Lost Valley Luau Recap

Each year, Mesa Cycles puts on a race at Lost Valley called the Lost Valley Luau.  Two years, ago, the thought of signing up for it crossed my mind, but at the time, I knew I would be way overmatched.  The original date in the spring also got rained out and it was rescheduled for Father's Day, which turned out to be about 90-95° with stifling humidity and bugs that would eat you if you stopped anywhere for more than a second.  At any rate, I decided to do a charity ride with my parents and in-laws that day on the KATY Trail on that day.  My wife was pregnant with my son at the time, so she drove the SAG wagon.

Last year, I really wanted to do the race even though I knew I would still be overmatched, but the original date got rained out, and the make up date in June was rained out as well.  I at least was able to get my feet wet in the racing scene though, participating in the last installment of the Dirt Crit series at Castlewood that The Alpine Shop sponsored.


This year, when the racing schedule came out, I circled last Sunday on my calendar and crossed my fingers that it would be dry.  Through most of March, I was feeling pretty good about the race happening, and the trails have been in excellent shape all spring with the obscenely warm weather we've been having.  Unfortunately, as race day came closer, it was looking like rain might ruin the day once again.  A week out, they were predicting rain almost every day from Monday through Thursday, though clear Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Then they moved the rain back to where Saturday and Sunday would be clear.  Then about Monday or Tuesday, they were saying it would rain Friday and Saturday with clear skies on Sunday.  By Wednesday, it hadn't rained a drop yet and that night Greensfelder was mostly dry on the east side, with some muddy sections in the dips on the west side trails from a deluge we had received last Saturday.  This is when fortunes started to change.  The 2" of rain that was threatened for the area Wednesday night and Thursday morning turned into about 0.2" and all that materialized on Friday was some localized showers, though I hear Lost Valley was under one of those for a while.  The rain stayed away on Saturday, and that afternoon word came out that the race was on!

Parking lot starting to fill up.

The Cat 3 race started at 9:30, so about 8:30, I left my house so I could get to the area with some time to spare.  Arriving at the mound parking lot, it was about as full as I've ever seen the place, but I found the registration table and signed up.  It was only a little after 9 at this point, so I rode up and down the road to the Army Reserve center behind the mound a couple times to get the blood flowing as it was a little chilly (about 60°), though still really warm for the end of March.  Gradually, people started lining up at the entrance to the Hamburg Trail where the start line was going to be, so I migrated towards the group and waited for the instructions.  There were about 70 of us between the Marathon, Cat 3 and Junior classes.  We were starting at the same time as the Marathon class, so at 9:30, they got their signal, then 2 minutes later we got ours, and the Juniors were 2 minutes behind us. 

Coming down the Hamburg Connector. Credit Karena Romstad.

Not really knowing what to expect in regards to my competition, I found a spot in the middle of the pack as we took off down the Hamburg to the drop off into the back side of Lost Valley.  I was immediately relieved that I wasn't blown away at the start line, and started to pick up my pace to get around as many people as I thought I could before we got to the cut-off.  I've ridden out here enough to know where my strong and weak spots are, and the gravel is most definitely my strong suit.  My hope was to go as well as I could on the gravel and the flat singletrack, then just try to survive the descent to the first dry creek crossing and the tougher singletrack after that. I hoped to then make up time on the next gravel stretch and hold my own on the final stretch of singletrack that I've gotten pretty good at before trying to haul as much as I could on the open stretch to the finish line.

Another shot on the connector descent.  Credit Karena Romstad.

 Coming down the connector descent, I was again pleased that I was only passed by one person, and I think I may have passed a couple of other people.  The hill has a lot of loose gravel, and people had warned that the rains of the week before had washed a lot of it out and rutted it up a bit.  I usually ride the brakes pretty hard coming down here, but the I didn't quite have the death grip I usually do and the looseness of the gravel may have slowed me down a bit as well.  The reward of getting to the bottom here is an immediate climb back up to the top of the next ridge, and this seemed a LOT more washed out than I remembered.  Maybe this is what the reports were warning about.  It's also been a long time since I've actually climbed this hill though, so maybe my memory is getting fuzzy.  I continued to hold my own though, and even passed another rider or two.  At this point, I think I was probably in the top third of the racers.  

