James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Here's what I see as the best way to approach the men's classes. The philosophy I would take here is that this better separates the beginner/sport/expert into appropriate buckets.

Cat 5: The beginner class. After 10 races you have to move up to cat 4, just like road racing.
Cat 3/4: The sport class. This is the meat of cross, where the cat 5 racers should want to be.
Cat 1/2/3: The expert class that's also open to the fastest sport riders.

Then you can have a single masters class:
Cat 1/2/3/4 master's 45+

The problem I see with cat 3/4/5 40+ is that you've then created a massive class that covers beginner, sport, and teetotaling expert. I'm not sure I see the value in this class as I think it's a black hole of never getting out. I like the cat 5-only as it is a true beginner/entry-level class for both over & under 40 years old. The point of cat 5 is to introduce you to the sport and then bump you up. Having said that, I can get on board with a cat 3/4/5 40+ if that's the only 40+ class. The other 40+ guys need to race the cat 123 class. I guess I think there should be a single masters class. You are old, or you are fast. Pick one. I can get on board.

This is what I would suggest for New Jersey. I have no opinion on any other series as I am not familiar enough with the race attendance numbers, and so on. Looking at the NoHo pre-reg numbers, I'd say they are doing just fine and don't need my input.

*

Got on the Zwift today and the world was London again. I decided to hit the other 2 hills and aim for the PRs. I beat the first one, Leith Hill with a 7:30 time, previous best at 7:45. I then turned around at the bottom and did the other side, which is Keith Hill. I only had one effort in me today and didn't feel like giving it much more than that. At the top I realized that beating this PR should be doable but if I'm letting the ride come to me, today was not the day to be drilling it. In the end, about 8 minutes of work, which is fine 2 days before a race. In general I have adhered to not working much 2 days before a race but today I asked myself, has this pattern always worked? I don't know.

Tomorrow I guess I'll ride for an hour somewhere. I have no idea. I still need to get all the bikes ready for the weekend. I intended to do that today but then work was overly needy, then the rain meant i had to go pick up the boys early which derailed my day by about an hour all told. I was pretty aimless today and even as I sit here now writing this (it's 5:17 pm) I feel pretty aimless. It's been a sort of flavor this week, general aimlessness. I was going to edit 1 of the remaining 3 chapters of my book but again, my motivation is pretty low right now. This couch feels pretty much like all I feel like doing tonight.

The allergies have been pretty shitty for me this week. I've doubled my claritin/pseudoephedrine frequency the past few days. I've had a low-level headache all week.

Watched the Adam Sandler special on Netflix. I'm not a Sandler fan, or anti-fan for that matter. This was good, not great. If you're looking for something to watch you could certainly do worse. Put it on the list unless you hate him.

Tonight we will conclude the first season of Dark.

I'm just gonna submit this now and be done with it. I don't think I'm going to do anything creative for the remainder of today so I'll put this message in the bottle and throw it into the ocean.
 

mattybfat

The Opinion Police
Team MTBNJ Halter's
OMG. Every thread is turning into a CX talk thread.
I have no where else to go now.

Yes you do, "you'er" on the world wide wedding tour.
Make a blog about weddings attended and how you prepare.

I wood be just as entertained! :) Smiley for the sensitive.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
It was a crazy day, November 10th, 2018. I woke up and I wasn't myself. I had been replaced with the soul of @Mitch. I know that makes no sense, but read on, and maybe it becomes more clear. Or maybe not, I'm not entirely sure myself. All I know is that today, I lived and spoke and thought like MItch would have. Somehow we traded existential selves, for just this one day. The words below were written by that existential self we all know and love. The soul of Mitch through my person.

