A Piece of Our Universe

Strider update

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 20:55:00 +0000

Time for a Strider update, he's now 6.5mths old and doing excellent.

I weighed him this morning... 70lbs. That's 70lbs of awesome field lab chocolateyness (don't look it up, it's not a word). Here's a couple of quick photos I grabbed with my Galaxy Note 3:

Three laps on the Seven Summits - the hard way.

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 03:22:00 +0000

This was my second year in a row that I've done 21 Summits in one day.

It's still hard.

You can read about last year's 21 Summits adventure (and warnings) right here:

http://shaundoreenevankeegan.blogspot.ca/2013/08/three-laps-on-the-seven-summits-imba.html

If you just finished reading the above link, you should know that nothing has changed... it's still a tough day. What was different this year? The route planning for this year was created with a goal of 28 Summits (four laps) in one day, and I wouldn't be doing it solo unsupported this time.

Dave Franks wanted in on the madness and I was happy to have him join me. Dave is a hard nut, we've raced lots of 24hr Solo's together and he's been on the Solo podium at most of them. As well as being a great ultra-endurance racer, Dave can maintain a good attitude when things get tough, and that's something you need on a 28 Summits attempt. No doubt, 28 Summits is a pretty aggressive goal, it's a tough puzzle to crack and things have to be optimal to improve the odds of success. Mechanicals and weather are just a couple of the variables that conspire against such a big day, so doing it with someone who has a sense of humor helps a lot. On with the story...

Friday morning Dave began driving from Calgary to Rossland, Friday afternoon I was up at the North trailhead of the Seven Summits stashing a cooler of enough water and Infinit for two racers to do the two North to South laps.

Friday evening we prepped gear, tweaked the bikes, and had a few laughs. The plan had us riding South to North, North to South, South to North, North to South, for a total of four laps or 28 Summits. Because I get asked this a lot, each lap consists of riding from the starting trailhead, all the way across the entire Seven Summits, to the finishing trailhead. The two trailheads being the Cascade Highway/Seven Summits intersection (South trailhead), and the Nancy Greene Summit (North trailhead parking lot). The normal routine is to ride a lap, grab new bottles at the trailhead stash point, then start riding back in the direction you just came from - kinda like a windshield wiper effect. If you just bumped into this blogpost by accident, and you didn't read the warning link at the start of this post, just know that everybody rides the trail from North to South because it makes sense to do it in that direction - it's the easiest route, it flows nicely, and there's nothing particularly hard about it as compared to the South to North route. Nobody I've talked to has ridden the Seven Summits 'backwards', mainly because it's so much harder than the North to South route - there's more hike a bike, an additional 600' of (hard earned) vertical gain, lots of loose (sketchy shale) steep climbing terrain, quite simply it's a slower and more physically/mentally grueling route.

Soon enough it was Saturday morning and we were standing at the start of the South trailhead (Cascade highway), wheels rolling at 0800hrs under a cloudy sky.

90 minutes later we were standing at the top of Record Ridge.

Two hours later we were rolling into the North trailhead. A quick chat with some tourists thinking about doing the Seven Summits, a bit of bike work, ditch the old bottles, grab the new bottles and head out on our North to South lap. Stats at this point were 3.5hrs for the South to North route and an additional 18mins for the admin time at the turnaround.

The temperatures were perfect as we started the second lap, and with the riding being easier, it made for some nice flowing efforts. During this lap we were passing people who were out for a one lap day, which helped break up the remoteness of the ride. At exactly 6hrs into the ride we bumped into some local friends/riders on one of the ridges and hung out with them for 17mins. Here's a photo of us rolling up to the group.

This meet-up provided a good opportunity to take a break from the workload, have a few laughs, and enjoy an awesome friend-supplied sandwich. Soon enough it was time to jump back on the trail, and an hour later we were arriving at the South trailhead. Stats at this point were Lap 2 taking 3:35 (including 17min sandwich break), we hung out at the South trailhead for 32min while we mounted lights, changed bottles, did some bike work and chatted with friends some more. Wheels rolling on the third lap just before 1600hrs, just under 8hrs into the adventure.

Now if Dave could step in at this point and start telling the story, I'm sure he would mention things about the third lap like 'Brutal', 'Cracking', 'Nuts' and other choice words. The kind of stuff that I was saying to myself last year. I don't recall seeing Dave suffer like this on any ride we've done together, and that's a key element as our multi-lap day unfolded. Doing one lap is easy, doing two laps is hard, doing three laps is really hard and not just because it's three times longer. The Seven Summits isn't a linear challenge, it's an exponential challenge. The more Summits you add to the day the more exponentially harder it gets. And with Dave not used to riding this kind of terrain on a regular basis he was suffering more than I was. Somehow I find that to be extremely satisfying, because Dave has made me suffer once or twice (or more) in the past. ;-)

That third lap took us 4hrs to complete, along the way we ran into several mountain rain showers. Uugh! The wind picked up and the temperature dropped. We would get soaked for 15mins, then the skies would clear. Then we would get hit with more rain. The views were awesome when things were clear.

Unfortunately, this repeated soaking cooled us down a bit too much, and being totally wet in remote mountain conditions is never a jump for joy kinda thing. Even my Alma looks a bit cold and wet.

We were both feeling a bit beat up by the time we descended off Mt. Lepsoe, my hands and feet were numb during those last 15mins of descending. Arriving at the North trailhead parking lot meant we weren't shivering from the windchill of fast descending anymore, but it also meant we had to make a tough decision. We were now 12hrs into the adventure, with another Seven Summits to go. I felt strong enough to go for it, but the weather wasn't cooperating with that idea. In the failing light we made the decision to bail on the fourth lap, a smart decision then and an even smarter decision now that I look back on what the conditions were. Here's a photo of us after discussing the bail out plan and laughing about how cold we are and how cold we were about to get. We look happy on the outside but we were both crying on the inside. ;-)

And with the decision made, we both turned on our lights and pointed our front wheels towards Rossland, 22kms in the distance. So began the unceremonious and miserably cold ride back down the highway.

It. Was. Cold.

At one point we were both shivering so bad that we were having problems keeping the bikes straight at high speed due to the uncontrollable shivering. We had to keep stopping on the side of the highway so we could shake our heads and complain to nobody in particular. Then it was back on the bikes again to continue the suffering in the hypothermia zone. This went on and on for far too long and eventually I did the unthinkable, I made 'The Call' to Doreen. You know, the call that kinda goes like this... 'Hi it's me, Dave and I are on the side of the highway and we are in the hurt locker. Any chance we could get a lift back into town?' I haven't had to make a call like that in quite a few years. The trick is to sound kind of nonchalant while balancing that against the fact that you never make those kinds of phone calls so it must be pretty bad if you are calling for a pickup. I must have achieved the right balance because Doreen and the boys arrived in record breaking time.

Once we got back to our house, Dave went straight upstairs to hit a hot shower. I grabbed my winter down jacket and threw it on over-top of my dirty Orbea race gear and started cooking some dinner. Eventually, the shivers went away and my ice blocks thawed out.

Things were back to normal somewhere around the second or third sip of this mighty fine Logsdon Farmhouse Peche 'n Brett. The adventure seemed much funnier from the comfort of the kitchen.

Is 28 Summits doable in one day? I'm not sure it is unless everything goes pretty much perfectly. Would I like to nail that 28 Summits? Well I do like a challenge, and as Evan put it to Dave and I shortly after we finished this ride 'There are now two of you in the elite club of 21 Summits in one day, but there is nobody in the elite elite club of 28 Summits'. In one simple sentence my 10yr old threw down a gauntlet he doesn't understand, and one that I will no doubt pickup next year. The question is, who else wants to have a crack at that gauntlet in 2015?

Just sayin'. ;-)

The remainder of this post is written for a lot of my athletes, as they are into this kind of stuff. I'm sure there will also be a few ultra-endurance racers, whom I may or may not know, that will read this next section and laugh (if they know me). Enjoy...

A lot of the suffering that came out of this day was a natural result of the terrain, but some of it was self-imposed. Now's the time where I explain the self-imposed suffering portion, and I'm sure this will make more than one person shake their head.

A recent paper had me in an experimental mood. The paper, "The physical, mental and hormonal responses to short-term intensified training in well-trained cyclists with a high carbohydrate nutritional intervention" presented at the 2nd World Congress of Cycling Science, had me curious enough about a handful of things that I decided to use the third lap as an experimental model. I decided to do that 4hr lap on nothing but water... no calories at all. Why no calories? Well I believe part of my job as a racing coach is to push my own horizons so I can better inform my own athletes. For over a year now, one of my many pet projects has been practically exploring the subject of how things play together when looking specifically at fuel source/energy systems/intensity factor/timeline as part of training and in race, with a primary focus on ketosis/low carb. Over the last year I've learned quite a bit on this specific subject, primarily due to newly published research and the modern day ability to connect dots that weren't previously there a year ago. But beyond the academic focus, I've done a lot of experimentation while I've been out on longer rides, I've also done races this year (two of them were 24hr Solo's) using an experimental fueling model in order to test against some theories - it's been fun and enlightening. I've learned things over this last year that I wish I would have know about 26 24hr Solo's ago.

Looking at this adventure as a whole, the first two laps (8hrs) had me burning approximately (based on wattage output, environmental conditions, full body engagement due to terrain, etc) 7000 calories and only taking in 2000 calories. Not a big deal based on my fueling strategy/Intensity Factor. For the third lap (another 4hrs) I was going to be burning off another 3500-4000 calories and not replacing it with anything, now it's starting to turn into a bit of a big deal. To make things even more interesting (for me) I decided to use this last 4hr lap as an intervals based effort, letting Dave ride ahead of me until he was well out of sight and then hammering hard enough to gap back up to him. I lost count of how many times I repeated that hard interval protocol, and it certainly changed things into a much bigger deal. Effectively, I was diminishing the advantage of smart IF pacing by incorporating a more stochastic pace intermixed with IF values higher than .70, thus banging away at my glycogen stores and in my opinion reducing them to essentially zero. Was I successful in completing the 4hrs in a no-fueling condition, all while applying poor pacing strategy, in a minimal reserves condition? Yes, but I did start to feel the intervals becoming harder and harder as the hours slipped by. And by the time I hit the North trailhead parking lot with Dave, I was pretty excited to jam a handful of dates into my system followed by some Infinit, because I was getting a bit bonky.

What did I learn from the experiment? Uhmmm those final 4hrs were hard. Beyond that, I learned quite a lot. It once again confirmed what I already knew through lots of other similar situations - the reality being that pacing and fuel uptake rates are critical for optimal performance in ultra-endurance events, but also, a lot can still be achieved under imperfect pacing and fueling conditions. Of course there are a lot more observations that came out of the experiment, but I'll save all that for another time.

An addition to the family

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Wed, 28 May 2014 05:26:00 +0000

Five days from now the boys and I will be picking up our male Chocolate Lab puppy, pretty exciting. At the moment he's 7 weeks and 2 days old, here's a photo our breeder took today.

We've named him Strider, an idea that came from a discussion with the boys. If you are a Lord of The Rings fan you will recognize why it's a great name - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragorn.

The breeder is located in Quesnel, which is approx 12hrs from Rossland. I've decided to make it a four day road trip, breaking it down into approx 6hr driving chunks, not sure of all the details yet, I'll figure it out along the way.

So what's in it for the boys? They will get to meet Strider's parents and littermates, learn some more about Labs, see some more of the world, skip some school and maybe roast some marshmallows along the way. Two boys, a puppy and marshmallows... what can go wrong? ;-)

Salty Dog 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Tue, 20 May 2014 05:57:00 +0000

I headed out to the Salty Dog race just over a week ago, some of you know it as a tough 6hr course in Salmon Arm. I've done it 3yrs in a row now and it's always a good assortment of Western Canada hammers that show up, which keeps it real. Last year didn't go as well as I hoped, I raced for most of the 6hrs without a seatpost or saddle which was hard, that story is here. Obviously I was hoping for better luck this year.

