Mountain Men

There are a few undeniable facts that I am faced with every time I get on my bike.
1. Races are decided on the mountains.
2. I suck at climbing.
3. There is nothing else.

Um, that may be a little exaggerated but the truth is races are defined by the climbs and I am not a climber. At 5'11" and 189lbs (it's coming down - thank God) I am more suited towards time trials or sprints.

In fact, if I had grown up near a track, things may have been very different for me. I love to sprint. As it is though, I grew up in the Southern Appalachians where there is a mountain or a hill in any direction you look. It is for that reason and the others I already pointed out that I climb a lot. You go riding with me, we are gonna climb something. I work on that one weakness almost exclusively and let every other aspect of my training work itself out.

Saturday was a particularly short training day but for what it lacked in quantity, it more than made up for in quality. On the agenda was 40 miles that included the 8 mile climb to Carvers Gap (Carvers Gap was a Cat 1 climb in stage 8 of the 1996 Tour Dupont) and the ascent of Hughes Gap (shorter but steeper than Carvers Gap). I would not be taking my regular road bike but instead using my newly aquired singlespeed road bike. I was a little nervous because I had never climbed Hughes Gap before but I had been over it in a car an I knew it was fugly. Carvers Gap worried me a little too but I have been up it lots of times and knew that if I can get the first few miles out of the way, the rest of it is not that bad.

So at 8:00, me, Bob Lamberson and David Hayter took off from the visitors center at Roan Mtn State Park and the climbing began very soon after. Bob has a singlespeed too and we made David stick his bike in a gear and leave it there. Anytime he tried to shift, we bashed his knuckles with a stick. The first 2 miles of the climb were really hard. In part due to the short warm-up and partly because it is steeper. We had a good pace though and after 5 or 6 miles, some nice views came into focus.


Spring hasn't quite made it to 5000 feet yet.

David is smiling after I told him I was gonna bash his knuckles if he shifted gears. A few minutes later he found out I wasn't kidding.


At the summit of Carvers Gap, David had to turn back and me and Bob headed on into North Carolina in search of Hughes Gap.

The descent was really cold and I was honestly happy to get to climb again. It is about 19 miles from the summit at Carvers Gap until you turn onto Hughes Gap rd and begin to climb gradually. After a few miles of that, the nice gradual climb turns wicked and evil without notice. The final couple of miles to the top are naaaasty. I struggled mightily in my 42x16 gearing and though how ironic it was that all the years I had thought about this climb and how ugly it would be to climb and how the first time I finally get to climb it and I am on a singlespeed.
I suffered like a dog but I made it to the gravel.

The final 1/2 mile before the top is gravel and as flat as you are going to get in this neighborhood.

Another summit. Not bad for a day's work.

After we got done, we stopped by the Snack Shack where Larry Roberts hooked us up with some most excellent post ride grub. If you are ever in Roan Mtn Tennessee, check it out.

All in all, training is going well. I have spent alot of time on the pavement in the last few weeks getting some hard fitness. In the next few, I will be getting dirty.

Stay tuned.

Tomorrow's Gonna Hurt

I have a short but very intense training ride set for tomorrow and I am kind of dreading it. Yes, I must confess to you all that in moments of weakness I have doubts. I dread the pain, the suffering but the suffering must come, the pain must have its way otherwise the fruits of my labor cannot be realized.

Am I worried? Am I scared?














Nah! I'm just playing.

Tomorrow's gonna hurt but the pain is only temporary. The strength - both physical and mental that comes is worth the suffering.

“The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt”

Thomas Merton

Lab Rat

That's what my life has been. One big old science project on myself to see what kind of crap I can take and just how far I can push myself before I crack and crawl off into a dark corner to sit alone in a puddle of my own urine, sobbing uncontrollably

um...........

I digress.

Today's experiment: singlespeed road bike in a group environment. I took my SSRB to the Thursday road ride that I usually go on to see how well I would hang in a group. The route includes a few rolling hills and the 2 mile climb of Buffalo Mtn towards the end. I started off well and was doing fine until we got into some flats and I got unceremoniously dropped. I was spinning to beat the band but my anemic 42X16 gearing just wasn't good enough to hang. Ah, I expected it. I thought I'd hang in longer than I did though. I just can't (yet) spin that damn fast. I am good to about 120 rpm and for relatively short bursts. I can't do that for miles and miles. In mountain bike racing you never have to spin that much, that long.

After a stop to adjust my rear wheel that had slipped and was rubbing, I took a short cut and caught back up with some of the group just before the climb up Buffalo. The climb actually was easy compared to the flat stuff.

I don't know that I 'll do that again in a group. Um on second thought, yeah I'll do it again, I'll just know better what to expect. Before I was a mountain bike racer, I was a decent road racer and I'll never not be a road racer by heart. You throw me on the streets (or trails) with two or more others and it ends up being a race. To be any different would be like trying to teach a cat to not chase mice. I just have to remember that and not expect to be in the same place on my singlespeed as I would be on my regular road bike.