***********

I wake up to the alarm, which is weird, because I never set an alarm. "What the hell was that?!" I cry out. "Who sets an alarm?" After fumbling with this, whatever it is this phone is, I manage to get it to stop this...this noise it's making. Who sets an alarm on a Saturday? I think. And where the hell am I? I wonder. Then someone moves in the bed and replies, "You did, sweetie." Who the hell is this gorgeous blonde in my bed? I wonder. Oh shit, that's D! What the hell is going on here? Am I Norm? Why is he setting up an alarm on a Saturday? And should I grab her boobs just because I guess I can now? Before I can act on the thought, she replies, "You wanted to write this morning." Is that what I'm supposed to do? I wonder. "Ok, I guess I'll go write now," I reply. Then I get out of bed and think, Jeez, Norm has a beer gut but he doesn't drink beer anymore. That's too bad. And that's funny, his left testicle is lower than his right. Mine is the opposite.

I go downstairs to try and make a cup of coffee but it looks like NASA came and replaced all the normal coffee stuff with complex machinery. What the hell is this thing? Aeropress? What's this nonsense? It looks like one of them, what's it called in that movie with Mike Myers? You know, what's it called? Oh come on, you know that one that spoof about James Bond. Come on, you know. Austin Powers! Yeah, that's it. This thing looks like one of them penis pumps. Who makes coffee with a penis pump? No wonder he gets up so early. It probably takes him all day to make a cup of coffee.

I eat a banana instead.

I sit down and look at the laptop and start to read. What is this garbage? Is this about a robot? A robot man? Jeez this is what Norm works on all day? I'm not doing this. I'll just add a new chapter to his book. Maybe I'll do one of them haikus he writes.

Chapter 40 - Haiku

I like beer a lot
Except when I drink whiskey
But I still like beer


Ok so now what? I wonder what Norm does with his Saturdays when there's nothing to do. This is like my house. Nobody is awake, there are no kids around. I wonder where the kids are? I guess they must be at the other parents. This Norm, he's got it pretty good. Wakes up with this pretty girl in his bed every day, every other weekend to go do whatever he wants. Oh wait, that's right. I gotta race cross this weekend. Shit, I hope I return to my own body before tomorrow. Wait, though I bet if Norm is in my body right now, I bet he drinks all day and I wake up with a hangover. I mean, it's been a long time since he had a beer and he might get really drunk today. I hope he doesn't drink all my good beer. I knew I should have hidden it before I went to bed.

I admit that Mitch thinks a lot to himself. Then I remember I have to put my cross bikes together. Luckily, I can see them on the front porch from where I am sitting on the living room couch. Looks like a pretty day out there but I bet it's cold.

I go outside and put both bikes back together. By 8:00 I am done with both my writing for the day and the bike work needed for the race tomorrow. I mean I just lubed the chain a little. Yeah ok this crank is a little gummed up but you're just gonna ride in the mud. Why bother cleaning it? It's just gonna get all screwed up again. This writing and bike work is easy. By the sounds of it you'd think Norm is constructing the Space Shuttle and writing the Declaration of Independence with a turkey feather every day. This guy.

By now I am wondering about another cup of coffee but the NASA equipment is too hard to use. So I eat another banana and go wake up D. I bring her a cup of tea too which was easy enough to make since they have just a normal tea kettle on the stove. We talk about riding bikes and decide to go to the gym instead of me riding Zwift. Not that I could figure that out either. You probably need a PhD in cartography to get that stupid Zworfopia to work anyway. It'll be better just to go to the gym and let someone tell me what to do, I think.

The gym is a nice change of pace. I do a few efforts just to warm myself up for tomorrow's race. Man I really hope I'm out of his body before then because I don't want to race. My god he sweats so much. Maybe I should have bought them an air conditioner for their wedding present.

After the gym we head home and eat some lunch and get ready to go to Connecticut. Who spends a Saturday driving to Connecticut? This is stupid. For what? A cross race. I mean for christ sake you're already halfway to Maine. Why not just drive all the way up and have some lobster instead. Oh and while we're at it, here's what I think of your cross races. You should have 2 classes: Men, and Women. That's it. Just 2. Am I gonna have to drive all that way? I mean I get tired, you know. I might have to pull over and take a nap. This Norm, I mean he never sits still. Maybe I should have gotten him some valium for a wedding present.

