24 Hours of Boyne

The 24 Hours of Boyne is quickly becoming a tradition, 4 years in a row now, and by the sounds of it, more to come. This year we would be defending our title from last year, the stakes were high, and this time we would have a fourth member. So let me introduce you to the 2009 Sofa King Fast team:


The Tough Old Bird, my dad Bob Bartlett.


The Newbie, my sister Kelly Bartlett.


The Seasoned Veteran, Nick Boswell.


The 4th man, myself Mike Bartlett



And the ones who keep us feed, happy, and pedaling, the pit crew (Caroline, my Mom Diane, and Melissa):


We were also joined by the single speed machine Steve Cain, riding solo.



The day started like any other, set up the tent, register, get the room set up, set the food out, fill up bottles, get dressed, etc etc, and lastly take the front wheel off my bike and head over with the rest of the starters for the LeMons start. They said go and we were running to our bikes to get the front wheel on and then hit the single track. I was able to get to my bike and install my wheel first and was off into the single track. I then rode a pretty good lap and was the first guy to complete a lap, completed two personal objectives for the race, now only one more, ride ride ride until noon the next day. After my second lap I handed off to Nick and he was out for two laps himself. He then tagged off to Kelly, who rode one lap and then she tagged off to my Dad, who rode his lap, and tagged me back in for two. This is how the process worked for the entire race, until the last few laps where we mixed it up a bit.

At the end of the day I rode 11 laps, Nick rode 9, Kelly 4, and my Dad rode 4 laps including the final lap for the team, which totals up to 28 laps, the same as last year. 28 laps ended up being enough, as our team won the race, beating "The Coolish" team composed of our friends Corey, Sean, Neal, and John, who rode an impressive 27 laps.

I must say Nick and I ran some hot laps, but Kelly and my Dad are the true heros of the team. With Kelly knocking off 23 minutes from her previous fast lap, and my Dad knocking off 10 minutes from his fastest lap the previous year, for times of 1 hr 2 min for Kel and 1 hr 3 min for my Dad. Way to go guys, and next year I am hoping something under 1 hour. I also hope Nick and I can knock a few minutes off our times, making Sofa King Fast that much faster.

Also congratulations to Steve, riding 17 solo laps, and winning the single rider class. I do not know how he does it (I think Melissa helps!), but what a ride!

The race was fun, but all of the spectators made it awesome. Grandpa and Grandma showed up, providing lots of support, it was great to have them out there. Also Uncle Jim and Aunt Nancy stopped by for a few hours, Uncle Jims a regular at this race now but Aunt Nancy made her first appearance. I really appreciate your support, and it was great to see you all on my visit back home.

Also, I would like to extend a special thanks to the pit crew, Mom, Caroline, and Melissa. My Mom was in charge of food, an enormous task, but she got us everything imaginable, and she also made sure we knew we had it (I think she had the entire menu memorized!). I would like to thank Caroline for staying up for 24 hrs with us, making sure we were up for our start times, making bottles and keeping track of our laps times, thanks again! Also Melissa was a great addition to the pit crew, and I hope that she will be here for years to come. Some "people" shots can be seen below.




Lastly I would like to thank my team. The Tough Old Bird was especially tough this year, I mean he forgot his helmet inserts, so he had to make due with bandannas, and he still ripped around the course (but next year please bring your inserts, and hmmm...... take off the bandanna!). Kelly made her 24 hr debut in excellent fashion, pushing through the tough morning ride and ensuring that we were able to stay in the race. Nick was riding strong, and made sure that I was going hard on my laps as well, knowing down some key laps. Some pictures of the "machines" doing some handoffs can be seen below.



Long live Sofa King Fast!

The New Fork and the First Race

Recently I have been getting used to the new bike; swapping stems, changing positions, playing with the suspension, tires, there are lots of variables. I also have a new fork, and guess what, its white instead of the standard issue red. I had some problems with the previous fork and when I got it warrantied I got a color choice, so I decided it would be cool to have a more custom bike, and white does look nice.


So as if trying to figure out the new bike was not enough, I had my first mountain bike race this past Saturday. The race was held on the UMASSS campus by the team here, so I got to be a part of setting, running, and also racing in the event. I must say, for the a small patch of woods and some field the course was awesome, and the race itself went off smoothly, so thanks for all that helped, participated, and spectated. For my race I was a little nervous as it was the first race of the year, and I am still getting bike figured out, oh yeah, and it had to rain, making much of the trail section wet and slippery.