The race weather was looking a bit dodgy, and to confirm that dodginess I was only 45mins outside of Rossland when I hit a snowstorm. This photo shows the start of it, by the time I hit Nancy Greene Provincial Park there was snow forming on the sides of the highway.

It rained on the course for the two days prior to the race, which made for some tricky conditions on race day. Lots of mud, wattage sucking boggy climbs and people flying off the singletrack descents and crashing into trees. I got lucky and managed to keep the nose of the bike pointed in the right direction and pretty much had a crash-free race. I had five other athletes at the race, some had good luck and some not so much, amongst them there was everything from 1st place finishes right through to seven stitches on the 1st lap (Julie slashed her forearm open in a crash and after finishing up at the hospital she headed back to the course and raced for another 3hrs - nails!). I managed a 5th place finish in my Expert category, not bad for the token 50yr old. ;-)

As you can see, everyone was in pretty good spirits after the race.

The rest of the evening was made up of sitting around and having a few laughs, while refuelling with an IPA and Chris's homemade cookies.

This was the first race I've done on gears since 2010 Worlds in Australia, the new 1 x 10 system worked flawlessly and I have to admit the geared thing is pretty handy for racing. No doubt about it, I luv my Orbea Alma singlespeeds, trg and racing on them is a blast but the 1 x 10 is going to see some love this year as well. Of course it's hard to stay off the new 1 x 10 bike because of the 2014 Orbea Alma geometry/tech advances versus my 2012 Alma's. The differences aren't huge but they are noticeable out on the dirt. I'm looking forward to seeing how the new bike performs at the 24hr Solo this weekend, my 26th 24hr Solo, my how time flies.

Last thing on the new bike, I want to meet the Orbea engineer who designed the magical ability to keep the ORBEA markings clearly visible on the downtube, while under the assault of a metric ton of race mud. It even defeats Rossland mud. He is a mud genius.

Green Door, Rogers and Cemetery with the boys

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 03:54:00 +0000

Beautiful day on the trails, best watched in HD.

A casual ride with the boys

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 03:52:00 +0000

The roots and rocks were a bit slick from the recent rain, so the boys spent some time adjusting their riding style. Be sure to watch it in hi-def.

And then we got hit by hail.

Balloon in a van

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 03:12:00 +0000

Like the title says, it's a balloon in a van, but as simple as the title is the video will challenge your understanding of how things work.

Education in its various forms

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 20:33:00 +0000

Random winter thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 20:56:00 +0000

Random condensed thoughts...

We've been staying busy through this year's winter. The start of classic and skate skiing became a reality when we had most of the Blackjack Jackrabbits coaches over for a pre-season get together.

Pretty soon we were doing night skate skiing in the moonlight.

And the boys were racing and getting on podiums.

Christmas came and went, Santa sat down in his office to set up a couple of Chromebooks for the boys.

I continued to ride my Orbea Alma's.

Day and night.

Cold temperatures require warm beverages. Not sure why people insist on drinking bad coffee, when you can drink good coffee.

When I got tired of drinking warm beverages, I drank cold ones.

Time in the tracks was fun this year.

There's lots to see, if you look.

Hard to beat this.

On a gorgeous sunny winter day.

Dave and Julie came out to Rossland, to get in some quality winter singletrack.

Dave wrestled with a tree, the tree won.

Evan raced the John Heintz Cup as a Solo racer again, here's how he did last year. I shadowed him throughout the race just to make sure he was ok through all the stages, so inspiring to watch him dig deep. It's a tough race as a Solo competitor, part racing/part gear organization and transition point optimization. This is some of the gear starting to get piled up on race morning.

On the way up to the top of Red for the start of the race, it's a downhill ski to the base lodge.

Followed by the bike race stage, then a skate ski stage, then a snowshoe stage.

The last stage being the run.

This year Evan was the only kid racing Solo, he improved on his time by almost 25%, a huge bump.

Skiing in the day.

Tracks in the evening.

More tracks at night.

And some more racing.

And some hard work up Ophir Dam loop.

Sunny days.

Not as sunny days.

Throw in some mixed martial arts to break up the winter routine.

As long as it doesn't interfere with tree skiing.

Or some steep skiing.

It's been a great winter season so far, with lots more skiing at Blackjack and Red Mountain to come. In the next few days I'll get my thoughts posted up on my race a couple of weeks ago at 24hrs of Old Pueblo (Arizona). Till then...

The Emerald Isle

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 23:19:00 +0000

Aaaannndddd still catching up...

At the end of Oct we headed off on a family vacation to Ireland, home to my mom and most of my relatives. Several years have gone by since we were in Ireland, with the boys getting older the travelling is getting easier.

As always, the arrival in Ireland required a trip to the Omagh Golf and Country Club for a pint of Guinness.

My mom had arranged for a nice cottage on the outskirts of Omagh, in a small village called Killyclogher. Doesn't get much more Irish than that.

Our days were mixed, sometimes we would jump on the bikes my cousin Ciara had lent us, and ride into town to hit the library so the boys could read and I could get work done.

Sometimes I would break bikes, apparently they weren't designed for singlespeed mashing.

Sometimes we would tour the local region.

We ate and drank, a lot.

We celebrated Evan's birthday, and enjoyed an Irish Halloween.

Most of all, we just hung out.

Too many stories to tell. Loads of quality time. A great trip. Before we knew it we were headed back to Canada.

And spending a couple of days in Kelowna.

We arrived back in Rossland and started enjoying the snow.

Yup, I cheated on this blog post. Not much writing, lot's of images. But at least I'm almost caught up.

;-)

Grit

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 19:51:00 +0000

Banner change

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 05:50:00 +0000

Yeah, that's right. I changed my banner image from bike racing to snow carving. Standing on top of the clouds, determining the best and most fun way to get down.

Gettin' down.

Nice.

I'll change it back to bike racing, when I'm bike racing.

