First off all my apologies as I'm late on this post, Jared was very diligent and got his take of Reimers Ranch online a few hours on getting back from the ride. The goal of this expedition was to ride the beginner course for the upcoming Singletrack Stampede race. I really didn't know what to expect from the course, I have ridden mountain bikes for many years in many different places, but none as technical as the first 2 miles of the course. Since I hadn't ridden on a trail in 8 years this was quite the experience. The first time through the course I had hit the dirt about 4 times! At least a couple of them were pretty hard. I still have the bruises to prove it. At least I didn't get too bloody.
The first 2 miles is very rocky with logs and roots and trees thrown in for good measure. On the first lap I was mentally questioning what I had gotten myself into. Luckily after the 2 miles it clears out and gets into more manageable terrain. Still a few roots and trees to navigate through and a lot of switch backs but at least there are some straight aways to build up some speed. The first time through the course my time was 01:26:02, but 13 of those minutes were recovering from my spills, active time of 01:13:26.
The second time through was a lot better, I didn't hit the dirt at all. I made it through more of the technical section without having to dismount, but there were still sections I just got off the bike and walked over. The second time through my duration was 1:08:43 with an active time of 1:02:38, so it looks like I took 6 minutes in water breaks. My average speed for the second time through was 10.26mph and my max speed was 21.17mph.
It looks like my best strategy is to just get through the first technical part as best I can and then just hammer it the last 8 miles and hopefully catch up with everybody.
At least we found some great BBQ in a little whole in the wall on Hamilton Pool Road. We both had wraps and were they not only inexpensive but they were filled. I think the price for a wrap was $2.50 and as much BBQ they had in them it could have easily been double that.
Jester is one of the local legend hills here in Austin, there's even a race dedicated to racing up the .42 miles. It doesn't look like the King of Jester will run this year and hasn't been run since 2006. The site claims the route is 350 vertical feet with grades ranging from 10% to 23% and averages 17%. Well I'm happy to report today for lunch I rode up Jester and didn't have to stop nor did I have to get out of the saddle. I didn't come close to finishing it as fast as the top finished when the race was run in 2006. For my first attempt I wanted to make sure I could at least get up without bodily injury, next time I'll go for the record.
Now the site claims it's a 350 ft climb, my stats say it was only 209 ft. It felt more than 209 so I'll have to do it several times to see if it was bad data. I know my Forerunner will give me different results for the same route on different days or if I do the same section on the same ride the numbers very from the different attempts. Limecreek is about 281 feet and Jester felt on par to it.
At first I was pretty happy with my time, 05:14, it was on par with one of my slower times up Limecreek. I thought it was decent for not going all out and my heart rate was in check the whole time. But then I clicked on the results on the Jester site. I would have at least made the list of top 50 for my age group. My hats off to Blake Harlan who in 2006 had the best time of 02:16.10, that's an average speed of 15.9 mph! There's cars out there that can't get up the hill that fast! Enjoy this video of the pedalmasher going up Jester.
Here's what I did in March. I started off riding 50 miles in the Pedal thru the Pines in Bastrop, TX and doing the 6 mile route for the Spokes N Spurs with Jack. The other notable ride was the 100K of climbs last Saturday all the others were training rides or riding with my boys or going to the store.
Here's the stats: 566.58 miles ridden 37.12 hours on the bike 29240.6 feet of climbing 25,859 calories burned 71 average cadence
The total climbing was my best for a month since I've been keeping score. It was 2569.4 feet better than my previous high mark which was Feb. 2008. Also this is the most miles I've ridden in a month, beating last month by 34.7 miles.
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