Stone Mountain Ropegun

A ropegun? Me? Strange as it sounds, I led a bunch of pitches at Stone Mountain. Even though it has been a while that I've been on the sharp end of the rope, I felt really good!

Scott set up the trip with a couple of his friends... but he did it remotely- he was out of town and didn't go. Impressive organizational skills.

Anyway, we met up at 6am at Vertical Edge, and drove to Stone. It's a decently long trip, but I snoozed a bit in the car I think. Chris and I partnered up, and had a couple of other guys (a father and son team) doing their own thing too.

We parked in the secret spot, and rushed to get on the rock first because we were going to be climbing the most popular routes.

We set up on Block Route, a former two-pitcher that is moderate- except for a ridiculous chest-high block towards the end of the route. I dropped in a bunch of hexes on the way up and climbed with my full pack because I wanted to eat on the lunch ledge. I was able to protect it well, except for a section that is run out before the block, but it was easy enough climbing. The block confounded me a bit- I had done it before, but I think I approached it lower. So, well below where I put in some gear, I did the belly flop onto the block and ran to the top. I really needed a longer sling because the rope drag was stout at the end of the route.

At the ledge, I geared up for the Great Arch. This is a 3-pitch climb that has a nice flake all the way up- but is climbed so much that the friction is lower than it should be. I was advised not to bring any cams >2". Wrong. The first pitch has all kinds of places that will swallow big gear- but, then again, I or my second would have to carry the rest of it up. At the first belay station, the second team wanted to start climbing as we geared up for the next pitch- it was like they were chasing us up the rock. I rush up the second pitch- which wasn't as tough as the first- and was thinking that p3 would be the easiest. The team chasing us got farther behind, but we went ahead and quickly did the third pitch. P3 is actually just as stout as the rest of the climb, but the sun was shining and the day beautiful and being able to hang out on the summit was nice. After I belayed Chris, we decided we'd set up a TR on one of the ridiculous friction climbs by rappelling down to it, but needed to ask the other guys how to set it up. I managed to get a nap in because the guys pushing us were about an hour behind- the leader got cramped up.

We did the triple-rappel back to the tree ledge, and skipped the TR because it looked like people were gearing up to climb it. We decided instead to do a more trad-ish climb from the ground up to the tree ledge so we rapped all the way to the bottom. I took a peek at a climb all the way on the right. Wasn't sure of the name, but it didn't look too bad except for a blank area. What a pain! That climb was sketchy! It was dirty- and even though it looked like a flake- there were only tiny pockets to slip your fingers into. Which is the same place I wanted to put my gear! I had to do a finger-stack on a root just to get past the blank section. And in the hardest section, as I'm way above my last piece and desperately trying to get a tiny cam in... this horrible dog starts barking right below me. If I would have fallen, I would have lowered to the ground and kicked that POS. The POS being the owner who can't control their pet. I finally get to the top exhausted and a guy on the ledge tells me it is a 5.4. NFW, I know Stone has some messed up ratings, but that was much harder than the Great Arch I just led. Chris climbs it and had pretty much the same opinion- it sucked- and was hard! Turns out it was Dirty Crack, a 5.8+. Okay- that makes more sense.

We set up a toprope on a long friction climb (actually- we had to use two ropes!) and spent the rest of the day on that.

Seven pitches of climbing, five of leading- all in one day. Unlike previous days at Stone, I had a really good time- probably because I'm now used to the ridiculousness of the place.

End of season musings

Okay, racing is done; Cornerspeed is done- so what to do for the long off-season?

One thing is that Steff did the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course and loved it- and was one of the top students, of course. Hopefully she'll get to ride with me more often- maybe try a longer trip.

Cornerspeed is evolving to do Cornerspin, which is to learn some dirt-tracking. That should be exciting- the instructors get their first chance at it in early December.

A voice from the past- Patrick Burns- read about my woes with the TL and he thinks it could be the rotors dishing under heat and simply bending while on the brakes. A good theory since I took the brakes apart and didn't find anything unusual beofre this last Cornerspeed event. Lockhart sponsors me, so I'll see if they have any deals coming up- aftermarket rotors are expensive! Ideally, I would actually test this theory out- but since I've replaced everything else- why not! Not 'upgrading' the bike gives me a lot of cash in my racing 'budget' so I can splurge on something like that.

I have been trying to track down my old race reports- and I came across some old photos. This is of my *old* TL. It still looks cool. Tapeworks rocks!

Formula 40 Carnage

CCS Double-points weekend, Virginia International Raceway
September 22-24, 2006

Formula 40 Carnage, aka Old Guys with Egos

Could this really be only the second race weekend this year? Well, there was a WERA race that I discovered the joys of a leaking gas line. And, then there was a semi-pro weekend where are the factory guys were practicing for the upcoming AMA race- I had other plans anyway so I skipped it. In the old days when the pros ran with the club racers, the pros would pull off and let the clubbies finish their race. Not these days- which is kind of lame.

Anyway, yes, it is my second race this year- but I've been on the track a bunch with Cornerspeed. Lots of tracktime- which means I really get to know the track, but there is such thing as a 'race pace'. You don't get the race pace teaching a school- you really don't even get it in the open session. When the green flag drops ... the uh.. something stops. So, here I am, kind of out of shape in the race sense. I did the Cornerspeed school on Friday, which meant that the track was fresh in my mind- and the bike was fairly well behaved. Aaron of Cornerspeed wanted me to get on Pirelli (a school sponsor) and offered me 'goodguy' pricing. I got the new tires on the bike and.. they were different. Actually- they were bad- I was running wide everywhere. You really get used to the feel of a tire- and I hadn't had a Pirelli on my bike since 1999. It turns out that tire guys are getting more lax these days- "in the old days" (I'll explain why I can say that later) they'd also set the tire pressure for you as they had calibrated gauges. They don't bother, so it is up to the rider now. Which is fine, I just didn't know. Steff had to let 8 PSI out of the tires. Big difference- they still had a different feel- they seem to move around more, but I was able to hold my line.

Well- this week I turned forty. Yeah, Four-Oh. Wife, Kids, House, Pets... and racing motorcyles? Am I supposed to slow down? When I was a kid, there were expectations of certain things at certain ages. For example- aren't I supposed to have a Corvette when I turn 40? I mentioned that to Steff and she asked me if I was going to get the gold chain to go along with it! Okay, so maybe I'm not '40' in the sense of a middle-aged guy driving around in a Corvette. I certainly don't feel forty. Someone once asked me- if you got hit on the head and didn't know how old you were... how old would you be? Good question. Less than forty, certainly Heck, I don't even have gray around my temples (little bit on my chin when I grow a goatee though). How old do I look? I dunno- I think less than forty too. How is this possible? Time Travel. Really. There's an experiment- you can take two calibrated watches, put one on a rocket, zip around the earth a bunch of times, land and compare time- and the one who was going at orbital speeds will have less time pass. So, as long as I stay on the gas, I'm cheating time. I know I'm getting older: Cadillacs are starting to look kind of cool... and I'm still going to get a Corvette- maybe that'll be when I'm 50. Forty is the new Thirty or something like that, so I'm not planning on quitting anytime soon.

Is there an upside to forty? Yes, in fact there is. Racing organizations have created a geriatric division. I mean... a category for racers of our stature. So, even the beastly TL is able to run in a new class now. Russell told me that he had an extra bike.. or twelve (he brought 4).. and I could ride some of his to help get them set up. He lent me an old SV and offered to let me run in the lightweight division. I signed up for GT Lights (a 12-lap race), Formula 40, Lightweight Supersport, and Supertwins. I used GT lights as practice, because I didn't need practice after riding all day with Cornerspeed on Friday. This let us sleep in on Saturday. Since the pit was already set up in a primo spot, it was like the factory ride- just show up and ride. And that's what we did- actually, we even had a yard sale with some neighbors in the morning. Later we loaded the pit bike on the trailer and drove back to VIR. We brought some fried chicken and burgers to feed the crew and friends and checked back over the bikes.