After getting to the top of the hill, we entered the newest stretch of singletrack at Lost Valley, which I have a bit of a love - hate relationship with.  I love it because it's flat and can be fast in places, but I hate it because of some of the turns in this area are filled with baseball sized rocks that can beat you to death and make it easy to wash out if you aren't careful.  Soon after I entered the singletrack, I came up on one more rider.  After deciding that I could go faster than he was, I made the move to pass and was cruising until...

Going around one of those rocky turns, I went a little wide and slammed my left pedal into a small tree.  Fortunately, I stayed on the bike, but I was shaken and some of the life was sucked right out of me.  I pulled off to let what I thought was 2 people pass me, and as I turned around, about 5 riders whizzed right by.  DOH!  Once I saw a hole, I got back on the trail and continued on.  As soon as I got moving again, I immediately noticed that my pedal was not just moving up and down, forward and back like pedals are supposed to do, but it was also moving left to right a bit.  Not good!  To make matters worse, this was right at the end of the part I'm good at, and next up was the descent to the first creek crossing.  I made it down all right, but at one of the switchbacks, I pulled off to let yet another rider by since I knew I would be slow at the crossing itself.  Seeing someone bloodied up at this crossing last summer can go a long way towards making you tentative for a while.  I made it up the other side without any problems and then there was one more technical area that I struggle where I was passed yet again.

While that was the last area in that section where I was really stuck, there are some twisty uphill climbs before I got back to doubletrack, and I continued to lose ground on the pack through this area.  By the time the course widened out, the last rider to pass me was far enough ahead that I couldn't see them at all. At this point, my stamina was starting to fade more than I would've liked, and while I know I've ridden this stretch at 15-20+ mph in the past, it was tough to even get to 15 on a lot of it.  This is probably where I need to learn to drink at speed a little better.  I had a full bottle of water with me, but I'm not sure I'd taken two drinks of it at this point.  Finally, at the end of the stretch of doubletrack, the rider in front of me was starting to come into view.  Unfortunately, this would be short lived as the upcoming section of singletrack was quite a bit softer from the recent rains than I would've liked, and I was slowed down by some slippery rocks and a few muddy areas.

Not me, but this is one of the better views of the creek crossing.  Credit Dennis Fickinger.

There was one semi-bright spot through this area though.  Coming up one the other creek crossing that has always given me trouble, I heard someone say, "You need to keep your speed up if your going to make that crossing!"  At that point my mindset went from stop and dismount like always to let's see if we can make this.  So I kept pedaling, made it across the creek and up on the rock armoring on the other side until my front wheel got stuck in a gap between a couple of the rocks.  So while I didn't totally clear the crossing, that was about the best I've ever done there.

Me after the crossing.  I think you can see a grin from my quasi-success.  Credit Dennis Fickinger.

After making it through that crossing, there was one last small ridge to climb up and over, and the climb was again harder than I remembered, but at this point, it could've been one of about four things - my pedal, not drinking enough, lack of stamina, or the dampness of parts of the trail.  Let's just say the downhill to the final creek crossing felt really nice.  After making that crossing, I got tripped up on a root on the other side, but then it was time to go as hard as I could for the last mile to the finish.

On the finishing stretch.  Credit Karena Romstad.

By now, as hard as I could go was down to about 10-12 mph given the slight incline in the terrain.  Valleys are tricky like that.  What looks flat can have a few percent grade hidden by the hills on either side of you that are much steeper.  But then when you're pedaling through it, you wonder why you can't go any faster than you are.  There's definitely a 3-5 mph difference in speeds for me going one way versus the other through here.

Almost done! Credit Karena Romstad.

 But I toughed it out, and made it to the finish line in 59 minutes and change, which seems to have put me fifth out of 8 in my age group, which is better than I thought on race day.  I initially thought there were only 5 in my age group, and I was last.  Hopefully, I'll get an exact time at some point soon.  It's been a been a while since I've just done the standard Lost Valley loop, but I think that's about as fast as I've ever made the trip.  Well, since I've never ridden it without stopping somewhere along the trail, I know that's the fastest I've ever made it around the loop.  I didn't reset my odometer before the race, but I think it was a 10.5 mile course and if I did it in 59 minutes, that would give me a 10.5 mph average and I'm almost positive that's about the fastest moving average I've ever achieved over the loop.  Usually I'm happy if I'm close to 10 mph.  All in all, it was a great event (the Qdoba and Pabst Blue Ribbon at the finish made it even better), and I was happy I decided do it, even if it did put my bike in the shop for the next week to get repaired.  I'll just have to ride on the road until I get it back.

