Monday, October 20, 2025

Single Speed Sunday

Today is Monday October 20 2025 and yesterday i rode my single speed bike for one hour.

It was pretty great.

The wind was blowing up a gale but i had no trouble turning the gear over. i wouldn't describe my riding as peppy but i could do a long slow steady acceleration over and over and over.

For a brief moment ii felt like i was close to being close to being fast but then i snapped back into reality. The goal this year was to get fast. Or to at least get back to my peak fitness. i didn't come close but there's always next year!

But i'm getting ahead of myself because this year is far from over. There are Cyclocross races on the calendar and i see 5 or 6 i could do... odds are 50/50 that i actually show up to any of those.

Even if i don't race i do plan to ride a lot thru the end of they year. It wont be big miles but over the next 12 weeks i want to be riding at least 5 days a week and i want a lot of those rides to be intense. 

Anyway... did i mention that last night we went to Worlds of Fun for the Halloween Haunt, it was pretty great. 

Life!














Saturday, October 18, 2025

Single Speed w/ New Shoes

Today is Saturday October 18 2025 and today i rode my single speed.

It could get a lot of use this fall and Winter. Or not. i make the rules around here.

And i got some fancy new cycling shoes which are mostly white, so that's exciting.

Bicycles!








Monday, October 13, 2025

Little Sugar Mountain Bike Race*

Today is Monday October 13 2025 and yesterday i raced the 50k Little Sugar Mountain Bike race in Bentonville, AR.

It was pretty great.

Race day...

I was up bright and early to prep the bike and eat and whatnot and by 6:30 am i was out the door to warm up for the 7:30 am race start. i did a very slow and casual warmup which included a ride to the top of the rideable building in downtown Bentonville. Anytime your pre race warmup includes riding up a building you know its going to be a good day.

Its important that i set the stage for my race day mentality. In a nutshell, i decided that my main race had already taken place and therefore the theme of the Little Sugar mountain bike race was "casual". i still wanted to go fast and do well, but in a casual way. The main race i'm referring to was the family vacation portion of the trip that had concluded the night before. i didn't hold back for any of that. We got into town on Thursday night so we had all day Friday and Saturday to have fun in Bentonville and that's what we did. We rode bikes, we played in creeks, we stayed up late watching Scooby Doo, we rocked out to Taylor Swift, we rode bikes some more, we played in more creeks. 

That was the most important race of the weekend and we definitely won it because we had a great time.

So... while getting ready early Sunday morning i was reckoning with the fact that i'm a 45 year old man at 5:30am on a Sunday morning after two full days of vacation and i'm tired. But i was mentally energized by the fact that i had my priorities strait and had spend the last two days saying yes to life instead of sitting around with my feet up. That was a good feeling and was good fuel.

Superior attitude, superior state of mind. 

It is a cop out to spend months on this blog building up this race and then in the moment of truth just casually say... meh. But that's what happened. i make the rules around here. Plus we had sweet weather all weekend so we had to get out and take advantage!

And "meh" isn't entirely indicative of my pre race mindset. Like i said, i still wanted to go fast and do well but i couldn't deny the reality that physically speaking i had appropriately devoted my efforts elsewhere so whatever was left for today would have to be enough.

So i warmed up casually. Probably too casually because at 7:25 am i lined up behind probably 300 racers. Not ideal but i felt so Zen that nothing could phase me. The first 5-10 minutes were pavement and i had a blast moving up thru the crowd. When the single-track started we hit stop and go traffic and that didn't let up for probably 45 minutes. 

Around mile 13 i lost my front wheel then clipped a tree then bounced into a second tree which caught my fall and i came to a complete stop, fully upright without a scratch and pointed in the right direction. So i rode on. About mile 18 i lost my front wheel again and this time i did crash but it wasn't bad. My knee was a little bloodied and my elbow kind of hurt but i was pedaling again in less than a minute. Tons of the course was small loose rocks and that's how i lost my front wheel but it also lessened the impact of the fall because instead of bouncing off hard pack single-track i slid on a thousand small pebbles. I can still hear the sound of my bike and body sliding thru a pile of tiny rocks. 

i lost my Garmin on that crash and was flying blind for the rest of the race.

Shortly after that i came up to a kid fiddling with his chain, it was stuck so i pushed the derailleur forward to give him some slack and then said "get angry" as he pulled at the chain. It came lose and i said something about teamwork getting the job done and rode on. He passed me a few minutes later and i asked him how far we'd gone (since i no longer had my Garmin) and the way he said "i have no idea" in such a cheerfully matter of fact way put a smile on my face.

Shortly after that i got held up behind a guy who somersaulted down a hill. He was pissed and banged up but after he gathered himself and after we cleared his bike from the path i asked if he was ok and if he could breath and he said "yes". i rode on.

Shortly after that i passed a guy walking back and holding his arm. It sure looked like a broken collarbone. i asked if he needed help and he said 'no, i'll be at the road soon'. And he was right, we had just passed a road crossing with cops and pedestrians. i rode on.

Shortly after that at a road crossing i passed a small group of spectators one of whom was holding a sign that read "What does 6, 7 mean". i laughed out loud and so did the little man when i told him about it post race. 

