Vittetoe761's Cajun Adventures

[nobrakes2007]

Nope, I moved up here in December and have been waiting for it to stop snowing and now to stop raining so I can get my first ride in of the year. I can't believe I am saying that and it is almost May.

I was living in Houston before coming up here and pretty much everything within a 30 mile radius of that town is flat single track with a few decents/climbs in and out of gullies. I know you are in Lousiana but if you ever wanted to make a road trip in to Texas, I could point you to a couple of fantastic places to ride depending on how far you felt like driving.

[Vittetoe761]

Nice! I was actually over in Houston a few weekends ago to watch the supercross race in Reliant Stadium.

I took my bike with me and rode the trails out at Memorial Park on Saturday and then The Anthills on Sunday. The Anthills were actually really fun and the trails were in good shape...the dirt jumps out there are insane too! Memorial's trails seemed like they needed some work though...plenty of debris out on the trail.

[Vittetoe761]

Alright...its time for me to stop slacking and get y'all updated on the adventures!

The AMA Supercross series made its way to Reliant Stadium in Houston on April 6, which is a short 4 hour jaunt across I-10 from Baton Rouge. Growing up riding motocross and being an avid follower of the professional series, it was only natural that I made my way west to the Lone Star State to watch the action! I ended up staying with a friend from Muscatine that lives in Houston, and luck would have it that he rides mountain bikes too...how convenient!

Saturday
After having a few too many Black Velvet's on Friday night, I woke up feeling a little foggy on Saturday morning. We limped our way over to Memorial Park, which is located very close to downtown providing a unique urban setting for trails. The trails were pretty fun...full of tree roots, hikers, and sticks/logs. We didn't hit it very hard on this day and only did one lap around the park, but it was still a good time! We also stumbled upon a couple brand new Ferrari's in the parking lot. They were getting loaded up onto a flatbed truck after being on display for a running race of some sort earlier that morning. Very cool!
Strava

Supercross was fairly uneventful and the racing was average at best, but I always enjoy being at the races live to take in the action. After the races were over we proceeded to take on a few too many drinks at a multitude of bars throughout Houston...sports bar, club, tap house, you name it, we were there. Good times were had.

Sunday
I woke up on Sunday feeling even foggier than I was on Saturday! ...must be getting too old for this stuff or something. After sleeping in a bit and drinking a large amount of water, we were up and ready to ride at the buttcrack of noon. The plan for the day was to ride the trails at Terry Hershey Park...The Anthills, located on the west side of Houston.

The trails are laid out along the Buffalo Bayou creating a narrow Out & Back system along a small bluff. There were usually 2 or 3 different trails to ride on at any given point along the bayou providing riders options to stay up on top, down on the bottom, or climb up and down the bluff for a better workout. I could tell these trails get ridden a lot and they were better maintained than the Memorial Park trails we rode the day before. I found myself in granny gear grinding up climbs, bombing high speed descents and picking my way through technical sections throughout the trail system...big smile on my face the entire time!

My buddy took me to the far east side of the trails and showed me where "The Anthills" got it's name. we dropped into a trail and it rolled us into some GIGANTIC DIRT JUMPS! I'm talking 8 ft tall booters with vertical takeoffs...gnarly stuff. The first guy we roll up on in the dirt jump area clearly had nice crash at some point as his front teeth were all busted up. I asked him if there were any jump lines that wouldn't break my frame in half just by looking at the jumps wrong, and he pointed me in the direction of the "small" line. I eyed it up and decided to drop in and hit some small kickers on the 29er! It was pretty fun doing a couple laps, but I could definitely tell that I needed a dirt jump bike to ride the lines properly so we headed back to the singletrack.
Strava

All in all, the weekend in Houston was a very good time, but it made me realize how lucky we are to have the FORC trails available to us back home where there is more room to breathe (RIP Sylvan...hopefully not for long). I don't have any pictures from these trails, but I'm sure Google would yield a few results if you were so inclined.

Hopefully y'all enjoyed this installment of the Cajun Adventures! Thanks for reading.

[Vittetoe761]

So on the Monday after the Houston trip I decided to head out to Comite in Baton Rouge to do some more riding in the beautiful weather.

