Got up early and hit the road for the first race of many to come in this spring MTB season. This would be my first race in the 30-35 catagory which is much more compedative. I got there and was reg'd by 8:30 took the next 30mins to try and warm up a bit as I now know that a good start is key! The bell rings and I get a great start! nail my pedal the first time and I'm in a good spot amongst the Experts. We hit the first climb which was the bridges switch backs and I'm a bit redlined from the pace, legs are good lungs are burning!!! The dragons back was fun I was rocking that decent! We cut up the ambulance road and down the tunnel of love and over the whoops. 35min lap, I was feeling good but I thought I needed to dial it back a bit. So I did and while I cleared the whole course again (no dabs at all!) I was 4mins slower:( 39 mins.... Yea I dialed it back too much, not really in any one spot just on the climbs in general. Ended up 7th in 30-35 the 4mins would have gotta me 5th :( Live and learn as I learned to get a good start and I did and now I know never let up! NEVER! Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 1682 ft Location: Aguanga, CA Elev. Gain: +7 ft Date: 01/31/09 Up/Downhill: [+1617/-1610] Time: 09:01 AM Difficulty: 4.2 / 5.0   Weather: Fair   54 F temp; 46% humidity   54 F heat index; winds SE 3 Performance Distance: 11.92 miles Time: 1:28:04 Speed: 8.1 mph Pace: 7' 24 /mi Heart Rate: 179 bpm (Avg) Calories: 565 192 bpm (Peak) Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)

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Wheel Builder

A new title for me :) "Wheel builder" Tony needed a new rear wheel and wanted an Uber black wheel that was Beefy! 36 spoke Mavic 721, XT hut, 14 straight gauge spokes, alloy nipples.

Checked out La Costa for the first time... at night.... :) We got a lill lost at first and climbed up the steep ass fireroad! its was a grinder! and def no warm up! but we got to the top and found NASCAR! man that is fun! Matt had some issues as he didn't have a lot of light. We made our way down and kinda got lost again when we got to a spot where it just looped back but figured out a way up the switchbacks. That was a really fun technical climb. These trails were 75% rock and lots of tech I loved it! I dabbed in 2 spots, 1 was a rocky section where I lost traction and I picked a bad line 30 yrds from the top and smashed my knee on my stem :( Great ride can't wait to do it again some time! Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 709 ft Location: Rancho Santa Fe, CA Elev. Gain: +33 ft Date: 01/29/09 Up/Downhill: [+1269/-1236] Time: 06:11 PM Difficulty: 3.5 / 5.0   Weather: Fair   62 F temp; 28% humidity   62 F heat index; winds E 5 Performance Distance: 5.13 miles Time: 1:24:23 Speed: 3.7 mph Pace: 16' 13 /mi Heart Rate: 160 bpm (Avg) Calories: 370 187 bpm (Peak) Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)

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First night ride in a while, and the first night ride on the new rig. Man night riding can be fun and annoying at the same time. I really just wanted to ride in the warm sunshine instead we had to ride in mid 40's darkness, but it is January so I can't complain :) Me and Jeff hit up the clairemont mesa side. Due to the Aqua duct project the bridge across the canyon was closed though there was another access point just to the south. That put us on a super steep climb to start though! ouch! and with the cold air both of our lungs were on FIRE at the top of it... This kinda took the wind out of my sails for the rest of the ride as I just felt like I swallowed a match the rest of the ride. But onward we went across the mesa down past E ticket and over to the 52 climb... man I love how this bike climbs! I cleared the lower stuff with ease and then I cleared the top section (for maybe the 3 or 4th time ever) with no issues no bobbles! then it was down :) and I would drop the seat on the descents and pop it back up on the climbs so cool! Down Eticket (which is super bad now and I got swallowed up by a rut) across the bottom on the canyon, I was a rec in the rock garden picking weird lines but I did clear over some big rocks... Then we hit S turns and I was really hoping to top this ride off by clearing it! The lungs were on FIRE but the legs felt good. I was doing good I was about 80% up past all the hard stuff when I tapped a loose rock my rear wheel spun and lost my balance.... damn.... but I dabbled just for a minute and cleared the rest of it. Then we rode the fire road back a short, slightly painful on the lungs, fun night ride. Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 679 ft Location: San Diego/Miramar MCAS, CA Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 01/27/09 Up/Downhill: [+1131/-1131] Time: 05:37 PM Difficulty: 3.4 / 5.0   Weather: Fair   56 F temp; 48% humidity   56 F heat index; winds NW 6 Performance Distance: 6.01 miles Time: 1:13:59 Speed: 4.9 mph Pace: 12' 15 /mi Heart Rate: 162 bpm (Avg) Calories: 390 193 bpm (Peak) Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)

