All's well that goes fast

Been a little lacking in the blogging lately I know. Perhaps I'll begin to improve with today's post. There's lots of news although none of it is too groundbreaking and exciting except...

Stefan finished the Grand Loop race! 340+ miles 50,000 vertical feet of climbing and NO outside assistance. Stefan and I rode together a little while back on the day we did all the Front Range trails and he is super strong. Congrats and great job Stefan!!! I (selfishly) hope you can give me some important info for my attempt next year.

In other news, the Fuel is put back together with some of the light parts and is rideable (and under 30lbs). What?!?! A geared mountain bike? Hells yea is all I can say. I love riding the singlespeed but let me tell you the Fuel is without a doubt faster for me. Even with Colorado's often straight up, straight down, kind of riding the Fuel is about 10% faster on most courses than the Monocog. On the long climbs I can clean the loose stuff seated which leaves me fresher at the top. On the long smooth descents and flat sections I've got Mr.44 tooth chainring up front to take my pace above 20mph without spinning 150rpm. Yes I miss the satisfaction of riding everything with my trusty 36x20 but for racing XC and Leadville this year I know that the Fuel is the right bike to go the fastest.

The singlespeed will not go unridden however. I am now registed for the Endurance 100 12 hour race in the singlespeed solo catagory. Marni and I will be heading to Park City, UT on Thursday night June 22nd for some great singlespeed racing followed by the Firecracker 50 on July 4th on the singlespeed in Breckenridge. These two races will give me a good idea what it's like to race the long stuff on a singlespeed before I decide what to ride Kokopelli on this September. I've got my nutrition plan pretty dialed so we'll see how it holds up at race pace. If it works then I'll continue to train with it and plan to use it at the 24 hour races I'm doing at the end of the season.

Training has been going well. I'm recovering from my 10 early season events and using the time off to refocus on my important summer goals. The volume is greatly reduced from earlier this year with lots of hard climbing and fast big ring riding on the Fuel. I'm smashing all manner of personal records and ride data points which is very encouraging. My ride at White Ranch on Monday was awesome with me climbing all the way to the top parking lot in a smashing time and climbing to the first bench in 25 minutes and change, over 2 minutes faster than on the singlespeed. After the first 2 Winter Park races I'll begin to bring some more volume back for 3 weeks, take one more big rest week and then a final gigantic volume week on the mountain bike about 4 weeks out from Leadville before my taper.

Tonight is back to White Ranch and Belcher Hill with a group of friends and with 40psi in the Kenda Klimax lites. We'll see how well they climb at 40psi compared to the 60psi I used on Monday. They aren't the perfect tire for every course but for the hill climbs, mud races and Leadville 100 I think they're going to be just perfect. They've got enough traction to handle some technical sections but more importantly they're light and very fast on the smooth sections which Leadville has a lot of. Now if my fancy dancy new light wheels would just show up...