Vacation

Another wonderful vacation is in the books for the Stegall family and unlike the others over the last 15 years, we actually did something new. Our trip was to my Aunt and Uncle's (Susie and Carl) vacation house on the Machodoc river near it's confluence with the Potomac.

No TV, no internet and no cell phone service. After a short period of withdrawals I found out that you can actually not only survive without constant communication, it's actually quite nice. Also nice was the unseasonably cool breezy weather and low humidity. The whole week couldn't have been better.



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The house and it's view of the river.

Carl and Susie were great hosts and kept us busy with outdoor activities. I also gained a couple pounds from all of the good food. The kids had lots of new experiences and never once ask about a tv or computer. Boats, kayaking, wildlife, swimming, dock jumping and just running around kept everyone busy and worn out.

Carl's a really serious kayaker and we spent some time in their boats. A few miles of paddling gave me new respect for distance kayaking. Crossing a big body of water with a side or head wind is a serious workout.

Whitney coming back from a long paddle in the fast boat.

Wildlife was everywhere. Big pirds of prey feeding and even some mid-air battles including two Osprey and mature Bald Eagle going at it.

A mom Osprey was busy all week coming and going feeding her young in the nest right next to the dock.


Bad picture of a Bad Eagle. Tried our best to get him to fly for a better picture, be he didn't seem interested.

Feeding the resident swans and their young. These things were HUGE.

Sitting there having a beer when this fox just popped out of the reeds in the river. Swimming? Looked pretty mangy all wet.

Spent some time in the boat which was always instant sleep for Molly and Will.

Captain Carl and Captain Susie.

Trip to Sharks Tooth Island. Just a bit of looking yielded a whole zip lock bag of sharks teeth for everyone except me. I was horrible at it. The kids thought it was the coolest.

Lots of time just sitting on the dock, swimming and watching the kids play.

Lots dock jumping. Molly had strict form as witnessed here.

Cooling the watermelon. The melon ending up being a fun water toy for the kids.

Croquet.

Will showing promise with the solid wrap. No University of Tennessee shoulder tackles here.

Celebrating the 4th of July watching fireworks and roasting smores over a bonfire.

Gorgeous sunsets most every night.

Big adventure

A couple posts ago I mentioned the looong rides I did while the family was at the beach. I did a quick write up of the first ride, Black Mountain, but left out the REALLY big one, my overnight "adventure" ride. I have a complete fascination with races like the Tour Divide Race. No support, just you and the bike for 16+ hours per day, eat a bit, crawl into a bivy sack and then wake up and do it all over again. Read about a typical day for Great Divide racer here.

Sound fun? Not really, but what it does have is adventure which, for the most part, has really been sucked out of modern life. I was heel bent on heading out to roam around some big mountains, suffer and if I got lost, it would be icing on the cake.

In theory my route was simple and there was really no hope of getting lost, but I knew it would provide a bit of suffering. I added the adventure part by throwing in my typical poor planning.

A rainy forecast made me decide start my ride a day early. There were a few problems with this new plan. I was at work, it was 2:00 pm and I still had to run home, gather my stuff, get the dog, drive to Oak Ridge, drop the dog off at the in-laws and then start pedaling. By the time I knocked all of this out, I was finally unloading my bike and rolling from my car at 5:00 pm (poor planning example #1). One of the last things I remember when locking my car was looking at my light set and thinking "Nah, surely I won't need 'em. I have at least 3 and half hours of daylight left" (poor planning example #2).

I rode down West Outer Drive wide open, standing up on the climbs knowing that I had very little time to spare. Outer Drive led to the descent down Key Springs Road and then through the back roads leading to Dutch Valley. From there it was onto Walden Ridge Road for the first gravel climb of the evening. Cresting the top I passed the old gated road that leads to the now closed Walden Ridge trails.

Heading up the bottom of Walden Ridge Road before it turns to gravel.

The gate at the gap cresting Walden Ridge.

The decent down the back side of Walden led directly into the longest climb of the day. 3+ miles up Mt. Larry. The "top" of Mt. Larry only meant turning onto a much steeper gravel road into the Coal Creek Mining Area. I was glad to be turning off the asphalt, but knew that I had better keep the pace high, it was getting late fast and I still had a lot of riding left. I settled into a hard pace up the climb when my rear tire blew out. Damn. The repair wouldn't take long but it would use what little cushion I might have for making camp by dark.

The climb up Mt. Larry is steep!

Turning onto Coal Creek property.


