Vineman more

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 2 Comments

Triathlons are an odd thing. I’ve always held them at a distance because of the type of people who do them and my desire to not be associated with it. But I am getting over it. This was super fun. One of the funnest days I have ever had. I’m a bit rushed right now cause I am leaving on a camping trip down the coast back to LA, but here’s the story. Hope to get photos up soon. Enjoy.

Swim
Stupid wetsuit wouldn’t zipper. I am swimming up to the start as the gun goes off, about two minutes ahead of where I was at Auburn, but still late. D’oh.

I chill. Long strokes, easy pace, stay in a group. I am looking around, enjoying the beauty. Making note of points on the out-and-back so I know where I am when I return.

At the turn around I can’t believe how fast I am and how good I feel. ‘This is going way better than any other swim.’ I am approaching the swim exit and strangely I don’t see anyone exiting. Is it around a corner? Who are those people swimming up the other way again? Oh, it’s two laps. I’m not that fast. I’m only half-way. I should wear a watch. About 35 minutes later I am really getting out of the water.

T1
What do you think of when someone says ‘wetsuit stripper’? It’s not what you kind of wish it would be it’s having a team of people pull off your wetsuit. It is awesome. I was a bit overtaken by how quickly I went from being fully covered to wearing only some tiny, dripping, bike shorts.

Nine minutes later I was riding away.

Bike
So I put aerobars on. Rode about 30 miles with them the week leading up the race. They are sweet. You tuck down, slide up in your seat and then pedaling as hard as you can comes natural. This course has about 4000ft elevation gain in 112 miles and a lot of it is rolling hills. Which are tricky. When you are averaging 21 or 22 MPH you don’t want to slow down. When climbing a mountain you have no choice. When’s it only 100 feet or so you just stand up and mash in your big ring in order to not lose momentum. Or at least that is what I do. Passed a lot of people. Said ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’ each time. Less than one in four respond. I look at all the graperies that turn fruit into alcohol. Every 25 miles someone hands me a nice cold sports drink. It gets hot. Some friends from Organic Athlete wrote our names at the top of the biggest climb. And also wrote ‘Go Vegan’ which confused me in my apoxic state.

T2
Since I don’t run train very well or really do bricks besides riding to my runs (see my experience at Norseman) I was a wee bit nervous entering T2. But I switched shoes, ate a banana, put on my hat and attempted to keep up my mental momentum from the bike.

Run

Determination. How do I control that? I was so determined to keep my run strong and stay on pace (as much as you can with no watch and the only clock being at the finish) that I was shocked. I walked the aid stations and the big hills and then just kept on it. The course is 3 out-and-backs and which sounded like it would be tedious, but it was really good. I could mentally break it down. Every time you came through the finish area to start a new lap the crowd lining the route cheered you on. It was really great. I wish they could be there every day. ‘Yeah Matt, you are only 10 minutes late to work, good job!’, ‘Way to get that paper work filled out!’.

I did have a real emotional low on the start of the second lap. Don’t know where it came from, but I could barely talk. When I saw Brian (he DNF’d on the run with a knee injury) I was totally spaced. Asked him to talk to me ‘about anything’. I had some lows like this at Paris-Brest-Paris, but this was the worst one I’ve ever had.

I started the third lap at 10hr 30min race time. If I could hold on to 10-min miles I could do sub-12. Alas I could not! The hills got me. And I only ate an orange on the last lap to focus on my hydration as the weather cooled and some more shade covered the course.

Post
Legs feel strange. Have to keep walking. Then stretch. Then lay on my back and put my legs up: amazing feeling. Overwhelmingly joyous as normal blood flow returns to them. Hang out. Eat a veggie burger and a ridiculous amount of fruit.
From here we went to the Organic Athlete house in Sebastopol and ate a gigantic salad and some banana ice cream. I laid on the kitchen floor a bunch of the time and we all told stories about ridiculous things we like to do.

Splits: Swim 01:16:36.0 T1 00:09:31.6 Bike 05:41:57.7 T2 00:05:40.1 Run 05:08:09.3 Finish 12:21:54.6

Thanks: Brian, Jenny for being awesome support, Bradley and Justin from OA, my distant family up here that treats me like close family, vineman for having tons of vegan food, recycling and even composting, Michel Martinez for getting me stoked on doing this.

Vineman

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 1 Comment

Yesterday was Vineman and it was a great time. I plan to write up a longer story, but here is the short:

12 hour 21 minute total time

2.4 mile swim-1hr 16min
transition 1- 9 min (hanging out is pretty cool)
112 mile bike- 5hr 41 min (I rode a 5hr century!)
transition 2- 4 min
26.2 mile run- 5hr 11min

It was a fun, beautiful course and really well supported. And I don’t know where I pulled that marathon out of! It was hilly and very hot, but still one of the best marathons I have run (not necessarily by time, but how I felt).
Am sore, but not miserable.