Race 4 was GT Lights- I was in the forth row. This starter was crazy! When the 2-minute board goes up, everyone started revving their engines- I was kind of laughing because everyone knows, the '1' board has to go up, then it has to turn sideways, then the flag drops, so there was plenty of time. Wrong. No sooner had the 2 board gone up, it flipped over to the 1, then immediately went sideways- and the green flag flew! I didn't. I was stunned off the line and had a poor start. The bike was slow- it was a carburated 2002 model- with the stock pipe. Being someone else's bike, I took it easy and ended up dicing with a guy on a Honda 125 GP bike. We had a lot of fun going back and forth- I think I even passed him on the brakes with the little SV. He came into the pits and laughed about how I was slapping the tail of the bike going down the straight trying to make it go faster. Since it was a long race, and since I was using it for practice, I ended up pulling in early on the 10th lap. I still didn't finish last, which is scary.

Okay, now I was warmed up- and that's a good thing. It was Formula Insanity. I mean, Forty. This is a class of over-40 riders, divided into lightweight and heavyweight divisions. It also combined Experts and Novices. It was total carnage. 45 old riders were on the grid. And 45x40 years of egos apparently. I got a lousy start, but it didn't matter- we were bumping bikes through turn 1, and turn 3 was 4 wide. There were *five* Cornerspeed instructors in the race! The race was red-flagged after one lap. We restarted with original positions- and I get another lousy start- but this time, I get a good charge through the field and end up in the top-5 or so. Apparently after the esses, I held up Russell, which give Brian a chance to stuff him, so Russell rolled off making Doyle roll off, who got hit by the guy behind him. Doyle didn't crash, but we think the guy who hit him did- but by then, I was leading Brian up the hill. When I bent the TL over to the right hander headed to the top of the hill, I got hit in the right side. Instead of panicing, I stayed in the gas and whoever it was must have rubbed against me forever, as I kept getting pushed to the edge of the track. I held on and kept looking up the track trying to stay on course and make it by a couple of feet and accellerated up the hill- when I crested, the red flag was waving, so I figure whoever hit me had gone down. Turns out it was Brian- me not going down kept him from not going down and the red flag was probably from a couple of turns back. This time we got re-gridded with new grids and I moved up to row 3 and they shortened the race to 4 laps On this restart, things were going smoothly- again, I was in the front part of the pack and people were being a little more careful. Brian said he ran up on me again in T12, but decided not to chance a bump and run again. We made a couple of laps before... RED FLAG! Anyone keeping score? That was the third red flag in a single race of a class that is supposed to be a fun class since there is absolutely no prize money- or even bragging rights (I won the old-man's race class just doesn't have that sound of something to be proud of). Since the entire field didn't finish, we would need yet another restart. CCS wisely chose to run it the next day.

My next race was another lightweight race on the borrowed SV. I was pretty beat at having gone through 4 starts in just 2 races. I'm going to blame my poor performance on the bike, but it turns out that Brian rode it the next day and was doing five seconds a lap faster on the same bike. Steff said I looked more comfortable this time, but I was still poking. The hardest part was that I had different shift points for the SV than the TL. Going into T3, I wind out third in the TL, but on the SV, I would be in 4th, then have to try to catch a quick downshift to be in third through the turn. My line was such that I was leaned over and it was really hard to catch a leaned-over downshift while trying to apex the turn. Eventually I just would wind out 3rd just like the TL, but it was slowing me down either way. I finished towards the back. I did have kind of a fun battle with a guy on a 125. I decided that the bike was just too softly sprung and slow to even be competitive.

Okay, glad that Saturday was over! We decided to leave the trailer at the track, and I rode Steff's 'pitbike' back to Raleigh. As if I didn't have enough saddle time. Our plan was to get back bright and early in the morning, run race *1*, which was at 9:30 then pack up and head home. And that's exactly what we did. The Formula Insanity was scheduled for after a 2-hour endurance race, so it probably wouldn't even start until after 2:30 or so, so I decided to skip it. I went out for our only practice and... felt it. I was really clicking off the laps. All that track time paid off- everything was flowing for me. I did the visualization thing before the race- a great technique and could see the entire track- and places I could go faster.

