Beyond Hypothermia.

let me just start out by saying, 24 hour races are intense. I don't mean it in the keanu-reeves point-break super-bro sense of the word, i mean it in its most literal and real sense.

as it appears in the miriam webster dictionary;

intense
1.existing in an extreme degree - check
2.marked by or expressive of great zeal, energy, determination, or concentration - check
3.exhibiting strong feeling or earnestness of purpose; deeply felt - check

It was a 5 man team, which i can see why has its own category. Any more and you can organize things to maximize sleep and stuff. Any less would be like, what's the point, i should've done this solo.

Fist lap i was a total spastic. This should be no surprise to anybody who has seen me ride a mountain bike, but i still got in under an hour (my goal for the weekend). I saw some dude who looked like the trail reached up and punched him in the genitals and throat. He did NOT finish the first lap. So that was encouraging.

Second lap i decided to take it easy. I wanted to go for a super even keel pace and not spaz out on any of the climbs, as my technical skills are not up to par and 3 of the climbs i would say are above par. It went really well. No falling, couple of times i had to walk, but im starting to get it, which is good because its getting dark.

Third lap was crazyness. It was in the 30's. Let me just say it was a new experience. I don't ride at usually night, and i don't usually ride a mountain bike, so, you do the math. Thanks to Joy tho, for hooking me up with the light. Combining that with the light i already had as a helmet light made SUCH a difference. Still at this point the downhill sections were sketchy as hell. Completely rutted out and several lines to choose from one of which was the correct one. Not easy at night.

4th lap. Pure insanity. 4 a.m. Shadows were jumping out at me. My mind was playing tricks on me. All i could think of were fear and loathing quotes:

"I hate to say this, but this place is getting to me. I think I'm getting the Fear."

"24 hours of adrenaline is what the whole hip world would be doing Saturday nights if the Nazis had won the war. This was the Sixth Reich."

"A drug person can learn to cope with things like seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no one should be asked to handle this trip."

"I was right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo, and somebody was giving booze to these goddamn things. Won't be long now before they tear us to shreds."

"Jesus, bad waves of paranoia, madness, fear and loathing - intolerable vibrations in this place. Get out. The weasels were closing in. I could smell the ugly brutes."

"That's fucking machine guns man, they're firing at us!"

"this bicycle belongs to the world bank! That money goes to ITALY!"

The crazy thing about lap 4 is, i could actually see myself handling better, and getting up the climbs with little skateboard scoots as opposed to walking.

5th lap. I was done. I had desire in me, but the legs were simply not there. For the interim in between my 2 consecutive laps i was just trying to get to sleep. Not enough food consumed, water was frozen, moral was low. That was the craziest lap of them all, because even though i was annihilated and defeated mentally, i still got the lap done in an hour flat. Crazy! My skills have definitely improved.

pics soon.

on the eve of the eve....

of our 24 hour race.

Me, sergio, andy, joe, and, jason are about to head up to idyllwild on friday for the 2-4. Pretty excited. I've never raced a mountain bike before, and this seems like it'll be fun. Due to my uncanny ability to shake it, i have scored us sponsorships with both Tifosi sunglasses and Stell Coffee and tea, which, if you know my illustrius history with the distributors of said sunglasses and coffee, wasn't hard. Still tho, free gear is sweet.

The race doesn't begin til saturday at noon, but we're gonna go up early and go for a little night ride. Should be fun. THe menu for the 2-4 looks to be: burgers, carne asada tacos, bagels, cereal, and various endurance fuels. I'm doing celebrity mountain biker and revered educator Joy D.'s hair tomorrow, perhaps she can educate me on more effective fueling.... looking at the list right now i'm thinking i can bring better items to the table.

If i'm not back by 4 on sunday, call the police.

holy hell

east bound and down, so funny. I laughed til i drooled.

BAT FIGHT with Will Ferrell from Will Ferrell

Am I Demon?

I think this is pretty much the inspiration for my hair. I think this is the direction it's going reguardless just based on how its growing. It fits as well as socks on a rooster that besides growing my hair i ride bikes. Still though, if danzig just showed up at a race, stomped everybody and vanished, i would be pretty stoked. That'll be the goal i guess.

FACT

This dude gets LAID.

Vicente Fernandez is the man.  I think i would like to go see him, but i wouldn't understand crap tht went on/what he said.  That'd suck.

