Freaky Photo Friday/GG24 Jus' A little Bit More

With The Dark Horse 40 looming on the horizon (more like my doorstep, it's in two days)
I really have to wrap up this GG24 stuff. I've basically taken the week off, I've learned that, after you do something stupid to yourself like a 100 miler or a 24, when you go back to training you have to be very, very careful. If you put some pressure on the legs and they're all like "Again? We just did it three days ago!'. You have to leave them be and come back later. Sometimes it's ridiculous, like this week, I rode to and from work in my 39 X 19 on the road bike for a total of 1.5 hours. I'm hoping to get a couple in today and a couple in tomorrow before the Darkhorse for a grand total of maybe 8 or 9 hours for the week. Woo Hoo!


The first time I did The GG24, which was my first 24, I had maybe two pair of shorts and possibly three jerseys. It rained 6 inches in 22 hours. The trauma of putting those mud-logged shorts and jersey back on a half dozen or so times has stayed with me. I came to GG strapped this year, more than enough fresh and clean outfits to go around. Problem was I neglected to bring undershirts, and it dropped to the low 50's at night, so I had to recycle my long sleeve jersey, and vest, even doubling up on jerseys a couple times. Putting on sweat/dew soaked lycra then sitting in my sleeping bag shivering and trying to warm up was just a notch below Philippe Gaumont's habit of rubbing salt on his testicles until they bled so he could get a prescription for otherwise-banned cortisone on the unpleasantness scale.

This is my go-to recovery position. I basically come back from my lap, change into something less sweaty and form fitting, grab a snack (this year we had Miriam on support so she actually did the snack wrangling which was sweet), and a drink, then throw the legs up and try to relax as hard as I possible for as long as possible. There are no warm ups and cool downs at 24s (if you wanna win 'em...heh, heh). You're going to need every twitch in every fiber of your muscles you can get, you don't wanna waste them on warming up or cooling down. Riding to and from the start tent is more than adequate.

The smell, you know that dirty chamois smell, the whole tent. Smelled like...victory.

Harry Precourt running, that's running his ass off at the end of his last lap. The kid turned himself inside out on his rigid 29er. He may fall into the same category as Jeff Whittingham on the mental toughness scale. A long time ago I voted Whittingham "Most likely to kill his body with his brain".


Mat Katz, Me, Whittingham, and Harry (who was so spent he couldn't even climb all the way up the podium). I gotta give Mat a special thanks. The guy came into this thing having no idea what he was getting into and he rocked the shit wicked hard to give us the win. When you put together a 24 team it's as much based on personalities as quickness. Who cares if your teammates are fast if by 3AM you want to smother them with a pillow in their sleep. Mat was an unknown quantity, but he turned out to be fast and good company in the weird, weird wee hours of the night.

OK, that's about it for GG24 until next time. Moving right along...this is Miriam's set up for her 10 day bike trek around northern New England. We set up her Madone with a seatpost mounted Trek trunk rack system, a compact crankset, some Continental Gatorskins, a map holder, and an 11-28 cassette (thanks Shimano for deciding that 12-27s are not what we want anymore). She's going to have to pack light but she should be alright. Hell, you could fit a Kitchen-Aid blender in the Detours stem pack there.

The Darkhorse...
I'm registered as a Single-Speed. Couldn't resist the pull of that custom painted Niner Fork. Looking forward to a good battle with James Harmon for the thing. Question is, if, I say if I win that thing do I get painted a color I might like or a color that will make it more easy to sell to someone else? Although, I have a feeling that if I get it painted one of my favorite colors it may be even more appealing to a certain someone in North Carolina.

DH40!

Hi, you came down here for some crazy action today, sorry dude, but all the action is over HERE on the 29er Crew Blog today.

All we got over here today is big thanks, big thanks to Jeff Whittingham, Harry Precourt, and Mat Katz for doing The 24 Hours of Great Glen with me. You guys made all the pain and suffering nothing but fun and good times.

-t

GG24, Even More

It seems inconceivable but I actually felt worse today than yesterday. A skinny, wise man once told me that's how it works. All I can hope is that I recover enough to get a day or two of training in before The Dh40 this coming Sunday.

The above photo:
1.) Harry showed up with his bottom bracket rocking more than Fu Manchu. As I set out for the opening lap, he set about swapping his crank and BB out 2.) Mat Katz looks on as I get ready to go Tai Chi Master on the competition 3.) This is what a Ringer looks like 4.) This is what the cycling equivalent of Klinger looks like.

Things about 24 hours races, not necessarily this one in particular...
there's always the "Fuck this shit" hour, where you just want to bag the whole thing and sleep for real. This usually comes just after you've gotten the tiniest bit of sleep and someone wakes you up to do your lap. You shuffle off lethargically, gag a Gu down, I mean literally dry heave trying to get it down your throat because you are nauseous in general and energy food is the last thing you want. You drink a Coke or have a coffee hoping in vain that it will snap you magically out of your funk of funks. Then you shamble off and deliver your worst lap of the night, hating life the whole time.

Miraculously in the morning, after you've gone and gotten yourself some of that Girl Scout breakfast with the bacon and the pancakes and the scrambled eggs and the Dunkin Donuts coffee, you feel like the bionic green offspring of Bruce Banner and Steve Austin (made up men can have make made up babies) and you head off and do a lap which rivals some of your earlier lap times and you are stoked as all hell.

I don't know what was going on a Great Glen this year but the night laps were other worldly. If the moon wasn't full it was close to it. It lit up the mist-filled valley, illuminating leaves of certain plants so they glowed white, even blue berries which were abundant and hanging ripe of the bushes on the switchbacked climb across the road were glowing bright, bright white. It was eerie and beautiful, enough to make you nearly forget the task at hand.

Some day soon I'll write something like a real race report, maybe post over on the 29er Crew Blog, stranger things have happened, I can count three things stranger that happened just today.

-t

24 Days of Blog Posts About

The 24 Hours of Great Glen

Gear - 34 X 18
Tires - Bontrager 29-3s @ 28Psi
Laps - 10 @ 8.25 Miles per = 82.5 Miles
Hours without sleep - 40 even (5AM Saturday to 9PM Sunday)
Fastest Lap - 36:32
Slowest Lap - 45:32

Those are the facts, we'll see if I can get anything else out this AM. I've basically given up on writing on Monday nights, I get home sometime after 9, eat, shower, get ready for the next day, and BAM! It's time for bed already. The only reason I'm writing is because I woke up early for no reason. Yup, that's what you want after depriving yourself of sleep for forty hours like a rookie Doctor or an Alaskan Crab Fisherman, you want to rack up a nice five hour night, that'll get you feeling good!

It was nice having two like-souls at the shop yesterday. Both Kevin and Jesse Chebot looked like I felt, they had been at The GG24 as well. We all stumbled around, shuffling our feet, barely lifting them off the floor, with our raccoon eyes half-lidded over bloodshot eyes all day.

The photos above: 1.) That's me at 5AM on Saturday BEFORE the race. I showed up ready for a nap 2.) I've packed less stuff for a Cross country trip, amazing how much crap you need for a 24 Hour Race 3.) A message on the white board reminding us not to forget the white board 4.) Rolling up to Mt. Washington fully strapped. The geared bike never would get any action.

Well, that's all I have time for today, I'll just leave you with this. I rolled in from my 1:30AM lap all bluster, having "drilled it" in response to taunting by Kevin and Colin about how they liked my new over 40 minute laps times, "Ya, you can suck my 39:60 bitches!". "39:16?" Colin asked. "No, 39:60". "That's a 40". "Yes, yes you are right". The results actually said 39:60 and in my sleep-deprived state I saw that as a way better time than a 40. Hi, I'm Thom Parsons, I'm five foot twelve and I put in 39:60s.

-t

24 Hours of Great Glen 2009

International Men of Misery, #1 Pro Team (and the only Pro Team), #1 overall (which is really what counts). Early on it was a close three way battle, and later a close two way battle between us and Colin and Kevin's team. It was a long race and it's going to be a long story, but the thing is I slept 9 hours in the two nights preceding the event and twenty minutes during the event, somehow (Dunkin Donuts) I drove the four hours home without killing us or anyone else. What can I say, I'm totally knackered and the real report will have to wait for sometime later this week.

Options? Not Really

There are three event penciled in on my calendar for next weekend:

- The Kenda Cup at Windham Mountain, NY
- The EFTA Hampshire 100 k
- The Dark Horse 40

I have about fifteen minutes to write this AM, so this may be spastic and disjointed (more so than usual). I never really had any intention of going to Windham and racing my Single Speed against real Pros at a Ski Area race. If you haven't done Windham, it's like a Super-Pat's Peak (with lots more trail development and maintenance). It's straight up, straight down. Exposed climbing and high speed, non-technical descending. Like Mount Snow after it went to the vet for a little snip snip. So that's out.

The Hampshire 100k has gotten, let me say...mixed reviews since its appearance on the calendar a few years back (I hear tell of a really sweet section where you ride along the side of some railroad tracks for quite a while). It is a 60 mile race less than an hour and a half from my house, which is enticing. Here's the rub - it's $115, there's mandatory check in the night before (hey this ain't the VT50 where you got 800 some odd racers checking in so you need to do it the night before, c'mon!), it starts at 6:45AM and there's no mention of prize lists that I can see.

Now...the Darkhorse 40. It's almost four hours away, it starts at 9AM, I have to work Saturday, I doubt I can get down there to camp the night before, it will hurt, but...
I have ridden the trails of Stewart Forest during the Singlespeed-A-Palooza, they are dope, those guys have a great track record of putting on amazing events, they're putting up $300 to the first overall finisher and $200 to the first Expert finisher, if you register for the Single Speed class (which I might just have to) you get $200 and a custom painted carbon Niner rigid fork (as James pointed out to me). Oh, did I mention BEER? They have beer.

So if I want to do The Hampshire 100 I would have to grind out a three hour roundtrip drive the night before, which effectively puts me in the car for the same amount of time which going to The Darkhorse will net me.

Options? I don't see any stinking options.

Almost forgot...Fells MTB Loop last night, 28:10, new record, all systems go for GG24 bitches. I might be fat, but I also might be back. Watch out now.

International Men of Misery

Now that we finally have a fourth teammate I can talk about the search for a fourth teammate. What am I even talking about? Well I'm talking about the 24 Hours of Great Glen of course, which is this coming weekend. I found two teammates within hours of deciding to do the thing, Jeff "I won the Vermont 50" Whittingham and Harry "I won the Hampshire 100K" Precourt jumped at the opportunity. But with the Kenda Cup at Mount Snow concurrent with the GG24, finding a fourth Pseudo-Pro mountain biker was going to be tough. The good news was that it was going to be tough for the rival teams as well.

My teammate turned temporary arch-nemesis Colin "I got 2nd as a Cat 5 in The Working Man's Stage Race" Reuter had likely already exhausted all "Cross-Over" possibilities (fast folks from the Cross world who wouldn't even think about going to Mount Snow) and I'm sure he had contacted every Roadie who had any kind of off-roading chops at all. That didn't stop me from bugging them myself. I shot out emails to anyone and everyone that might act as a Ringer for our team. Talks with Matt O'Keefe were going well, but ultimately he fell on the Mount Snow side of the fence. I took it well:

"That's cool, just give up entirely on fun.
You could probably save a lot of money on Kenda Cup registration by paying a homeless guy
to kick you in the nuts repeatedly, then throw you down a flight of stairs. "

I won't run down the entire list of fast mountain bikers-who-might-not-be-going-to-Mount-Snow I bothered but it was substantial.

Then I went big, asking a couple of the fastest people I know if they knew anyone who might want to get all crazy with some 24 hour fun. First I asked Matt and Mo if they knew any Crossers who might want to do the thing. Mo grabbed a couple contacts of the top of her A-List and sent them along to me; Tim Johnson and Jesse Anthony. Asking them to do GG24 wasn't as ridiculous as one might think, they have actually both done it before. They were both gracious enough to return my emails, unfortunately they both had to decline my offer.