These long mountain bike races really are odysseys. You see the craziest things.

At the final aid station i stopped for pickle juice, half a banana, and some "grape fruit juice water". That's how the high school kids working the water jug described it.

Then shortly after that i made a wrong turn and got very lost.

That's why i put an asterisk (*) in the title of this post. i got so lost that my final result is null and void. In the moment i was sure that my wrong turn had added time but looking at the results i "passed" a lot of people in the last 10 miles that i don't recall actually passing. 

So i think i cheated. 

Sorry everybody!

At one point i was so far off course i was pulling up google maps on my phone to find my way back.

Going off course was a bummer and i do feel bad about potentially cutting in front of other racers but i finished 112th so with placings that deep i doubt anyone really cares. 

I crossed the line in 3:11:27. Last year i did 3:12:52. I kind of think that the stop and go traffic at the beginning of the race and the apparent short cut at the end cancel each other out and my finishing time is pretty indicative of my fitness and ability. But we'll never know and i kind of like it that way. Zen.

Anyway... upon crossing the finish line i laid down in the town square for maybe 5 minutes but then it turns out i hadn't yet crossed the vacation dad finish line so i headed back to the air bnb to pack up and drive home. We were on the road about 35 minutes after i crossed the finish line and back home in KC by 2:45 pm. 

Wham bam thank you mam!

So... after months of prep and build up the big question is, did the race go as i wanted? 

My head says no but my heart says yes!





Monday, October 6, 2025

Casual weekend ride

Today is Monday October 6 2025 and on Saturday i rode my mountain bike for about 45 minutes on the pavement.

It was a casual ride. I've been very tired for the last several days.

It must be from my recent triple header:
  • Hard group ride Wednesday night.
  • Long hard mountain bike ride Thursday.
  • Having two heavy beers Friday night.
By Saturday evening i'd found enough energy for a short spin so i threw on a t-shirt and pedaled the mean streets of Prairie Village while listening to the soundtrack from the original "Halloween" on the blue tooth speaker... as one does.

Today i'm feeling more energized which has me psyched for this weekends Bentonville, Arkansas trip. We leave on Thursday, the race is on Sunday, and the weather looks pretty perfect.

i've been thinking about this race for so long and now its finally here. Hopefully i can play the next few days right so that i feel fresh, mentally and physically, when i get to the start line on Sunday morning.









Friday, October 3, 2025

Swope Singletrack... is hard

Today is Friday October 3 2025 and yesterday i took the day off work and rode singletrack out at the Swope trails.

It was very hard and by the end of it i was completely spent.

This was my last big ride before the Little Sugar race and i wanted to include a lot of proper mountain biking so i went to Swope and got my a** kicked.

Swope was always the place for me. I don't know when it was first built but i think i was there very early on, around 2009, for me it was the place to be. We rode it a lot. Now that i'm 45 and have spent considerable time away from any consistent riding out there i truly understand how hard it is.

Big hard rocks everywhere.

What a workout.

So yesterdays ride was very hard. i was gone for 3 hours and 23 minutes but only about a hour twenty of that was Swope single-track. That hour twenty was plenty. At first i was demoralized that i couldn't go longer but then, after pulling the plug and beginning the ride home i began to realize that i just did an hour twenty at Swope. Sure it was sloppy and i stopped a lot and i walked a lot but for the most part i was riding over some very hard stuff. Plus it was super hot outside. Plus i had done the hard group ride last night which didn't end until 8pm. That's a day game after a night game. Not easy. So i decided that i had just easily done a shi*ty job of riding Swope and that's a lot better then having a very hard time of doing a shi*ty ride at Swope. There is a difference, i swear!

So i crushed the ride. Despite feeling like sh*t. 

Now its time to rest up and crush Little Sugar. Hopefully i don't feel like sh*t during that crushing.

After that i'm tempted to give cyclocross a real go but that's probably unrealistic. For one thing there aren't many races and i think i'll have already missed a third of them. Also i'm 45 and have spent the last 6 months training for endurance cycling. If cyclocross doesn't work out then i'll be free to just ride how i want, which sounds pretty great.








Thursday, October 2, 2025

Group Ride... last one of the year

Today is Thursday October 2 2025 and last night i did the group bike ride.

It was my last one of the year and probably my best performance.

i still got dropped, twice, but i held on longer then ever.

The pace set by the group probably had more to do with my hanging on longer than my improved fitness, although my fitness is definitely improving. There were maybe 10 of us and the pace stayed pretty consistent. Not like last week when seemingly every two minutes somebody went to the front and started sprinting. Also it got dark, and while i've been riding my bike for a while now i have not done many fast group rides thru relatively dark suburbs. That was a fun component. i've dont a ton of riding at night but its usually thru midtown and downtown and there's a lot more light down there.

So the ride was a blast. i've really enjoyed the fresh challenge of trying to ride competently in a fast group and i'm hoping that next year i can find time to do more of these.

Now its time to ride my Mountain Bike because the Little Sugar Mountain Bike Race is 11 days away.

Bicycles!