We pack up the car and get ready for the trip north. What in the hell is this? A trainer? What is wrong with this guy? I really need to have a talk with him when this out-of-body experience ends. With the packing out of the way, we hit the road and stop just once for gas, tea, and a bathroom break. Woah this is great! I love not having to stop every 40 minutes to pee. I almost forgot how nice it is to have a fully functioning bladder.

We check in and drop our stuff in the room then go out to eat. For an odd reason, I am strongly tempted to break my 575 day streak of non-drinking and order one of everything on the drinks menu. But if I do that D will figure out something is up. Maybe one of these guys next to us will leave a glass half full or something I can grab on the way out, I think.

Back at the hotel I poop, merely for the comedic effect of this essay. Mother of god this guy's colon works like The Large Hadron Collider. I haven't had this much free movement in decades. Maybe I need to check out this Zworftopia one of these days. I forgot how nice this feels. On a side note, did you know Hadron and Hardon are really easy to switch when writing them? I think to myself. Well, sort of. At this point I'm not sure who is who.

I find some notes about us finishing the show Dark last night, I read them and throw them away, because suddenly everything seems like rubbish now. What is this causality versus free will crap? Who cares if Jonas is in 2052 for christ sake. Who is Jonas anyway and what does this have to do with the cross race tomorrow? He should watch good TV, like Archie Bunker and Sanford & Son. Not this stuff that makes you think like this. These guys they all think too much. What is this, I mean, who the hell believes in black holes and time travel anyway? This is stupid. I think all of these things, much like a lot I have thought about today, randomly and out of nowhere.

Eventually @seanrunnette shows up and we make our arrangements and hang out for the night, but not after I think to myself, Holy shit the tall guy is here? Where's he gonna sleep? You got an extra long bed for this guy because nothing in this room is gonna work. I hope he's used to sleeping on the floor or with his head hanging over the edge of the couch. I hope he doesn't snore. Oh wait, I probably snore.

Tomorrow is Northampton, which I am now considering skipping in lieu of drinking whiskey and soaking in a bathtub full of Other Half, for reasons I cannot explain.

I'm gonna write one more haiku for him.

Mitch has balls of steel
I sure could use a whiskey
Haikus are stupid
 

Mitch

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
This is the best fuckin post ever.
I can not believe that you nailed it.
I like the part about boobs the best.
My poops are still good, and I can drive all the way to Kingdom trails and not have to stop.

Im on a school bus right now heading home from wedding in Lancaster with a bunch of kids. I am limited in response time, kids are cursing and bus driver is yelling not to pass drinks on bus. Wtf

Norm wake up and be me next time, love Mitch
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Sunday Nov 11, 2018: Northampton

I'll start this off by saying that this may be the best cross course I've ever raced. If you were to ask me how I would make it better, I would say: change nothing. The park is beautiful. Parking is plentiful and convenient. Reg was simple. Food vendors were just everywhere. Bathrooms were beyond plentiful. And ok the course was probably as good as it gets. Possibly as good a course I've ever raced. Say what you want about Adam Myerson and how he can be abrasive with some people. I don't know the guy at all. But he can design one hell of a cross course. Absolutely loved this course.

Prediction: 78 of 91 (86% percentile)
Result: 62 of 77 (80% percentile)

This past week I said that my pie-in-the-sky result would be 65th. So as lousy as 62 might seem to you, it's a total win in my book. Aside from the numerical view, the racing was fun as hell. Even though it rained Friday and there was a race there Saturday, the course was mint, just beautiful. This is what I was hoping for this year, more of this. Lining up with a bunch of people. Racing a really well-designed course. Not having to deal with mud as my top 3 priorities. And just going out there and racing my bike to see how well the work I have been doing is working.

Great stuff. If you've never done this race, put it on your calendar for 2019. If at all possible, I'll be back next year.

