Past Adventures

Reloading the Zen

It is the time of year where a cyclist is devoting a lot time to hard work on the bicycle with the impending goals having fun while racing. I know I often am driven to get on the bike because I know the homework on the bike is the only way to do this. This involves some thought with your training and having some structured training blocks to follow. Blocks start in December/January and are typically 3 weeks long with 1 week of recovery and might look a little something like this: 1) Build 2) Endurance 3) Tempo 4) Short Intervals 5) Long intervals. All of which can be accomplished on different terrain, with different training partners or group rides.

However, as I have had the opportunity to ride during the middle of the day lately I have put many hours along the white line with only myself as company. During some of the rides lately I have reflected on the fact that regardless of the hard work and the desire to be prepared for race day, I simply love to ride my bike. I simply love to be out in the environment chasing the wind and harnessing gravity as my friend.

I like the freedom of the open air, the freedom to ride whatever direction or loop I want to ride. The freedom that only human powered propulsion provides, in this case pedal strokes. I enjoy the bike whether I am on the road, the dirt, or the grass. The feeling of speed, the smell of the seasons and the interaction with the environment. It allows you to become one with your machine and temporarily displace the static from the rest of the world that requires your attention and decision making. Yet with all the freedom the bike also requires you to focus in 3-dimensions to keep the dirty side down.

Bike racing is not always easy – life is not always easy - and often it is too easy to find things to complain about. But when I think about all that I am grateful for, I realize how just powerful a tool of tuning out of the world and tuning into the pedal stroke and heart rate really is. It is therapeutic, it allows me to be in the moment when I get back home to the wife, the kids.

Ride On!

Hunter-Greene Summer Classic

With the Downeast Racing squad split between racing venues, 6 brave souls traveled to Tannersville, NY to take on the challenging Hunter-Greene Summer Classic. Dan, Matt, Fred, Eliot, and Troy lined up against the Pro 1/2 field, which was scheduled for a 107 mile event. Hank, the sole DER representative, was to do battle in the Master's field in a 77 mile event.

Tannersville, NY is a solid 5 hr drive for the team, but thanks to Dan's connections to the area we were able to secure friendly and comfortable accommodations at Hotel Vienna in Windham on Friday night, nestled against the edge of the Catskill Mountain range. Rested and well fed on race morning, the team had high hopes heading into the Hunter-Greene Summer Classic.

The team loading up on fuel and Hammer prodi

The Giant TCRs looking sharp on race morning. At the finish a racer from the W 1/2/3 field said "Look at those team bikes. They are LEGIT!"

With 107 miles on tap for the Pro 1/2 field, they were first to depart the start area. With 5 DER members in the field of 30-40 rides, DER had the largest team on hand. Road captain, Dan Vaillancourt, laid out the plan for the day, which involved putting a man up the road early to take the pressure off the team. Eliot drew the task of entering an early break and he saw the opportunity to get up the road with a member of the CRCA Foundation team just a few miles after the start. Eliot and his companion quickly built an advantage while Troy, Matt, Dan and Fred controlled the pace of the peloton. Time checks were sparse on course but what little information that was being distributed was in favor of the break. After ~15 miles of racing the break had built a 5 minute advantage,and at one point they pushed the gap to nearly 8 minutes. The pace in the peloton fluctuated between full gas when there were attacks, to a snails pace of 16 mph when no one wanted to take responsibility to pull the group along. All the while Eliot and his partner in the break kept grinding out a constant pace trying to maintain their advantage.

Troy had time to slip to the back of the pack and grab a photo of the group! Fast Fred hanging in the back conserving his watts

The cooperation and the pace of the break started to falter on the third lap, after nearly 80 miles in the break. 1 lone rider was able to make the bridge to the breakaway duo around mile 95, giving the original breakaway duo some much needed relief. The trio hit the finishing 1km climb with a healthy lead on the peloton and the podium spots would be sorted out on 13% slopes of East Jewitt Hill. The CRCA/Foundation racer was the first to come unglued on the climb leaving Eliot to battle it out for the top step with Grinta Cyclings, Johan Gibcus. Eliot put in one last effort on the steepest slopes of the climb, 200 meters before the finish, and created enough separation that he could sit up and put his hands in the air and enjoy the fruits of his labor. Hank, having finished his master's event, met Eliot with an ear-to-ear smile and a cold bottle of water for the effort.

Fred finished strong, crossing the line in 8th position, Dan was a few minutes behind Fred, while Troy and Matt, their work of controlling the pace of the peloton complete, found the heat a little too much and stopped numerous times on the last lap to re-hydrate at roadside spigots.

