Welcome back all you crazy cyclists!
This morning the Pick N Pay The Star The Fast One - the first real road race for the year - took place up here in Gauteng. The weather was kind and mild, slightly overcast, light breeze and not too hot.
Things got underway for me as my B-bunch took off from the start at 6:50AM. Immediately the guys pushed a decent pace – as is usual for this “downhill” race – and we averaged around 45 km/h over the first 25km.
Things went really well and my legs felt really good (that mountain bike cross training seems to pay dividends already) and our average speed was hovering at around 43 km/h at the halfway mark.
Then things went a bit wrong. I was sitting in 7th (in our bunch of over 100 riders), in the sweet spot, when I suddenly got a puncture at the 56km mark. Nothing one can do but pull over and fix that darn flat!
About 3 minutes later – and with the B-bunch gone and out of site – I had the flat fixed and got back onto the road. A small group of about 5 riders came past and I merged with them, helping a bit in the front to keep the pace high.
Then, the impossible happened. Another flat at around the 68km mark! I was infuriated, but pulled over and got it fixed in also about 3 minutes.
Back onto the road and again merging with a smallish bunch, we kept the pace fairly decent, but at this stage the wind started picking up and caused the pace to drop quite a bit.
Luckily a tandem came to our rescue – tandems as you know are VERY quick on the flats – and we formed a very long paceline behind the tandem, hanging on in the wind and keeping the paceline from snapping.
This “formation” carried us to about 10km from the finish line, when we caught up with a big bunch in front of us and merged with them. This came as a relief, because for the previous 15kms or so, my heart rate was hovering at around the 170 bpm just to keep myself in the paceline! After merging with the bigger bunch, the pace dropped off very slightly (2-3 km/h) but the bigger formation gave a lot more shielding against the wind, which gave my heart-rate the opportunity to drop down to a more sustainable 165 bpm. Still high, but a lot less painful than 170!
With the two flats – and in the process being left behind by two fast-moving bunches – I still managed a decent time of 2h43 at a pace of around 38 km/h over the course distance of 103km. My previous best was last year’s 2h40, so taking the two punctures into account, I definitely performed better this year than last. I also felt a lot stronger at the finish and after the race, so this is a good sign that I’m starting this year in better shape than last year.
Hopefully this spells for good results for the upcoming races! If I can just find a puncture-proof solution to my rear tyre….
Next weekend is the Dirt Festival, a 40km mountain bike race. This will be my first official MTB race, so cross your fingers that all goes well.
Happy cycling and keep up the training!
Oh man, what a bummer. This holiday, I visited a cousin of mine, who owns a Kawasaki ZX6-RR. And since I’m not just a cyclist, but also a biker (I also do motocross and enduro riding and used to own a Kawasaki ZX7 years ago), I just had to take it for a spin.
After a nice top-end run (doing over 260 km/h with the bike hitting the rev limiter in sixth), it was time to take it back to my cousin’s house and park it in the garage.
Now, as most of you super bikers out there know, after such a good high-speed run, the exhaust of any superbike will be extremely hot! Please, don’t remind me of this fact at this stage. As I was pushing the bike back into the garage (avoiding hitting a car to my right and the garage door to my left), I managed to pinch my leg between the car and the bike’s exhaust. Yeah, that’s right: Ouch! F#$%# ouch! Check the result:
Exhaust Burn on Leg
As you’re rightly thinking: Double-ouch!
The problem I’m having with this burn is not that it happened (these things happen when you can’t sit still!), but the wound now needs time to heal and this now interferes with my training schedule! The first real race for the season is the upcoming Fast One (see my other post here) which is happening in two weeks’ time! And with this second-degree burn, I really have to take training slow!
Hope for the best, and watch this space for the results of the race, maybe I’ll still be able to perform adequately and beat my previous best (103km in 2h40m ) under these circumstances.
PS – If you ever wanted a REAL answer to the question “Why do you shave your legs?” Well, the doctor who’s treating my leg says I can be really glad that I have shaved legs, for two reasons:
1 – Having hairy legs, this kind of accident would’ve burnt the hairs into the raw, charred flesh, which makes healing so much more difficult and scarring worse
2 – Removing wound dressings (big, water-proof, sticky band-aids) would’ve been very painful if it pulled my leg hairs out every time the doctor ripped them off!
So there you have it, legitimate reasons from a health-care professional!
Happy cycling!
Tags: burn, exhaust, leg, second degree, Superbike
Hi all!
It’s been hectic the past two months, with me away on site on an engineering project, so not much happened in terms of my cycling.
So the new year arrived and we’re all psyched up (I hope) for the racing season that lies ahead! The first really fun race on the calendar is the “Pick n Pay The Star The Fast One”. It will be taking place on 25 January 2009
Entries are limited to 9000 and close on the 12th January, so don’t delay, enter now!
RACE ROUTE
The 103km race sets off from the Expo Centre at Nasrec and finishes at the Vaal Triangle Campus of the North-West University in Vanderbijlpark. The start venue has easy access from all major highways and ample, safe parking.
When you enter online, you can purchase a shuttle ticket back from the finish which will deliver you to your car, so there are no more excuses!
For more information and online entries visit www.fastone.co.za
Hope to see you there!
Tags: cycle race, Cycling, Pick N Pay, Pick N Pay The Star The Fast One, Sport, The Fast One, The Star
Failure Is Not An Option
When I first had a look at this picture, I thought to myself: “Bull. The only ones who are failures are those who never get up off the couch and do something. If you’re out there cycling, you’re NOT a failure”.
But then it reminded me of a friend who used to do motocross with me and it made me rethink this statement. This friend used to return from injury, just to go out onto the motocross track and re-injure himself.
If you want to participate in a dangerous sport (like motocross, mountain biking, etc), be sure to approach it with a lot of respect, no matter how much experience you have. Do NOT attempt big jumps (like this friend used to do), before you properly warmed up and did a few warm-up laps. Remember, warm-up laps aren’t only for warming up your muscles. They’re also crucial for re-calibrating your senses: depth-perception, speed-perception, distance-judgement, etc. Getting any of these wrong on a motocross track will definitely cause a lot of pain and the same goes for mountain biking.
So, my conclusion was that IF you ARE one of those guys who “fail” a lot because you’re taking bigger chances than your experience levels allow, going big before properly warmed up, etc, then you should rather quit.
Having said that, I’d like to also add that IF you’re doing things at your own pace, but still have a crash here and there, don’t let it deter you from persevering. That’s the only way to learn and to get better at it. Just keep it safe and within the limits of your capabilities and you’ll be fine.
Air: space between the tires and the ground. (Both tires must be off the ground or it isn’t “air”.) Said to be caught or gotten. See sky.
Ano: frequently-misspelled abbreviation for “anodized”.
ATB: All-Terrain Bike or Biking. A synonym for MTB.
auger: to involuntarily take samples of the local geology, usually with one’s face, during a crash. See face plant.
bacon: scabs on a rider’s knees, elbows, or other body parts.
bail: to jump off in order to avoid an imminent crash.
biff: a crash. Synonyms: involuntary dismount, wipeout. v. “I biffed and then wiped away the blood.”
biopace: a now-discredited Shimano techno-fad where the chainrings were made intentionally not circular — instead, they were elliptical, in order to (allegedly) smooth the power delivery, by giving the rider an effectively lower gear for part of the spin cycle. Now used to describe any uneven pedaling motion. Also used as a synonym for pogo-ing.
boing-boing: a bike with full (front and rear) suspension. Might possibly be considered offensive by certain owners of said bikes.
bonk: to run out of energy or grow exhausted on a ride. “I bonked so early it was embarrassing.”
bring home a Christmas tree: to ride (or crash) through dense bushes, so leaves and branches are hanging from your bike and helmet. See prune.
BSG: acronym for “Bike Store Guy”.
bunny hop: to lift both wheels off the ground by crouching down and then exploding upward, pulling the bike with you. Useful for clearing obstructions, such as curbs, potholes, logs. Differs from its older BMX & trials meaning — see jump.
buzz: euphoric feeling. Commonly used after a particularly hard assage is successfully completed. “I got such a buzz after that uphill grunt.”
carve: (from skiing) to ride with great speed around the corners of a twisting fire road.
captain crash: to “go down with the ship”. Usually the result of a novice spud-user failing to clip out in time.
cashed: to be too tired to ride any farther; bonked.
chainring tattoo: the dotted-line scar you get from gouging your shin on the chainring. See rookie mark.
chainsuck: condition when the bike chain gets jammed between the frame and the chain rings, or when the chainring is so worn that it holds onto the chain and lifts it up to meet the incoming part of the chain.
clean: to negotiate a trail successfully without crashing. “I cleaned that last section.”
clipless:misleading name for a pedal-and-shoe system where the clips or cleats clip onto the soles of special shoes. Called “clipless” because you can’t see the clips when you’re clipped in. Contrast with toe clips.
clip out: (or, sometimes, click out) v. to disengage one’s spuds.
cloon: slamming into the ground, resulting in a ringing head, or a delay in the action. Term used in biking, skiing, and snow boarding.
corndog: to become covered in silt, usually after a fall.
crotch-testing: sudden impact between a male rider’s private parts and something very hard and pointy, such as a handlebar stem or seat.
curb grind: expensive erasure of low-hanging, shiny parts of the bike on a curb or rock.
curb slide: to place the front wheel up on a curb and allow the rear tire to scrape along the curb, usually resulting in a loud tearing sound.
dab: to put a foot down in order to catch your balance on a difficult section of trail. “I made it without crashing, but I had to dab once.”
death cookies: fist-sized rocks that knock your bike in every direction but the one you want to proceed in.
death march: a ride that turns into an investigation of your endurance limit. “The bridge was out, and I had to go all the way back the way I came. So the morning’s nice, easy ride turned into a Bataan death march.”
dialed in: when a bike is set up nicely and everything works just right.
digger: a face plant. “Look at that guy on that gnarly single track… he’s going to go over the bars and do a digger.”
dirt bike: an off-road motorcycle. Usually louder than MTBs.
drillium: any part with lots of holes drilled in it to make it lighter.
dual-track: a dirt road used by four-wheeled vehicles rarely enough that their tires have made ruts that became parallel singletracks. Also called doubletrack. See singletrack.
endo: the maneuver of flying unexpectedly over the handlebars, thus being forcibly ejected from the bike. Short for “end over end”. “I hit that rock and went endo like nobody’s business.” See “superman”. In BMX riding, “endo” used to be a synonym for front wheelie.
engine: the rider.
face plant: hitting the ground face first. “Joe hit a tree root and did a spectacular face plant.” Synonyms: auger, digger, soil sample, spring planting.
first blood: credit to the first rider in a group who crashes and starts bleeding as a result.
foot fault: when a rider can’t disengage his cleats from the pedals before falling over. See horizontal track stand.
fred: a person who spends a lot of money on his bike and clothing, but still can’t ride. “What a fred — too much Lycra and titanium and not enough skill.” Synonym for poser. Occasionally called a “barney”.
front wheelie: what endo used to mean in BMX: a trick where the rider applies the front brake and lifts the back wheel off the ground; this is the basis for many BMX tricks. Most riders cannot pedal effectively while doing a front wheelie.
FS or F/S: an ambiguous term, can mean Front Suspension or Full Suspension. Not used by anyone who wishes to be understood.
giblets: all the colorful parts and pieces that you can add or change out on a bike.
gonzo: treacherous, extreme. “That vertical drop was sheer gonzo.”
granny gear: the lowest gear available on a bike, which only a grandmother would need to use; designed for steep uphill climbing, but extremely easy to pedal in on flat ground.
gravity check: a fall.
grindies: e.g., “All that dried mud and sand left me with a loud case of the grindies in my drivetrain.”
grunt: a very difficult climb, requiring use of the granny gear.
gutter bunny: a bicycling commuter.
half-track: a trail so narrow and/or overgrown that you’d hesitate even to call it singletrack.
hammer: to ride fast and hard. n. someone who hammers.
hardtail: any bike with front suspension but no rear suspension. Contrast with rigid and F/S.
HOHA: Hateful Old Hikers Association. “HOHA members hate mountain bicyclists with a fervor exceeding that of rabid wolverines.”
horizontal track stand: a foot fault that happens at a stop sign. Kathunk..
