I was beat yesterday. I went on a 50 mile group ride that was super enjoyable, stopping for apple cider slushes in route, but I could barely get out of my own way. It was a little physical, but mainly mental. I was just plain worn out from focusing and concentrating on the Berryman Trail Epic for the past few days.

I had forgotten how fun it was to ride/concentrate for such a long period through the woods. But I had also forgotten how tiring it is. I now remember how I used to be too tired to sleep after many World Cups and NORBA Nationals. That was pretty common back then.

That being said, I love the focus. On and off the bike. I never do well at a race unless I’ve crossed all my t’s and dotted all my i’s. Especially a short intense race, such as a muddy cyclo-x or a Fatboy Criterium. When I’ve covered everything mechanically, the physical usually follows. That’s not quite accurate. The physical has to be there, but all the other stuff has to be perfect to allow the full release of the physical.

I didn’t realize that I’d missed the concentration, the intellectual part of MTB racing until I was doing it. The full focus of riding singletrack efficiently is only something you can fully realize after you’ve actually experienced yourself. And there is a big difference between what you’re doing just riding or training and that of racing. Racing takes everything up quite a few notches. Of course now, I want more.

Cyclo-X is similar, but just that much different. Not that it isn’t as “good”, it’s just different. Same with road racing. Well, road racing is different. Rainy criterium racing is similar. Road racing involves different intellectual focus. That is one reason I hate the use of radios in the peleton. Nothing removes the intellectual process of the sport as much from individual riders like radios. I like hard circuit races the most of any road events. You get to figure out how the race is going to progress by absorbing all the information from the race over and over again.

I think this is one reason I like construction. It’s an intellectual process as well as a physical. There are tons of different ways to do about every process in construction. From framing walls, to laying tile. Each and every guy has his own little tweek of the same job. I’ve never really worked for a long period of time with a professional group of construction workers. I know I would enjoy it.

So, since I’m hopefully going to have some resemblance of fitness until January, I’m going to keep a lookout for more MTB races and interesting events to fulfill the intellectual fix that seems to be buried in my subconscious.

Catherine and Keith sharing an apple cider slush at Rees Fruit Farm.

Riding was pretty great yesterday, but I was exhausted.

The CXC Ski Team is building a wall at Telemark for the IPC Nordic Skiing World Cup they are hosting this winter. Dennis and Hawkeye in the background.

Pretty big wall. I would have liked to have been up there to help.

I haven’t really been paying attention to how much bikes and parts cost. I don’t go to the manufactures website and see what the price for their top end road or MTB bikes sell for. Last year, I remembering going into a Trek Concept Store in San Diego and ended taking photos of the price tags because it amazed me, but I didn’t really spend enough time in there to understand how stupid expensive that nearly everything is now.

Trudi just got a email from BMC, seeing if she wants to get a bike. It listed the retail costs of the BMC line. There is a TT bike that costs nearly $12000. So, I went to the Specialized website and saw that is about the same price for their new Shiv TT Di2 bike. $11000 for the high end Tarmac. The Epic MTB is a more reasonable $10500 with Sram or XTR parts.

These numbers are insane. I can’t really understand it. Then I started looking at individual parts. And it’s even more stupid. Hydraulic brakes can cost nearly $400 a wheel. Seats that top $200. And that isn’t an expensive one. Carbon railed seats over $300. What happened to the $30 seat. I’ve have to work 3 jobs if I had to buy a new seat everytime I ruined one. They break by nearly just looking at them now. I used to ride the same saddle season after season.

I might not ever advise anyone to ever to go out and purchase a new MTB bike. If I hit the wrong race with that new bike, I could take it’s $10000 retail value bike down to less the $2000 in just a couple hours. I did that once in Brazil.

I was riding for Specialized and took a brand new race bike to a Cactus Cup in Sao Paulo one February. It rained the whole day before and the course was solid clay. It was a 3 mile loop and took close to 45 minutes for each of 3 laps. There wasn’t a part on that bike, well, maybe the tires, that didn’t need to be replaced. I carried the bike so much on my shoulder, cyclo-x style, that all the paint on the left side of my bike was gone and it was down to bare aluminum.

I thought that the price of carbon wheels was getting kind of out of control. But if you look around, you can get a pretty light set of good wheels for less than $1000. That seems like a deal compared to hydraulic brakes. The same with the electronic Di2 shifting. I thought it was insanely priced. Now it doesn’t seem so nuts, considering how well it works.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I guess I want to stress that in most circumstances, bike racing doesn’t come down to what equipment you have. For sure, your equipment has to work properly, but don’t get caught up in riding an UCI weight limit bike of 6.8 kg (a little under 15 lbs.) I’ve never had a road bike close to that weight. Todd Wells’ cross bike nearly weighs less than my road bike and my road bike is pretty stupid light.

For road racing, I’d sink my extra $$$’s in wheels and tires. For MTB and cross, tires are the most the most important piece of equipment on your bike. Other than that, get by with what you can. If you have the means to be riding a $12000 bike, go for it. There is nothing like it. But, if you don’t have the means, don’t let it stress you out too badly. It’s mostly the engine that gets you to the finish line first.

Here on eBay, you can get Dave Zabriskie’s old TT bike for a modest $5500. Of course, you’re going to have to drop another $3000 on fast wheels.