Then I went a little Kooky, asking Adam Myerson if he knew anyone, even going so far as to try to coax him into it - hey, when you've got plugs in your ear lobes the size of oil drums and tattoos on your neck you have to do something truly different to turn people's heads once in a while. I know what his attitude toward Mountain Bike racing is though:

"People still do that? If I want to ride around in the woods for two hours by myself with no one watching, I'm not gonna pay for it."

He didn't bite, but he forwarded my plea to Dan "I got second to Jeff Schalk at The Cohutta 100 and I wasn't even trying because I'm a Pro roadie, oh and did I mention that I won Mount Snow as a Semi-Pro?" Vallancourt. But no response there, too bad, talk about a Ringer.

In the end Jeff was able to secure Vermonter Mat Katz as our fourth. I don't know much about Mat myself, all I need to know is that he finished 8th at The Root 66 Mount Snow race two weeks ago which means he's pretty damn quick.

It should be a good, close race, there are three pretty evenly matched teams.

Red jersey cyclery/Michelin/Rocky Mountain

- Bob "Big Ring Bob" Lesmerises
- Brian Moody
- Tom Sampson
- Peter Ostroski

Endo Farmers/ Carbon Fiber Octopus

- Colin Reuter
- Kevin Sweeney
- Rob Stine
- Curtis Boivin

International Men of Misery

- Thom Parsons
- Jeff Whittingham
- Mat Katz
- Harry Precourt


I'm beyond sure that Colin already has a graph charting out what each team's chances are so I won't mess with that, all I know is it's gonna be a WAR! So everybody better bring their A-Game and hope that their B samples don't come up positive, oh because it's ON! Yeah!

And Jess and Chuck, I've got plans for you two. If you don't agree to a secret pact with our team to completely shell yourselves like Fabian Cancellara pulling our riders around the course until you have to finish your lap in the granny ring we will wait until you are inside your tents sleeping and then hit you in your respective faces with shovels.

GG24!

Lapsing

Long time since I couldn't muster some kind of Monday post, this past Sunday also marked the first time I put my body and my sanity before bike racing. My coworker and I got back to The Shop from working the Pan Mass Challenge at 10PM on Saturday night, had to unload the van which was full of soggy cardboard boxes full of tubes and spokes and whatnot. When it came time to get in my car and go home, I was patting my pockets going "Where the hell are my keys?" and then "Where the Hell's my car?", I realized that I had left my car over at the gas station next door, thinking that I would be back before they closed to retrieve it. This meant I had to return the truck in the AM...before my race.

My arms and back were shot from pumping up hundreds of tires, while all the while trying to explain that running 120-140Psi in wet conditions surrounded by thousands of inexperienced riders is ill-advised. "Ya, Lance would run 90Psi" convinced a couple of them, the rest were beyond hope. We had to set up in the rain, a deluge, we were soaked from the get go. At one point a guy asked me for a rag, I handed him one, he grimaced and asked "Do you have a dry one". "I'm sorry but my underwear aren't dry, no I do not have any dry rags".

We were out there at the starting point of the ride in Sturbridge until 9:30 Friday night, back up pumping more tires at 4AM, then down at Mass Maritime fixing bikes which had (for some reason) been involved in crashes throughout the day until 9PM. Favorite dude at Mass Maritime "Where are the helmet mirrors?". "Sorry, we don't have any helmet mirrors". "OK, any kind of mirrors". "We don't have any sort of mirrors, we're really just doing essential stuff here; tubes, lube, adjustments, stuff like that". "Huh, mirrors aren't essential? Heh! Heh! Okey Dokey, Okeee...dokeee" as he walked away.

The plan was to race Hodges Dam on Sunday AM. In the past I have always made the bad decision, always chosen to race no matter how little sleep I got, how totally knackered I was, Saturday night I was just too spent and I knew it. I called suddenly disturbingly fast guy Kevin Sweeney to tell him I would not be carpooling to Oxford.

Disturbingly fast guy Kevin Sweeney. Disturbing not because our shop sponsors him and I want good things for him, disturbing due to the fact that we have ended up on opposite sides of the The War at The 24 Hours of Great Glen next weekend and he is suddenly faster than me. So too is his teammate Colin. Me and my GG24 Harry Precourt finished behind both those guys at Mount Snow last weekend. It's going to be interesting, Peter Ostroski (sp?) is on another rival team with fast Umass guy Tom Sampson. Ostroski had a great finish at The Wilderness 101 last Saturday.

I'd love to sit here and babble on in a paranoid manner about our chances at The GG24 but I have to go running so I'm in really good running shape for that Lemans start Saturday.

Oh, and that's Todd Downs ripping it up in Harold Parker last Sunday on his and Miriam's joint birthday ride.

Roleur

After shattering like a Porcelain toilet dropped from an eighth story window on Wednesday AM's hill ride with Kevin I began wondering whether I am just going to get more and more tired and slow or if my fitness will somehow bounce back and I'll find my self sort of fast again.

Today's ride made me feel like I might have something going on in those appendages which hang in a very often uncooperative fashion off my pelvis. At least on flat to rolling roads. I left from Wrentham with the goal of covering fifty miles or riding for three hours, which ever came first. Due to some getting turned around business I wound up with 57 miles in three hours in the wind and 85° heat. Which is good for me. I usually lack motivation to pedal fast on the road for no apparent reason.



I can say that I have never taken notice of my body producing more sweat than I produced today. It was nutty. I drank and drank and for hours after the ride and I did not pee. It is part the New England condition to constantly complain about the weather. I hate 44° and rainy, or sleety, other than that, bring it. It can't be too hot as far as I'm concerned. I reveled in every drop of sweat falling on my bike while my legs cooked in the sun.


I know my way around the environs of Wrentham pretty well...not well enough not to get totally lost. I kept turning down roads which kept the wind in my face or at my side for the first three quarters of the ride. Or taking streets which were named "Maple" or "Cottage", not "Center" or "Main". I didn't have a map and most of the time I had no idea where I was. Good thing my only appointment was with two little people and some S'mores late in the afternoon.