After a couple miles of steep rollers (and an Elk sighting) I made the coal seam which meant I could throw it in the big ring and really get a move on. I flew across Windrock and I started to feel pretty good about my race with the sunset.

View from the coal seam road.

I made it across Windrock very quickly was rewarded with the cool, shaded and super fast descent down the back side of Windrock. The trail had eroded quite a bit since the winter which made it much less gravel, more dirt and lots of small rocks and ruts. Unfortunately, the fun didn't last very long and I was back on Hwy 116 rolling towards the last climb of the day. The low sun made me anxious to pick up the pace which led to twinges of leg cramps. I slowed waaaay down, but the cramps came anyway. I did a pretty good job of fending them off, but eventually I had to dismount and walk them out.

After a couple miles of alternating between walking and soft pedaling, I finally crested Graves Gap where the dirt road urns off to head into Frozen Head State Forest. I was elated. I still had good light and the only thing between me and the campground was six miles of downhill, right?

Well, that's where the poor planning thing really messed me up. I have looked at Tom Dunnigan's map of Frozen Head map (hand drawn, no topo lines) no less than a hundred times and always assumed the connection between 116 and the six mile downhill was a fairly flat and short deal. I was very wrong. The road was pretty steep and seemed to climb forever. I kept cresting the next rise only to see the road continue upward. My earlier elation turned to frustration and from there quickly went to concern. The cramping had gotten REALLY bad, I was out of water, I kept questioning if I was on the right road and the sun was leaving me.

I waited till things turned black and stopped to dig out a small flashlight I had tucked away. I was still climbing, so holding the light was easy. Once I finally crested the top (after two miles of climbing!) and started down the rocky downhill, my light system wasn't so easy to manage. My speed was reduced to a crawl and what should have taken 10 minutes probably took close to an hour.

I rolled into the campground at about 10:15 and grabbed the first camp site I passed. I had originally intended to pass through the camp ground and look for a back country site, but at this hour I just wanted to set up camp, clean up and try to get some food in me. My system was kinda whacked out from the effort and I had to force dinner down. Not long after that I crashed into the tent.

Waking up kinda ended the adventure for me. All that lay ahead of me was a crappy road ride on the shoulder of the highway and I was tired, dehydrated and didn't eat enough the night before. After choking down some breakfast, I packed up my gear and ht the road.

Snapped a few pics of camp before rolling out.

The ride home was just as boring as I thought it might be. It was also longer and harder then I thought it would be. My GPS died before completing the loop, but I ended up with close to 80 miles and LOTS of climbing. I mean lots.

Next time I'll schedule things a bit better, take better food, leave more time for relaxing and find a riding partner. Still a good time and I learned a bit about myself.

Link to interactive version of map.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/6831297

2009 Isle of Mann TT

Double click to pop this out for the larger wider version.

Enjoy.

Scout puts up with A LOT of crap from our kids

Our poor dog after being "dressed up" by Molly.

Black Mountain

"My goal is to start posting at least once a week, so hopefully I'll be adding some words and pictures soon."

Well, that was over two months ago and while I could come up with all kinds of excuses, they would all sound pretty lousy, so I'll just move on.

Whitney and the kids just came back from a full week at the beach. They had a great time and it was pretty nice for me as well. Only went on two bike rides while they were gone, but those two rides had me on the bike for around eleven hours, put me on some new trails and I felt lost on each. I'm pretty burnt out on my local MTB spots. Don't get me wrong, we have some great places to ride here in Knoxville but after close to twenty years riding around these same places, I'm excited to see some new terrain and have a bit of adventure in my rides.

First up was Black Mountain. If you click the link, you'll see Tom's decription uses terms like "a maze of jeep trails" and "good luck", both very appropriate. The trails were very rough, steep and had lots of intersections. So many intersections that I fianally gave up on trying to keep track of where I had turned or finding my way back. I figured if I kept at it I would have to pop out on a improved road at some point.

One of many, many creek crossings. In fact, there were some sections where the creek and the trail became one for several hundred yards at a time.

Well I was right, but it took a long time, lots of dead ends and when I finally did hit the highway I had no idea which one or which way I needed to ride. I just started ride and after a mile or so, ran into a couple college kids using the roadside facilities. They didn't know the name of the highway, but they did say they were headed to Crossville which meant it had to be Hwy 68. Looking at the map earlier I knew I needed to look for Cox Valley Rd. and it would put me at the base of the mountain to climb back to may car. Easy enough.