24hrs of Rocky Hill Ranch 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Sat, 04 Jan 2014 01:11:00 +0000

This post should have been put in place at least a month ago. But every time I went to post up I would see my previous post about Pico, and I just couldn't get motivated to talk about anything else. Well I suppose enough time has passed, and I'm finally sitting down to talk about other stuff. Sorry about that...

My last race of 2013 was the 24hrs of RHR, a great 24 hour mountain bike race put on by Terra Firma Racing, just outside of Austin. This was my 24th 24hr Solo race, and I was pumped to get at it. My lead-up to the 24hr race in Texas had been going well, I was riding strong and I had a good feeling about grabbing the podium again. All my wattage numbers looked excellent, and my volume was solid, my local trails were feeling easy and I was confident. Then things changed. With only two weeks till the race, I got handed a bit of bad luck courtesy of a bad wipeout which was totally my fault. Without getting into details, I found myself flying over my handlebars and smashing into a rock, my ribs taking most of the impact. It happened so fast that I barely had time to get my hands in front of me to brace against the fall, so it was a pretty hard slam. When I stood up I knew I had hurt myself, but I didn't realize how badly. I just jumped on my bike and started bombing down the trail again to reel in another rider up ahead. 10 minutes later I had dropped the other rider and was spending more time assessing my injury as I rode along with my own thoughts which consisted of 'Wow, that really hurt'. 30 minutes later and the injury was bothering me enough that I got off the bike to try and figure out how bad the ribs were messed up. A few pokes later and I knew it wasn't good, time to start heading home. Every little bump on the trail was hurting me and to stand up out of the saddle was a bit concerning, that's bad news as a singlespeeder. By the 45 minute mark I knew it was hospital time, the pain wasn't easing up, it just kept increasing.

A couple of hours later, some x-rays and an ultrasound, and I walked away with a diagnosis of fractured ribs and a recovery time of eight weeks until they would feel good enough to compete again. Huh? Wha? But, uhmmm, I have a 24hr race in two weeks.

Now the smart thing to do at that point would have been to put my feet up and recover, but I don't do smart. I had six of my 24hr Solo athletes in the race and I wanted to be there for them, and if I was going to be there I might as well be there with a bike. So the podium plan went out the window and my new plan became 'The rules of fractured ribs don't apply to me, I'm going to race and ignore this stupid injury and see how many hours I can pound out while gritting my teeth'. It's always good to have a plan, even if it's a bad plan. ;-)

That first week after the injury was awful, I was getting approximately one hour of sleep per night because every time I moved I woke up groaning. The daytime was no better, my eyes would automatically start watering if I felt a cough coming on, let's not even talk about sneezing. I was a mess. The second week wasn't much better, my ribs were showing no signs of improvement and my riding volume was almost non-existent. Lack of sleep, the usual 24hr Solo preparation scramble, and having to put our dog down two days before flying to Texas was a bit stressful. Uugh.

Looking at my training log I only rode 2hrs in the two weeks leading up to the race, and that saddle time was mainly to try and figure out how to setup my bike so I could try and race with the messed up ribs. I went with the strategy of a big fat Ardent 2.4 LUST up front, completely unnecessary on the Texas trails but I knew I could run it at a really low PSI to gain some extra front end cushion effect.

The flights down were uneventful, though sleeping overnight in the car in the airport parking lot wasn't a ton of fun. It was great to finally arrive in Texas, the warm weather and sunny conditions took my mind off my complaining ribs. Johnny had everything sorted out for airport pickup (thx buddy), and since the last time we had all raced together in Texas he had completed most of his home renovations and they looked fantastic. It was good to settle in to a pre-race atmosphere with like minded athletes and friends. Like a race homecoming.

Friday we got out for a pre-race lap under awesome conditions, it was during this lap that I started to understand how bad my ribs were, and I began to consider how many hours I would be able to endure before my ribs blew up.

Saturday unfolded smoothly, everyone got the pit areas setup quickly and started dialing in to race mode. Dave, Johnny, Julie, Sean, Brian, Philip, and myself all lined up in side by side pits right next to the singletrack entry, also joining us as a Solo athlete... Johnny's girl Laura in her first 24 Solo. For sure she was with the right crew. Pit support came in the form of Antonio, Thad, Sarah, Tony and other attached racing family members or friends. I never get tired of saying it, pit support is key to a great race, I've raced a few 24hr Solos by myself and it's hard - a huge thanks to the hard working pit crew! It's always great to watch a bunch of my athletes and their support working together as a large team, combining resources and getting ready to race with a common focus of excellence is worth a million dollars.

A couple of hours before the race start I had the pleasure of shaking hands with one of my long time Texas athletes, Shane had driven up from Houston to come and cheer us on and generally check out the scene for a few hours. Shane is a great guy, and it was real good to see him. He crossed over to singlespeed nearly a year ago and he's loving it (does that improve his great guy status?), after spending a few hours with us and checking out the scene I think we will see him toeing the line of a 24hr some time in the future.

The noon time start was pretty relaxed, I opted to skip the Le Mans run as my ribs couldn't accept the jarring effect of carbon sole mountain bike shoes running around on Texas hardpack. Once on the bike it didn't take too long to work my way through the rear elements, everyone seemed upbeat and courteous, and that's one of the reasons I love this particular race - the distinct lack of cutthroat racing mentality like you see in the World Championships or some of the really big races. I was trying to ride smooth and choose flowing lines that wouldn't upset my ribs, but it wasn't working out very well. I think I'm a pretty decent flow rider but no matter what I did on that first lap the ribs were taking a pounding on the hardtail. In an effort to try and modify the punishment, I decided to pick up the pace a bit to see if a faster flow might help adjust the eye watering affect on the ribs, no luck with that strategy but it did have me clocking in the fastest lap time (54 minutes) of any Solo racer.