After completing my first lap, I noticed a little pain on the outside of my left knee. The pain was all too familiar as I had the exact same pain in my right knee last fall shortly after a significant increase in riding miles...I was developing an overuse injury. I made the mistake of continuing to ride after the pain started, which resulted in quite a bit of soreness that night. The next day I went for another ride to see how it was feeling and the results were not good. More knee pain while riding, so I just cruised around at a slow pace.

Well this is just great...I'm finally starting to feel strong on the bike, but I can't ride because of this darn knee pain. Let this be a lesson kids...only increase mileage by 10% per week or risk wasting a lot of hard work! The timing of the injury was very convenient too...right before I begin a stretch with 4 races in 5 weekends. Perfect!

[Vittetoe761]

After taking the remainder of the week off to rest my knee, it was time to make the 4 hour trek up to Minden, LA (near Shreveport) for round #2 of the LAXC race series: Racin' Caney, at the Caney Lakes Recreation Area.

Saturday
We drove up on Saturday morning to pre-ride the race course and pick up our registration packets. None of the riders in our group of 5 had ridden these trails before, so we headed out from the trailhead relatively blind. The only thing I knew about the course was there was a tough, technical, 1.8 mile long section named "Lost Woman" which the Cat 3 racers have to skip altogether due to the high degree of difficulty...yeehaw, can't wait!

I was also trying out something new on my bike this weekend...clipless pedals! I had been a platform guy ever since I started riding, and was known to throw out a PFL (platforms for life) chant from time to time last year, but I had decided to take the plunge to clipless due to the amount of XC racing I have planned. I know, I know...you're not supposed to change anything right before a race, but I actually really liked the feel of the clipless pedals out on the trail Saturday, so I decided to leave them on for Sunday. Oh yeah...I converted my front tire to tubeless on Friday night...another risky, yet brilliant move!

Sunday
Race day was upon us...its go time, kids! We got to the race about an hour early and got going on our pre-race preparations (eating GU, repeated trips to the toilet, stretching, warm up rides, etc.). I was feeling pretty good and decided to grab a front row starting spot for the first time.

The start consisted of an asphalt climb, followed by an asphalt descent before dropping into the singletrack...can you say "big ring"...? I didn't kill myself on the initial climb, and dropped into the singletrack around 6th place. The first couple miles of trail was very flat and fairly straight...roadies definitely had the advantage here. Luckily for me, my buddy Ben was the first rider into the singletrack and he purposely slowed down the pace to keep us from blowing up right away. I was very appreciative of him as I was feeling good and cruising along with the pack.

After the first mile or so, I looked back and noticed that I was actually the caboose on a 6 rider breakaway at the front of the pack, and shortly after that one of the riders in front of me slowed down and faded back into the pack. Talk about a confidence boost! My buddy Ben had lost the lead and was now the right in front of me. I noticed the new leader taking off as we were approaching the middle section of the course which was made up of rolling hills with decent climbs and fast downhills. I made the move around Ben into 4th overall, encouraging him to hold my wheel as I made a run to catch back up to the top 3.

After getting back on the wheel of the top 3, I noticed that the leader was not going to last much longer. He was pushing hard up the hills, but riding the brakes on the descents...DOH! After picking up on this, I would simply cruise up the hills and bomb the downhills to get right back on their wheels. Eventually I started doing some heckling to try and get in their heads..."you guys want to stop and get a photo taken? ...we've got a great back drop in that lake over there!" I'm thinking I should've kept my mouth shut because shortly my heckling the 2nd and 3rd place riders made a move on the leader, picking up the pace immensely. I followed them through, but couldn't quite hold their wheels as we were approaching Lost Woman.

Lost Woman was ROUGH...nothing like steep, technical hill repeats when riding as fast as possible! I watched the leaders slowly pull away in the first half of this section and concentrated on making it through each section clean. The final few climbs out of Lost Woman are especially difficult as the steepness goes up a notch, bringing out more tree roots and loose soil. The 2nd place rider was having trouble in this area, allowing me to catch his wheel again. During the final climb out of the section he had to get off and push up the hill...luckily I was able to squeak around him and make it up the climb and out of the section clean.

