Yep, there's still winter up in the hills

Yep, still cold and very very icy up on my favourite trails. But all in I really enjoyed my spin this afternoon and after my little moaning session about the weather I was a bit surprised about that. Was cold as hell out there but a hot mug of lemon/ginger tea got me sorted in no time! Happy days! :)

I'm sick & tired of the weather...I need spring now!

Ice ... snow ... sleet...freezin' cold ... more cold ... ice ... more sleet ... sub zero temperature ... even more snow ... cold ... loosing-my-toes cold ... frozen waterbottle ... cold ... sleet ... splitting-me-in-half sharp wind ...

Another "funfilled" winter spin in late March

I don't usually complain too much about the weather and definitely don't let it ruin with my cycling. After all we are in love with an outdoor sport and we are doing all this in Ireland, so the weather is part of the package. As they say: there's no bad weather, only bad clothing...

So this is all cool but at this point I feel that enough is enough! Can we get spring already?!

It's great to be out on the bike and everything but it would be soooo nice not the have the January conditions ruin the fun, hah? I mean even just to be able to get home from a spin and relax without being in the hot bath for a halfen hour trying to melt and hoping the blood will get back to the toes some day soon... 

Poor gear cable is under heavy ice attack during my last spin

But hey! There's not much we can do about the crappy weather is there? All I can do is stay positive and have fun as much as I can! No bad weather will force me off the bike that's for sure! :)

Biking Blitz Round 4 // Threerock - race report

Now, that was a tough one I have to say. The Biking Blitz Round 4 up on Threerock was my first XC race of the 2013 racing season and I've had lots of mixed feelings about the race. On one hand I was super hyped up about racing, the motivation was over the roof on the morning of the race day. But on the other hand I was worried a little bit as well about how well prepared I am and how well do I feel for a mountain bike race after the cold/flu I've been dealing with during the last few days...

One of the best thing about the race was the fact I'm living about 10 minutes drive from the venue, so there was absolutely no pressure on me. After my brekkie and the usual preparation I was on my way towards the angry looking mountains. The late Irish winter/spring/summer/autumn weather has not been exactly friendly lately, so I wasn't surprised when I've seen the temperature (2°C)...wasn't surprised either when I reailzed the snow was falling when I got there...

"It'll be grand!" they said, so I did not worry! (although rumor has it the organizers were thinking about to cancel the race due to heany snowfall...) After I got a parking spot I got my lovely looking race number picked up and had a lovely chat with few of my friends. And then it was time to get ready for the start!

I'm busy preparing my special...

... Paddy's Day touch for the race! The good 'aul Irish socks, can't beat them! :)

Number is on...

... let's go!

On the way to the start / finish area

Just before the start

I managed to get a nice starting position, took off from the third row to start the first climb. After the first bend I managed to stick to the leaders group. The plan was to do well on the heavy enough tarmac climb and take the rest from there...the plan did not work out quiet the way it was planned. The pace was maybe a little bit too much for me and when I started to do the first off-road bit I really felt I'm paying the price for pushing it a bit too much a bit too soon. 

After I got close to havin' a heart attack I finally started to settle down a bit and do my own thing. Got a little advantage on the climbs and was trying to be as fast as I can be on the bumpy and wet Metros. 

Getting the first lap done

Havin' fun during the second lap

 

I felt great during the second lap and I thought this is going to last 'til the end. Unfortunatelly this wasn't the case. Started to struggle on the climbs a bit but the bigger problem was the rough downhill. I was under a lot of pressure many times on the way down on those rocky sectors so I needed to let it go and forget about the brakes. I started to feel that my body takes more than I'm happy to deal with... Another thing that made the tough enough course even more tough was the weather. The temperature was bouncing around the 0°C and we got snow many times during the race. Ice cold puddles & snow flakes all over the place. Lovely! :)

To top all that I got a monster size mud/grit thing into my left eye during the third lap. Now, this definitely did not help on the situation that was bad enough already. Tried to get it out during the race but this attempt wasn't successful so I had to stop a few times to rub the crap out of my eye. Finally I got to the point when I was able to keep my eye open without having to blink in every 0.3 seconds ...so I kept going to finish my final lap. 

When I crossed the finish line and got off the bike I felt like I got beaten up and then got hit by a train just to complete the joy! I gave everything I had but it wasn't enough in the hard field. I finished 31st yesterday, managed to pick up a mid-field result in the Super-Pro category. I didn't have too high expectations but I was hoping to do better than this...

Did I enjoy the race? Yes, for sure! Did I have a good race? No, not really. Did I regret to race on St. Patrick's Day in the freezing cold conditions instead of sitting at home and watching the parade on the telly-box? Hell no!! 

I've had such a great buzz that is hard to describe! Got my lungs burning to bits on the steep-as-hell tarmac climb, got myself frozen to bits & temperary lost my sight thanks to the trails of Ticknock and the best of all is that I'm happy with all this. And as long this is how I feel after a race I'm keep coming back to race! :) 

But this isn't the end of my little story here. On the same evening I ended up in the Eye & Ear Hospital to get my eye cleaned out and checked. They have pulled out half of Threeock from my left eye which was a massive relief I have to say. After a quick exam they told me the eye got scrathced so I need to use antibiotic eye-drops for a week to get it healed and to avoid infections...Anyway, it's all sorted now, everything is good! Happy days! :)

Biking Blitz # 4 // 2 days to go, getting "ready"...