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Met up with a new crew down in Bonita to try some new trails. Was really looking forward to a new ride. so we hit the trail at 9am and it didn't disappoint. A fun ride and a great way to stretch the legs after my time off. Not a lot of climbing but lots of rolling hills and great technical stuff! including some local trails complete with stunts :) Great stuff I look forward to going back! Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 347 ft Location: Lincoln Acres, -- Elev. Gain: +295 ft Date: 01/24/09 Up/Downhill: [+1505/-1210] Time: 09:10 AM Difficulty: 3.7 / 5.0   Weather: Mostly Cloudy   57 F temp; 93% humidity   57 F heat index; winds Calm Performance Distance: 8.85 miles Time: 2:49:34 Speed: 3.1 mph Pace: 19' 21 /mi Heart Rate: 143 bpm (Avg) Calories: 595 191 bpm (Peak) Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)

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Rainy winter day

Well forecasters got it all wrong again.... So it was time to pull out the trainer and spin while watching the Tour Down Under, catch up on Leverage, and catch up a bit on Battle Star Galactica.... :) Easy spin the legs are recovering well from Mondays beat down I gave them in the gym, MTB at La costa tomorrow.

What a ride! First day back on the bike in 2 weeks. First time on the new rig. First impressions are great. The fork is stiff! and the rear doesn't feel like a ton of travel but when you need it (like when me and Joe hucked a much bigger drop then usual it was there and plush!) As far as me... my legs are pistons firing like mad! but the lungs burned and the HR was WAY WAY WAY up hi.... not to be suprised...

The climb up was a bitch as usual but this new geometry is great on the climbs! the rear set on pro pedal the fork set at 100mm and away I went! no hicups no dabs just slow and steady all the way up! Down put the rear to open the fork to 140mm and down we went! man its amazing!

Big observations the longer stem was great on climbs but slow reacting on descents.... the bars were wider then I'm used to but may give it a chance as it gave great leverage out of the saddle climbing. The seat post is the hella sickness! the saddle is ok and one HUGE thing I noticed is my lower back didn't hurt!

My back has been my weak point for years! in the saddle cranking out power puts strain on my lower back and I didn't feel that on this bike! Training begins, gym monday and night ride tuesday :)

Activity Route: ATT world cup Elev. Avg: 1699 ft Location: Alpine, CA Elev. Gain: -3 ft Date: 01/18/09 Up/Downhill: [+2326/-2329] Time: 10:00 AM Difficulty: 4.2 / 5.0   Weather: Partly Cloudy   84 F temp; 14% humidity   79 F heat index; winds Vrbl 6 Performance Distance: 11.37 miles Time: 2:38:30 Speed: 4.3 mph Pace: 13' 57 /mi Heart Rate: 166 bpm (Avg) Calories: 2458 193 bpm (Peak) Map Alpine, California   Elevation (ft)

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New rig

The new '09 Stumpy is resting quietly in the garage


2009 Specialized Stumpy from Scott Holland on Vimeo.

27.5 lbs makes her 0.5 lbs lighter then my Indy Fab! Going tubless and a few small updates hope to get here in the 27 lbs range for race season!

