Fairfax County Epic Round 2 - Full 90+ Mile Loop

Last Sunday, I met up with Mike and Dylan at 8:00am at Ian Spivak's house in Falls Church to take on the full Fairfax County Epic loop - Difficult Run, Lake Fairfax park, Fountainhead park, Laurel Hill park, Accotink park, Wakefield park, plus the Fairfax Cross Country Trail.  About 95 miles total with most of it on gorgeous singletrack linked by some road sections and gravel trail. Perfect for my Scale 29 RC.

The downside was that it was 23degrees F (-5 degrees C) and it had snowed the night before.  The high was only going to get a few degrees warmer through the day.  Our plan was to meet up with Kevin Carter along the loop and hammer out the loop in 10 hours or less.

Heavily bundled up against the cold

Dylan - ready to rip our legs off for the next 9 hours (with a smile, no less)

We started north and rode through the snow covered Difficult Run trails to Lake Fairfax where we found new singletrack built by the local mountain bike access and trail builders, MORE, last year. Most of the loop we rode was thanks to MORE.  I'm constantly amazed at how much good singletrack is located within just a few miles of downtown Washington, DC.

The temperatures were so cold that any water we rode through immediately froze on our bikes, legs, or wherever it landed.

A frozen covering on the feet

While waiting for Kevin to get his tubeless wheels set up with fresh Stan's sealant, we ran into ex-pro and all around good guy, Ryan McKinney, on the trails. He was out for a ride before a possible new house purchase later that morning.  In typical fashion Ryan was in high spirits!

Ryan

Kevin

We headed out with Kevin on the loop and I almost immediately had a flat from a sliced tire sidewall on some of the sharp rocks.  A quick fix and we were back on the trail, heading south on the Fairfax Cross Country Trail to Route 123 and our 10 mile section of road to Fountainhead.

Fountainhead was fun as usual with some great double jumps and excellently constructed new singletrack.

I used to avoid the park because it was so eroded, but now with the new trails, it's something I'm going to look forward to riding more and more (and I'm donating $$ to the rebuilding effort).

It had been a windy night and the trails had a lot of dead tree limbs on them. A large stick got caught in Mike's rear wheel and immediately snapped his derailleur hangar. Luckily, he brought a spare hangar and in 10 minutes, using a handy tree as a repair stand, he was fixed and we were back on our way.

 

Dylan and Kevin started drilling through the steep hills and we were all just hanging on - after 4 hours my legs were getting a bit tired!  We did one loop of the park just as it was starting to thaw out and headed toward Laurel Hill and a convenience store to get more water and fuel for the next 4-5 hours of riding.

Laurel Hill is another fun trail network built by MORE and its construction looks to be all-weather with gravel lined singletrack.  The grass-lined trails were great in the late afternoon sun.

We were all smiling, even after riding for most of the day thus far.  It seems as if the multiple weeks of 4-7 hour rides have gotten our endurance levels up fairly high.

From Laurel Hill, we headed north toward Accotink through multiple water crossings.  Ian whacked his calf badly on his pedal while crossing one of the streams and his leg locked up on him.  He was limping and obviously in pain and unable to pedal smoothly.  Not good as we still had 15-20 miles left to go.  Once we got near Accotink park, he and Mike decided to skip the singletrack and head straight back to Ian's house on the smoother trails.

Dylan, Kevin and I pushed the pace through the park at a threshold rate and after a regroup for more food and to top off Dylan's food reserves with some Jet Blackberry GU (my favorite flavor), we rolled through Wakefield park, past the dirt jumps and back to Ian's house.

Total distance was around 92 miles total in a bit over 9 hours of ride time.  Dylan rode an extra 10 miles to put his total closer to 10 hours and 102 miles.  A solid day for mid-20 degree temperatures in February.

I was not initially sure about moving over to a 29er and to a hardtail after racing the past 21 years on a 26er bike and the past 5 years on a full suspension Spark.  But, after putting in lots of miles on my new Scale 29er, I'm very happy to have made the move.  As John and Ross told me last year, this bike is a rocket.  The flat road sections fly by.  I find I'm able to keep up speeds close to what I'd normally do on my road bike, and in tight singletrack, the bike shines - it's the best of both worlds. And, the integrated shock dampening on the seatstays and Ritchey seatpost, plus 2.25 width tires take the edge off any roots/rocks and terrain. I can't wait to see what the new full suspension 2012 Spark 29er RC is going to be like.

Next ride is in two weeks.  Hope to see you out on the trails!

Here's the Strava map:



- Jeff

Bike swap thank you Felicia!

Tech support???

Fairfax County Epic

This past weekend, Mike, Dylan and I changed up our weekly long ride and did the Fairfax County Epic loop.  Apparently, the full loop would take around 10 hours, but we didn't hit one of the parks and came in at a respectable 7-8 hours for the ride.  Not bad for early February!

Mike met up with Dylan at his house in McLean and they rode to Falls Church where they met up with me and Ian Spivak from DCMTB.  We rode the Fairfax County Parkway in a four man paceline at a speed I don't normally hit on my road bike.  My Garmin showed us rarely going slower than 25mph

Once at Fountainhead Park, we saw masses of people in the lot wanting to ride the newly constructed trails.

The Fountainhead Project (www.fountainheadproject.org) has developed and built an awesome set of new trails with IMBA's assistance.  The redesign transforms the network from non-sustainable, eroded trails, to well constructed, sustainable, fun and flowing singletrack.  The opening loop keeps me smiling -- it's worth doing it again and again.

