Killer dual Sport ride Out to Stokesville, Narrow back trials and then punched it on the cold roads home.
Nick and I got a snack and rode to Advantage Physical therapy.

Day 5
3 hr Dual sport ride at Westover

Later gator. Gotta Ride.

I should say that Chardin will certainly winn the contest on best argument for wich is better the Burg aka Rock City and Boulder. Boulder's Rocco had a decent say but Nick tisk tisk that was a lame solicitation for your home land. Come on dude I know you got better reason's than everybody else is doing it.

posted by Jeremiah Bishop # 6:37 PM 1 comments

The Chicken Ride (Clemson SC)

The Augusta Triangle

Da Blogg.. the Burg or Boulder???

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