4x4 Day!

Well after a week of rest and a nice Friday off it was out to east county for a lill 4x4 action now that the jeep is all payed off and a play toy :)

We head out to Los Pinos Mountain and the OHV area out there man it was fun!

Map below



Lots of pics and even more video to cut up :) the Hero was a champ! really really fun stuff!

Rest.....

Well with the past racing weekend I decided to go straight into my full on winter rest period... God I'm gonna be feaning for a ride esp with my new road wheels in route.

But the next couple weeks will be full of rest, trying to keep calories down, and cleaning/fixing bikes (and maybe adding a new one to the stable if possible)

With that thought I wanted to toss in my thoughts on how '08 went and my goals for '09

'08 was a bigger year then I thought it would be it started out with the thought of doing a 24hr race on a 5 man team and ended with me doing 2 24hr races, 1 12 hr race, 12 XC race, and 1 CX race..... Happiest of all I hit that 2,750 mile goal even though it was more then 50% MTB'ing :)

stats from '08
Month miles hrs
Jan 121.996 7.53
Feb 85.64 14.91
March 276.02 29.19
April 203.33 18.41
May 352.03 20.63
June 274.9 16.88
July 310.73 22.63
August 237.77 15.38
Sept 354.18 32.51
Oct 220.42 19.80
Nov 188.64 17.65
Dec 130.28 9.47





Looking back January was a pretty good month for the winter and I was sick in February, so I can only hope to match those numbers.

2009

My next race will be Feb 1st after 2 weeks of training. I hope to just knock the dust off and feel well. After that its lifting and tempo rides for February which will be a lot of Road with the Cancer ride and the tour to Cali.

After feb its no joke nose to the grind stone thru march with a couple races in prep for the biggy.... The Santa Ynez Valley US Mt. Bike Cup that is my first A race of the year.

The late spring and summer will be just fun stuff and a couple bike trips Tahoe and hopefully an eastcoast trip as well.

August will see me shifting away from MTB'ing and really concentrating on Cyclocross for the first time ever. I plan on doing a serious CX season. So August will see lots of intervals and CX riding with a race toward the end then races every couple weeks till the season ends in December.

I'm hoping to also sneak in the 12hrs of temecula in November as a SOLO! that is if the CX season lines up right and I can skip a race or 2 and still put in a good season.

We'll see how it all plays out but this year for the first time since 2001 I'll have a full race calender and I might even do more races than I did @ my peak racing....?

'09 will be interesting that is for sure!

Sunday am after getting home and not even taking my bike out of the car :) I get up at 6:45am and am at vail lake by 8:15 for a 9am start. The legs are tired and its cold out (maybe 40F) big mass start and again I get a crappy start and was totally not warmed up! I head up the first climb and I can see the guy I know I lost to in november pulling away from me. Down the tunnel of love and over the whoops and finally I start to get warmed up! Then we hit the marine corps climb (aka the run up as ist way to steep and loose to ride) after that a fun decent to the start finish first lap 30mins!!!! Now I'm warmed up bit the legs are still tired I turn a 29min lap and on the final lap I pull a 27min lap! Now its def time for a break! I'm gonna basically shut it down for most if january and hit it HARD in feb!!! Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 1638 ft Location: Aguanga, CA Elev. Gain: +6 ft Date: 01/04/09 Up/Downhill: [+1459/-1453] Time: 08:38 AM Difficulty: 4.3 / 5.0   Weather: Fair   54 F temp; 61% humidity   54 F heat index; winds Calm Performance Distance: 15.16 miles Time: 1:53:30 Speed: 8.0 mph Pace: 7' 30 /mi Calories: 687 Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)