As annoying as the ribs were, I was loving being in Texas and racing in warm weather on fun trails. And sometimes that's all that you need to survive tough scenarios in a 24hr Solo race; focusing on the positives, forging ahead through the adversity, and minimizing the negative internal feedback. On one front I was making efforts to convince myself that I could race a punishing course all day and night with fractured ribs. I was telling myself that I've done harder things. BUT waaaaaayyyyy back in the recesses of my mind I knew it wasn't a smart idea and that I was going to have to reassess after every lap. Three hours of racing later and I knew I would have to switch strategies again in order to stay in the game, so I decided to try and ride some of the laps with each one of my Solo athletes, helping them out with positive reinforcement, sneaky fast line choices, and general coaching observations. It was fun getting to ride with them. After every lap I would ask myself the same question... how many more hours will my ribs accept and am I damaging them further? As it turns out, I only had seven hours of racing in me. Pretty weak sauce.

As weak as that was, those final few hours of racing were really rewarding. I had made a new mental goal of suffering till nightfall, which meant I had loads of fitness reserves in the tank and a fresh race mind to charge down the trail as hard as I wanted to. With a suffering limit in place, that I knew I could achieve, all I had to do was ride my bike next to great people I really like.

With the last rays of the sun disappearing, I pulled off my race helmet and put on my coaching hat. I love racing, but I also love coaching. Watching my athletes tear up a course is always a great feeling, it's a mixture of pride and excitement to see them executing at such a high personal level. I know racing isn't just about hitting the podium, it's about much more than that, but it helps to taste the podium from time to time... in this race five of them hit the podium. That probably tasted pretty good.

After the race we all moved into the usual pit teardown and packup.

Eating (and maybe a bit of celebratory drinking) was on everybody's mind. Hanging out together, laughing at the race craziness, knuckle bumping and head shaking, quiet nods of respect and fist pumping became the routine for the rest of our time in Austin. That time spent together is as important and rewarding as the race itself. A million dollars.

Sooner than we all would have liked, it was time to head for airports. I like Texas, gonna have to get back there. ;-)

So what's up with the ribs three months after the wipeout? Well, I've got three really cool calcified bumps on three of my ribs, I still can't stretch properly, and the ribs are still sore if I push them too hard. The good news is overall I feel pretty good, and training for the next 24hr Solo in mid-Feb is back on track again. And that's a good thing.

Coming up next... the November trip to Ireland.

Pico

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 00:16:00 +0000

It's been a busy few weeks since I headed down to Texas to race, now it's time to chip away at updates on the blog. I'll save the racing post, and the Ireland trip for later this week, for now I'm going to touch on a tough subject...

Pico was our family pet, and she had been with us for over 10yrs. She was an amazing Black Lab who lived a full life, and brought us lots of joy. Sadly, her health had been deteriorating for some time and we had come to the conclusion that she needed to be euthanized, a tough decision to make. We hung on to her until two days before I flew to my Texas race, simply trying to delay the inevitable. Driving her to the Vet's office that morning was hard, sitting with her as the Veterinarian put her to sleep was harder, but I'm glad I was there with her.

Doreen and the boys want to get another dog real soon, but I'm not ready for that just yet. It'll happen in a few months, until then I'll take my time thinking about dogs, and breeders.

Here's a couple of photos I took just over 4yrs ago:

And here's the last family photo we have of her:

Still miss ya' girl.

Race photo from Six in the Stix

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 04:39:00 +0000

Someone kindly sent me this image. Looks like I was moving quick enough to kick up some dirt.

Owwwww, that hurt.

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 22:00:00 +0000

What hurt? The racing, or the ribs? Let's start with the racing...

A couple of weekends ago I headed to a race called 'Six in the Stix' located in Cranbrook. It's a great 6hr race on some nice terrain. It's well organized, has a nice grassroots feel, and attracts the usual cast of characters. Racing with/against known fast racers is always fun.

Prior to the race I got to hang out with Steve and Julie in Fernie, we did some riding and had a few laughs, it's always good to ride with fast friends.

Race day came, we arrived at the course with time to spare and moved into the familiar pre-race routine. The temperatures were colder than expected and as I started to change into my race team kit it began to rain. I had no idea how the rain would affect the course, but it didn't matter as I only had one set of tires and one gear.

Once the gun went off it was a pretty fast start but not crazy fast, every one seemed to settle into their positions quite quickly and there wasn't much aggressive re-positioning which made things a lot calmer. My legs weren't feeling great in the first lap, the four hours sleep the night before was rearing its ugly head. Slowly but surely my body started to wake up and by the 3rd hour of racing I was starting to feel a lot more race-oriented. Ironically, right about the time I started to feel like cranking up the racing effort my legs started to complain about choosing the wrong gear for the climbing sections of the race. I like to think I'm a pretty decent climber, riding and racing on nothing but singlespeed bikes for the last 3yrs obligates you to become a decent climber. But my climbing abilities on this day weren't matching up with the gear ratio I had chosen, so that had me pushing my bike up more steep sections than I'm used to, kinda frustrating but certainly character building.

The race fell into a predictable pattern, tear into the transition/timing tent area, drop my empty bottle of Infinit next to my bag of full Infinit bottles, grab a fresh bottle and leave the transition area in less than 10 seconds. Race, drink bottle, get new bottle, race. The last couple of hours were fun as my racing legs started to open up a bit. My wattage bandwidth expanded enough that I could do pretty much whatever I wanted within the constraints of my gear choice, always a great feeling.

I managed to grab a 3rd place finish in the singlespeed category, behind Pat D and Pat H, who are both excellent longtime (and feared) singlespeed racers. As nice as it is to touch the podium, I think I got more satisfaction from seeing all my athletes hammering out on the course, they were all looking fantastic.

The race was tough and fun, the 3hr drive back to Rossland still covered in dirt and salt was not fun. By the time I got home my legs were pretty unhappy with me, which is a small price to pay for a good weekend.

On to The Ribs...

I was out for a ride a few days, looking for 3-4hrs of sweet singletrack on a beautiful day. All was right in my little world, until I flew over my bars and landed ribs-first on a large round rock in the middle of the trail. It was like getting kicked in the ribs by a pack mule. First thoughts through my head, ‘Wow, that hurt'.

