Jshort’s bike thread

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I want to have a spot for race recaps. Im really not interested in much else, but I do like writing about races.

Short Track #1 was the first race of 2016. It picks up right where the 2015 season ended, with a 45 minute balls out/cross effort. This course was a little moe technical than a cross course though (Even though some dude decided to race his cross bike).

After a few warm up laps everything is still frozen solid, ruts and all. The ruts were a little sketchy bcause they were all on the bch cut sections on the side of a slope. Otherwise, everything was tip top.

Warm up pic!
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Lining up 3 or 4 rows back. And this isnt an organized cross race with callups. Line up where you get and live with it. In case you didnt see the pre-eg, this race was stacked. @Kirt said it was the deepest race we've had for one of these... i'll take his word for it. Back to my position, i'm realy not sure what to expect out of myself considring the competition. I have been doing the basement hamster thing, and i'm definitley in a better place than this time last year, but still really not sure how those trainer hous will translate on dirt in a race.

We all take off and my only goal is to get in front of the guy on the cross bike. I have no interest in being behind him once we get off the fire road. Mission accomplished on that, and then I settle in probably in 15th or so.



Once I catch my breath in the singletrack, its time to start making some moves on the fire road. Its tight, and everyone else has the same idea so passing is still tough.

Somewhere around the 2d or 3rd lap I find myself behind @UtahJoe. He takes a shitty line in a weak attempt to make a pass and I end up getting around him. Now, i like to bust Utah's balls, but shortly after the start / finish, he takes off and after a few minutes I dont see him again. He said something about not letting @The Heckler beat him and powered away. Bye Bye Utah.

Another awesome @gtluke Pic!
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Eventually I catch Heckler too and am able to put him behind me...which to his credit, is petty satisfying. I spent the 2015 cross season watching him dominate, so passing him here felt good.

Going into the last 2 laps I was leading a train of 3 or 4 including Dan and Heckler and some other guy I dont know. At this point the lapped trafic (fat bikes) were a big factor. If you built up a lead, you could lose it just like that because someone was in front and you couldnt pass. It went both ways though, and if you made a pass, the guy behind you may not have such an easy opportunity and get stuck, thereby building your lead.

I managed to stay in front of the pack until the start of the last lap. Dan S made a move and got in front. At first I wasnt too worried. I had good legs and felt l would be able to get back. Wrong. He put a little space beteeen us and then some lapped trafic got in between. Next thing I know, he's out.

I was able to hold on to 9th, which all things considered, i'll call it a successful kick off to 2016. Looking foward to next week's race.
 

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Nice job! Top ten is always good work!

About those shoes - I've heard they are a loose fitting shoe. Do you notice that? And do those laces get tought to work with in snow or mud?
 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Nice job! Top ten is always good work!

About those shoes - I've heard they are a loose fitting shoe. Do you notice that? And do those laces get tought to work with in snow or mud?

I dont think they are loose.. they are as tight as you tie them. :)

I have never had them come unlaced during a race. On a locg ride, i'll tighten them once in a great while. I'm actualy surprised how good they stay laced.

The best part is cleaning them. 1 wet paper towel with some soap and done in 30 seconds. They wipe clean so easy.
 

Pearl

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
good title, glad to read recap. that field was 1000% stacked.

glad to hear you hampstering too. feels good to get into the groove early in the year, doesn't it?
 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
good title, glad to read recap. that field was 1000% stacked.

glad to hear you hampstering too. feels good to get into the groove early in the year, doesn't it?

It does feel good. For only doing 6 hours a week or so, i feel pretty good. Quality > quantity.
 

Magic

Formerly 1sh0t1b33r
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I love recaps since Pearl has been slacking hard. Looking forward to reading these!

I will always read the thread title as 'The Short Report', dropping the t's.
 

MadisonDan

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I dont think they are loose.. they are as tight as you tie them. :)

I have never had them come unlaced during a race. On a locg ride, i'll tighten them once in a great while. I'm actualy surprised how good they stay laced.

The best part is cleaning them. 1 wet paper towel with some soap and done in 30 seconds. They wipe clean so easy.

+1 for those...

Nice recap.
 

jackx

Well-Known Member
I bet those shoes are significantly lighter than shoes with a lot of plastic and metal buckles/straps.

Great recap. Cool to see the video, so thanks for posting that too. I enjoyed watching that!
 

The Heckler

You bring new meaning to the term SUCK
When you passed me on the fire trail I had that "oh boy" sinking feeling, my legs were not in the mood to respond. The lap traffic helped a little but ultimately you managed a 10+ bike gap with one guy which was really the nail in my coffin. Then you sprinted the turnaround last lap and it was over you and Nick (i think?) just rode away.

Great job dood, keep hamstering!
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Lined up way back? I just made my way to the front row and pretended like I was friends with @Norm.

You were hauling, definitely a solid first race. Nice work.

First couple of laps of the year....im just glad I didnt end up in at the bottom of the lake. Stay away from that B line for sure.
 

jackx

Well-Known Member
Full video 1 day after the race is pretty awesome. Out of state peeps should be happy with that in lieu of live streaming.

Cool too that audio is included. Thanks again for sharing, @jShort !
 

jackx

Well-Known Member
I
Lined up way back? I just made my way to the front row and pretended like I was friends with @Norm.

You were hauling, definitely a solid first race. Nice work.

First couple of laps of the year....im just glad I didnt end up in at the bottom of the lake. Stay away from that B line for sure.
I didn't use that B line except for one lap when I came up on one of the women and she offered it to me for passing her. It worked well for that planned pass.
 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Another Sunday in Spring, and another short track race. These races are really good at shocking the senses. I’m basically doing a cross race effort at a time of the year where my body wants to be doing something else. Like drinking beer and eating Doritos.

I could tell 20 minutes after I got out of bed that body didn’t want to cooperate. I hit the snooze button 15 times, the coffee wasn’t strong enough, and breakfast went down as smooth as that first Miller Lite before a Jets tailgate. Then to top it all off, the weather was looking like winter.


After a few warm up laps I came to the conclusion that I was not warmed up so I tried to squeeze in one more. @gtluke told me I did too many and I was wasting too much energy. Ha Ha funny guy.

I got back to the start / finish and realized I was too late…. I had to sneak in 3 or 4 rows back. This Sunday I will be camped out at 8:40AM to get a good spot.


@Norm says Go and we are off. (He needs to buy a gun or something for better starts… just saying “go” is pretty no frills and that was short track from a few years ago).


Here are some bullet points on the actual race.


· I spun out my 32t on the fireroad. I wasn’t catching anybody. Need a 34 this year.

· I counted about 170 guys in front of me before we went into the back loop/Singletrack. See first bullet

· There were way too many guys to pass . The guys I wanted to race with were out of reach.

· I raced the next 5 laps all alone.

· I don’t push when I’m all alone.

· That rock did not allow for a good launch and my pictures suffered.

· @Chris26er said I looked retarded on Instagram

· I had too much air in my tires because I forgot my pump and used @Utah. I rushed this process because I was cold.

· I had too much air in my fork and rear shock because I put in an extra 15 PSI the night before because... because stupid.

· I didn’t have my customary Gu and read bull 1 hour before the race and maybe its mental…. but I felt like I missed them.

· I still finished 8th.

· I am in much better shape than I was at this time last year.

· I can do better

· I need to get my pre-race routine dialed in during the next 2 weeks.

· First H2H race is in 3 weeks.


Till next week….

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