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A few hrs later of sitting in the car and hangin out in crap cold weather with was FINALLY time for the night crit :) This was a super fun event! there were only like 10-15 people racing so it was rapped into 1 pack race (pro thru beginner) so suffice to say I planned on getting lapped.... But there would be no pulls as there was so few people it was easy to figure out who was on the lead lap and we all finished on the same lap. The gun went off and I got an ok start... 4 laps in and yup I get lapped by the pro leader :) a few laps later again I get lapped by the leader! I'm slow and its cold my lungs are burning from the cold air! with 3 laps to go I see the leader coming in on his final lap and I don't want to get laped 3X!!!! So I try and kick a bit and do stay on that lap and have 3 togo, I almost got lapped by the Sport leader.... but I lapped the 3rd place sport guy too :) 2nd place sport class Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 1551 ft Location: Aguanga, CA Elev. Gain: +4 ft Date: 01/03/09 Up/Downhill: [+26/-22] Time: 12:37 PM Difficulty: 1.3 / 5.0   Weather: Mostly Cloudy   56 F temp; 83% humidity   56 F heat index; winds Calm Performance Distance: 0.38 miles Time: 3:37:21 Speed: 0.1 mph Pace: 10' 00' 00 /mi Heart Rate: 183 bpm (Avg) Calories: 184 193 bpm (Peak) Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)

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Ok I'll start it off with Super D.... It was a cold (40's) and drizzly am :( I dragged kerin out of bed and we headed up to grab a fullface helmet from Matt and then over to Vail Lake. I reg'd ~11:30am and we on the first shuttle up at 12:00... I could already tell my legs were junk :( Hiking and traveling had killed me but its all in fun so I hit the first shuttle slow and scouted. 2nd shuttle @ 1pm headed up and moved a lill quicker though my legs just didn't have the pop to sprint! We took the final shuttle up ~2pm and I chatted with Eric Carter as he came out to support the local lill race scene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Carter) Robert got the race started and I had a crap start and couldn't get clipped in! damnit! I got stuck behind a few slower riders on the first single track section, but once it opened up I passed a couple people and then was on my way, on the lill climb I passed another rider and got in a better groove. We hit the BMX park and I should have been pumping stuff and railing berms but my legs didn't have the snap to sprint out of the corners like I can.... I ended up in 2nd sport 19-29.... but could have done better (I was also the ONLY guy on a hardtail :) Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 1786 ft Location: Pala, CA Elev. Gain: -538 ft Date: 01/03/09 Up/Downhill: [+75/-613] Time: 12:19 PM Difficulty: 1.4 / 5.0   Weather: Overcast   55 F temp; 86% humidity   55 F heat index; winds Calm Performance Distance: 1.60 miles Time: 0:09:25 Speed: 10.2 mph Pace: 5' 53 /mi Heart Rate: 185 bpm (Avg) Calories: 87 193 bpm (Peak) Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)

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First ride of the year! I fixed the broken barrel adjuster on the IF and off to Mission trails we were. We went up the canyon to the east of spring and for the first time EVER I cleared the whole climb including the tuff right!. Then down a long fun decent, then headed up north again and up spring I got all the way up to the tuff part. The it was over to Oak cyn and I walked the sketchy section, Jeff rode it, and jason had a sick over the bars dismount which he ran out of! Down spring was fun! my legs were feeling Mt washington still so I wasn't as fast as usual but was having fun! We then climbed up the switches I cleared all the tuff lefts!!!! and on the last easy right I screwed it up.... damn but was feeling ok. We then had a great decent down the barrels and back to the cars :) Great new years ride! Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 585 ft Location: La Mesa, CA Elev. Gain: -13 ft Date: 01/01/09 Up/Downhill: [+1909/-1922] Time: 01:10 PM Difficulty: 4.3 / 5.0   Weather: Fair with Haze   62 F temp; 64% humidity   62 F heat index; winds W 6 Performance Distance: 18.04 miles Time: 3:13:01 Speed: 5.6 mph Pace: 10' 43 /mi Heart Rate: 151 bpm (Avg) Calories: 981 192 bpm (Peak) Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)