Little People


Golden Brown

Well, the EFTA race this Sunday got canceled due to muddy trail conditions so I'll be heading down to The Hodges Dam race to make an ass of myself this weekend. I won it last year, my expectations are a little lower this year. And like some really annoying idiot on a Food Network Reality show once said "But at least I'm failing at the right thing".

I think Adam Myerson once used this a victory salute while wearing this jersey

Proper Mount Snow Race Report

It's not here, it's HERE. On The 29er Crew Blog. So go over THERE and look at it.

Mount Snow, A Reality Kick in The Nuts

Hours of Sleep: 5ish
Weight: 165.5
Gear: 34 X 22

This is a horrible, painful race, but like a repressed businessman who commissions an Asian prostitute to hit him in the nuts with a high-heeled shoe every second Wednesday, we know what we're paying for and we keep going back for more.

It was definitely a 4 bagger, 4 bags of ice in my post-race ice bath that is.

I have the feeling this one ain't gonna go too linear like. I knew it wouldn't go well, but I thought it would be a good workout and I figured since I raced Mount Snow three times last year, I should at least race it once this year...and I'm not feelin' like Kenda Cup Pro material right now. I don't know what material I feel like. Perhaps whatever material most resembles marshmallow fluff. No one would want a suit made out of that material. Especially on a hot day.

I want to write a race report but my thoughts keep going back to the Dunkin Donuts bathroom from this morning. By the door was a sign next to a timer switch, explaining how they were trying to conserve energy and that you should set the timer for the desired amount of time you plan on spending in the bathroom. The options were:

10
15
20
30
45
60

Or something like that, point being, the maximum amount of time was an hour...an hour. If you plan on spending an hour in the bathroom, you should probably be calling an ambulance and planning on spending some time in the hospital. What kind of operation are you performing over the course of an hour in the bathroom? Even ten minutes is a stretch for me, I'd have light to spare. What can I say, I eat a lot of Kale.

And what else can I say, I am not going to get through my race report tonight. You came down here on Monday morning looking for a race report and what you got was me circuitously talking about poop again. Poop is funnier than bike racing anyway. There are almost no jokes about bike racing in Will Ferrell movies. I will try to post a report, probably a pretty straight-laced one over on the 29er Crew Blog.

I also hereby usher in the pre-24 Hours of Great Glen smack talking. Me, Harry Precourt, Jeff Whittingham, and a yet to be named Ringer of incredible racing pedigree are doing it as a 4 Man Pro team. My IBC teammates Colin and Kevin are doing it on a four man team as well. So too are Jesse Chebot and Chuck D'He...I don't know how the hell to spell his name. Our team is split like Astana. Me, the old-ass two time GG24 champion, they the young bucks, coming to dethrone me.

But like Lance, I am old and crafty and kind of a dick, I have tricks up my sleeve.

• I have bought a bag of cheap Alarm clocks which I will hurl toward their campsite in the wee hours.
• I will go all Brady Bunch on their ass, filling their sleeping bags with itching powder.
• Their bottles of chain lube will be filled with crazy glue.
• At a key moment I will offer them Ex-La—I mean Brownies, just normal brownies.
• I will grind up Ambien and put it in their energy drink mix.
• The hell with Ambien, I will slip them all Ruffies and drag their sleeping pads to the top of Mt. Washington.
  

I don't know how much I'll actually have to sabotage Chuck and Jesse, we'll see if they can make it to start time without one of their teammates running over their bikes with a car.

So ya, maybe tomorrow for race report and maybe, real maybe for a possible video of the new Mount Snow course for those of you who are racing the Kenda Cup but couldn't be bothered to come up to West Dover and suffer horribly with the rest of us clowns today.

Rain drops starting to fall on a Mount Snow morning, ominous.

A wise-mechanic called The Todd Downs once said "Road bikes never get valve caps, Mountain Bikes always get valve caps. If the rock that hit this guy did it just a little harder I would have had a hell of a lot worse race. And that's saying a lot.

Pop's Camp

After the self-imposed blogging vacation during the pre-wedding craziness, I never quite got back at it with the five day a week writing schedule, this is due in part to what I've been doing with my Wednesday nights through Friday mornings. M and I have been heading down to my homeland of Wrentham, MA to Pop's Camp on Lake Archer. Pop was my great Grandfather on my Mother's side. For a brief period in the summer 0f 2006, I occupied Pop's Camp full time and during that period it was referred to by my siblings as "Uncle Thom's Cabin".

Technically I could Remora (shut up spellcheck, it's a parasitic suckerfish, you dumbass) Internet off the neighbor's and keep up the blogging, but we've chosen to make this time at the cabin media free. It's been a good thing.

I wake up, take a jump in the lake, and then head out for an epic loop of Wrentham and Foxborough. The trails are rough, mostly moto-stuff, but I roll on The Remedy (or today, a demo-Roscoe, more on that later) which makes it all a hoot. In the upper right of the photo above you can see how my cousin Christy has transformed my Grandparent's place into a vibrant organic farm. Cutting through there to say howdy is always part of the ride. The wildflowers actually grow along the abandoned rail road tracks, which my family watched the Worcester Tornado travel down back in '53 (of course they also watched Cyclocross bikes travel down it in the winter of '08).


Above: 1.) A ripping descent. You can ride these trails on a hardtail XC bike - you can play on them with a six inch travel trail bike. 2.) The gash in my leg from a failed drop attempt, that's the bastard that ended up getting horribly infected. 3.) Me ten feet from The Roscoe, where I landed after my bike stayed in a slimy moto-rut at twenty miles per hour as my body chose to dive into the trees. 4.) The Bezema Palace...I'm still not sure what the story is with these people but they have some sweet lion statues guarding their front door. If Scarface ran a construction company and lived in Wrentham Massachusetts, I'm pretty sure his house would look a lot like this.