Enough with the flats!

The rains late last week put a temporary end to the awesome trail conditions we've had for the last few weeks, so I headed out on the road bike Sunday to get a ride in after the last round of storms went through Saturday night.  The ride started out uneventful enough as I set out to explore some of the Death by Hills route that I skipped out on last month.  I've been on most of the roads the course uses at some point or another, but I set my sights on a couple roads I've never been on with only two wheels.  I've been on Melrose a lot, but heading west, I've always turned on either Ossenfort or Bouquet to start heading back.  This time, I decided to venture all the way to where it intersects Highway T.  That might have been my first mistake.  After I passed Bouquet, the road went down a steep, twisty hill that had a good amount of debris on the road from the recent rains.  It was not that fun to actually go down.  When I got to the bottom, I paused for a few minutes to gauge the traffic on T.  After I decided that traffic was light enough that I could probably make it over to St. Albans without incident, I made the left turn and pushed myself as much as I could until I could get back onto a quieter road.  Unfortunately, right as I was approaching the entrance to St. Albans, I noticed a weird noise coming from my front tire.  I pulled off the road and saw it was losing air.  Grrr!  Looking around, I saw a tree stump that I could sit on while I changed the tire.  Pulling out my spare tube, I started freaking out that I hadn't put a new tube in my pack when I saw that the one I had was dirty (I had never put a new tube in after my flat in January).  I then tried to call for SAG support (my wife), but I didn't have a signal.  So then I started thinking and realized that the problem with that tube was simply the valve stem had become unscrewed, so I calmed down, got the tube changed, and aired it back up.

Unfortunately, this kind of sucked the fun out of the ride and my goal now was just to get home without further incident.  Flats always make me nervous like that.  Across the street from where I changed my tire was Bassett Road, which connects up with Manchester, so I headed down that road, and almost immediately I saw some buffalo.  That was pretty cool, as you don't see those around Missouri very often (unless you're at Lone Elk Park or Grant's Farm (don't they have a few?).

Bassett had a pretty good hill to climb up, and then from the top of that there was a good downhill to Manchester.  When I got to Manchester, I had remembered that there was a monument very close to where I was that the St. Louis Cycling Club had erected in the early 1900's marking the county line.  I made the right on Manchester, and headed out looking for it, but as I headed further up the hill away from Bassett, I figured I'd missed it and turned around to head back.  Sure enough, it was almost back to where I had started from, so I swung around to grab a picture.

As I was doing this, the guy who lives across the street from this monument pulled out and stopped to tell me how he's been telling riders about the monument ever since he moved out there in the early 90's, then told me how he thinks cyclists shouldn't be on roads without shoulders.  Meh.  The only roads that get shoulders are busy enough that I'd be constantly breathing exhaust from cars, as I learned when I got back on Highway 100 and headed for home.

Before heading home from work today, I was trying to decide between pulling the road bike out again or hitting the trails.  I checked the GORC forum and someone had posted that Greensfelder was dry, which surprised me.  Then walking out to my car, the wind was still blowing pretty good, so my mind was made up.  Trails it was.  When I got home, I gathered my stuff and headed over to the trails, seeing my coworker's car already in the lot.  Since the last two times I've been out, I've run Declue clockwise, I decided to run it the more traditional direction, especially since I haven't ridden a couple of the reroutes that direction yet.  Everything started off almost perfect, I made it down to the Allenton Road crossing only putting a foot down once, and that was just because I swung a turn a bit to wide.  I was getting hung up a bit more through the switchback areas since they're more rocky and technical, but I was hitting a few areas that I've struggled with before.  I even got almost halfway up one of the sets up steps before I had to dismount, and that's when I crossed paths with my coworker.

Springtime on the trail

Unfortunately, the equestrians couldn't wait for dry trails to ride.

We both took a break for a minute before continuing on, but not 5 minutes after I passed him, I heard a hissing sound.  My front tire had gone flat.  I pulled it off and started trying to change it when I managed to break off one of the levers in the rim.  DOH!  That's when someone came up on me and asked if I had everything.  I told him what had happened, and he stopped and starting digging for his.  It turned out his were missing, but his multi-tool had a lever built into it.  With that, we managed to get the tube switched out, but when I started airing up the new tube, it wouldn't hold air, and I started to wonder if I was carrying another bad tube in my bag.  That will teach me to be more careful on my pre- and post- ride checks.  Thinking about that though, my last flat on that bike was noticed either at home or in a parking lot.  Surely I wouldn't have put a bad tube back in my bag if I wasn't on the trail, would I?  Since the guy helping me was on a 29er, his tube wouldn't work with my wheel, so it was hike-a-bike time for me.  Luckily, just up the hill from me was an escape route, so I hiked through the weeds, and walked my bike about a mile back to the car.  When I got back home, I got the tire changed in the comfort of my garage, and I'll have to head back out again tomorrow to see if I can end this string of bad luck.

After I started wrapping up, my wife came home with the kids.  It was getting dark, so she took J in to give him a bath, but K wanted to stay out with me.  She looked around the garage, and immediately asked, "Did you have a flat, daddy?"  I looked at her in amazement and asked how she knew that.  She pointed to the tire levers I still had out and said something to the effect of, "You have those out.  Those are for changing flats."  Wow, this girl has a memory!

Return of the Wednesday Dehydration Ride

When I won the first episode of the Biggest Loser my coworkers put on, my bike was my not-so-secret weapon.  I am fortunate enough to live close enough to where I work that biking to work is a possibility.  I don't do it as often as I would like because a couple of the roads I use to get there are less than ideal, but the during the summer of 2010, I rode to work almost every Wednesday.  It was an easy way to wring that extra pound or so of water weight out of my body to get as low as possible for the Wednesday morning weigh-in.  This strategy didn't work nearly as well during round two because it was in the winter and I wasn't going to leave the house in the dark on two wheels.  It was also a cold winter last year and I didn't ride very much during that winter either.  This year, it's been so mild that even though it seems like I'm missing a lot of ideal weather, my miles are definitely up over last year (thank you Team Virtus Super Century!).  It's also been noticed on my waistline.  I haven't mentioned the Biggest Loser contests much lately because 1) I haven't won any weekly weigh-ins since Christmas, and 2) I've been stuck at about 210 for the last month.  This week, determined to break through that magic number, I decided to bring back my old friends, dehydration and starvation. 

After coming home Monday to the kids playing outside, I let my wife go for a run which lasted a fraction of the time it normally would.  She came home complaining about the 80°+ heat and the 15-20mph winds after barely running a mile or so.  At that point she wanted to cook dinner, so she promised me that I would be able to go out on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, my coworkers had brought their mountain bikes in and said they were going to Greensfelder, so I took off a few minutes before them, grabbed my bike from home and met them over there.   Unfortunately, in my rush to meet them, I managed to forget my helmet, pump, and gloves.  After the family ride the week before, I must've neglected to transfer all of that back to my car, as the pump was in the garage and the helmet and gloves were in the laundry room.  Since I was in the parking lot when I realized this, I decided to just ride without the helmet, and I've been on a few rides sans gloves lately (usually because I'll bring the winter gloves and get too hot), so that was no big deal.  I asked if my buddy had his pump with him, but after feeling my tires, I decided that they were probably okay.  He insisted that I check though, so I went ahead and checked them.  On the back tire, everything went normally.  However, on the front tire, when I went to unscrew the nozzle from my valve, the cap on the presta valve came off and flattened my tire.  I screwed the valve back in, and aired it up.  But when I took it off, the same thing happened.  Then I let my buddy try it.  Same result.  Finally, when we got the valve back on, I just went and got my CO₂ out and used that to fill it back up.  Fortunately, that worked without any issues, and I just had to hope that I didn't flat on the trail.  It was warm enough that day, by the time we made it around a lap of Declue, I had drank all of my water and was ready to head home.  Plus, with all the time we wasted with my tire, it was already 6:00.