I jumped back on my bike and rode for another 45mins until it hurt too much to ride any more. I knew I was dealing with something more than a bruise. Everyone was insisting I go get an x-ray and ultrasound to make sure there was no internal damage, so I jumped in the car and headed for Emergency. The x-rays showed fractured ribs. I don't think it's a bad case, at least they aren't broken. Not the best news for my 24hr Solo race in Texas 10 days from now.

I haven't been able to cough, laugh, sneeze, blow my nose, breath deep, or ride my bike since the wipeout. I managed to get on the trainer for 20mins last night until eventually my ribs got annoyed with me and I shut it down. At least I got to spin my legs a bit. Besides not riding (or laughing very well), the ribs are really bothering me in my sleep. Every time I move they wake me up, which is quite annoying and has me kinda groggy in the morning. Luckily I have some fantastic coffee in the cupboard to correct that issue, this morning's Yemen Marqaha (thx Dave B) that I roasted four days ago helped me forget about my ribs for a few minutes.

I'm flying down to Texas on the 17th, and I'm really looking forward to the event as there will be a total of seven Forward Momentum Coaching athletes racing as 24hr Soloists. Four of us have had Solo wins at this particular event in the past, and all seven of us race at a podium level so it's going to be fun to see that much FMC talent on the same course cheering each other on. I'll race as hard as my ribs will let me, which means I'll ignore them as much as possible and convince myself they are a non-issue. I'll still be racing for my personal best, because after all, it is a race. ;-)

Getting ready for another 24 Solo

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 19:28:00 +0000

I've been having a few laughs this morning, courtesy of John, Dave and Julie as we all sort out some race travel details for the next 24hr Solo. I just challenged John and Dave to a moustache growing competition ala' the Beastie Boys Sabotage video, we'll see if they have moustache game when they show up to toe the line in Texas. Will Dave grow his upside down? Will John show up with a 16yr old boys pencil thin fluff? Better start working on it now boys.

Oct 19th is the date for the 24hrs of Rocky Hill Ranch, it will be my 24th race of that particular style of racing. Anything 6hrs or longer is good for me, but I particularly enjoy the 24hr Solo events. Over the years it has become 'my thing', I look forward to them. There is suffering involved, that's guaranteed, but suffering is always easier when it's shared with friends. So that's why I'm looking forward to toeing the line at this race with seven of my 24hr Solo athletes. It's going to be a great time.

The Texas race is still far enough on the calendar that I can have some fun riding around on my local Rossland trails, and casually prepare for a 6hr race in less than two weeks. We've had some rain over the last few days and it has turned the singletrack into thin ribbons of awesomeness... lovely. It's perfect riding right now. Here's a shot looking down past my Orbea Alma and into a corner on Pale Ale.

Shortly after that corner I picked up a flat, near a handy tire stand.

I really like my Maxxis tires, sadly they aren't invincible and this one had seen far too many Seven Summits assaults. I figure this tire cost me approximately 20 cents per hour, a small price to pay for a gajillion dollars worth of fun.

It's a beautiful day out there right now, I'm off for a ride.

The boys rolling down fresh dirt

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 06:47:00 +0000

Evan and Keegan got some sweet dirt in today. We rode from the house up through Happy Valley and up North Star until we hit the top of Upper Milky Way where this video starts. From there we rolled through the new work done by KCTS, so nice. Then we shot a straight line back towards town so the boys could get an ice cream for all their hard work.

Great family ride on the Seven Summits route

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 05:39:00 +0000

This afternoon we took the boys on their first Seven Summits trip. Living in Rossland they've heard so much about the trail, but only seen pictures or videos of it from my rides. Getting them out on some bigger terrain and more epic adventures has been a long time coming but it's finally here.

We started at the North trailhead and headed up towards Lepsoe Basin. No problems on the uptrack and when it came time to turnaround they both flowed smoothly through the descents and made some good technical moves/decisions. Evan has been riding really well for quite a while now, today was Keegan's chance to shine, he rode better than I have ever seen him ride and I was really proud of his efforts!

I've spent hundreds of hours riding with the boys and today wasn't just another typical ride. It was a taste of what's to come... someday in the not too distant future they will be really fast, and then it will be my turn to try and keep up to them. Very, very cool.

Three laps on the the Seven Summits IMBA Epic, does that make it the 21 Summits?

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 03:30:00 +0000

I'll keep this post brief, as there's not a bunch to write about other than the madness of this undertaking... which I'll get to shortly.

I've covered the hazards and disclaimers regarding the Seven Summits in previous posts - it's a trail not to be underestimated. In case you haven't seen those prior warnings, here's the 2011 Seven Summits assault with Scotty, along with the mandatory warnings:

http://shaundoreenevankeegan.blogspot.ca/2011/08/riding-seven-summits-twice-in-one-day.html

Here's the 2012 ride with Dave:

http://shaundoreenevankeegan.blogspot.ca/2012/08/seven-summits-details.html.

To give some perspective on Scotty and Dave, they are both International multiple 24hr Solo racers and they've spent their fair share of time on the podium, they are tough and seasoned racers. Both of them will tell you two laps on the Seven Summits is really hard, so don't use this three lap blog post as a good idea unless you are... prepared. I've never heard of anyone else doing two laps in one day never mind three laps in one day, but if I can do it there are others who can. So I'll make a standing offer right now... if you can do three laps back to back in one day I'll gladly buy you a cold beer. You'll need it. ;-)

Right, with enough carefully placed reminders of how hard something like this can be, let's get on with the story.

This year everything lined up nicely for a three lap attempt. As a family we had just finished 10 days out on the West Coast which had caused me to be off my bikes for 13 days, so I was in desperate need of some hard-suffering saddle time, I just had to identify what kind of suffering. Timing wise, Doreen and the boys were going to be out of province visiting family on the weekend which let me stay home and throw a bunch of hours at the trails.

On short notice I threw out a quick local 'this is what I'm going to do' heads up to the general riding community and from that point on there was no backing out.