1.) Somehow on every one of these rides, I have to go all "Old School" and get all worked over, bonked out, and generally destroyed. Riding in baggies on a hot, muggy New England day is dumb. The chamois is a joke and you feel like you're swimming in corduroys. 2.) I started out at the top of that slimy, green rock...and went for a slip and a slide. 3.) A bit of trudging through stinking swamps is par for the course. 4.) Always finish with the plummet off Sweatt/Knuckup Hill. Which I actually skied on during its brief re-opening in the early eighties. The J-Bar was terrifyingly sketchy.

After the ride it's nice to take a bath in the lake (with eco-friendly soaps) and then relax on The King Cobra Raft with an ice cold beer. It's much easier to mount The King Cobra when you're in shallow water, but, like I said as I grunted and contorted my body trying to get on the thing, "I have to learn to do these thing myself!".

And that is why I've become a blog-slacker.

The Original Big Ring
Interview Part Two is Up

That's right, once again, all the action is over HERE today, so please go check it out will ya.

In the all me all the time news we have these shocking updates:

I woke up this morning to an infected and throbbing leg, the result of a wound I received while riding the big squishing bike in Wrentham last Thursday. At work it began oozing and then dripping globs of yellow pus. I'm an idiot when it comes to medical situations but I'm not a big enough idiot not to go to the ER when I begin to feel feverish and my entire leg is buzzing from a small, festering abrusion (combination of a bruise and an abrasion...it will be a word, it will be). They put me on antibiotics and I should be all set with no legs falling off every time with the gangrene.

I also ran this morning. It was a dumb idea altogether and even dumber still because I ran for a total of 40 minutes after not running at all for over two years. Did I mention the ten long-ass stair repeats? And some of you come here for training advice, you are doomed.

The tri-in-fecta of the running, the pus-gushing wound, and the ten hours of combined sleep over the past two days had me wondering which of the three was making me feel like total crap the most. That reminds me, I really should be off to bed.

-t

Ooh, Look at Mr. International Over Here

Today was a swell day. I knew it was going to be good when I dropped an apple first thing this morning, and while fumbling for it, I punched myself right in the nuts. But we're not here to talk about me inadvertently punching myself in the nuts (for a change).

Sorry there is nothing to read here really, BUT WAIT! Don't go away, there's all sorts of crazy silliness to read way up north on The Original Big Ring Blog. You see I did an interview for Craig Barlow, you should totally go check it out, it's right HERE.

Have fun up there in The Land of The Free Health Care and come back and see me tomorrow (so I can redirect you back to Craig for part two of the interview). Craig has a great Blog full of self-depricating humor, race reports, and tales of adventure, I read him daily (or at least every time he posts something). He likes peanut butter and single speed bikes which almost makes us family.

-t

Oh, Sunapee Lions

Sleep - 6 Hours
Weight - 164.5
Gear - 34 X 18
Result - 4th Elite

And I feel like Nancy Kerrigan did after Jeff Gillooly got to her with that pipe.

I last raced over a month ago, it was past time I got back at it. What better race to start with than the first race I ever did. In 1999, as a Sport, I entered the Sunapee Lions race. Tyler Hamilton was there, fresh off his first Tour De France with Postal, he was riding a borrowed Gary Fisher with canti brakes racing Expert. He got his ass kicked, this was a real mountain bike race. Those Experts looked so frickin' big and scary back then, Matt Svatek's sideburns alone...so pointy.

Today I lined up with a small Elite field at roughly the same venue. The course has changed a lot over the years, and there was only one face there from that '99 race, Matt O'Keefe. In '99 I was happy to finish 5th in the Sport field, today I was happy not to utterly embarrass myself during my tentative return to Elite level mountain bike racing.

And I promised myself I wouldn't ramble.

The posse today consisted of Greg The Leg and Kevin Sweeney . We arrived at the venue relatively on time, but after waiting in huge lines for registration and longer lines at the port-a-potties we had no time for warm up, never mind a pre-ride of the course. Mass Starts...are wicked awesome. It gives the appearance that an event is really well attended, especially when you're waiting at registration for twenty minutes and at the port-a-potties for another twenty minutes. Eveyone has the same start time, registration time, and poop time.

Poop time. I damn near had to go to the start line with "one on deck". Think about that, folks work so hard to shave pounds off their bodies and grams off their bikes, when if they only ate more roughage they might go to the start line two pounds lighter. I thought about it the whole race long "At least I'm only five pounds over base race weight, not seven pounds, that would suck much worse".

Talking about poop is not rambling.

Through the first part of the course I was spun out on the flat, bumpy, jeep roads, I made my first passes after the first high-speed mud bog crossing, on an uphill. Passing GTL and Brian Hughes, looking back to see EX-Super-Blogger and my '09 24 Hours of Great Glen Teammate Jeff Whittingham in tow. The climbs were great, broken up very nicely, with some high speed downhills, and one not so high speed "I can't believe I'm having to pedal down this mud bog at this gradient" section, with a great flip yourself over the handlebars mud bog crossing at the bottom. I'd get each of the bog dialed, find my line, only to get thrown off my plan the next lap by lapped traffic (another awesome element off mass starts, major lapped rider traffic).

Jeff and I caught up to Mike Bartlett, who was climbing very fluidly, getting so in the zone that he actually tried to spin off up a hill going off course, Jeff and I got him back on track though. Jeff was nursing a slow leak in his rear tire and Mike was outpacing me on the climbs. After flipping over in a mud bog and fumbling with a bottle, I'd never see Mike again, Jeff would keep coming back after his tire fiddlings, even though I was out there going "Dude, I am totally railing this shit! – Oh, hi Jeff".

The singletrack sections were rad, albeit few and far between, if they could add 20% more of that stuff to this course, it would be the best damn thing ever. That stuff was so flowy, twisty, and fun. I don't know if the Webb brothers are still out there cutting that stuff, if so, thanks fellas, very nice work.

So as you might have gathered by now, I liked the course while I felt the race organization was lacking. A final note on that, the Elites paid an exorbitant $49 fee and pay out was for first place only, $100, and a claimed $200 medal. A word to promoters, racers could give a crap about medals. I personally have so many "Yeah! I finished the race" nondescript medals, I have no idea what to do with them. Sometimes I would award them to my niece and nephew for accomplishing amazing tasks like washing their hands or wiping their butts. I'm not quite sure what the thinking was on that one. We pay more, they pay out less.