Hank had a great race as well. After a flat in the neutral zone and a painfully slow wheel change (the support van didn't realize the race had started and he was minutes behind!!!!), Hank was able to chase back on and make the selection into a breakaway of 11. Hank was able to drive a wedge in the break on the penultimate climb and drag himself and one other racer clear. They also battled it out for the top step of the podium on the steep slopes of East Jewitt Hill. Hank fought like a lion, but came up about ~30 meters short, a victim of the heat and dehydration cramps. An impressive effort in any case.

The DER boys after a great weekend of racing in the Catskills.

The summer racing season is heating up, so check back to see what Downeast Racing is up to. You can also keep tabs with the team on social media:

Twitter: @racingdowneast

Instagram: @racingdowneast

Wilderness 101-July 28th, 2012

The seventh race in the NUE series took endurance riders into the northern edge of the Appalachian mountain chain in Pennsylvania. This little area of the world is the result from past glacial formations that carved the border of Pennsylvania and western parts of upstate New York State. Pleistocene glaciers have also repeatedly visited the state over the last 100,000 years. These glaciers have left some evidence and carved out much of the landscape of the northern tier of the state.

A majority of the rocks in Pennsylvania exposed at the surface are sedimentary and were deposited during the Paleozoic Era.

The event is based in the hidden little town of Coburn, PA located about thirty miles east of State College, PA. The ability to connect a 100 miles of dirt riding is due to the recent history of this area with the formation of a State Forest system.


Bald Eagle State Forest was formed as a direct result of the depletion of the forests of Pennsylvania that took place during the mid-to-late 19th century. The race consisted of what appeared to be improved versions of the old logging roads that littered this area during the cutting of these forests by big timber companies. In between miles of these gravel roads the course snaked through older, steeper, non-improved logging paths and further connected with various slices of single track. The single track sections revealed the sedimentary depositions of rock. These sections were difficult to maintain any flow whatsoever as no smooth line seemed to exist. This was more about momentum and pushing a larger gear in the futile attempt to take the harshness out of the trail. This proved to be much more challenging as the miles ticked on and the body grew more fatigued.


The Wilderness 101 starts and finishes in Coburn Park in Coburn, PA. The course covers about 101 miles. The course covered an estimated 7 miles of roads, 19 miles of degraded forest roads, 45 miles of forest roads and 30 miles of single track. With a plethora of dirt road in the race one would envision it to be a real opportunity for roadies to do well. Yes, there may be an advantage for lack of technicality in dirt road but keeping a high pace on these roads is the real challenge. It seemed for much of the race that the roads were at best a false flat and moisture meant they were soft. The real skill was finding the hard pack in the soft pack. This proved more difficult the closer to the front of the race you were as that meant fewer wheels had tread before you to pack out the surface. Since I was fortunate enough to ride in the top ten all day it also meant I was fortunate enough to assist my following brethren with packing the road surface for them. I know it sounds like a sniffle here but some fast rolling surface would have been a nice reprieve. Following the road sections were various lengths of single track that would connect you to the next dirt road section. Now this was the real challenge as these sections were mostly half buried rock that you needed to float over as your body took the beating (we call these types of buried rock “baby heads”). Keeping momentum high, flow smooth, and the right line correct became more difficult as the hours and miles passed. As I recall the last section of baby heads had me wondering how we call this fun, but it was fun in memory as I sit and put this down in words. It is all part of the challenge of overcoming the adversity that is being thrown in front of you. The battle to keep on battling, not a whole lot different than the sine wave of life actually of getting yourself through the rough stuff cause once you’re on the other side makes the pain all worth it.

The morning had started off pretty wet as you can see in the photo the air is so thick you can barely see the back row of the start line. So with a forecast for rain all day it was quite pleasurable to work through the hill towns and wonderful north-central PA trails and logging road without have the outburst from Mother Nature herself. This would prove to be untrue for those not finishing the route in under eight or so hours as little micro burst after micro burst of rain and wind would roll through the finish line. Nonetheless, as we sipped our from our beer steins and cheered on the folks finishing in the downpour all we could see were the large smiles on all their faces. The fanatics that roll through North America participating in human powered endurance racing should all be commending on their accomplishment of all the hard work leading to getting themselves to the start line and then persevering with such strong desire to simply finish. This is what the events are truly about, riding your bike all day with the right to share amazing and emotional stories of battle that took place during the days adventure.

As a young grasshopper I had some sage advice that resonates to the very front of my thoughts in battles like these “It’s not about the destination, what matters is the journey”.

Ride On