Wednesday, I was a little late getting into work, so it was almost 6:00 by the time I got home.  With the weigh-in the next day, I was determined to break through 210, so I skipped dinner and went for a ride on the road bike.  I knew I didn't have a lot of daylight left, so I decided I would just ride east for a half hour or so (so the setting sun would be behind me), then turn around and come home as the sun would hopefully be below the horizon not blinding any drivers coming up behind me.  I made it up to Clayton Rd, and then turned around just short of Baxter.  Coming back, at one point I thought I saw a lightning bolt off to the south, and then as I was turning to get off of the bike trail I was on, I saw this amazing looking cloud.  It looked almost like a cross between the A-bomb explosion and something out of the Ghostbusters movie.

As usual, the picture doesn't do this justice, but it was one crazy looking cloud.

Sure enough, within the next hour or two, a couple isolated storms moved through the area, the ones that are more annoying than anything because they'll get your car dirty, but it's not enough actual rain to water the grass.

Thursday, I went in for the weigh-in, and my strategy worked.  I came in at 208.2, which wasn't enough for me to win the week, but I at least broke through the wall that 210 was starting to become.  Hopefully, I can get some rides in over the weekend to continue my progress.

Spring is arriving early

Okay, I'm running a week behind with these updates.  I'm also not taking advantage of the weather as much as I should.  I was able to get out last Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday though.  Sunday was the day of the monthly GORC ride at Greensfelder Park.  This is a ride I've wanted to do for what seems like the last two years, but have never made it out to attend.  Originally I wanted to go because I was pretty sure there were parts of the park I had never been to, but over the last several months, my usual riding buddies and I started exploring some of the less traveled trails there and now I think I've seen almost everything that is bicycle friendly.  At any rate, Sunday morning I made my way over to the park and met up with a group of over a dozen riders for the ride.  It was only in the 40's that day, but with the winter we've had, the trail was in really good shape and the parking lot was as busy as I've ever seen it!  I think the secret on this place is getting out!  We rode Declue clockwise, which is opposite of the way I typically ride there now and while I was one of the slower guys in the group, I continue to impress myself with the stuff that I was riding over out there.  There's sections of this trail that I was walking most of just last summer that I'm riding through with barely putting a food down of late.  Unfortunately, I think some of this is because of the formation of easier lines through some tough spots, but I think I've getting a little braver as well.  I've also been riding my hard tail there this year, and I think the lighter weight of that bike helps me out in places as well (anyone want to buy my full suspension?).  After we completed the loop of Declue, I did another thing I've never done before at that park - I also did a loop of Dogwood.  Usually, by the time I make it around Declue, I'm so exhausted that I'm ready to go home, but I was feeling good enough that I didn't back out when the group made the loop of Dogwood.  After that though, it was time to head back, especially since it was getting to be about 2 or 3 and I hadn't had lunch yet.

At one point the previous week, the weather forecast was predicting mid-60's on Monday, so I put in for what I think was my first vacation day of the year.  Unfortunately, that number kept falling, and by the time Monday actually rolled around, it was only in the upper 40's.  However, my wife seems to be slowly getting the riding bug (FINALLY!) and she was all excited to take the kids over to Grant's trail in the new carrier we bought for them last fall.  At first my son didn't really want to get in (probably seems too much like his car seat), but he settled down pretty quickly once we started rolling from the west end of the trail.  My daughter usually likes these rides more, and she got pretty excited when we saw the horses at Grant's Farm.  She also kept wanting me to go faster than my wife, but the mountain bike combined with 70 pounds of kids and a 20-25 pound trailer slowed me down way more than I thought it would on such a flat trail and I could only eat my wife's dust.  I'd taken them out a few times around the house last fall which is much hillier, but either they've grown a bunch in 4 months or my legs have gotten weak over the winter.  We made it to the other end of the trail without incident, but we lingered a bit too much at that end because J started crying again when he realized that he wasn't going to get out.  Unfortunately, this time he didn't calm down nearly as quickly, and I had a crying kid to pull 8 miles back to the car.  Then about halfway back, his sister got into the act as well, whining that there wasn't enough room.  At that point, I couldn't really tell who was okay and who was miserable, but I was just trying to get back to the car as fast as I could (about 11-12 mph).  Thankfully, across the street from where the car was parked, there is a playground, and when we got there, we let the kids out to burn off some energy (maybe we should've done that at the start?) and I went to the QT around the corner to get a soda and corn dog.  Again, it was 2 or 3 and I hadn't had lunch yet.