I'm deadly serious when I say that 90% of the Elites who raced today (we were kind of unanimously pissed) will not return next year and those that do will save themselves twenty or so bucks and race Expert.

And I have promoted a race.

As a promoter I'll say this regarding the shit storm Kevin started about the Pat's Peak course. What the hell good is it for a promoter to focus on all the ass kissing about how great their race is? Not to ring my own cowbell, but the race I did promote didn't get a lot of criticism, what little it did, I noted, I took it to heart, and if, I say if we put on another race this year improvements will be made based on those criticisms.

Next week, Root 66 Mt. Snow, such a bad idea for me to do it, we'll see what happens.

OK Fine, I'm Back...Sort Of, I Guess

What's it been, ten days since I wrote something here? Nine? Wow, seemed longer than that. I was really wondering how I was going to get back at it, then, like that, the insomnia returned this morning. Not the old kind where I couldn't get to sleep, this is the new breed where I wake up at an ungodly hour and can't fall back to sleep...so I write.

I once attended an art show at The List Gallery at MIT called "Shakespeare From Memory", where an artist had tried to piece together synopses of all the great works of, yes, Shakespeare, scrawling the words on large canvasses. She hadn't read them since high school, so it was actually pretty funny. Don't get me started on the conceptual art. If I go to see art in a gallery, I want it to be a visual or some other sort of sensory experience. Writing large words on a canvas is called writing and like most conceptual art it conveys an idea. Ideas can be conveyed by telling people about them, you don't necessarily have to waste your time shlepping to a gallery to see those ideas hanging on a wall.

My point, my point, it's in here somewhere...ow! There it is. I am going to try to piece together (briefly) what has happened in the past tennish days (Tennish, in this usage means "roughly ten days", it is also how a Dutchman pronounces "Tennis", just wanted to clarify).

July 4th - I don't like to get stuck far from home sitting in traffic during this holiday, so I went down to the cabin in Wrentham with my then fiance, Miriam, keeping it local. Not before I went out and did the CRW/ NEBC hill loop. At some point I'll post a my own version of the thing with suggestions for improvement, I've got a few of my own hills that would work nicely into that thing, particularly if if you skip the whole thankless lollipop section going out to The Burlington Mall and back. A lot of the hills are right in my backyard and I had no idea they were there, it was pretty awesome having a couple epiphany moments during the ride "THAT thing has been hiding up in that random neighborhood all these years and I didn't know about it, dang!".

Then, later that day, M and I headed down to Foxborough for a rip around F. Gilbert Hills. The place is rough, but on The Remedy and the Genesisters Hi Fi we were flowing like human powered motorcycles. The place was built by motos and it is still pretty overun by them, they rip a lot of stuff up, but hey, I 'd rather ride moto trails than hiking or equestrian trails any day.

We were three quarters of the way around the loop, it was getting dark, the quadruple-normal mosquito population had come out to party, so Miriam went back on the road as I took off to hammer out the rest of the loop, with the car keys in my pocket. I instantaneously flatted. Knowing that I had only a 29" tube in my pocket (not too many 26" tubes in my house) and that the bloodsuckers would descend on me with a vengeance, I tried to run it out, realizing pretty quickly that I was miles from the trailhead, I stopped to fix the flat. I got it done in record time while still giving the skeeters plenty of opportunity to bite me on every un-deeted spot on my body multiple times. The result looked like a bad reaction to Poison Oak. It felt great too.

July 5th - With the first Parsons/Kornitzer family barbecue looming, I was given an hour and a half window to ride. I struck out with my cousin Will in tow for the over The river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go loop, which encompasses right-a-ways, private property, town land, Wrentham State Forest, and the old abandoned ski hill. Always one of my favorite rides.

July 6th - I think I rode to work, I'm not sure, I bet it was really, really exciting

July 7th - I think I did some of the NEBC hill loop and some of my own stuff on the way to work, I think I felt like crap doing it. I am fat. In fat, I mean fact, I am weighing in at 167 Lbs, right now. That is how much Bart Brenjens weighs. That is not good.

July 8th - Team TT of the Fells MTB Loop with Kevin Sweeney. It was wet, my RWS skewer slipped, I felt gross, I dabbed at least four times (which is just pathetic) we did it in about 29:15. Not a record. Awesome! Then we rode to work, me on my spinny, spinny off road gear, 32 X 17.

Oh, then I rode up from IBC Newton to Melrose through all but one section of The Fells to a NEMBA meeting on preserving and promoting MTB access to The Fells. After that I was tired.

July 9th - Super-Connector. Went out from The Danish Pastry House for a three and a half hour tour with Kevin, Alex, GTL, and wicked fast youngin' Nathaniel Williams. We hooked up Brooks Estate to Horn Pond to Cummins Park to Willard Woods to Burlington Landlocked to Great Meadows to Whipple Hill, it was sweet.

You ever seen a little kid draw a person and they get to a point where they figure out that there is no way they can keep their figure in proportion with the space available so instead of running their legs or head off the page, they just curve the legs or tilt the neck, making it appear like the poor guy is trapped in a cramped little box suffering horribly?

Closed

But Big Bikes isn't closed for a race. I have a choice; I can get ready for my wedding (which is Saturday) and blog about not having time to ride my bike, or, I can get ready for my wedding and still ride my bike a little bit, just enough, maybe, to not become totally obese and out of shape before my next race (Probably The EFTA Sunapee race).

I'll be back here in a week or so.

Feel free to sift through the archives while I'm out. Oh and by the way (that's a less obnoxious way of saying "BTW") if you want to weigh in on the subject of The Big Bikes top ten, that'd be sweet. I don't feel like I should decided for you which ten posts should line the sidebar as a best of list. I know posts like this one and this one are pretty popular, the other eight...I have no clue.

