Hydration Pack or Bottles?

I'm contemplating my hydration plan for the upcoming 100-miler this weekend and am faced with the choice of using a hydration pack or bottles or a combination of both.  I have a bike with only 1 bottle cage available so regardless of which option I choose, I'll have a little water on my back.  For The Bailey Hundo this year I opted for a pack swapping out a pre-filled bladder 1/2 way through the race.  For last weekend's race I used bottles and had a teammate 1/2 way through each lap hand off a fresh bottle in addition to a stash at the start.  So based on my experience here are some reasons for or against using a Hydration pack.

Hydration Pack Pros:
* Easy to grab that little hose and suck even when in technical terrain. This makes staying hydrated easier.
* You can cary a little more water and save time passing up aid stations.
* A little more room for an extra vest, tube, food, etc.  You don't have to stuff that jersey to the limit.

Hydration Pack Cons:
* Weight, you have to cary more weight on your back rather than on the bike with bottles.
* High center of gravity, almost a guarantee the pack will slosh around and throw you off balance at some point.
* Hard to know how much water you have left.
* Takes a long time to refill.  Bottles are much faster to swap out and / or refill.

I know each pro / con doesn't cary equal weight and the terrain of the course, frequency of aide stations, etc can swing the pendulum one way or the other.  Still with that said, I'd love to hear your input on the topic.

2011 40 In The Fort

It was a tough call to choose between the Winter Park Point-to-Point race and the  40 In The Fort put on by the Overland Mountain Bike Club in FT Collins, CO this weekend.  Although I love the WP race series, I thought I'd give this new one a try.  I had only ridden in the FT Collins area one time before back in October 2011 for the first annual Ergon Monster Ride.  The race was on trails in both the Lory State Park and Horsetooth Mountain Park.  We did two 20-mile loops which covered the gamut of conditions: smooth singletrack, chunky technical climbs / decents, hike-a-bike,  and 20+% road climbs.

It  felt something like this:

It was a true mountain bike race.  If you don't have technical dirt skills, you'll be walking a lot up and down and probably will hate the race.  If you like technical (rocks, roots, water bars) climbs and decents, you'll love the race course.  I had a pretty good race unofficially finishing 10th in the open classification.  I had one issue with my front shifter that prevented me from using the big ring the 2nd lap but as you can see from the elevation profile above, the big ring was used sparingly.  Thanks again to all that helped out and put this event together.  A big thanks to my teammate and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. Jim Fu.  He and his family put me up the night before and made me feel very welcome on and off the course.  I'm looking forward to returning the favor sometime soon.

Rippin' Fast Downhill

One of the many big drops in Horsetooth.

Top of Bacon Hill or whatever that evil road is called.

Fu Dog making sure I make it back to a warm shower and awesome meal. That white sticker says "FU".

The lower trails were plagued with endless mud puddles.  Glad I used the wet lube.

2011 CU Boulder Short Track #6

Suffering. ..  Photo:  Kelly Feagans

I kicked it up a notch this week and took on the Men's A race at the CU Cycling Short Track Series. There weren't too many people so the race was pretty thin and went about how I expected it to go... with me straight off the back from the start riding solo most of the race.  It was fun to mix it up with the top-level riders in the area and push limits though.  The thing I like most about these races is the transparency. There is no where to hide.  Unlike the longer endurance races where riders are seen at the start and then 4-10 hours later at the finish, with STXC, failures and successes are played over lap after lap. Everyone watching can mark your progress, see you suffer, and cheer you on even if you are one the the last guys to cross the line.

Punchy course either kept you on the brakes or the gas.

pain-o-meter. 15 min longer than my past B races.

When I arrived in Boulder and found out all of the races were about 15-min behind, I decided to take a quick spin up to the Valmont Bike Park about 3 miles away from CU. This place is pretty sweet and has terrain for just about every rider.  I went ahead and pulled a 360 of the XL on my way back to the race.

Valmont Bike Park, Boulder

July 4th

I hope your 4th was as good as mine.  I love this country!

Riding Mt Evans from Idaho Springs

Top of Mt Evans

I took a spin to the top of Mt Evans today with my neighbor Roger Stones.  I've had this ride in mind for a while but haven't made time for it.  One of the things about Colorado that made me fall in love with it are the big mountains.  We have a bunch of peaks over 14,000 feet (50+) and all of them are accessible by hiking trail.  Mt Evans and Pikes Peak are the only two that have roads to the top as far as I know.  These roads are handy if one were to be training for say the Breckenridge 100 in July or the Colorado Trail Race in August as both of these races jump over 12,000 feet.  With Colorado still under lingering snow pack on many of the high trails, paved roads to the top of 14ers are a good alternative for elevation riding.

Chillin' with a PB&J checking out the wildlife and the route from whence we came.

The route looking north.  Idaho Springs is at the top and Evans at the bottom.

Distance: 55.55mi, Elevation Gain: 7,202ft, Round-trip time: 4:16

As is the norm for me, we started pre-dawn.

Cockpit view: Ergon Grips & Gloves and Radical Lights on board.

Roger around 13,000 feet