It's all good though. One thing is certain, riding a singlespeed on the road is great training for racing one off road and that's all that I really care about. With the Cohutta 100 coming up in about 4 weeks, I have only about 3 to gain more fitness. It's crunch time.

Even though the Cohutta is a "C" priority race for me, I still want to finish well.

Gotta be fit.

Master's Syndrome

I was reading an interview in Cyclingnews with Alison Dunlap and she mentioned having master's syndrome - that is being short on training time so you go hard all the time. Finally a name for how I have been training for years implicitly. I can totally identify. Being a dad and working full time, I have very limited time to train and sometimes I end up riding in some really crappy weather or I don't get to ride at all. If it's Wednesday and this is my day to ride and it's raining, looks like I am getting wet today. The weekends are made for going long. My target is a 4 or 5+ hour ride on the weekend at least every other week. The rest of my rides tend to be very hard, working at or above threshold for and hour or more with a little warm-up to get going. A majority of my training is on the road just because my time is very limited and I don't want to waste it traveling to the trails.

It is hard to stay race fit like this but what else are you gonna do?

One of my favorite training rides started up last night. Put on by the Tri-Cities Road Club, the pack races are one of the oldest organized rides in our area. It has happened almost every Tuesday during the Spring and Summer for over 15 years. I can't think of any better way to gain race fitness other than racing and the format of the pack races is perfect for that. There's a 10 mile course that has a mix of long flats and rolling hills. Groups are separated into divisions based on speed and everyone is sent out with 2-3 minute time gaps between groups for 2 laps. The mini-peletons work together to stay ahead of the group(s) behind them. It is a lot of suffering but also loads of fun too.

This past weekend was an off weekend for me. I took my singlespeed Giant out for the first time on the hilly roads around where I live for its first ride. Other than the stem being a bit short for me, I was really happy with how it felt. The 42x16 gearing seemed to work good for little hills, (we'll see about the mountains soon) but let's face it, on a singlespeed you are gonna run out of gear somewhere. The idea is to get something that will work for most conditions and that means you suffer on the climbs (but climb pretty fast) and spin your ass off on the flat stuff.
All in all, I liked what I rode and think it will help my mountain bike fitness a lot.

Coming up for me is the Assault on The Carolinas on March 29, a 62 mile road ride with a nice 6 mile climb in it somewhere. The first weekend in April has several options: The Knobscorcher at Tsali, the Dragon's Back in Virginina and a collegiate race right in my back yard at ETSU. I dunno at this point what I am going to do then.

We'll see.

I need an intervention

My garage is a mess. I am in the process of going through and putting a bunch of old bike stuff on Ebay and I have uncovered a pandoras box of um.......... well just have a look.

Shelf full of bike parts. I barely made a scratch with all the crap I pulled out.

The kids. Workbench on the left has tools all over it and assorted bike parts.

The one on the right is all bike parts. Hmmm, there may be a tool or ten in there somewhere.


Memories of a time that has passed. Bunch of rubber ducks too.


My buddy and his buddy.


These numbers represent a lot of suffering and personal satisfaction. (There's more stapled to the rafters).


Duckman circa 1991. Another time and another sport.


Trophies from MX and some bike races.

Another shelf of bike parts. There's three complete component groups in there (including stuff for my 08 race bike that's yet to be built.) and loads of various other things. Some good, some junk.


None more black.

Wheels, assorted tires, beer fridge, rollers, trainer, videos, tv, more bike parts.


Look closely and you can see a glimpse of the jersey from my first road team, O'Charley's/TCRC.


Shop Vac.


That's just half of the garage. The other half is bad.

Here come the legs.

Oh yeah my hard work is starting to pay off.

I was kinda discouraged after the Icycle back in February and my total lack of fitness after spending the winter riding rollers. Since then, I have been doing some really long rides in the mountains, both on and off road and last night was the first time I have been able to gauge my progress.
I met up with a group of roadies from TCRC on the campus of East Tenn State University for a 30 mile ride that included the 2 mile climb of Buffalo Mtn. I could tell this may turn into a bit more than a casual ride by some of the stronger guys that were there like Zach Nave (check out Zack's dad - Bart and his website. Bart takes some great pics) and recenty crowned British Supercross Champion Mike Brown (Mike is a bull on anything with two wheels). In addition to those, there were at least 8 or 10 really strong guys. I knew things would get crazy soon.

Fast forward to the base of Buffalo Mtn (comes at the end of the ride) and our average speed was still almost 20mph and I was still in the group of hammers. I faded pretty quick and lost sight of all of them but 3 by the time we got to the top which I kinda expected. I am not a climber. I was just happy to be there and I didn't sit in the whole way there either. Hell no, Duckman doesn't roll that way. I take my pulls at the head of the group. I worked my ass of to be there.
I have a long way to go though. A 30 mile road ride and a 100 mile mountain bike race are two very different animals. I am happy with where I am at this point though.

I'm through with standin' in line to clubs I'll never get in

It's like the bottom of the ninth and I'm never gonna win. This life hasn't turned out quite the way I want it to be..........