I was gridded on the 4th row- not too bad- and I finally learned this wacky starter. The typical way it works is you see the 3-minute board as you're finishing your warmup lap. Once you're in position, do a little stretch, do the 'racer nod' to the guys next to you- turn around and do the 'racer' stare at the guy behind you (make sure to let him know that he's the guy behind you in case he gets too close), and accept the 'racer stare' from the guy in front of you with another 'racer nod'. Then the two minute board is shown- and you take a deep breath or two- visor still up. Then the '1' is shown, where you flip down your visor, click it into first (and release the clutch slightly to make sure it is really in gear), rev it up to 8k then wait for the board to start moving sideways, trying to anticipate the green flag...

Well, that's the typical way. For this starter, he's got ADD or something. You rush to your starting spot, try to take a couple of deep breaths and then close your visor, because even though the '3' board is showing, the race is starting very soon. When the board flips to '2', everyone starts revving their engine because a few seconds later, the board is flipped over to show the '1', which immediately flips sideways and the green flag flies. It is more like 'ready, set... Go!' about that quick.

Like I said, it took me all weekend to figure this out, but I nailed the start. I'm rushing into turn 1, behind some guy on a Ducati and Nate (the great) on his tricked-out BMW. Even in T1, he freaked me out because he would try to 'back it in'- that bike is probably heavier than my TL beast... Anyway, we're running 1-2-3 with the rest of the field getting left behind. I'm closing on Nate, who is being balked by the Ducati. I start to plan where I'm going to close on them, because we were all about even down the straight. Turn 7 looked good, as did the last set of turns before the front straight. T1 was out because of Nate's showboating. I plan for the next lap to be where I made the move- we're so far ahead that I don't even hear anyone else. I go into turn 1, grab the brakes... and blah. The lever goes *way* back. I think I even had to double-pump it to get it to stop- and it got worse from there. The next big braking area is under the bridge- and same thing.. but worse. It really screws up my drive and I start going backwards- Nate and the Duc start to pull away. The next set of turns proves that my brakes are just a suggestion to slow down- I'm having to radically downshift to be able to make the corners. The next time under the bridge, Russell passes me- and then someone else at T14- there's really not much I can do- I can keep up with them on the straights, of course, but in any braking area, I suck. I think I get passed yet again- and I'm looking for a top-10 finish as this point. Somehow I hold anyone else off and on the last lap, I see the Ducati has crashed- I finish 5th, with Nate winning it. I think I would have been there at the end, and secure in second, with maybe a first instead. But, no brakes- I was lucky to finish at all. In the pits, people were asking what happened- I was really moving. I showed them that even cooled down, the lever would go all the way back to the bar. I got my best times of the weekend- I was turning 1:37s before I lost the brakes. Scoob said he can't remember the last time I went that fast. Maybe these new tires are good after all... but, I just felt right, which is the most important thing.

Those TL brakes have been confounding me for years. They have new fluid, new pads, new brakelines- and they still suck. This winter, I'm going to completely take them apart. I think the 6-piston calipers themselves have some muck in them- when I replaced the lines, the fluid really smelled. I'm thinking there's some muck trapped in the pistons themselves which is causing it. The only other possibility is that the master cylinder is bad- but that doesn't make sense, as it seems to be heat related (the first three laps were fine). As a footnote- remember that slow carburated SV that I borrowed? It turns out that Brian managed to get second place on it... Wow.

At this point, I'm satisfied on how well I did. I was running up front, on an 'old' bike. I was turning respectable times, and not making mistakes. Other than the brakes, the TL behaved well- there's no shortage of power. Heck, CCS even sent me a trophy for 5th place (thanks Steff!). I only ran two races this year- the fiasco of the fuel line early in the season- and this late race. I'm quite gruntled- and eager to get a couple of races in next year too.

Maybe 40 isn't so bad after all...