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So with the cycling goal for the year done I was on to one last thing to do in 2008. I really wanted to conquer mount washington in the dead of winter! (for those not familiar Mnt washinton in winter http://www.mountwashington.org/about/visitor/winter.php ) "Mount Washington's weather has been called "the world's worst", since the fiercest winter conditions on the mountain rival those of the polar regions and the highest mountains on earth. Among the challenging, sometimes fatal meteorological conditions on the mountain in winter" We crashed up in N. Conway that night and hit the trail uber early! I borrowed/rented the specialty gear, winter mountaineering boots, cramp ons (yea knives for your feet!), glacier ice ax, belay jacket, and mountaineering gloves) We got to Pinkham notch and geared up! I downed a couple hand fulls of gorp and a bagel and 3/4 of a nalgene. We hit the fire road up w/o cramp ons and made our way up past some crazy water falls, the temp was in the 30's as after only a few mins we started to layer down. We got to the base of the lion's head winter route. There we dawned our crank ons and pulled out the ice axes. I also layered down again. This is where it got really cool as right way it started to ascend quickly! The cramp ons were digging in and the ice axe was being put to good use to stabilize me as I climbed. I wasn't very sure how it would feel to climb in cramp ons and it def was an odd feeling. but I was getting use to it (trial by fire :) We hit "the step" a very steep (almost vertical section) time to see what this gear can do! and damn those big spikes sticking out of my toes worked wonders :) no issues right up and the next couple sections also :) We started to get close to tree line and the layers started to come back on a lill (real gloves goggles and balaclava) as we got over Lions head the wind picked up (gusting in the hi 60's) there wasn't a ton of snow in this section but lots of ice! We made our way across the alpine garden to the summit cone. The wind was blowing and the clouds were flying by giving us peaks of the valley below and funneling down into tuckerman's ravine so cool! We made our way up the summit cone mostly rock and ice not alot of snow as there were warm temps earlier in the week + hi winds blowing it off the mnt. We finally hit the summit! and on went the belay jacket over the shell (and damn that thing was warm!) I kept it on as we down climbed. We made decent work of the summit cone and the alpine garden, we got down into lions head and the legs were starting to feel the burn! we got to the step and that was soooo much easier to get up then down :) but slow and steading and I got my foot placement right and no issues. We got to the bottom of lions head winter route and my feet were killing me! Maybe it was just the style of hiking with crampons and kicking my feet in, maybe it was the boots being a lill big I'm not sure but I was freaking slow on the fireroad down :( We finally finished up and damn was I happy to get those boots off! We hit up flat breads and I drank a tuckermans ale and KILLED a large pizza as my HR monitor said 6200 calories... so I deserved it :) Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 4018 ft Location: Wildcat Mountain Ski Area, NH Elev. Gain: -6 ft Date: 12/29/08 Up/Downhill: [+4337/-4343] Time: 07:25 AM Difficulty: 4.1 / 5.0 Performance Distance: 6.76 miles Time: 9:42:32 Speed: 0.7 mph Pace: 01' 25' 43 /mi Heart Rate: 140 bpm (Avg) Calories: 1295 178 bpm (Peak) Map   Elevation (ft)   Speed (mph)   Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 45' 27 -40' 15 1.3 +0.6 +741 ft 2 02' 02' 26 +36' 43 0.5 -0.2 +1233 ft 3 02' 07' 39 +41' 56 0.5 -0.2 +1742 ft 4 02' 00' 00 +34' 17 0.5 -0.2 -473 ft 5 01' 43' 26 +17' 43 0.6 -0.1 -1785 ft 6 37' 16 -48' 26 1.6 +0.9 -941 ft end 35' 30 -50' 12 1.7 +1.0 -525 ft Versus average of 0.7 mph

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