The race started off great, I got the hole shot and was the first one into the woods. Then I started to slow down, and people started to come around me... I guess my mind remembers my fitness last fall, but my body does not. Either way, I rode 6 laps with 2300 ft of steep climbing and came across the line in 7th place out of 10 starters. Not a great result, but I got to race against three of my collegiate friends from the fall (Tom, Chris, and Sully) and some other pretty fast guys. I felt ok throughout the race, it seems that my base miles are paying off as my laps times were almost identical throughout the race. However I am now starting periods of higher training intensity, so I am hoping that in the next few months I will see those lap times go down, and my placement go higher.



Also congratulations to my good buddy Sean who took the victory in the Mens Cat II field, way to go!

First Race of the Year

Today was my first race of the year. It was the Quabbin Reservoir Road Race, only about 15 minutes down the road. It was also my first road race in about a year, so I knew I was in for something. Got there and was a little behind getting ready and only had about 10 mintues to warm up, but for a road race, that seems like enough time. The first half was pretty moderate, however there were a few extended climbs and some fast decents. I stayed at the front of the pack, I was not about to get involved in a crash, and kept up just fine. They were some fast sections and some slower sections, but nothing muched happened, as no one really works together in a Category IV field, but every now and then one or two guys would get a little ways down the road. At this point the group ushually decided to chase them down, however when I say group I really mean me self and my friend Sean, as only one or two other guys were helping at all. The final climb came and unfortunately I didn't know where finish line was, so I got a little late in the final seconds but came in 7th place, one place out of getting paid! Sean came in a little after that, and my other friend double flatted, so he rode almost the whole coarse by himself.

It was a hot (85 degrees) beautiful day and it was a nice start to the season, my fitness felt really good considering that I have not started high intensity training, and it is a good sign for the rest of the season.

The New Machine

The new bike has arrived and it looks great. The bike is totally redisigned from last year, and much changed from my bike from 2005. The suspension design looks pretty good, and the fork is entirely different, so I am excited to see how it will feel out on the trail.


The crankset is similiar to my roadbike, so I think it should be nice and stiff.


The bike has Avid brakes so I need to learn how to deal with a different brand, because if they are anything like my old brakes I will need to learn how to adjust them!

I wish I could get out on the bike but I left my shoes back at the bike shop and I wont have them for a few more days, nothing like having a brand new toy and not being able to pllay with it....

Thanks to the guys up at Bikers Edge for getting me set up on this thing, I will try to return the favor by getting up on the podium, I certainly have no escuses about the equipment.

First Mud

So the past few days have been pretty good on the bike, well at least in theory. On Sunday I decided to head over to the famous Quabbin reservoir, never heard of it you say, well prabley not, but its a big lake down the road. The ride was very hilly and very windy, but I made it back home in one piece, and 70 miles under my belt. Along the way I stopped in front of this neat church to snap a shot.

In other news I got back late from work today but I decided to just head out on the bike for a few minutes before it got dark. In doing this I somehow decided to take a right and not a left, and then took the wooden bridge into the woods. I tooled around and it was not that bad, dry in most spots with only a few wet areas. As you can see below, I got my first mud of the season on the bike.

Its been like four weeks or something, time for a new post!

Well it appears that I have once again gotten behind schedule.
I suppose the biggest news is that last week I created my first ever training plan. I have always toyed around with sort of making one, but I never really ever finished. However this time I sat down and decided to give it an honest effort. The long and short of it is that I did some self evaluations trying to figure out my strengths and weaknesses. I then picked the important races for the year and said "I want to be my fastest here!" and then I work backwards planning my weekly hours and training objectives. As I sort of decided to do this about two months into my training I had to make some adjustments, but it looks like it should be all right. In doing this I realized that before I really only had three different rides: slow, medium, and race. I would throw some other types in before, but in general I was always just sort of going medium. With my new plan it is more specific on what types of rides I do, so it theory I should be fast this year, haha, we will see. Hopefully when June and July role around I am not sick of riding in a particular manner according to the plan, but time will tell.

In other news I visited home this past weekend and it was sure nice to be back. I went up north over the weekend then spent Monday and Tuesday in Ann Arbor with Caroline and saw some other good friends. The weather was great up north, as seen in the following photo take at the summit of Nubs Nob:


In Ann Arbor on I got to spend some nice time with Caroline which included a run which took us past the football stadium, it is certainly looking different these days. Tuesday was St. Patricks day and it was nice to be in Ann Arbor around some familiar places and faces. To top off the night we got to drink some green beer, and after we were done it was easy to tell that we had, as Nick and I show below:



Thats it for now!

Its been like four weeks or something, and all I see is that thumb

The title of this post is a direct quote from my Dad and was hinted at from many of my loyal readers, time for a new post!!! It has been a busy month, lots of very important exams and Caroline came and visited for a whole week. But things are getting back to normal here and I am started to get back to riding. Well I gotta go for now, but I will fully update this weekend!