It's not a secret to those of you that know me that I have a growing passion for playing guitar. I only wish I had started when I was 4 and not 40. Things may have been dramatically different now if I had done that. Any time you see your favorite group or artist on stage, no matter what your taste in music is, there is a lot going on, a lot more than you can see. I have learned that even the most simple sounding musical phrases can be pretty damn hard to play. It is alot of fun to learn though and I can see it becoming an obsession if I am not careful.

Like last night. I sat down with my Strat, flicked on my amp and proceeded to run through some scales and then on to some chords that I am learning. From there I went back and forth between scales and chords and that gets boring pretty quick so I rolled up the gain on my amp and dialed in a bit of chorus and a pinch of delay to get pretty close to a Pink Floyd sounding tone. I spent the next 4 hours learning Shine on You Crazy Diamond.

Yeah, it was like 2:30 when I realized how late it was. I am killed today and my fingers hurt but I learned a lot and I can play the first part and at least make it recognizable.

I'll make it some day. I may not have a tour bus full of old guitars but I'll bet I'll have alot of fun sitting around playing Black Sabbath and Metallica for my grandkids.

Sometimes things just don't make any sense.

I just don't understand "why " sometimes.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those lost.

Y'all be careful out there and look out for yourself because nobody else is going to.

O is for ouch!

It was another day in the mountains for me yesterday. This time the stakes were upped just a bit as the route I chose for the day included some fugly climbs. First on the agenda was the climb of Iron Mtn which in and of itself is no big deal. What made the day go from casual to hardcore was sticking a climb called Indian Graves Gap right in the middle and Buffalo Mountain at the end. To add to the difficulty, the temps were barely 40 degrees and alot colder than that in the shade (which so happened to be any and almost every descent). It was sunny though and that was significant to me. I haven't ridden in the sun in awhile so I was happy with that.


Fortunately, I conned, er, I mean I had some like minded riding companions, Chris Dillow, Rob Morley (that's right guys Rob was on the bike in the mountains, in March with snow on the ground nontheless - I have pics to prove it), Scooby, Brad Reed, David Hayter, and Paul Windsor. We had enough to make a nice paceline on the flats (if you can call it "flat") that led up to Iron Mtn.



Notice the snow?


Now check out the snow on Iron Mtn (highest point in the pic). That's where we are going.

On the lower slopes of Iron Mtn, I stopped for nature and then probably rode to hard to catch back up with everyone which included David "I'm to fat to climb - wah" Hayter. I can give David a hard time, he expects it from me. In his honor, he hasn't ridden much all winter and came out for hellride. What he lacks in brains, he makes up for in guts.

Anyway, on top of Iron, Brad and Scooby called it a day to take care of business at home and that left me, Rob, David, Paul and Chris to head over into North Carolina and to the second climb of the day - Indian Graves Gap. But first, we had 12 or so miles of relatively easy riding through Buladean and along the Toe River on Hwy 197. I always know when the evil is about to come on Hwy 197. You are riding along the Clinchfield RR and it is amazingly flat and very easy. Then after a couple of miles, you can see the turn towards Tennessee. It is bad.

The climb proper is actually a stairstep one with 4 main "steps" and totals about 9 miles. The first 3 steps are very steep and relatively short compared to the 4th one which is roughly as long as the other 3 combined. Grades are in the 10-15% range with a couple of 15%+ spots ( I am guessing). After the first 3 steps, you actually have a nice descent and some flat to ride for about 3/4 of a mile. Just enough to make the uninitiated think there is light at the end of the tunnel. Soon you realize though, the light at the end of the tunnel is actually a freight train heading your way. Step 4 is a bitch! It is steep and unrelenting.

The pic DOES NOT do the slope here justice. Look at the powerlines and you get an idea of the grade. There are some cool views though.



I am not a good climber especially on steep, long climbs. That is why I spend most of my training time in the mountains. I got in trouble early on step 4 and about midway up and then it happened:

I blew up. I kinda figured I might since I have been experimenting with the full line of Hammer Products and I ran out of Heed and Hammer Gel this week. I went back to Brand X that I used last year and some Perpetuem. I used that the whole ride and just didn't feel as snappy as usual. Some of that may have been from the ride itself but I never bonked in the previous few weeks and the rides were just as long. If that's not a product endorsement, I don't know what is.

I suffered and wobbled my way to the Tennessee State Line and the top of the climb where almost everyone else was waiting. It was downhill to Erwin TN and some FOOD!

I am not ashamed to admit we collectively chose to eliminate the climb of Buffalo Mtn and headed back to Johnson City via the busy but gloriously flat Erwin Hwy.

Rolling through the campus of ETSU, we congratulated each other for bagging one of the toughest rides in our area, in March (early March) in the cold and with snow on the ground.

We did about 72 miles in 5:00 and climbed roughly 7000 feet. It was good.

Something old, something new, something borrowed,

Something black.


Here's the latest bike in Duckman's stable of one geared wonders. This one came by way of Ebay and is a 2007 Giant Bowery. I kicked the idea of a fixie/singlespeed around for several months and finally hopped off the fence and got one. I can't wait to ride it.

No shifty-bits here.

Or here.

No shifty bits here either. All it needs is a rubber duck and some ride time.