Your trail: Home  Bikeman Blogs Some Winter Base
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The Bikeman Blogs section is our collection of blogs from our Team Bikeman members and friends of Bikeman. Contributions from regular riders and commuters, bike aficionados, and world class racers.
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Howdo. My name is Zach Magoon and I have been commuting year-round by bike for the last 7 years in both Boston, MA and Portland, ME. Because each day brings new challenges, whether it be changing weather conditions, crappy drivers, sore muscles or mechanicals, I think my ramblings will be, at the very least, moderately amusing. | |
Commuter Files Archives. |
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Greetings and salutations. My name is Rick Nelson (no, not that one damnit) and I am a rider for Team Bikeman.com. You can check out my profile in the team rider section. “Racin Rick” covers my trials and tribulations as a mountain bike racer, commuter, new father etc. In truth, its just a way for me to kill time at work and to see pictures of myself on the web. So here are some excerpts from all my blogging, hope you enjoy. | |
Racin Rick Archives. |
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Welcome to Tales From The Soiled Chamois. This is going to be an online journal taking you through my season of training for and racing marathon, 6, 12, and 24 hour solo endurance races all while working a full time job, being married with a two year old son. I'm no pro, even though I do occasionally race against them. I'm just out there having fun pushing myself. | |
The Soiled Chamois Archives. |
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Not to be confused with the time-trial and women's-specific 650C wheel, the 650B wheel is all about comfort, versatility, and speed over varied terrain. The key to this is all in the tires. A 650x38B setup is about the same diameter as a 700C wheel with a 19mm tire... | |
650Blog Archives. |
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Some Winter Base |
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Written by Jason Mahokey
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Sunday, 06 January 2008 |
Some Winter Base
 | | Spinning the rail trail. |
Ah yes winter. For many of my Bikeman.com teammates, Cross has just ended and they're still washing the mud off their Chili Con Crossos! For me the off season has been going one for a quite a few months. My last race was clear back on labor day weekend. I took some time off the bike, then just rode for the fun of it. Staying of the roads and in the woods on my Mamasita and Dos Niner.
Come November I started up my off season training again. Or at least MY interpretation of training. I hit the basement for some core and light weight workouts (I know no other kind of weight workout), as well as spinning on my trainer.
The trails have become pretty soggy due to a very wet late fall and winter here in Western PA, so I have been logging some base miles in on our local rail trails and on the road. I've mostly been using my Salsa Mamasita since my Trek 2200's carbon fork started showing signs of what could result in a "catastrophic event" to quote one local shop mechanic. So I thought it best to roll the Mamasita until I got the warranty all tidied up.
Truthfully it's been cool to ride the full knobbed 29er on the road. I think it's great prep for races like the Wilderness 101, Mohican 100 or other "hundie" that has a lot of road and gravel road miles. Plus it's a HELL of workout. Some of the hills around these parts are hard enough with a 18 lb. road bike let alone a 26+ lb. mountain bike with full knobby tires!
I've also got some miles in on the rail trail. I pretty much avoid our local rail trails during the summer because truthfully they're pretty damn boring and a bit crowded. BUT in cold winter months they are vacant and a great way to log some base miles without the worry of cars or steep climbs. You can pretty much pedal as fast or slow as you want. Spin high cadence or low RPM. Just depends on what you feel like. I can't imagine doing the rail trail all the time. I think I'd go insane, but when If I can avoid any two hour rides on the stationary trainer (only 2 so far this year), I'll do it.
So some cold rides outside and some hot sweaty trainer rides are about all that's going on right now. My first race, a 13 hour solo race in Virginia is about 15 weeks away. That seems like a long time away, but it will be here before you know it. I better get pedaling!
Hope you all had a great holiday season. I've attached some picts from some of my recent road and rail trail rides. You will see much of them have been under standard Western PA gray skies. Oh well it lets me work on my pastiness.
Later.
Jason
"The Soiled Chamois"
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; "Spinning the rail trail.")