The machine is ready...

Today is Friday, so there's only two more days until my first XC race of the season. The preparation has been as good as it can get I think and of course I'm super excited about the fact I'll be at the start line on Sunday. The first race of the season is always more exctiting to me 'cause I'm dying to see where I'm exactly compare to all my friends and all the other riders. It's just a great buzz alltogether! :) 

The bike has been serviced and cleaned properly, so it is race ready I can say! But this is only one part of the preparation...the other half would be myself. I'm generally happy with this part as well but there's a little something I need to get sorted ASAP. 

...the human not just yet.

I managed to get through the whole winter without any illness (had some injuries but no cold or flu) and as we all know it always comes when I need it the least. I'm picking up some cold, so at this stage the most important pre-race prep task is to get rid of it now. I mean NOW!!!

I'm horsing Lemsip Max into me like there's no tomorrow, using all my secret Hungarian remedies & drinking record amount of liquid to get out of this in time. Thankfully I don't feel bad or anything but my nose & my throat is acting up big time...

So, I have about 48 hours at this point to pull myself together as much as I can and have a good race on Sunday. Working hard on it indeed and all I can say is: we'll see on Sudnay at 1 pm how successfuly I dropped this little uninvited visitor! :) 

Bring it on!!! :)

Hope it's going to melt before the Dublin Blitz...

This afternoon I went out to do a little sneaky training for the upcoming Biking Blitz # 4 up on Threerock. I got a great race there last year and since this will be my first race of the season I'm super excited about Sunday. So, off I went with some high hopes to get 3-4 laps done on the Metro 1 and Metro 2 just to get some perspective of the current state of the place. Didn't need to wait too long before the hill wiped off the big smile of my face...

Just one of the many ice patches on the course

Tarmac climb is fine and just as much fun as I can get out of it but as soon as I hit the Metro 2 entrance things changed a bit. Little icy here and little icy there, which I'm happy with but then things turned to something else: massive patches of thick & solid ice on the trails. Impossible to climb at many places and also very challenging on the downhill sectors. I got 2 or 3 really dodgy situations on the way down! :) 

It is only Tuesday, so there is plenty of time to melt and all I can say is that I really hope it's going to. I would love to see all this ice gone by Sunday indeed. So I'm praying to all the mountain biking Gods up there to get rid of this nonsense and let us have a brilliant race day on Sunday!...

...Otherwise I need to hire a pair of skates for the weekend!

Simply the best view on Sunday morning!

1x9 // Single ring setup - First impressions

After today's super cool & savage mountain bike spin I think it's time to say a few words about how do I feel about running the XC bike with this new 1x9 setup.

I've had two test runs since I converted the bike. One was a fairy short little spin but the second one was a proper tough going. I've picked a route that put the bike under some real testing to see how will I coop with things. 

Test spin at the Leadmines

The key things that I've been looking for were the folloing: how steep climbs I can deal with and the other one was to see how fast I can be on this setup on flat(ish) tarmac / fire roads. Thankfully I got the answers I've been looking for! 

I have 32T chainring on the front and run a 11-34 casette on the back. This way the lightest gear ratio is a bit lighter than 1:1 wich seemed like perfectly fine. I picked some of the hardest and steepest climbs up around Threerock and I managed to coop with them all in the 32-34 ratio. 

But how about the speed? This was one of my main concern before...The fastest gear is 32-11 and that is fast enough to be able to still spin into a bit at about 40-42 km/hour speed. Let's be honest: that is perfectly ok for me!

I tested the bike on the Epic Club Course at the Leadmines and also up on Threerock. Did a little on the Wicklow Way as well. I think this way I managed to put the bike through a bit of everything: tarmac climbs, technical XC race course type course, steep off-road climbs, techical downhill and all the rest.

First impressions

I'm impressed! I'm impressed how simple it is and how easy it is to get used to it. I'm impressed how well it works for me on the climbs. I'm impressed how much lighter the bike is this way and how much benefit I have from it. 

I like it. I like it a LOOOOOT! :)

Refurbished Sram X.O carbon rear mech

When I've decided to switch back from Shimano to SRAM again the first task was to pick up all the necessary parts. Since I'm still on a 9 speed system the only option that I preferred was the 9 speed version of the legendery Sram X.O rear derailleur. Just after a short time on the Internet and after a couple of phone calls I managed to pick up this beauty here and to top that, it was the carbon cage version! Happy days! :)

It has it's time served indeed but there was nothing that a little T.L.C couldn't get sorted. However I had to face a pretty tough task during the process: the tensioner spring was broken. I've had a replacement one allright, but I have to say that it is a savage thing to get that little strong spring fitted back into the super tight body of a rear mech! I'll be honest here: I couldn't even get it done myself without the help of Tomek, the excellent mechanic from the ThinkBike workshop! Hats off Tomek, thanks a lot man!

And there it is, the broken spring

And that's about the size of the room that we could work with...

...whilst we tried to fit this extra-mega-super strong little spring.

But after after all the cleaning and messing about with the spring I ended up with a rear mech that is in a perfect shape. I'm sure it'll serve me for a long time unless an univited rock tears off the carbon cage...but I will do my best to avoid that to happen! :)

All cleaned up & ready for action