It’s Summer

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 2 Comments

Yes, it has been summer for a long while. But for me it is just beginning. I leave in a few hours via train to the Bay area. Saturday is Vineman!
I am not as stoked as I would like to be because I have not been able to run much since I twisted my foot 3 weeks ago on our shuttle adventure. Though I did do 45 minutes this morning and it felt okay. Not great, but okay. We’ll see how 26.2 miles go! The aerobars are already on my bike….
I’ll do my best to send some updates.

Mountaineerzz

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I’ve been wanting to hit up a Mountaineerzz (a Midnight Ridazz off-shoot) ride for months and it finally worked out.

There is a car party at our house these days while fellow Swarm!ers travel the world. I picked out one of the motorized contraptions Friday night to hit up Orange 20 for a new cog (20 from 22) for the single-speed 29er and grab Megan and the burritos to head to Max’s birthday in the South Bay.

Going to the South Bay is like a vacation. We were suppose to ride road in the am so I could test out the aerobars I am borrowing, but instead we hung out at REI and Whole Foods. After picking up Max we drove up to the second meeting point in Brentwood to meet the crew who rode to the ride. There were eleven of us, four on mountain bikes and the rest on cross bikes.

Route
We started up the now infamous Mandeville Canyon Drive to Mandeville fire road to ‘Nike’. From here we hit dirt Mulholland to the Broken arrow single-track back to Mulholland. Then a new to me single track that I don’t remember the name of and then fire road up to ‘the Hub’. Max, Paul and I split off and took the Backbone single-track back to Brentwood while the more epic ride continued west toward the ocean.

The sun is obscured as the mist from the ocean consumes the mountains

Max and Paul descend toward the city

Backbone as it approaches Will Rogers State Park


This was a good mix of transversing and single track over four hours. Wish I had the cross bike set up to do the entire ride, but overall it was great with the single speed mountain bike (ssmtb?) as I prepare for those 100 mile mountain bike races coming up. And always fun to meet riders who see bicycles as transportation and media for adventure. Thanks everyone.

yo Los Angeles

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 1 Comment

yo Los Angeles,
I love you. I never thought I would, but these last five years have been fantastic. Especially the bike riding. I remember when LA Critical Mass was the only ride and it started at 5th and Flower and was mostly messengers. Then came More Than Transportation 1, 2, 3 and 4. By 2005 we had Bike Summer. Then Midnight Ridazz blew up and we have more groups and rides then I can keep track of. Each passing day I am enthralled by the number of people on bikes. The people are here, but where is our city? What are you doing?

Metro Board tonight passed the half cent sales tax proposal for November, but a huge chunk of the money is for highway widening. And they refused to allocate any specific amount (1% was requested) for cyclists and pedestrians.

I don’t want LA to be Portland. That’s why I live here. But can I have a little Portland in my LA? How about some Copenhagen? I’d even settle for some Oslo.

Here are some articles I’ve read this week that kept me motivated. Enjoy.

Crimanimalz are taking over

LA Times: Two death-defying transit stunts: biking on freeways and walking across the street

New bike lanes spotted around LA

Councilman Labonge, Europe and Bikes

We’re here. We ride. Get used to it.

Highway Funding: The last bastion of socialism in America

You have to be a jock or a skater. You can’t be both.

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 6 Comments

Those were the words of my best friend, Mike McNamee, the summer before Junior High. He has an older brother and sister so I figured him an expert in the matter. I played sports and was good at them, but my heart was in skateboarding and BMXing. So who am I? Luckily not long after that I discovered hard core music where you could wear running shoes, be fit and still be against the status quo. I was stoked.

Now 15 years later I still cannot very easily define myself through the events I do. When the girlfriend tells people I am triathlete I cringe. No way! I just happened to do them. Besides, I have bike handling skills and hate training. I’m also called a roadie, but I’ve been dropped in CatV races (explaining to the girlfriend why I am in the beginner category despite spending my life riding a bike is a whole other funny situation). Ultra-endurance cyclist? I’ve never done any of the RAAM qualifiers solo. Fixed gear freestyler? Yawn.

A photographer from Bicycling magazine was in our house the other day and he asked what kind of riding we do. ‘Uhhhhhhh, commuting? And mountain biking. Single speed too. And some racing. And cross a bit. Double centuries? Yeah, we’ve all done a few. And I ride fixed.’