Crafton today.  Crafton tomorrow.  Good training.  Geared up for team lazer wolf/24 hour race/camping extraviganza.  Might get to break in my new tent/sleeping bag next weekend for A.J.'s astronomy trip.  I'm thinking LOTS of hot chocolate.  Maybe marshmalows as well.  Could be good.  Could be great.

time to get bloody

Do i have a problem with overconfidence or am i just plain dim witted when i never factor in or consider eating crap on mountain bike rides?  

Went to hulda crooks and up the good old jedi.  Ate some shite about 4 times on the way down.  Nothing bad, just slightly skinned up and it was mostly due to the fact that those XTR pedals i have are death traps.  Definately going back to eggbeaters.  

Still tho, i never even thing about how often i eat it until im getting up off the ground going, "oh yeah, i remember this..."

Also, hulda crooks was SUPER sandy and loose and i only have one light, which was not enough.

any ways, i ate some crap but i had a blast.

time to get dirty

so the mountain bike dilemma is done.

And there she is.  At least this time i got what i wanted, for the most part.  If i was going to get a singlespeed i wanted a rig 29er.  If i was going to get a geared bike i wanted a hardtail 26 in bike.  

Dude who owned and rode this bike for a grand total of 5 rides, went OTB and broke his back.  What a pisser.  Not for me tho cuz he got rid of it on the fire sale tip.  Hopefully the bike has excersized all of the crash demons out of it.  The bike is far from stock with crossmax wheels which i will be working in a tubeless setup (adam, watch your hands), and a fox RLC fork.  I don't really like fox stuff, but everybody else seems to, so i think i will be selling this fork and getting myself a sid.  Also it has an XTR cassette, xt crank, and xtr pedals.  Gonna be getting rid of the xtr pedals too.  I dont know if i like them, i dont wanna know if i like them, i'm used to crank brothers from cross season, so that's what im doing.  

I think i'm gonna start slow by doing 6 laps at the 24 hour in san jacinto.  

Did i mention i have the handling skills of a thumbless orangutan?  

huffy

i am obsessed with huffy bikes.

First off.  Huffy= so much cooler a name for a bike than so many bike manufacturer's names who try to sound cool/tough.  Specailized?  Lame.  That's a description, not a name.  Trek?  Lame.  I still  think spock when i think trek.  Cannondale?  Ok, cannondale gets a pass because of the train on the fron and the use of "cannon" in the name.  Still Huffy for the win.

Second off.  Ever watch a movie that is so bad that it is awesome a la evil dead or strange brew.  That's how i feel about huffy bikes.  It amazes me that you can buy a full mountain bike with more gear combo's than my road bike for a mere 99 dollars.  First words outta your mouth are prolly gonna be something like "but the quality dude..."  Shut your suck hole.  It still blows my mind that that grouping of like, nuts, bolts, cables, levers, a freewheeling mechanism, and steel is under 100 dollars and it can be fixed to ride enough to get you around town (i know, i preform that miracle on the regular).  

Third, like it or not, i feel like huffy has a more solid history than even Schwinn bikes in my opinion.  Sure, schwinn had its heyday, a paramount with nuovo record and mavic seups still gives me a raging semi, however, schwinn sold the eff out, so they are turncoat bastards and can get bent.  Huffy has always been shot.  Lessin you count this pic of bob roll on a huffy in paris roubaix.

That's anther thing, i dont give a rats ass how many of his bikes ben serotta put a huffy headbadge on, them shits was a huffy.  Davis Phinney rode a huffy, Bob Roll rode a huffy.  

Also, today, one of my favorite passtimes went down at the bike shop.  Huffy tossing.  Eddie chucked the piss out of this huffy that somebody was donating (good luck finding replacement parts for that mother...).  It was awesome, but more for the hangtime than the distance.  But it was still awesome.  There needs to me more of this.  ALso some of you out there in blogger land might be like, "oh steve thats effed, you say you love huffys but you chuck em and break em and crap"  Put a sock in it.  Thats the best part about a huffy.  After all is said and done, its still some bike that science cant figure out why it runs for a total distibuting cost of 12 bucks.  NO matter how abused, how used, how thrashed, how annihilated a huffy is, its like a roach.  At the dawn of the Nuclear apocolypse, there will be 2 things left.  Huffys and the zombies who ride them.  

Im seriously considering getting a huffy tattoo.