MBA

     I kept the heat turned up on the training the rest of February and saw some good gains with my laps at home and took it up a notch on the weights. I am feeling stronger on and off the bike. I've noticed that holding down power on flat sections is getting easier and I can go a gear or two harder up the climbs on our backyard loop. We have a nice loop of around four miles open now and I have been burning up the laps. Some of the newer sections are more open than anything we have ever had. I still like all singletrack, but this new section is helping me gain some power. I've hardly spent any time out on the road. It's indoors on the trainer on wet days and outside on the trail every time it's not muddy. My confidence is building every time I set a new PR or just have a day where I feel good on the bike. The weight is continuing to come down as well. I have been pretty hardcore with my diet the past two months and it is starting to show.

     Part of doing your homework means analyzing the past race to prepare for the next one. Having GPS data enables you to compare specific sections of a race against a previous effort or against another rider. I divided the Montgomery Bell Winter TT loop into many segments and compared it against the fastest riders from the February round. Seeing everyone's times for those sections showed me that I was faster in most sections. In the sections I did lose time, it was never more than a couple of seconds. I picked out the ones where I lost time and started to focus on them. I also took note of where I was significantly faster. You have to train your weaknesses and race your strengths.

     With all that data from off-the-bike studying in mind, I went for another scouting ride at the Bell. I had a little more time on this trip and really spent time tearing up those weak sections. Some of them I rode three and four times. I didn't lose a lot of time on the climbs, but it is an area where I feel weak, so I pushed the climbs as hard as I could. I broke the KOM again on Haynie Branch. I just love that trail! I learned where to ride fast and where I could start sprinting and be able to hold it all the way to the crest of the climb and beyond. I called these rides MBA. There's a private school in Nashville called Montgomery Bell Academy, or MBA for short. I was at school on these rides, learning the ways of the Bell.

    It has been a warm middle of winter. It was a brutally cold December and start to January, but since then it has been warmed with a lot of fine riding weather. The buttercups are starting to pop up and provide some color to the otherwise brown landscape that comes from dormant trees and other plants. There was one section at Montgomery Bell that was yellow on both sides of the trail.

Buttercups along White Pine

     This MBA ride also was a chance to test tires. I said I was going to get some new treads and I did. As soon as Maxxis let us start our ordering for the season, I requested three different tires than I have ever run before. I am trying out some thicker sidewalls to see if that will help with my flexing issue in corners. So far, I am really liking the Ikon with the EXO sidewall, which is thicker and offers more protection against cuts. It also comes Tubeless Ready, which means a better bead, and features a new 3C Maxx Speed compound which rolls a bit faster than the previous rubbers used in Maxxis mountain bike tires. They passed the first real test on this Montgomery Bell ride and have held up well at home with pressures lower than I have ever been able to run before.

I was pretty happy to find this box on the front porch

     I have been unable to attend most of the team rides recently. I have been spending the weekends on the mountain bike or hammering out practice cross races when the trail wasn't so good. The guys meet up a lot during the week, but I am usually working too late to join. They often ride at Fort Campbell, which is quite a haul from where I work at so it is nearly impossible for me to make it there in the afternoon. I did get out to one ride on a chilly Saturday. We didn't have the full team out, but still had a great time. I again rode to meet the group. It was a 40% chance of rain that day, so of course it began to rain as soon as we met up. We were in a downpour the rest of the ride and only about 40 degrees, but I had a great time. When the conditions are miserable and you are still having a good time that is when you know you are riding well. The cold started to get to me at the end of the 62-mile rain ride. I was still smiling when I rolled back into the garage, but I couldn't feel my hands, forearms and feet. They didn't feel all that cold, but they were so numb I couldn't unzip my shoe covers or take off my helmet. Shannon had to undress me and help me get the shower started. Paul Carter rode home as well and had a similar story to tell about being unable to get his clothes off.

     During that rainy ride, we also ran into Jimmy Blackmon on the road. He goes to church with us and is a recently retired commander with the 101st Airbourne. He's a pretty awesome guy that has done more things in his life than many of us will ever dream about. I always love hearing his stories. Apparently, other people do as well as he is doing quite a bit of public speaking and leadership training these days. He has also released a book called "Pale Horse: Hunting Terrorists and Commanding Heroes with the 101st Airborne Division" that has been quite popular. It's a great book that is a good read if you want an insider's perspective on the war in Afghanistan. It's available here on Amazon. I had heard Jimmy rode bikes, but had never actually seen him riding. He rode strong with us and is definitely a hardcore rider or else he would not have been out riding in the messy weather we were in. Only the crazies come out on days like this.

     I tried to host my own team ride one sunny day, but nobody really wanted to drive to my side of town. I did convince Paul and Jimmy Shepard to join me for most of the ride. I wanted to show everyone some backroads since they are always wanting to do gravel rides. But it seems as though they want one or the other. You start talking about rough roads with some gravel, big holes and wooden bridge crossings and people start backing out. Jimmy rode over from his house and did what was probably his longest ride since last summer. He was dying in the middle so we trimmed a few hills off the route. He's a big dude. When I say big, I mean big as in big freakin' muscles. He stretches out the sleeve of his XL jersey more than I stretch out the waist in a small. Dude is a monster! Jimmy was hurting, but I had good legs on the flats and Paul had good legs on the climbs so we worked together to get him home before dark and before his legs gave out. Even the Shepard needs a bit of shepherding every now and then.

     Our work at home has moved more to the outside now. I have been busting down an old fence where the previous owners kept their dogs. It was easy to knock the boards off, but the posts were in concrete so I had to dig every one of them up. It made for a good workout, but it was very time-consuming. We have also buried some drains off our gutters, busted up a big stump in the backyard, trimmed our apple trees, and filled in countless holes from the aforementioned dogs that lived here before us. Maybe this summer I will be able to mow without being thrown off the mower from so many holes.

     Shannon found a nice kitchen table for cheap and repainted it. She sanded it down, painted it gray, then added a lime wash. I was a bit skeptical of what it would look like after the lime wash, but I really like it. The streaks from the wash give the table depth. It's like looking into a granite bowling ball. I love how every piece of our furniture in the house has our own touch to it. Shannon has now recovered a couch, recovered two chairs and painted a table. Now she's making curtains for our windows. I have also been making bottle sprinklers for use in the garden. Hopefully, they will cut down on watering time.

Buttercups are out at home too

Testing the first bottle sprinkler

     We also bought a Mantis tiller. It is small, but it will help with garden prep and keeping the weeds down later in the summer. It's all we can afford right now. I hope to be able to get a bigger one some day in the future. We will be growing specialty hot peppers for a local sauce/rub maker so this year I am guaranteed to make some sales. I am excited to try some new peppers. He wants poblano, habanero, jalapeno, Trinidad scorpion and Ghost peppers for his sauces. Those last two varieties are incredibly hot. Planting the seeds of the Ghost peppers made my palm tingle. Picking will be interesting to say the least. I've had some advice given to me on safe harvesting techniques from a former Ghost pepper farmer. We have doubled the size of our garden space to accommodate the new peppers, so I will definitely be needing a tiller this year! Hopefully, this is the beginning of some success with Sweetwater Farms. We hope to grown it in the future and offer more veggies to local residents and maybe even start shipping some of the veggies like hot peppers than can survive the mailing process. I've also added landscaping services to our offerings to help get the business going.

Old house I saw while out on a road ride on a perfect day

     Next up on the writing list is Montgomery Bell Winter MTB TT Series #3. Stay tuned for that!