I am not going through any sort of existential crisis related to my upcoming 30th birthday, but merely going through the curiosity I have about why I do what I do. I have six bikes. Five of them are ridden regularly. I just love bike riding and am easily bored?

Some schedule updates:
HooDoo 500 is not happening. Nicolas is injured, Brian is poor and Jack(the one who’s front wheel flies off) is track racing.

8.02 Vineman full-iron (triathlon)

My first two mountain bike races, six days apart:
8.31 Shenandoah 100
9.06 Tahoe-Sierra 100

Should I put a shock on my rigid single-speed? Anyone know someone over at Fox? They have a sweet 29er shock.
And to get stoked: Sick Of It All

JPL Red Box shuttle ride

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 6 Comments

I got the idea for this adventure in the Spring when we rode out and back on Gabrielino. Lots of guys ‘shuttle ride’ this route. They meet at the bottom, pile into one truck, drive to the top, ride down and then drive back to the top for the first truck. Four additional motor vehicle trips on the narrow and windy Angeles Crest highway. Could we do this human powered without being irritatingly self-righteous?

(Cole took this photo. If you look close you can see the shadow from his mustache)

Easy. A group rides road 30 miles up Angeles Crest to Red Box (about 5000 ft elevation) towing mountain bikes. Another group trail runs 15 miles to Red Box. At the top group one passes the mountain bikes to group two who then ride the 15 miles of single track down to JPL.

To start I was up from 3am on 2 hours sleep and Max had stayed up the entire night. Brian rode out from El Segundo on his mountain bike (30 miles) and we met at JPL at 8am. I had posted the ride to Midnight Ridazz so we did not know who would show up. Our original plan was for Jack to ride road pulling the bikes with some sort of Rock Lobster rack, but that didn’t work out and Jack didn’t make it. Now Max is no slack rider, but he hasn’t been riding too much beyond commuting. Could he take 50 pounds of mountain bikes on the Big Dummy? Yes he can. With Michael on as support Max did an epic road ride with 50 pounds of cargo.


Brian and I set off on foot along the Arroyo-Seco to the Gabrielino. It’s a beautiful trail with stream crossings, boulders, canyons with full cover and exposed, dry ridges. I love it. Below Brian is picking some wild berries as the mountains we are about to run up loom in the distance. Yes, he is wearing his bike helmet. Said it was the easiest way to carry it.

Some switchbacks that we would soon be descending down.

Brian and I ran together the first 5 or so miles and then inevitably he dropped me. I ran almost all of the first 9 miles to Switzer Falls. There I begged some picnicing folk for water as I had run out about 45 minutes previous. The last 4 miles up were quite difficult, as expected. I hiked most of this section at a good clip and ended up at the top only 30 minutes or so after Brian; about four hours after we set off.

Brutal blister. I also rolled my foot as I was wearing some light weight running shoes. Duh.

Gabrielino is not an easy trail to ride down. For a number of miles the trail is between 1 or 2 feet wide with the mountain to one side and a huge drop to the other. Some sections are a little washed out (I like to bunnyhop them cause it’s easier than having to unclip and get off your bike).

We were back and forth with a group of three mountain bikers who were all really cool. They told us about a sweet swimming hole only a 1/4 mile off the main trail.


Brian and I were super tired and it was a tough decision. I think we made the right one. Cold cold water is a great remedy for aching muscles.

After 8 hours in the wilderness (just like a 9-5, only fun) we headed over to Pasadena to take the Gold Line to Chinatown. From here I had a short ride home and Brian, after buying some durian fruit, took the train back to El Segundo.

Max getting his well-deserved AdventureSnore.


Next time: I’d like to film this. It is so gorgeous back there and so accessible from Los Angeles. In my mind Sunday was a beautiful combination of DIY, adventure and wtf? Sure, there is an environmental component, but that is a secondary benefit to some friends getting together and thinking about new ways of exploring an amazing area and what is possible.

Happy 50th Birthday Grand Tour

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Finally an adventure! I’ve been so caught up in working a lot and these other non-adventure projects that I almost didn’t do this one. Phew. I kind of love that feeling when you are getting your stuff ready and the rational part of your brain chimes in and is all, ‘Are you sure this is a good idea? Don’t you think sleeping in your bed would be nice?’

I rolled out of the house at about 930pm heading for Malibu, 30 miles west and north, to the 50th anniversary of the Grand Tour. It’s a city traverse for the first 15 and then 15 up the famous PCH. I was counting the number of Bentleys that I saw and then lost track when I got passed by a Rolls Royce. Oh Southern California why are you so crazy?