IMBA: International Mountain Biking Association. An organization for trail advocacy.
involuntary dismount: a crash.
jump: where we now say bunny hop, BMXers used to say “jump”.
kack: an injury to the shin received while doing trials, a kack can be the result of any injury receive during technical riding.
kick-out: a bunny hop in which the rider pushes the back tire to one side.
LBS: acronym for “Local Bike Shop”.
line: the desirable path or strategy to take on a tricky trail section.
mantrap: hole covered with autumn leaves, resembling solid earth and effective at eating the front wheel of the unsuspecting rider.
Marin: (muh RINN’) the county in Northern California where MTBing is said to have been invented. Just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.
mo: momentum. “If you don’t get in gear at the bottom of that hill, you’ll lose your mo.”
mojo: charm or icon worn by a biker or attached to the bike.
MTB: the activity of MounTain Biking. Or a mountain bike itself. v. “MTBing”. See ATB, OHV, ORV, VTT.
mud diving: what happens when a bike slows abruptly in mud, throwing the rider into wet goo.
nard guard: used to prevent wang chung.
nirvana: the state of being in absolute control and totally in tune with your bike, the trail, and your physical strength. “I was just doing it all so smoothly and delicately and quickly, it was nirvana!” Synonym for The Zone.
NORBA: National Off-Road Bicycling Association. They organize most of the larger races.
OHV, ORV: Acronyms for Off-Highway Vehicle and Off-Road Vehicle. These have motors and are not bicycles.
over-the-bar blood donor: a rider who is injured while doing an endo.
pogo: to bounce on a full-suspension bike like a pogo stick. Also, for a full-suspension bike to bounce annoyingly and uncontrollably.
poser: derogatory term for people with $7,000 bikes that never see an actual trail. Usually found near a trail head and never dirty. Seinfeld may be an example. Synonym for Fred.
potato chip: a wheel that has been bent badly, but not taco’d.
powerbar: The mush bar of choice for all hardcore MTBers.
powerslide: a two-wheel sideways slide, with the foot opposite the direction of travel kept on the ground.
prune: to use one’s bike or helmet to remove leaves and branches from the surrounding flora. Usually unintentional.
push-push: 1. a novice’s pedaling motion, consisting of alternately pushing each foot down, instead of spinning. 2. a Shimano techno-fad shifting system.
R&D: Ripoff & Duplication, or Research & Development.
rag dolly: to wreck in such a way that one’s person is tossed like a flimsy scrap of cloth.”Did you see me rag dolly back there? I think I pierced my ear on a tree branch.”
retro-grouch: a rider who prefers an old bike with old components and isn’t fond of new, high-tech equipment.
‘rhoid buffing: going down a hill so steep that your butt touches the rear wheel.
rigid: a bike with no suspension.
roadie: a rider who prefers riding on paved surfaces. Usually a derogatory term when used by MTBers.
road rash: large abrasions on a rider’s legs and body caused by a crash, particularly on asphalt.
rocket fuel: the mandatory pre-ride coffee and Powerbar.
rookie mark: chain grease on a rider’s pant leg. “Give that guy extra points for his rookie mark. It’s even on the wrong leg!” See chainring tattoo.
roost: to go fast or accelerate quickly. Or, to stop suddenly. Usually the latter.
singletrack: trail just wide enough for one person or bike — the MTBer’s holy grail. Contrast with dual-track.
skid lid: helmet.
sky: to jump extremely high. To get big air.
snake bite: a double puncture of an inner tube, caused by hitting an obstacle too hard or by under-inflation of tires.
snowmine: an object hidden by snow on the trail. “Be careful of the snowmines — you know, rocks, logs, hibernating bears…”
soil sample: a face plant.
spin: smooth pedal motion. Opposite of push-push.
spring planting: a face plant.
spuds: “SPD” (Shimano Pedaling Dynamics) clipless pedals.
stack: crash. v. crash with multiple riders after hitting an object.
steed: your bike, the reason for your existence.
stoned: describes a rider after a crash which imbeds stones into the rider’s skin. Or the affects of a good after ride smoke in the team microbus, the VW of Choice for hardcore riders.