Well, it would have been easy enough has some redneck not stolen the sign to Cox Valley Rd. I discovered this by arriving on Crossville, which I knew was miles beyond where I needed to turn. A friendly convienience store clerk told me what to watch for to make my turn. So after tacking on some extra miles I was finally headed back. The bad news is that I was feeling pretty tired and still had a very steep and long climb up Black Mounatin to my car.

Spotted this guy on the way up. Barely bigger than a quarter.

This momma spider was enourmous and carrying a few hundred of the next generation of creepy huge spiders on it's back.

Catchin' up

Catching up is a theme here, huh? Always behind and always some lame excuse as to why I can't spend a few minutes updating my blog. This time I'm going with lots of family sickness and deciding to spend less time looking at my computer while at home. Yep, those are my current excuses.

The sick part was rough. Everyone besides Molly had the full blown flu, mine and Whitney's turned into pneumonia (Whitney's worse than mine). The icing on the cake is the discovery that Whitney will need surgery in the very near future. Good times.

The "less time on a computer" thing is the result of thinking that I have probably wasted a LOT of time constantly checking various message boards, websites, my email, etc. and it really has become a needless distraction and to be honest, a pretty hard habit to break.

The good news is that there is always some cool stuff going on. Molly and Will's birthday, planning a family vacation and day light savings time.

Molly showing off her princess cake.

Will spitting on, err...I mean blowing out his candles on his dinosaur cake.

Will cleaning up.


New big wheel!


To say Molly was excited about her High School Musical video would an understatement.


The family vacation will be heading to my aunt and uncle's (Susie and Carl) place on the Potomac in June. We are really excited about doing something new, spending time with my extended family and enjoying a kid friendly beach. Susie and Carl are great hosts and we can't thank them enough for sharing their weekend home with us.

Daylight savings time just makes life better. Longer days, warmer weather, green vegetation and being outside more (especially after the most dismal winter in recent memory). Hopefully the longer days will allow me to sneak in an extra ride during the week after the kids head to bed. Three weeks off the bike was too much and I'm anxious to get back on track. I even had to back out on my buddy Brian for the PMBAR which was a real bummer. PMBAR was what motivated me through my 20 degree rides this winter, but I'm afraid that missing that much riding 6 weeks before what could be a 10 hour mountainbike race might leave me holding up my partner.

My goal is to start posting at least once a week, so hopefully I'll be adding some words and pictures soon.

Kickin' off March...

...with more crappy weather!

My first ride of March was a tough one. Tough to get started, tough to stay out in and tough to recover from. I have never done a road ride in worse conditions. I experienced all forms of precipitation in the two hours I was out...rain, sleet and snow, all at a balmy 34 degrees. Epic conditions and I actually enjoyed it on some level.

A week ago I did the final race in the local cyclocross series. The finale was held at the Worlds Fair park. It was an awesome mix of concrete, off camber grass sections, stairs and tight corners which seemed like it was designed just for me. The slick tires (I wasn't spending $100.00 for cross tires) held me back in the mud, but not enough to matter and it made it more fun sliding around the course.

The morning of the race I decided my fitness needed more than a thirty minute race for a workout and riding to and from the race would be a great way to add some miles. The plan was to have a gentle spin (10 miles away?) to the race site as a nice warm up, but fate had other plans.

This is where your chain belongs...

...not here.

My gentle spin to the park was interrupted by "click...click...click...POW". The sound of my chain breaking. I picked the chain up and rode my bike skate board style for a mile or so before coming to the realization that this would put me at the park a few hours after the race. I called my good buddy Bob Davies (all around good guy and team mate for racing this year) who interrupted heading out to lunch with his wife to come rescue me with a master link and chain tool. Big thanks, Bob. All this put me behind, so my gentle warm up turned into a leg searing sprint to make sure I didn't miss registration.

Turns out the sprint wasn't needed as, like most races, it went off a bit late and I had plenty of time to register, chill out and catch up with some peeps I had not seen lately. I caught lots of flak with questions like "are you riding that?", "did you bring some other tires" and just general "you're doing it wrong". Good times.

The single speed class went off 30 seconds before the Cat 4's, so I had a great motivator to pedal hard and keep the real racers at bay. It lasted for a couple laps before the fast guys laid it on me, but I was happy to be able to stay away from most of the field.

Ended up third and only 20 seconds back of second place in the singlespeed class and my time would have put me in seventh in the much larger (and more competitive) Cat 4's. Overall pretty happy with the results considering most of these guys are "real" racers that put in some serious miles.

A couple pics from the race featuring my new super stylin' Bike Zoo jersey.


Photo credit to this guy, Endurance Dave.

A huge head wind and very tired legs made for a brutal ride home. Brutal.