Thanks

-t

Bacon Burner/
Connecting The Dots Between
The Pieces of The Puzzle/
Putting The "Raining" in Training

It's Waterworld out here. Someone folded the map of the U.S. and Boston now has the weather of the Pacific Northwest. I sat around in Lycra for two hours today, waiting for my window. It looked like I had one, then the rain came back ten fold, absolute deluge. This threw a Capuchin Monkey wrench in my plans. There was no food in the house and I began to get hungry. I made do with what we had...tater tots, bacon, and cheese. Then I felt like crap, lying on the couch full of tater tots, bacon, and cheese, in my lycra. I had to ride, I just needed a window...but a slightly larger one than normal so my fat ass could fit through it.

Starting a ride in the dry and getting caught in the rain is one thing...starting a ride in the rain is another thing entirely.

The window opened and I jumped out of it with my bike. I mean, it had stopped raining but the streets had water cascading down them. I was soaked instantaneously from the spray off my tires. Oh, the photo at the top has nothing to do with this post, that was me driving to meet Rooter last night. I was driving so fast and erratic that I had to wear a helmet. The fact that I was taking photos of myself while doing so made it all the more dangerous.

I've lived in Somerville for nigh on fifteen years off and on and I still don't know all the secret stashes of trails. I know a lot of folks drive their gay-ass SUV to the trailhead (it's OK, I can say that, my brother drives an SUV), maybe don body armor and cover about 8 miles during a ride, that's fine, I do that sometimes too. The rides I really like though are the ones where you go exploring, find new ways to cut through green spaces, linking up areas, making huge meandering loops.

People think that you need a road bike to get fit enough to race a mountain bike. Let me ask you this...what's the difference between riding a mountain bike on the road and riding a road bike on the road? It's all about continuous pedaling. Trail riding is actually pretty easy compared to going hard on the road, you get to stop pedaling way more than you realize. Try going out for a ride on a single speed in a 32 X 17 with a good 30% on pavement. You'll get to spin your legs a whole lot.

That's just my 6 Polish Zloty.


I won't bore you with the details of where I rode and how exciting it was when I made some new connections. If you don't live and ride in my hood, you won't give a flying frog. If you do live and ride in my hood and you want to check some of the stuff out, drop me a line.


If I did not have a hose in my backyard and laundry in the basement dealing with the aftermath of these rainy rides would suck so freakin' bad. I have been riding in wet shoes for weeks, I have moss growing between my toes. You've heard of a green thumb? I've got a green toe.

I think moss is beginning to cover the area where my sense of humor is housed...green toe? Ugh.
I'm outta here.

Day Off Wrap Up/Cop Out

Oops, I forgot to write a blog post last night. I rode until 8:15 in the semi-rain with Rosey and Rooter out in Bedford. It was a mad dash to get out to meet them. I rode The Ferrous called Dunderchee into work (which is kind of a slow way to go but I think it's giving me my form and spin back and ends up being a lot more fun than being relegated to the road alone)
By the time I realized how dead The Shop was and that the thunder and lightning had subsided it was too late to make it to the ride on time. I hopped on my road bike to hammer out the commute home "The Dumb Way" through Watertwon Square and that awful artery with 16 and The Mass Pike, a place where I once had to violently outrigger onto a Volvo's front left quarter panel to avoid going under its wheels as the driver talked on his cell phone while trying to cross four lanes of traffic at a right angle.

We had a great ride, slick but not super muddy. It was Rosey's maiden voyage on The Mojo. I hadn't seen the white version of that bike, very striking. On the way home I called Miriam and asked her on an impromptu date to see The Hangover. It was insanely funny, on a totally different level than the cookie cutter Knocked Up, Role Models type stuff that's been coming out in the comedy department lately. And that's why this is such a weak post.

If you want to read a post that is not wiggidy-wiggidy-weak you can check out what I wrote about the Holland School 110 Kids Bike Donation.
There are some good photos like the ones at the top of this post over there as well.

Videos, they are a total waste of my time, but I didn't have to edit the ones below so I won't feel so bad when two of my three readers looks at them.

If you watch careful you can see my wheel (I'm full-face guy) slip on the both of the bridges...sketchy.

Highland Mountain Bike Park Slippery Bridge Stunt from thom parsons on Vimeo.

We did these practice jumps at the beginning of the day, they were scary then. Later, after all the free-ridin' craziness they seemed like nothin'. So much so that I went a little fast and damn near missed the landing, compressing pretty good as I came down.

Highland Mountain Bike Park Practice Jumps from thom parsons on Vimeo.

This video I did spend a long time editing, I've also posted on the 29er Crew Blog and The IBC Blog. It's my attempt at a how-to video. I have work to do.

How To Hop A Log from thom parsons on Vimeo.

This is awesome...for the few of you that got to see what the original title of this post was. I seriously thought it was Friday until Miriam said "Friday Wrap Up/Cop Out? It's Thursday". Oops. Jesus, what the hell am I going to use for end of the week filler tomorrow?

Department of Re-Directions

Alright, you know the drill, all the action's over on the 29er Crew site today. Posted a little product review of the above gloves or the gloves above and a thing about the new Bontrager 29-3 tires. So check it out!

The Epic Riding Before The Epic Imbibing

When I said I spent five hours riding in the hot sun in preparation for the Bachelor Pub Crawl Death March, I wasn't kidding...or lying either. Half of the crap I say over here is totally made up and the other half is imagined. Nobody is fact checking The Big Bikes and that's the way we like it.

At about noon on Saturday Andy and Jeff (I am going to continue linking to his "retired" blog until the plonker writes something new. If you have time to raise a child, you have time to blog) showed up at the house. Then we prepared our bikes, tripping over each other as we worked out of my rickety, ghetto as hell house tool box. We turned Jeff's IF 29" into a single speed with a "feathery light" 32 X 17 and I installed a new pair of Bontrager 29-3s which I will be reviewing on the Crew Site, perhaps Wednesday.

Andy's Igleheart Franken-Bike. Check out the overlapping Juicy hydraulic brakes.
We stopped to chat frequently, I don't to see these guys nearly
enough and this is the only catching up we get to do.