The adventure began early on Saturday morning as I loaded up my gear and drove to the top of the Dewdney Trail to stash my 2nd lap water bottles. From there I drove to the North trailhead, parked the car, and began the first lap at approx 0800hrs. Knowing that I was first one down the entire trail that morning was pretty interesting. I'm used to riding or racing unsupported Solo, it's kinda my thing, but for some reason as I moved through the remote terrain by myself the whole concept of taking on the 21 Summits as an unsupported Solo felt 'bigger than normal'. Hard to explain, you had to be there.

The 1st lap was uneventful and not particularly hard. I made it to my bottle stash at the top of the Dewdney in good time, re-upped on Infinit and started heading back on my 2nd lap. The beginning of the 2nd lap was the beginning of the suffering, lots of hike a bike to the top of Record Ridge on a singlespeed hardtail, made all the more difficult in 95 Fahrenheit. It was a slog. A brain melting slog. By the time I made it back to the North trailhead parking lot I was cooked, so much so that I laid down on the parking lot tarmac for 20 minutes and had an internal debate about whether the 3rd lap was doable. Here's a photo I took with my phone at the peak of the parking lot heat meltdown.

I knew heading out for that 3rd lap was a no-joke decision. Starting a lap that late in the afternoon meant nobody would be riding sweep behind me, which meant I had to ride conservatively and safely as I was going to be the only one out on the trail for the rest of the day. Riding slowly was going to reduce my natural flow, which would make that last lap even harder, and I was already feeling worked over. While debating safety and achievability I kept thinking about this view...

That mental view was enough to tip the scales, I threw my leg over the saddle and began the 3rd lap, a crushing singlespeed climb back up to the top of Mount Elgood. Once I rolled beyond Elgood I knew I was committed, and from that point forward it was simply a matter of keeping up the pressure and choosing smart lines. A bad line on the Seven Summits means a tire slashing mechanical, or worse, an over the bars injury. I couldn't afford either on this lap so I played it smart and rode as smooth as I could.

I was a bit frazzled by the time I got to the bottom of the Dewdney Trail but the ride wasn't over yet. I still had the ride up the highway and back into town, with the goal to hit Ferraro Foods before they closed at 2000hrs. I wanted to walk into their cool air conditioning and get an ice cream bar, or bag of chips, maybe dill pickles, or a can of baked beans, maybe expired pepperoni, basically whatever the heck jumped out and said 'buy me, I will make you feel a whole lot better'. I buried myself riding up that highway, out of the saddle riding/sprinting as hard as I could, dirty sweat stinging my eyes and dripping on my top tube. After a bunch of hard work I finally arrived at Ferraro Foods at 1950hrs, and even though I was a bit wobbly, certainly calorie deficient, and a little giddy about getting to choose something inside the comfort of air conditioning, I managed to lock down my focus as I only had 10 minutes to make the very important post-ride snack decision. 10 minutes in air conditioning, with a crisp $5 bill waiting to be pulled out of my Backcounty Research toolbag, yes! As I pulled up in front of the sliding doors I noticed the Store Hours sign... closed at 1900hrs.

Huh? Does that mean...

I was 50 minutes too late. Snack denial. Quite possibly the hardest part of the ride. My glorious dreams of pickled asparagus or boxes of raisins dashed against the rocky shores of retail hours. My ride home was a blur.

With nobody at home to moan to I stumbled into the garage and put my Orbea Alma on the bike stand, pulled a pint off the kegerator and headed into the living room so I could lay on the floor while sipping an IPA through the side of my mouth. Cold. Refreshing. Hoppy. Carbs. ;-)

Laying on my back in the quiet house I convinced myself I would never do the 21 Summits again. But today (exactly one week later) I was talking with Scotty about the ride and mentioned it was hard, but not insanely hard, and that maybe 28 Summits is possible? I think we both laughed and shook our heads. One thing is for sure, an IPA would taste mighty good after a ride like that. ;-)

West Coast trip

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 20:04:00 +0000

We recently returned from a trip to the West Coast, hitting Vancouver, Parksville and Tofino. Most of our trip was spent in Tofino, where we were tent camping. Lots to talk about but I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Ocean time in Parksville.

Dinner in Tofino.

Sharpening sticks for marshmallows.

Starting the day off right with coffee from my favourite roaster. ;-)

Boys being boys.

Meat on a stick.

The Pacific Coast Trail.

Jellyfish and all kinds of other creatures.

Evan's new friend.

Fish and chips in Ucluelet.

Keegan about to embark on a sea kayaking adventure.

Keegan looking like a seasoned pro upon his return.

Doreen and Evan at the end of their sea kayaking adventure.

And back in Rossland.

The Plewman Trail

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 16:42:00 +0000

Tuesday shop ride, always a good time. This week we shuttled from Revolution Cycles up to the North Trailhead of the Seven Summits and then began the ride up to the top of the mountain range. It was a beautiful evening in the mountains. As if that wasn't enough, I got led down a nice clean run on Plewman Trail, a trail I've never done before. To get to Plewman you first have to do some climbing.

As always, these are best watched in 1080 HD.

Some fast movement along the ridge, check out those amazing views. To get a better sense of how fast Tyler is moving along pieces of that ridge section, mark a spot on the trail as he passes a rock or tree and then count off the seconds on how far back I am, I'm typically only three seconds behind and we are covering a lot of ground in those three seconds... he was moving pretty quick.

Heading down Plewman.

Some challenging and steep lines (on a singlespeed hardtail).

A piece of the last section on the Plewman. More steep and tire swallowing lines in the last of the evening light.

The remainder of the ride took us down a secret (yet to be named) trail courtesy of Tyler. On to Gibbards, then The Luge, and finally back to the Blackjack parking lot for a post ride beer. Another million dollar day.

Tuesday night shop ride

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 20:34:00 +0000

Simple fact - I like to put the hurt on myself by hammering my bike on the Rossland trails. Not everyone thinks that this kind of suffering is fun, and that's why I do a lot of riding by myself. I don't make any apologies or excuses, quite simply, I like moving fast up or down the trail.

When I'm by myself, that level of exertion acts as a form of meditation. I can empty my mind and be in the moment as I flow through the trail with my only focus being the variables in front of me. It's fun, it clears my head, and throws me a healthy dose of endorphins.