Tuesday, I was back at work and this was the day it was into the 60's, so I got out of work as early as I could for being out the previous day and made another trip over to Greensfelder.  It was still a pretty late start though, and I rode Declue the same way I started on Sunday, then when I met up with my coworker who was running it in the opposite direction, I turned around and we rode back to the parking lot.  At that point, it was getting dark, and he was spent, but I looked at my mileage and thought that I needed something more.  I was afraid a full Dogwood loop would be too much, so I completed my evening with an out and back on the segment of Declue on the west side of Allenton Rd.

Unfortunately, I have not been on two wheels since that day.  Wednesday, I went down to the Tap Room for the monthly GORC meeting, then Thursday was rainy, Friday I spent with the family after work, and after walking up to the bank to do some business Saturday morning, one of my buddies came over with his daughter so they could play for a while, and when they left, I crashed in the La-Z-Boy with J while K took a nap and my wife went for a run and THEN a bike ride.  Sunday I maybe should've gone out early before the rains came, but I decided not to turn down a free breakfast at Mickey D's.

Death by (avoiding) hills

A week ago was Team Seagal's Death by Hills ride.  I'm don't consider myself a very good climber, but with where I live, it's really difficult to go on any kind of lengthy bike ride without encountering a few of them.  This ride was going right through my neck of the woods, and it was designed to hit the steepest of the steep around me.  What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger, right?  The forecast for Sunday was sunny, windy, and 60°, so a little after 8:00, I hopped on my bike and headed over to The Wolf Public House, formerly Lone Wolf, to hop on the ride. 

The last couple years it's been reported that 50-60 people have started this ride, but this ride continues to gain notoriety and there must've been close to 100 people milling around the lot at go time.  A little after 9:00, the group took off down Clayton Road with me somewhere in the middle of the pack.  I'm pretty sure most of the people I was riding with were part of the local racing scene (why else would you subject yourself to this?), so I wasn't sure how long it would be before I was spit out the back of the pack.  Even though I was in the first group when we got split up by the light at Clayton and Clarkson, by the time we crested the hills on Clayton and Westglen Farms, I'm pretty sure I was at the back of the pack.  At this point I knew that I was going to have to skip some of the out and back climbs to avoid being horribly dropped.  What I didn't realize was that by skipping the first two I would put myself at the front of everyone. 

I was with a sizable group across from the start of the John's Cabin loop, but for some reason, when we went back down Old State, a lot of them stopped at the bottom of the hill and I was with one other person who continued down to Alt Road and we then waited for a group at the top of that hill by the entrance to Hidden Valley.  At that point, the talk was mostly on whether or not to skip the loop south of Allenton.  I thought there were going to be several who avoided it, but I must've been mistaken, because when I headed over to the gas station across from Six Flags, there was no one around, and it seemed like it was a good 10 or 15 minutes before anyone else rode past. 

After seeing a couple people skip the gas station, I decided to head out and start climbing Allenton hill towards Greensfelder Park.  While I briefly hung on to a group going down Allenton, they were too much for me and I decided I was probably on my own by now. 

Where do these people think they are?  West Virginia?

As I headed down Manchester towards my next descent into the Meramec valley, I saw this and had to stop to take a picture.  Then after coasting through Rockwoods Reservation, I headed up Melrose back to Hwy. 100 where it time to decide whether or not to continue on or call it a day.  This is the downside of the rides I do close to home.  When the route passes close by my house it tends to become too much of a beacon that will draw me in almost regardless of how much I've ridden or what might be left in the tank.  It happens every year on Trailnet's Tour of Wildwood, and was especially bad the year I rode it the day after my son was born (20 miles, oh that's PLENTY!).

I also thought that maybe I'd take the kids to the park with it being as nice as it was for late February.  As it turns out, at some point I told my wife the planned route was nearly 100 miles, so she thought it'd be late when I got home.  They were long gone when I arrived back at the house.  I should've kept riding, because they didn't show up for at least a couple more hours.  Oh well, I got 40 miles in and that was enough to hit my road mileage goal for February.