If you have time, check out their site and make a donation to keep the trail work going.  I guess I'm somewhat partial as they've used a photo of me in their site image (riding my black Spark 10).

Hopped up from our road ride, we charged into the loop and hit the new Jackrabbit trail at full speed, flying over the new trail features (including a ladder bridge jump) at pretty close to full race-pace. Learning the new sections of trail blind was the way to go - I think I would have hesitated on one or two of the larger jumps had I known what was coming.

After two fast laps at Fountainhead, we got back on the roads and hit up a local store to get some more water and food for the long ride back on the Fairfax Cross Country trail.  We rode the trail network at Laurel Hill, the site of a former prison, that has been repurposed into fast and flowing singletrack.  (It reminded me of sections of the Sea Otter Classic with rolling hills and grassland.)  There was also a small skills park that we had some fun rolling through.

After a loop at Laurel Hill, we headed north on the CCT through some cool looking water crossings to Lake Accotink Park, where we rode yet more short steep hill singletrack.

By this point, we'd been on the bike for 6-7 hours and we all were getting tired (except for Dylan - he never seems to slow down!).  After Accotink, we continued on the CCT to Wakefield Park and rode more singletrack and out again on the CCT toward the huge dirt jumps.

By this point, we were all pretty cooked and it was starting to rain.  The skies had been threatening all day, and when the rain came, the temperature started to drop from a high of 48 to just about 38 degrees.  It was not a good time to be out on the bike.  Thankfully, we all made it home OK, though it took me a few hours to warm up afterward.

We skipped riding further north on the the CCT where it goes through Lake Fairfax and to Great Falls, but we could have added another 20+ miles to our ride.  As it was, we got in about 70-75 miles (Dylan rode an extra 1.5 hours on top of what we rode), with a good percentage of it on singletrack.

Here's the data from Strava (my GPS didn't get all of the loop):



Next weekend we're going to try for the full loop.  Maybe 10 hours and 90-100 miles on Sunday.  I hope we get some dry weather!

- Jeff

JA & RA Training Bikes

Winter Training with Fizik, SRM, KMC chains

Full-On Winter Training Rides Continued

This past weekend I headed back to the Frederick watershed to ride with Mike and Dylan on a cold and snowy Sunday morning.  We got to the trailhead and it was 25 degrees -- it didn't get any warmer during the 4.5 hours on the trail and snowed off and on throughout the day.  The trails were covered with 1-2 inches of snow, plus a hard ice crust.  The conditions made for interesting steering; the crust could take your front wheel in an unintended direction and before you'd know it you were headed straight for a rock or a tree.

Mike brought his awesome motorcycle overboots plus a custom helmet cover to keep his head warmer.  My two pairs of wool socks worked OK for the first 2 hours, then got quite cold.  I did try my new Patagonia R1 gloves. They're polypro and neoprene and made for cold weather fly fishing and kept my hands warm, but they weren't breathable so my fingers got somewhat pruned from the sauna-effect in the gloves.  My hands were definitely happy with the new ESI grips on my bike.  So much better than the stock grips!

Dylan invited a bunch of other riders from the area and we started out with 7 people, Tony, Darius, Ian and (sorry, missed your name). 

Sunday Team Rides Continued - Gambrill/Watershed Park with Mike, Dylan and Jeff

Continuing on our Sunday team rides of 4+ hours, we decided to mix it up this week and headed to the technical rocks of Gambrill State Park / the Watershed located on the ridge of the Catoctin Mountains just outside Frederick, MD.  This park is known for being unrelentingly rocky, technical and unless you are "on" for the whole ride, the rocks will eat you up and spit you out.  That's pretty much what happened to me...

My new Scott Scale 29 RC arrived last week and this past weekend was the first real test on 29 wheels after riding a lifetime on 26 wheels.  I was impressed at how well the large wheels bridged gaps between rocks, allowed for easier step-downs from rocks and generally rolled faster on downhills and road sections.  I still need to relearn gearing and weight distribution as both are slightly different from the 26 wheel size.

We initially rode a 2+ hour loop on the Gambrill side of the park, riding down what's known as the "Death Climb"; a jumble of rocks that's just barely rideable on a good day.  I took one good fall, bruising my quads and tearing off a good chunk of skin from my ankle. The sometimes unstable and usually sharp rocks contributed to a few crashes from each of us, but causing no serious damage.

The trails are maintained by the local Frederick Bicycle Coalition.  From the number of cars parked at the trail head, many people agree that their trail network is top notch.

Check it Out!

The 2012 bikes are here! Below is the Scott Scale 29er RC in Extra Large, coming in at about 21 lbs, with some modifications. Other team members will be racing the redesigned full suspension Spark in 26er and 29er versions.



The Polar Bottles will keep our water from freezing on cold rides this winter.



The ESI Chunky grips will keep our hands happy.

Winter Training with Mike and Dylan

Mike, new Scott team recruit Dylan Johnson, and I have been riding parts of the Montgomery County Epic Loop in Montgomery County, Maryland the past two Sundays.  The MoCo Epic is on IMBA's registry of epic rides and it doesn't disappoint.  Just a few miles from DC, you can find a 60 mile circuit of great singletrack.

This past weekend, we got in almost 50 miles and 4.5 hours of nearly all singletrack riding at a solid endurance pace.  It's great to be cruising along in the cold weather, keeping up a good endurance pace and flying through the trails that are now mostly cleared of fallen leaves.

We started out from Schaeffer Farms in Germantown, MD and took the new Schaeffer Ridge Trail, a 4-5 mile section of trail the local trail building/advocacy group MORE built over the past year.  It's awesome!