As much as I enjoy riding by myself, it's equally as fun to ride with other guys who can tear down the trail and that's what the Tuesday night shop ride is all about. Leaving from Revolution Cycle at 1730hrs, it's a mixed bag of attendees depending on who's around town that week. Typically the attendance is 3-5 riders, though it can go as big as 8-10. Most of them have been riding these trails for years and have high-level handling abilities, i.e. they can shred the gnar. ;-)

I look forward to the shop ride, every week is a different mix of trails and every week is a blast. To me, the soul of mountain biking is getting out with some buddies and tearing down a trail, then clinking a beer glass at the end of the ride. And that's exactly what we do on most shop rides. This week we did Drakes, Doukhobor Draw, Tamarack, Whiskey and then the Rail Grade back into town. A fun route with a tricky (on a singlespeed hardtail) challenge in the form of the single black diamond Whiskey trail. There are some rock drops and rock faces on Whiskey that mess with my head. My Orbea Alma geometry isn't well suited to these kinds of steeps, plus I never lower my seatpost even on the steepest stuff, plus (insert all kinds of lame excuses)... so with all those excuses out of the way the main reason I don't do the Whiskey Trail often is because of the higher potential to take a steep fall out in the middle of nowhere by myself. Hitting the Whiskey trail with other riders last night was awesome. It's such a fun trail, I really must get out and hit it again in the next couple of weeks.

Now for some videos from the ride, in attendance we had Dave, Dave, Tyler, Iain and Stewart. Somehow I managed to bust a spoke on this ride, which hasn't happened in quite a few years, so the first video is less than inspiring. As always, these are best watched in 1080P.

Here's some footage of me taking a spill on Whiskey, I made a poor line choice and paid the price by doing a complete somersault. I didn't get banged up too much, just twisted my bars a bit which I noticed after jumping back on the bike and riding it for a few seconds.

Here's some footage about halfway down the trail, for most of the Whiskey trail everyone was riding approx 30 seconds apart to get clean runs in.

Here's some footage towards the end of the trail. No, I'm not talking to myself at the start of the video, I was taking an incoming call on my cellphone earbud while trying to get some air on a sweet line of dirt. ;-)

Like I said, another great shop ride... another million dollar day.

Austin, TX in da' house

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 06:31:00 +0000

Iain from Austin, TX is visiting us for a few days, he's here to do some riding and to soak in the Rossland lifestyle. Last time he hung out at our place we were still living in Calgary and he was prepping for Worlds 24 Solo. Now he's starting the prep for next year's Tour Divide (you know that little race that starts in Banff and follows the Continental Divide right down to the Mexican border, just over 4,400kms of riding and completely self-supported).

I've been touring him around the trail system for the last three days and he's loving it. We've already ridden a bunch of awesome dirt and there's lots more to come.

Today we hit some sweet trails, including Milky Way and Full Monte. I shot some video of Iain on the trails, and though I know the chest mount GoPro makes the riding look easy and not particularly steep, if you pay attention you will see my saddle pop into the camera view quite a few times on the Full Monte ride... when my chest is behind the saddle that usually means it's steep. Most of the steeper stuff occurs towards the back end of the video, till that point it's a lot of tech movement leading up to the steep stuff.

As always, these are best viewed in 1080P HD:

Mount Lepsoe and the Seven Summits Trail

noreply@blogger.com (Shaun Taylor) — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:57:00 +0000

Got out for a great ride yesterday evening with Dave and Colin (who moved to Rossland with his family four days ago). The route of choice was an out and back from the North trailhead of the Seven Summits trail system, to the top of Mount Lepsoe, and nearly to the top of Mount Elgood, then back down to the trailhead. The trail is in amazing shape, as good as I've ever seen it. A big thanks goes out to KCTS!

In one of the videos you will see some snow at the top of Mount Lepsoe/Elgood and based on my very informal assessment I was thinking out loud that the Seven Summits trail might not be open for another 10 days or so. Turns out I was wrong; Stewart Spooner who is the KCTS Trails Manager just declared this morning that the trail is ready to go with the only exception being some patches of snowdrift. That's really good news because I would like to do my 'Seven Summits Trail three times in one day assault' before the end of this month. If you want to check out the status of the trails you can go to the KCTS website:

http://www.kcts.ca/

The Mount Lepsoe/Elgood out and back is a good test of fitness, the climb to the turnaround point is relentless at times but if you like to climb you are going to like this ride. If you like to descend, welcome to a winning lottery ticket. This is a trail designed by riders for riders.

On to some stats... My computer shows 1960' of total vertical gain, and 1910' of that vertical occurs during the climb to the top of Lepsoe/Elgood. It's 8kms from the trailhead to the top of Lepsoe, which results in a 7.2% avg grade. As a singlespeeder the gear of choice is a 32 x 22 (on a 29'er), you are going to be struggling in a couple of sections with that gearing but overall it's a nice gear. A fit rider not wasting any time will achieve the turnaround point in approx 1hr. I think most riders should plan for 1.5-2hrs to hit the turnaround, that allows for some picture taking and leaning on a tree or two to enjoy the scenery. Don't underestimate the climbing on this route, I've bumped into people at the top of Lepsoe who required 3.5hrs to get to the turnaround and they looked shattered. However long it takes to get to the top it's worth it, the views are fantastic and the trail is amazing.

On to some videos from last night...

This first video shows Dave and Colin heading up the trail, as always these are best watched in 1080P HD.

This next video shows some of the snow at the top of Lepsoe/Elgood.

This video has me chasing Dave from the top of Lepsoe down to one of the first 'regroup' points, a sweet 12min descent. At one point I called out to Dave and started slowing down because I couldn't hear Colin behind me, but the game was afoot so I abandoned Colin and tried to close that gap on Dave. ;-)

We let Colin go ahead for this second part of the descent, a lovely 5mins of sweet flowy singletrack goodness with just enough technical to keep you on your toes.

This last video shows the final bit of descending before you hit the North trailhead parking lot, the last 90secs of this trail are so good.

There you have it, Mount Lepsoe out and back. Put it on your list.