Where to sleep? Stupid sprinklers. I climbed over a half broken-down fence (still in spandex, mind you) into a nursery (the kind with trees, not children) and find a little covered area with hay on the ground. Score. I get out my mat and sleeping bag, change into shorts, eat my burritos and am horizontal by 1230am. The plan was to meet up with Brian in the am after he rode up from El Segundo, but my stupid nextel broke the day before and I couldn’t see his call nor his number to call him. I roll out of ‘bed’ around 530 to the sounds of bike shoes clicking in and out, get checked in, hide my bag and am off.

In 2005 I rode the triple century and in 2006 I rode the double with Brian and Jack. It’s a classic route, that I enjoyed this time more than any previous. It meanders up the coast, cuts inland back through Westlake and then over to Ojai before hitting the coast again at Carpinteria where the double heads south.

I thought I was leaving on time, but apparently all those riders I saw were doing the double metric (I was wearing my Paris-Brest-Paris jersey, figuring it was appropriate because I slept outside the night before the ride). I didn’t really see more than a few double riders till about 80 miles in. Then caught some more at lunch, mile 114. Still, I rode alone, which was nice. A double is long enough where I don’t spend much time worrying about all the other stuff I have to do. When I do 20 or 30 miles in the morning during the week, I am always thinking about what I have to do when I get home. Not on a double. It is like a vacation from myself.

I did ride about 10 miles with a 52 year old guy riding a Soma fixed gear. He bike commutes 18 miles each way to work. Total bad ass. The 50 miles down the coast to end the ride were beautiful in the stereotypical sunset coastal breeze California kind of way. After huffing and puffing about there being not a single vegetarian item at the post-ride BBQ (okay, there was plain white bread) I rode the 15 miles into Santa Monica and went to Whole Foods. A good day. I got in 250 miles in 24 hours toward my 1000 miles in 4 weeks goal I set. And I got to sleep outside, which always makes anything you do more fun.

Consume Less

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 3 Comments

How can I save money?
What can I do about global warming?
How can I lose weight?
How can I work less often?
What can I do about sweatshops?
How can I spend more time with friends and family?
How can I focus on my spiritual health?
How can I get rid of my credit card debt?
How can I make moving easier?
How can I make more room in my house?
Where can I find more time to train?
How can I become a better cyclist?
How can I boycott big oil companies?
How can I show my disdain for global capitalism?

I try really hard on my blog to not sound preachy. That is harder than it sounds when you are a bike-riding vegan. Whenever transportation or eating, two huge topics with plenty of off-shoots, come up, anything a vegan or a bike rider says can easily be construed as trying to convince others to be more like us. I know this because plenty of vegans and commuters are rather annoying. But I do share their energy and conviction. So what to do? I strive to lead by example. Can you be a vegan athlete? Can you live in LA without a car? Well, I am doing what I can.

I cannot stop thinking about consumption (discussed previously). I worry that the simpler an argument becomes, the closer it is to being a wing-nut theory. I hate to throw anything away. When something I own breaks and I have to replace it, I fret over it for days. Even weeks. But the more I think about it, the more consumption relates to so many things we (well, many of us) care about. Global warming is an obvious example. Just buy less stuff. Cycling is less obvious. But nothing will make you a better cyclist than just riding more. Yes, you do have to have a functional bike and occasionally replace tires and tubes. For most of us though 11-speed cassettes are not going to improve our cycling.

I (right now anyway) have no interest in living off of the land in Humbolt County or Hawaii or somewhere so is it hypocritical that I own anything? I saw Derrick Jensen speak last year and he said ‘We are mammals, we consume. Zero consumption is not the goal.’
I agree. Just consume less. What do you think?

The Great Divide (race)

Posted on by Matt Ruscigno 3 Comments

In Fall of 2006 my good friend Steevo and I set off to ride the Great Divide, a 2500-mile, 85% off-road mountain bike route along the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico. Steevo’s photos from his blog are here and here. I only managed to get one post up here.

The key word is ‘ride’. We tried to do it in 29 days and fell a couple hundred miles short of official completion. But anything you can ride you can race. The Great Divide Race started in 2004. It follows the maps from Adventure Cycling exactly. There is no support, no entry fee and no prizes. Pretty cool. (before the official race John Stamstad, who I have written about previously blazed the course in 19 days on his own).
But the route was extended north into Canada so….see where this is going? Long story short, one of the previous years’ winners, Matt Lee, suggested that the race also be extended. The GDR race organizer (apparently) did not think this was a good idea. So Matt started his own race: Tour Divide. And they are both happening at the same time right now. If useful website is a gauge to measure a race, then Tour Divide wins hands down. They have real-time GPS on every racer. I’ll be keeping up on this and thinking about what it must be like to ride over a hundred miles a day, off-road, with no support for over two weeks.