I'll describe the course like this:
1. Start grid is along the S/F, goes up, does a 180, right hander, then opens up into some field work
2. A few turns with a smattering of mud, then a bit more field that turns into the barrier, which are shorter than normal, then a few more generic turns
3. Over 2 sets of railroad tracks (with covers) then shoots up into the "upper" section, into the 1 muddy area of the course - through some loamy material
4. Rolls out up top on some sidewalk, around some trees, around an off-camber turn, then STRAIGHT DOWN a loose dirt hill, 90-90 over the tracks again
5. Drive out some solid field turns, like the turns where you combine your fitness and ability to keep the bike planted to the ground at speed
6. Through some sand (which was hard packed) then around and back to a pretty big uphill run-up which you can maybe roll halfway up
7. At the top you roll through some trees with rocks, then down an off-camber technical downhill, and a few rolly-polly cool ass features
8. Some pavement, field work, then you pass through the S/F again

Once again, best course I've done in a hell of a long time.

So my call-up was lousy, as you'd expect. I was probably next-to-last row, pretty far from the front. Gun goes off and I clip in and let it happen. I just try to find a comfortable spot and let the disasters happen and avoid them. A few pile ups left & right, but nothing terrible. We're paired with the fast 15-18 kids so you have sporadic kids slamming into turns with no brains at all. Once upon a time this would bother me, but I don't let it phase me now. We roll into #2 above, and as expected it is SUPER tight. I opt for the outside line which puts you through the mud but I pass a bunch of people there. We loop around to the barriers and I just focus on not becoming part of anyone's highlight video. Once past that we file into the lead-in to the upper section.

The mud section is a runner on lap 1 because of traffic. In the off camber in #4 above some dopey kid dives the corner and knocks 4-5 people off their bikes, me included. I hell at him to learn how to ride a fucking bike but he ignores me and continues to ride on and presumably dive more corners like a moron. The rest of lap 1 is us shaking out and finding our happy place. In time, that would be the food tent but right now it is somewhere in the middle of these guys in front and behind me. The rest of the lap is pretty uneventful as far as I remember.

I should mention that before the race I noticed that 1 of the elastics on the GPS mount was gone so I decided to lock my GPS and keep it in my back pocket. I didn't want it to rip off and lose it. Maybe it was at this point in the race that I realized that I really liked not having it in front of me and from now on, I think I'll keep it out of sight. It was nice not having it tell me how long I had been out, how high my HR was, and so on. At the end of each lap I got a time check as well as a confirmation on how many laps were left. Having said that I didn't pay attention to either at the end of lap 1.

Lap 2 was a sort of finding a comfort zone, trying to make as few mistakes as possible, chipping away some people in front of me, and trying to ride as smoothly as possible. I did a decent job on lap 2 and I would later find that lap 2 and 3 were my 2 fastest laps, both of them the exact same time. On lap 2 I ran the mud pit again but some of the guys around rode it, and I decided to try and ride the next lap. It was muddy but not terrible. It was woods-mud not sopping-field mud.

D said I passed a handful of people on lap 2 but I don't have much of a recollection of it. End of lap 2 I see 3 to go and I do some mental math on the times. Turning decent times and I feel good. I drive out lap 3 with pretty much no incident. I ride the mud pit and just keep pushing out what I can. Getting tired but not hurting too much. Maybe just enough.

I pass a guy at the start of lap 4 and we go back and forth a bit. At the start of lap 5 he gets me back but I keep him in front of me the whole time, doing a yo-yo for the lap. The gap goes from 10 feet to 50 to 10 to 50. We obviously have different skillsets but when we get into the field to end the race, I give everything I have to try and track him down. I feel surprisingly good but he knows I'm there and he pushes enough to keep me away. When I check later, he has a crossresults number almost 100 points lower than me. So I feel good about being able to keep him in sight.