STI : “Shimano Total Integration” — a marketing ploy that forces you to buy new brakes when you replace your shifters.
superman: a rider who flies over the handlebars and doesn’t hit the ground for a long time. This may result in injury, but when it doesn’t, it’s really funny for everyone else.
schwag: the stuff that manufacturers and vendors donate to be given away at bike related events. When you race, go to bike shows, help put on events, write bike articles, you are often rewarded with schwag. Sometimes called “swag”.
table-top: a jump in which the rider throws the bike sideways in mid-air. Less commonly, a jump made over a hill that reaches a plateau and goes back down.
taco: to bend a wheel over on itself, in the shape of a taco. “I taco’d my wheel, and it cost me a hundred bucks.” Worse than a potato chip.
tea party: when a whole group of riders stops and chats, and nobody seems to want to ride on.
technical: a section of trail that is difficult to ride because of rocks, tree roots, steep drops.
techno-fad: a screwy or unique technology that a dominant company (usually Shimano) tries to foist upon the innocent cycling public. Past techno-fads include Biopace chainrings, and overly complex “thumb-thumb” or “push-push” shifters.
techno-weenie: a rider who knows more about the newest MTB parts and techno-fads than about the trails. Someone who buys lots of gadgets to add supposed iotas of performance to the bike. Greeting a friend whom we haven’t seen in a year, I might say “Hi, Jurgen!” A techno-weenie might say “Oooh, you got White Industries hubs on that bike now?”
three-hour tour: a ride that looks like a piece of cake at the outset but turns out to be a death march. Derived from the theme song to “Gilligan’s Island.”
tin: titanium. Some riders would replace their watches, rings, glasses frames, and gold tooth-fillings with titanium if they could afford to.
toe clips: a clip-and-strap system that connects a rider’s feet and toes to her pedals. Toe clips usually don’t require special shoes.
track stand: (from road-cycling) a maneuver where the rider stops the bike and attempts to remain standing.
trail swag: equipment or accessories dropped by other bikers and found on the trail. A Kewl bonus for the finder, a bummer for the dropper.
tricked out: when a bike has the latest and hottest components.
tweak: a jump during which the rider twists the handlebars back and forth in mid-air, the more times the better. v. 1. to slightly injure a part of the body or the bike in a crash. “I tweaked my wrist when I fell.” 2. to make a minor adjustment. “My brake pads were rubbing but I tweaked the cable and it went away.”
unobtanium: describing a bike or accessory made from expensive, high-tech material. A play on “unobtainable” and “titanium.”
vegetable tunnel: a singletrack that is heavily overgrown with foliage, so a rider must duck and bend to get through it.
VTT: Velo Tout-Terrain, the French term for mountain biking. Velo = bike, Tout = all, and don’t even ask me about terrain. It’s not terribly complex .
wang chung: what you might get when your stem has no nard guard. See crotch-testing.
washboard: small undulations of the soil surface that make for a very rough ride.
wash out: to have the front tire lose traction, especially while going around a corner.
weight-weenie: a MTB owner (not even necessarily a rider) who is more concerned with how many milligrams a certain component saves off the bike’s total weight than with how to be a better rider.
wheelie: lifting the front wheel off the ground, usually with some combination of pulling on the handlebars, pedaling harder, and balance.
wild pigs: poorly adjusted brake pads that squeal in use.
wipeout: a crash. v. (”wipe out”) to crash.
wonky: not functioning properly. “I bailed, and now my wheel is all wonky and all I hear are wild pigs.”
XC: An abbreviation for “cross country.” Typically it is used for cross country racing.
yard sale: (from skiing) a horrendous crash that leaves all your various “wares” — water bottles, pump, tool bag, etc. — scattered as if on display for sale.
The Zone: a state of mind experienced while riding. You don’t think, you just do. A truly mystical experience that can’t be fully explained, but when you get there you’ll know it and strive to reach it again.
zone out: a state of mind where you think you’ve reached The Zone, but you really just stopped paying attention to what you’re doing. Usually used as an excuse for a particularly embarrassing biff
Tags: Biking, Mountain Bike, Mountain Bike Slang, MTB