After Lost Woman, the course dumped us out onto path crossing the lake's dam before returning to the start/finish line. I got passed back to 3rd on the dam as I was eating my GU packet and had about a 10 second gap to make up before I was back in hammer mode. I caught back up to 2nd place within the first mile of the 2nd lap and we rode through the flat section together (gotta love drafting).

The course had a handful of water crossings for us to negotiate, which were becoming quite muddy by our 2nd lap. One crossing in particular was approximately 20ft long and extra muddy underneath the water. My bottom bracket felt gritty for about a minute after crossing this thing which made me very nervous, but eventually it went away and felt smooth again. Turns out that one of my bottom bracket bearings got cocked sideways and wasn't spinning freely, but I had no idea at this point...pedal pedal PEDAL!!!

Once again, the 2nd place rider pulled out a lead on me in the rolling hills of the middle section of course. My game plan was to save my energy for Lost Woman and make a run at him at the end of the race after seeing his weakness on the first lap. We passed some of the singlespeed riders before Lost Woman, and it was obvious that they were not very excited about climbing those hills again!

I was probably about 30 seconds out of 2nd place when entering Lost Woman and immediately picked up my pace. Unfortunately, I blew myself up on the first couple climbs, forgot to downshift for a steep climb after an extended descent, and ran out of steam at the bottom of the hill before I could get into a lower gear...all of this, combined with it being my 2nd ride on clipless pedals resulted in me falling over on my side, still clipped in, flopping around like a fish out of water trying to get back up! I had a singlespeed guy right behind me and I didn't want to ruin his momentum for the climb, so I sprinted to the top of the hill and hopped back on my bike. That'll get the blood flowing!

After my silly tipover, I got a 2nd wind and was able to really start hammering on the climbs again. By the time I reached the end of the section I was once again right there on the back wheel of 2nd place. Unfortunately he cleaned the climbs on the way out of Lost Woman and onto the dam. I was right on his back wheel, but he was able to push a bigger gear than me right away and got a bit of a gap again. I finally decided that it was now or never, upshifted and pedaled as hard as I could to start making up ground. I was right on his back wheel as we rounded the corner towards the finish line but he was able to keep me at bay. Third place...I'll take it! Turns out the 1st place finisher is 15 and the 2nd place finisher is 17...don't they have a Juniors class down here!?

My buddy Ben ended up 30 seconds back in 4th place, and my other buddy (named Ben as well) broke his chain halfway through the 2nd lap and had to bypass his derailleur to create a full suspension singlespeed with what little chain he had left. All in all, it was a successful race weekend and I had a ton of fun (doesn't hurt getting to stand up on that podium!)

[nobrakes2007]

A houston trip!?!? Man you hit all my old stomping grounds. Being that Memorial Park is pretty much centered right in the heart of the city, it gets a ton of use pretty much everyday of the week. Texas went through a massive drought the last two years which has killed something like 60% of the trees in the park. It is really quite unbelievable how many trees there used to be compared to now. This also means that most of the trees still standing are in pretty bad shape i.e. limbs falling on trails, etc...Ghorba.org does a pretty good job of keeping the trails maintained but thost particular trails get used so much that it makes it difficult to keep them in good shape.

Anthills is probably my favorite place to ride in Houston. Good, technical single track with offers a few good decents. Plus you get the jump park at the end!! I have spent many days at that place. This is one of jumps on the mid line...



Here is the complete mid line...



It is amazing how many good the lines flow at this place....a testament to the builders for sure. I am not sure if you saw the bowl area in the back but there is a ton of drops and gaps back there to hit. The main line or pro line is the one with those big kickers...I have hit the first of the set and the last of the set but I could never get up the jeuvos to hit the 2-3 in the middle of the set.

It sounds like you might of hit the pump track? Starts up at the top where the mid and pro lines start and winds its way down to the left of the mid line. Took me a full day to finally get the speed right on that damn thing...I was hitting the mid line before I could finish the damn pump track.

Man this makes me miss home!

[Vittetoe761]

Nice dude! Yeah I might have been on the pump track...I only hit the first 4 or 5 jumps and a couple berms before pulling out of it. Definitely something I could have spent some time riding if I was on the right bike! That back bowl area looked pretty gnarly too...saw a ladder bridge drop that lined up with a big step up hip jump that looked like it would be really fun.