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 Photo gallery: photos in SmugMug | same photos in Google+ FRI MAY 1 First order of business--take the Marin Rift Zone 29er XC9 out for a spin. I mapped out a few miles along the Santa Rosa Creek, fired up the GPS, and headed out. I played around with the front and rear suspension and the dropper post, getting comfortable with each. And I wondered whether the 1x11 gearing would give me enough at the high end--at 32-10, it didn't go nearly as big as my 50-11 road setup (at 32-42, I figured I'd pretty much be able to climb a wall). I bet you're all hoping you won't have to wait for Part III to find out the answer to that cliffhanger! 
Fatty and I then met up for breakfast. After yesterday's foray into the Toad in the Hole for lunch and the Forget Me Not Farm for definitely *not* lunch, we figured we'd continue the theme with Flying Goat Coffee. 
 So, about that grocery list from last night. Uh, no. We fired up the RV--with Fatty driving admirably all weekend!--and headed back to the grocery store. And while we didn't quite fill the cart this time around, we did procure more than a few items with ingredient lists decidedly not of Levi's liking. By way of plausible deniability, however, you won't find any list or photographs that might be used against us in a court of law. Next up was pointing the RV east up over 3 moderately serious climbs/descents. Elden drove, I navigated, and between the two of us, we managed not to end up in any ravines. Before we knew it, we were at Boggs and parking the behemoth for the duration. We connected up with the RV of our "sister team" of Doug B/Chris D/Dave T riding for World Bicycle Relief (Levi, Fatty, and I were officially listed as Levi's Fatty Fundo, but Fatty, like Dave T, was riding under the banner of his WBR Ambassadorship). Dave H was part of the WBR RV as well, but he wasn't messing around with this relay foolishness. No, Dave H was riding the 8-hour Enduro solo. Hard man. It's worth taking a timeout to elaborate on WBR and it's mission. World Bicycle Relief is mobilizing people through the Power of Bicycles. We envision a world where distance is no longer a barrier to education, healthcare and economic opportunity.To elaborate a bit, WBR raises funds to put bicycles in the possession of "[e]ntrepreneurs, farmers, healthcare workers and students in rural Africa." A donation of about $150 is enough to provide a bicycle. $50 supplies a mechanic with the tools to support a number of bicycles. $25 buys a spare wheelset. And $10 buys a small maintenance kit for the bicycle owner. If you'd like to support this transformative cause, you can do so here. Back to Boggs. We kitted up and went out to preride the 10-11 mi 8-hour relay course. To oversimplify, the elevation profile consisted of big up, big down, bigger up, and bigger down. Somehow, the downs never felt as down as the ups felt up.  Later in the preride, Doug hung back to watch me ride. Doug's an engineer *and* a Leadville buckle owner, so when he offered some guidance, I was all over it. "Calm upper body, violent lower body and bike." There was more, and I lapped it up. Chris framed Doug's advice another way, channeling Lee McCormack. I paraphrase: "We've got lizard brains. Lizard brains like to be still. Don't upset the lizard brain." Through Chris, Lee was also the source of some pedal stroke advice that added noticeable sustainable power on the uphills. Registration opened at 3pm, so we picked up our packets, headed back to the RV, and for those of us competing in that afternoon's Hill Climb race (Jeff, Chris, Elden, and Dave T), pinned on our numbers. It's worth another timeout to outline the weekend's festivities.
The Hill Climb was a 1.7 mile route averaging an 8% grade. We headed to the start, which, not surprisingly, was mostly downhill. It seemed to take a long time to descend. In fact, as we rounded every bend, I hoped desparately to see the start line. It took more bends (and descending) to get to the start line than I had hoped. After a few instructions, Bike Monkey founder Carlos Perez started us off in waves: Pro Men, Expert Men, Singlespeed Men, Sport Men, Women, and Beginner Men. I had pre-registered in the Sport Men category. The question was, should I have been Beginner? In no time, Carlos indicated our start, and we (30+ of us) were off. Given the time it took to descend, the climb was surprisingly short. I'm not sure why that was--climbs are *always* forever while the corresponding descents last no longer than a blink. (Oh, and no cliffhanger on the bike's gearing: the 32-42 was about right, but there were at least a few times where I was wishing for a 44+.) I crossed the line, caught my breath, and headed to the scoreboard to see how I fared. 
 photo credits: Matthew Blain (left), David Houston (right) And that's where I'll pick up in Part III. |