To those of you who check this blog every day I’m sorry but I’ve been out adventuring and not blogging. Hopefully I’ll backdate an entry about my Shasta trip and my 4th of July activities. Until then all I’ve got is my race report which I’ll put up here in a second.
Some resources for endurance mountain biking:
Today’s mountain bike ride was a bit of a slog. Keith nor I had our minds into it so we spent most of the time leaning over the handlebars while cranking uphill. We did get in some fun downhill singletrack but unfortunately we kept having to stop to let uphill riders pass. I was able to ride the off-camber sections much better this time around but I still have some work to do before I can ride those sections perfectly. I did have a bit of a wipeout today though…In a narrow windy section I was barrelling downhill when around a curve came an uphill rider. I hit the brakes fast and had almost diverted around him when a rock threw me back toward him. Luckily we didn’t crash into eash other but I still got a bit dirty/scratched from the incident.
My bike needs some work on it - I need to get some new brake pads and some new cables. Need to get in perfect condition so I can bomb the downhils! (Yeah, right!)
Some day I’ve gotta make it down to the Canyonlands:
Slot Canyons of the American Southwest
Well, plans got kind of mixed up this past weekend. It turns out that Derick had never been to Tahoe before so we scratched plans to head to Lassen and Lava Beds and spent time in Reno and Tahoe instead. Saturday Derick arrived and we headed off to rent a couple kayaks from UNR. We were able to snag a Necky Mission and a Wavesport BigEZ and the requisite gear. We headed down to the playspots on the Truckee. We hit the first surf wave on the north side of the river and stayed there for awhile (until I got used to being back in a whitewater kayak!). We soon decided to make a run of the south side - which is running high and fast right now. The first rapid is roughly a class III rapid and the others, while pushy, are class II. At the bottom of the run there is a big huge surf wave which we didn’t get to play in but I definitely want to go back and try it out.
The next day we decided to go up to Lake Tahoe and doing a hike out to Emerald Point and on the Rubicon Trail. It starts at the top of D.L. Bliss State Park and a foot trail follows down the side of Eagle Falls to the beaches of Emerald Bay. From there you can tour around Vikingsholm and then head onto the Rubicon Trail following it northeast to Emerald Point. From there you could see all of the lake as well as back into Emerald Bay. It was very cool.
Today Derick and I headed up to the summit of Peavine Peak (8265′) it took 2 1/2 hours to reach the top and from there we could see down into Reno as well as into the forests and mountains northwest of the Reno area. It was a great time although I did get a bit sunburned. We are a bit sore now but it is well worth as that was Derick’s first summit ever. Later on this afternoon we hit REI and Reno Mountain Sports to look at whitewater and mountaineering gear. I’m buying an ice axe and boots for my trip to Mt. Shasta in a couple weeks and I wanted to compare prices. I think I’m going to settle on a Black Diamond Raven for my ice ax.
Anyway, tomorrow I gotta head back to work - after work I’m doing running intervals in Keystone Canyon or at the UNR track.
It’s a 3-day weekend and my friend Derick is flying in to hang out and adventure around in the Sierras. Tonight and tomorrow morning I’m volunteering at the Reno Silver Sage adventure race. Then Derick arrives and we are going to hit up the local kayak playspots on the Truckee in downtown Reno. Tomorrow evening we’re driving off to Lassen Volcanic National Park for snowshoeing and camping and then Monday we are going to check out Lava Beds National Monument (or head back for some more kayaking). It should be a fun-filled tiring weekend - presumably no updates until Monday!
After tonight’s run with Keith (which hopefully I’ll have the stats posted for tomorrow) I zoomed off to the REI AR Clinic which was sponsored by the Big Blue AR organizers. Rebecca Rusch, of Team Montrail was there and she gave an intro to adventure racing clinic and showed a couple videos of Eco-Challenge and the Raid Gauloises. Most of the crowd attendees were newbie types but I was able to get in a couple specific questions about how she sets up declination for compass work and also about the advantages of using disc brakes during expedition-length races. It was very cool to meet her and learn more about how an elite racer approaches adventure racing.
Keith and I met up yesterday afterwork for some mountain biking in Keystone Canyon. Unfortunately, I forgot my new Forerunner so I was unable to track our distance and speed but I’m guess we did somewhere around 10 miles of biking. Keystone Canyon is gradual uphill until you reach a plateau and from then on it’s short strenuous uphills to get to certain parts of the BLM area. We climbed a steep uphill and then rode the downhill back to the the mouth of the canyon - then we decided that we felt good so we turned around and climbed another uphill and rode that back down all the way to our cars. It was a fun time but very tiring.
Tonight I am meeting up with him again for a 6 mile trail run. Afterwards I’m headed off to REI to see Rebecca Rusch (a prominent adventure racer) give a clinic for the Big Blue Series!
Ritwik, Shelley, and I met up for mountain biking on the trails in old Ft. Ord near Monterey, CA. The trails there are sandy but the singletrack is super fun in some spots (especially if you stay on the right trails). We spent a bit of time trying to determine route choice and found that trails #33/34 are to be avoided since they are way too overgrown. Sometime I’d like to go back and take a bit of singletrack down to Pilarcitos Rd - I’ve ridden that section before and it’s way fun.
Chart of the elevation profile:
The topo map with route color-coded by elevation.
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