The plan was a Semi-Suburban epic, linking together all the stuff in my neighborhood and beyond. I thought Jeff would enjoy this, he doesn't get to ride over broken glass and beer cans enough up in Waitsfield, VT. We started with a taste of The Fells, staying in there just long enough to realize how much riding there sucks on a beautiful Saturday when it's full of hikers and dog walkers. So we cut out and hit Horn Pond Mountain. It's a mean little bastard that one. But the descent and the singletrack linking up to the powerlines that take you up toward Lexington are sweet!

En route to Bedford and Burlington Landlocked Forest we cut through the swimming hole in Lexington. I was not shocked to see that the ratty old tree which for years had anchored a rope swing had finally met its demise. Apparently to a very loud and fat gentleman who was present when we arrived there. By all appearances he was wasted, but he only had ice tea and ginger ale to offer us. You can hear his floral voice in the background of the video below. After my trip to Highland I was feeling a little daring and took the Superfly for a little flight off some roots and down a steep, sandy embankment...barely arresting my skid before I hit the water. The first effort almost landed me on Jeff's bike.

Super Flight from thom parsons on Vimeo.

From there we ripped through Willard Woods and over to Bedford where we rode around in incredibly entertaining circles on some of the best cut trails I know. The new markers are key, thanks PK and MKR, you guys are both the man...or the men. We thoroughly appreciated your work.



Jeff had pre-hydrated for the ride with several Long Trail Ales (Hmm, that gives me an idea...aah, that's better, thanks for leaving me some of those Long Trails in the fridge JW), this perhaps left him feeling a little off. So while he took a nap Andy made a totally unrideable pile of rocks slightly less unrideable (at least for him because he's a Super Army Bike Soldier) check it out:

Andy...Rocks from thom parsons on Vimeo.

Somehow I thought it was a good idea to drink just two bottles in five hours on a near 80° day and eat nothing but a package of Gu Chomps. We were all pretty hurtin' by the time we reached Lexington center. Dreams of ice coffee and pastries at Pete's Coffee gave way to a burning desire for Coke, potato chips, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

We wound up getting back to the house at 6, barely enough downtime to get showered and down to The Bones for the start of the pub crawl. And that, was a damn good day.

-t

Bachelor Pub Crawl Death March

In preparation for this endurance event I spent five hours riding in the hot sun with Mr. Whittingham and Mr. Sanidas. That's a story for another day, possibly tomorrow. This is kind of an inverse of my usual situation, where I've gone out drinking before a race and then suffered for it. In this case I went out riding and it made the drinking that much more painful. At least the pedaling part anyway, it was a pub crawl by bicycle.The fact that I'd had two bottles to drink all day long was probably not ideal either. We got back from the EPIC and started drinking beers and I went "Oh crap, I should probably drink some water or something".

My brother James tries to convince Uri to put him on the back of his bike and attempt to jump The Snake River Canyon...or The Charles River.
He settles for riding Bitch over The Longfellow Bridge.

We started off at Redbones in Davis Square, the headcount at that pint, I mean point was maybe fifteen (actual slip back there, I just added the "I mean point" part"). Greg "The Leg" Montello was our Cruise Director, the man with the plan. After a quick dinner and a couple drinks at The Bone, we moved ever so slightly down the street to The Toad in Porter Square Cambridge. There GTL stated the rule that when I finished my drink, it was time to move on. From then on everyone drank their beers with one eye on my beer. If I wasn't digging a scene, I would down the beverage more rapidly. Now that's power.

From there we moved on to Charlie's Kitchen in Harvard Square where we were introduced to the modern equivalent of Zima - Bud Lite LIME. Outside Charlie's I took my first ride on Uri's Africa Bike which has a Moped seat affixed to a trail rack and foot pegs for the passenger. Uri then gave rides to people who didn't need rides as they held onto their own bikes, the cranks and pedals coming dangerously close to going into the spokes of The Africa Bike's rear wheel. I don't think Greg Paraskos knows how close he came to dying on Mass Ave. last night.

Green St. Uri and The Africa Bike living dangerously

There was a brief mutiny where Mike H. and I sprinted ahead of the group leading them to The Cellar in Central Square where we had Tequila shots. That was a great idea. Then it was over to Charlie's Kitchen for Cocktails. Mine was a Rhum...something or other. Yes Rum was spelled with an H. At least I saw an H at the time. After taking some photos with a the members of a Bachelorette party (me in the blinking Tiarra) we were off to the big city.

Apparently The Liberty Hotel is much more popular now that it is no longer a prison. GTL went to work bullshitting the doorman to get us in. The troops became restless and began wandering off toward Charles St.. GTL called me to say that we "were in" but when we got back inside he was still in heated negotiations with fatty fatty gel head. In the confusion, two members got in, texting me "We walked through the bushes onto the patio". Greg P. and I tried that move, it did not work. A large security guard was onto us. We made like we weren't really planning to squeeze between two planters into the patio at all and pretended to check our text messages simultaneously. He wasn't convinced and kept an eye on us until we walked away.

Meanwhile three others from the group had stepped into an elevator which opened right next to the line. When GTL finally wore the doorman down and we got in , the elevator riders were waiting inside for us. So if you ever want to get into The Liberty Hotel and I have no idea why you would want to do that, just walk through the bushes or get in the elevator.

The secret elevator. Things get blurry. Bryan has a weid Cell phone, it's attached to the wall outside The Blue Diner

After The Liberty we tried to go to some awful place in Fanueil Hall, Hennessy's maybe. It was slammed, no chance. Somewhere we lost Sanidas, I still don't know where, then Bryan flatted, oh, and Matt O'Keefe blew out his freehweel and had to be towed across the Salt & Pepper bridge by Rooter. Sanidas would eventually find his way back to my locked house, walk into my neighbor's apartment then ultimately gain entry to the correct apartment by leaping through a high first floor window. Which, if you are a burglar, I implore you not to do.

From there on out things get hazy, but a stop at J.J. Foley's and The Good Life happened as well as, perhaps, possibly some others in the Chinatown vicinity.

Thanks to everyone that came out to make this an extra-special-awesome night.

You know it was an epic night of drinking when you think it's a good idea
to eat at The Blue Diner at 3AM