It's a lot harder to remember what I did and where I did it when I don't know anyone I'm racing with. In the end I was only 3 minutes behind Frank O'Reilly which I feel good about. These fields are big, and strong. Pretty happy about the day, all in all.

Here I am sticking my tongue out at some kid's ass. Not weird at all. Another note is that I realized that with big field sections like this, I end up in the drops more than usual. There's less need for bike piloting and I feel better pressing the gas pedal in this position.

IMG_2672.JPG
 

rottin'

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
@Norm the course looks pretty firm and dry in this pic. Waaaayyyyy different than the pics you have been throwing up the last few races. Glad to hear (read) it was a better experience this weekend :)
 

MadisonDan

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Very happy to hear this! I was a little concerned about the rain on Friday. Hope to see you at Supercross (meaning I hope I make it there).
 

pooriggy

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Looks like the cx race to be at this wknd. It seems like destination races are doing well and the local scene is suffering. I looked at the bike reg for Noho, it's advertised as an international event, I'm not sure what that means but it sounds important, like IHOP is the authority on pancakes. Also what is a UCI event? I hear these terms but don't really know what it means and what the implications are.

How is it that Pottstown Pa, Sly Fox can get over 400 reg and SCXC, Bubble CX get less then 200? We're in a densly populated area, yet the numbers suck. Are the courses that much better, are there too many options, do people prefer a destination, even if it's Pottstown? It seems like NJ CX is suffering from the same issues as H2H racing. Hopefully they can breathe some life into it to keep it alive.
 

ChrisG

Unapologetic Lifer for Rock and Roll
It was a crazy day, November 10th, 2018. I woke up and I wasn't myself. I had been replaced with the soul of @Mitch. I know that makes no sense, but read on, and maybe it becomes more clear. Or maybe not, I'm not entirely sure myself. All I know is that today, I lived and spoke and thought like Mitch would have. Somehow we traded existential selves, for just this one day. The words below were written by that existential self we all know and love. The soul of Mitch through my person....
Thank you, I enjoyed this immensely.
 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Also what is a UCI event? I

Pros use this for their international standings.
How is it that Pottstown Pa, Sly Fox can get over 400 reg and SCXC, Bubble CX get less then 200? We're in a densly populated area, yet the numbers suck. Are the courses that much better, are there too many options, do people prefer a destination, even if it's Pottstown

It was at a brewery, with a ton of spectators. Lots of food and beer. And the course was my favorite of the year. I enjoyed it more than bubble which was the previous bar.
The PA CX scene just seems to have a bigger crowd. I'm not sure why NJ is suffering.
 

rick81721

Lothar
Pros use this for their international standings.


It was at a brewery, with a ton of spectators. Lots of food and beer. And the course was my favorite of the year. I enjoyed it more than bubble which was the previous bar.
The PA CX scene just seems to have a bigger crowd. I'm not sure why NJ is suffering.

Sly Fox - the original one is in my home town of Phoenixville. Been there many times - good food and drink
 
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Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
The "we have such a high population" thing has always bugged me. We do have a lot of people in this state. But is it just that we are a state of lazy people? That the roads are so congested that road cycling sucks so therefore it filters down into less people ending up into MTB/Cross/Etc? Are we spending too much time working long hours in our corporate jobs and then the subsequent long commutes in shitty traffic to have hobbies that involve working up a sweat? NYC has millions of people. There isn't enough people in NYC bored enough on the weekends to go to Mountain Creek for skiing to keep the place from going bankrupt every 10 years?

The PA scene seems to do a great job of high registrations #s, spectator friendly, lots of food trucks/vendors, etc. Need a @pearl mathematical investigation of where geographically people come from to go to those races though. Are they truly stealing the NJ/NY riders or are there just at on of PA riders?

PA does seem to have the ability to have good venues that allow good parking/courses near to highways. There's no breweries/businesses around here that can support a cross race on their premises as businesses around here don't have fields like they do in PA. I do a few of the PA races as they're just so easy to get to off 78.
 
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