Riding the couch....

You can also follow us @ The Bean Team

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Dirty Spokes 6 hour @ Conyers

It was another great weekend (10.11.2008) of mountain bike racing for Jafer at his hometown course, the Georgia International Horse Park, site of the inaugural (1996) Olympic mountain bike race. With 300 registered riders for the final race of the Dirty Spokes endurance series, a great race was guaranteed. He competed in the solo expert category for the 6 hour race as preparation for his final endurance race of the year, a solo 8 hour race on October 25th in Davidson, NC.

Jafer was fortunate to have the support of his girlfriend and many others that assisted with feeds throughout the race. He even visited the neutral support provided by Addictive Cycles, to have his chain lubed and seat readjusted after it titled on the trail. All in all, it was another smooth race, thanks to frequent feeds and of course good luck.

The trail was perfect for a roadie, as it had plenty of field riding and rolling power sections. Jafer even had a career best of posting the fastest lap time, something he had yet to accomplish. After completing 9 laps of the 8.3 mile circuit, in a time of 6 hours 6 minutes and 57 seconds, he cruised in for the win, nearly 7 minutes ahead of second place. For complete race results click here

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Black Bear Rampage MTB Race

On Saturday the 27th of September, Jafer and one of his friends made the trek north to Ducktown, TN for the Black Bear Rampage, a 44 mile mountain bike race at the Ocoee Whitewater Center (site of the 96' Olympics). After setting up camp at the Thunder Rock campground, they quickly geared up to hit the trail when the first misfortune happened. Jafer was tightening his shoe straps and the plastic cinch piece broke rendering his left shoe useless.
Luckily, he had some weed-eater line in his Jeep and after a few creative attempts, found an appropriate solution to his dilemma; albeit a little Jafer rigged (he had to think outside of his usual arsenal of tools: super glue, jb weld, and tape) it held for the entire ride, a very good sign for the race. After the ride they scrambled to prepare dinner over the campfire. The menu consisted of hearty vension burritos, complete with onions, tomatoes, rice, and cheese. After a filling dinner they turned in for the night since the race was scheduled to start at 8:30 the next morning.

They awoke to a moderate temperature in the low 60s and promptly rekindled the fire to heat the pre-made pancake breakfast. Thankfully, the campground was about a mile from the start so after breakfast they packed the car and headed out. After changing, they headed to the start line where the disarray started. The line up consisted of someone saying, wave one (pro/semi-pro) to the line and then ten seconds later saying go, with no grouping of the riders into age groups. Jafer was in the second wave (expert) that started 30 seconds behind. He didn't know if he was racing against the entire expert field or if the field would be broken down into age groups, so he sprinted off the line leaving his field behind.
The first three miles of the race was on Tennessee highway 68, so he locked his fork out and caught up to the pro field in front and entered the single track in 4th place. For the next hour and a half he stayed in 3rd to 4th place, with only 5 riders in his leading group. Up to this point he had seen a bear run across the trail, two riders in front of him crash, one rider get a flat tire, and a trail marker that had fallen down causing his group to stop and argue about which way to turn.
At about the halfway point his group hit the first major climb which split the leading group even further. Jafer moved into second place overall (1st in his field) and tried to reel in the rider in front but wasn't able to make contact. For the next 22 miles, he maintained his lead over the riders behind him. At one point he had to stop and wait for the rider behind him to catch up to ask him for directions. To his dismay a chair stood in the trail which split into a Y, which meant Jafer had a 50/50 chance of going the right direction. Luckily, the other rider decided that they should go to the right which was the correct choice (Jafer was going to go left).

With less than ten miles remaining, Jafer switched it into high gear and tried to keep the pace steady to the finish. Since there were no neutral feeds at the 3 sag stations he was forced to push on without stopping to refill his bottles. He was able to carry one large bottle on his bike and a smaller bottle in his jersey pocket, which was just short of what he needed.
In the last half hour he ran out of water and steam, as he was on the verge of cramping, but he kept on to the finish. When he emerged out of the single track to the final one K climb to the finish, he was disheartened to see another rider sprint out of the trail about 15 seconds after him. Unbeknown to him, it was a rider in wave one and posed no threat but he was determined to hold his place to the line.
After 2 hours 55 minutes and 12 seconds he crossed the line for first place, 3 minutes and 7 seconds ahead of the second placed expert rider. It turned out to be a good weekend even though the race wasn't that organized and the entry fee was excessive. In short the trail made the race, not the organizers.

Dauset Trails 6 hr mtb race

On September 20th, 2008, Jafer completed his first solo 6 hour mountain bike race this season at Dauset Trails in Jackson, GA. After a few down weeks following nationals, he didn't know what to expect fitness wise. The longest ride he had done in the lead-up to the race was a 3 hour ride a couple weeks prior to the race.
However, the course was perfect for a 6 hour race, fast, smooth, and rolling with no major climbs. He faced a very determined competitor, Jeff Clayton, who dueled it out the entire race.
Jafer had faster pit stops every lap which allowed him to regain the lead for the beginning of every lap but he was always caught by Jeff, before the finish line. Some laps it would take only a few minutes, others took twenty minutes, but Jeff always resumed the pace setting responsibility.

After, basically sitting on Jeff's wheel for the majority of the race, Jafer didn't feel right trying to out sprint him at the finish, so he backed off a little bit on the final lap (he also didn't want to make it inside of the time cut, which meant he would have to ride another lap). After 7 grueling laps, Jafer finished in second place in a very tight race. He felt that the most sportsman like gesture he could make was to take second, since he was not able to ride away from Jeff and had to sit on his wheel. It was the most contested race he has ever completed on his mountain bike and even though he didn't take the win he was happy with the fight. If only Jafer had finished his cornbread breakfast he could have won.

What's fast, growing, and everywhere?

What exactly is Kudzu? Well, if you are from the south you'd probably say that it grows everywhere on everything and is nearly impossible to stop (just like our team). For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of experiencing kudzu, this literally happened overnight.

http://evidencebasedonly.blogspot.com/2008/05/kudzu-root-hangover-remedies-are.html

The plant is native to Southern Japan and China but was brought to the Southern United States to help prevent soil erosion and has continued to grow almost exponentially. For a full kudzu history lesson click here .

Now that you know so much about Kudzu and the south, you can appreciate Kudzu.com, an online business directory that incorporates customer reviews. It is part of the Cox Enterprises family and title sponsor of the Atlanta based Kudzu.com U23 team. So the next time you are searching for a local business give Kudzu.com a try!

Google Search

Custom Search

Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones