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Treat EB as just a fun day and adventure on the bike. Dont even think about the mileage and segment it. 1. Neutral rollout with a massive group to GB (this is like a warmup as you are still sleepy. Stay in the group and you will barely put out any effort to ride down there because of the draft. 2. GB ride - There is so much excitement and energy that carries you through to the top of HOL. Walk the HOL and Have a nice snack at the top with new friends. at this point you will probably establish a group of people that you may ride with to City Park. 3. Ride to CP. 360 is EASY. Keep your HR in a good place going up the climbs and coast down to Courtyard. Spin your way up and over the hills. 4. Party at CP. The atmosphere here is great and most people are refueling and filling up with water at the Pavilion. I'd recommend doing a quick water break and spending the time after you finish CP, or both. 5. Head up and over Jester and knock out the St Ed's loop. I stop at Jester Subway for a sandwich. Make sure you know this route so you dont get completely lost at St eds like we did. (we lost an hour) 6. Climb Yaupon to Thumper, fuel, ride thumper, talk about riding thumper, eat some snacks and then head on for your Victory lap 7. lick your wounds and cruise over to Walnut for your victory lap. Duval is mostly downhill and rewards a little bit of effort. I think we averaged 20+ MPH the whole way. Endorphins can carry you into walnut because of what you have just accomplished. Say high to the crew drinking beer and eating BBQ and head in for a nice steady lap of walnut. Your sprinting legs will be long gone and you will probably ride at a pace that requires no braking anywhere. Be efficient and you will be home free in a little over an hour. Training: Tempo and sweet spot work. You dont necessarily have to ride far to ride far. In fact, if you find a group to work with you should really be focusing on your repeatable short power for the efforts. Before my first and only EB, my longest ever trail ride was 35 miles of SATN and GB, and 50 miles on road South walnut bike path to manor. I was just getting serious about XC racing, but was still a slower mid-pack Cat 2 racer. Lots of hard 1-2 hour race pace trail efforts. Tempo-Sweet spot rides on South walnut trail on the MTB that look like 10 BPM below my race pace heart rate. These rides equate to two 30 minute intervals at 95% of race pace. Longer intervals are great for building "all -day" power. Sprinkle in some 3-4 hour MTB rides on the road, or better yet, do something specific to the EB and challenge yourself to ride your MTB to a trail vs driving, ride it and ride home. Its OK to not ride the trail as hard as you normally would, but you may be surprised. I like to ride to Walnut and back when I go to Walnut vs driving. It adds an hour to the whole day or less when you calculate the time spent packing and unloading the truck 4 times. You could also ride Brushy - street- Walnut - Home. I actually felt pretty safe on Parmer. Experiment with going hard on the street and cruising trails, or vice versa. I find going hard on the street to be the right combo. Wind and your lateness to get home may force you to do this at times, so its a safer strategy. Nutrition: Dont try anything new! figure out what you like to eat before hand. You need water AND salts, or you will cramp just riding on water. When in doubt, listen to your body and eat what you want at the two aid stations. Extremely high Carb and water intake in the evening. Basicly Potato Chips, some cinnamon roles, and what was available at a party. Oatmeal for breakfast. I ran a 50/50 gatorade/water mix in camelbak. Cliff bar at HOL exit, Free Gu and Cliff stuff at CP, Subway 6 inch and salt and vinegar chips, probably some sweet junk food and pickles at Thumper and refilled with Gatorade. I felt great, moving time was 8 hours flat. Actual time was quite a bit slower stopping for my group, getting lost and for lunch. Good Luck!

You sound desperate for some trail up there. It’ll never happen...too much red tape. Turn your attention to community and city council meetings, surveys, and things like that.

Last week a freak microburst took down a large number of trees at Lake Georgetown between Cedar Breaks and Cedar Hollow. A small group of us went out there today to clear as much as we could. We managed to clear everything between Cedar Hollow and Crockett Springs. Crocket Springs was hit especially hard, many downed trees in a small area. Two very large trees that used to provide shade were uprooted and laying flat on the ground, and that area took the longest to clear. There are still a few trees down between Cedar Breaks and Crockett Springs, but those should get cleaned up this week. Here's a gallery of photos from our work today:

Doing endurance race pace rides you'll burn 600-800 calories/hour. Anyone that can eat and process more than 300 calories/hour, wow! That's awesome. I've seen this before in person (Rocky Gingg was eating Freebird burritos on the bike and fistfuls of M&M Trail mix), but wondered even if you can handle it, if you're not pulling too much blood flow away from your muscles to digest all those calories? The reality is that we have a few hundred calories worth of glycogen stored in our muscles, after that's gone, we (most of us) can process about 250-300 calories per hour of fast absorbing sugars (4% glucose, 4% Maltodextrin usually in sports drinks), the rest is going to come from fat if we're going slowly enough, or muscle breakdown if we're pushing things. You can go fast or you can skimp on nutrition. I don't think you can do both. I highly recommend the book "What Comes First, Cardio or Weights?" by Alex Hutchinson if you're interested in any of this stuff. And yeah, I second everyone saying "do what works for you and don't experiment on the ride with what you haven't tried in your normal rides". For me, I have done 24 bottles of Inifinit for a 24 hour race without any real food and feeling pretty good. Sometimes on long rides though, one of those gas station cheese peanut butter cracker packs and a coke (+water) will sub for one of my bottles and helps a bit mentally. For 90 minute rides or less I can do water, but in the summer I can get behind very quickly on electrolytes, so at the very least I throw in some Lite Salt (50% KCl 50% NaCl) into the bottle, but I usually drink Infinit in the summer even for short rides. I have too many side-effects of going without electrolytes otherwise.

Lots of good info in this thread. I've got so much to say that I don't even know where to begin. I will say this...if you are not acutely working towards becoming fat-adapted via a Ketogenic way of eating, then you should primarily be focused on eating/consuming/fueling yourself the traditional way via glucose/carbs/sugars. Its simply how its done: your body needs it, requires it and wants to burn it. Figuring out the exact combo for yourself can take time but the basic formulas can be followed and tweaked with good results. I liked to go on super long rides and listen to my body's needs. I found that after consuming gels & gu bloks for a long portion of the ride, I liked to actually have something solid. It could be a PB&H(honey), or ideally a 7-11 personal size pecan pie. Love those things! Hydration-wise, I would run 1 bottle of water, and 1 bottle of overly saturated self-mixed gatoraid powder that I'd keep adding water to through the ride. If I was going deep into pain cave then at some point I'd top the gatoraid off with mtn dew. During races, I set my watch to do a 50 min countdown timer. I then skip the 1st alarm (at 50 min) and beginning with the 2nd alarm, I use it as a reminder to eat a gel about every 50 min. It took a good bit of experimentation to end up at this number. Don't let yourself get to "feeling hungry". If you end up there, you just went too long! The information below is from the point of view of someone who has actively and aggressively been working towards being a fat-adapted athlete: All that being said, I've been eating a Ketogenic style ever since January (with a 2 week break in July). On a daily basis, I regularly consume about only 25-35 net carbs a day (of which about 12-15 grams of those are sugars). On days before a big(ger) event, I do eat a small sweet potato the night before as a low-glycemic carb-up. This was my method for these 2 laps out at LGT and I did a door-to-door time of 6hr flat. https://www.strava.com/activities/1449950329 All of this ride was done consuming no more than 400 calories, of which only 150 of them came from the Stinger Waffle. The other 250 calories came from MCT oil. Likewise, I used this same methodology 2 weeks later at the Ouachita Challenge with good results. https://www.strava.com/activities/1471935804 At the OC I only consumed about 600 calories total, but 3/4 of them came from Hammergel. I've been doing this the first 1/2 of this year as a physiological experiment of sorts. Just to see how it all works. I REALLY like the day to day result of eating like this. Now on to the downsides: During my time as a Keto athlete (cyclist), I find that I regularly have a 'dead legs' sensation. My legs feel a little bit flat. But I can perform and get results even with this sensation. I find myself having PB/PRs and occasional KOM's. But I regularly don't feel fresh. So the most recent time of my Keto experiment has been trying to add in some targeted carbs just prior to my rides to see if this could help. Yes, yes it does. I've found that 1 Hammergel about 30-45 min prior to a ride can pretty much completely remove by dead-leg syndrome. Last week I did what amounted to a 2.4 mile 6 lap circuit race with a bunch of roadies. https://www.strava.com/activities/1788820876 I'm still experimenting with how to best harness this in combination with my endurance riding and events. But as the experiment goes forward, I'm still trying to find out what can work best for me. In closing, I will say that its not all be great either. This weekend I attempted a to ride my concept of an EB LGT-Parmer-Deception Prologue and crashed & burned badly. It was possibly one of the single worst days I've ever had on a bike. https://www.strava.com/activities/1797161605 I'm still trying to analyze what happened. But I can't deny that nutrition could have played a part in it of some sorts. And the heat...and my fitness...and my pride... In summary, I think you have to find what works best for you. And in order to do that you have to put in the time (on the bike) to have successes and failures. Most of my pre-Keto methodology had been pretty finely honed through much training/practice/racing. And to be honest, I'm not sold-out to Keto. I'm very willing to go back to that way of eating. I somewhat foresee a possible combo where I race on a glucose source and then live day-to-day on a low-carb lifestyle. But if I end up there, in retrospect it could have taken nearly a year to figure that out. Later -CJB

With much respect for you, your racing experience and your contribution to the austin biking...Everything you posted basically goes against the science of racing and your recent experience is probably a representation of a poor nutrition strategy. I am also a traveler such as yourself and have to come back and race marathons in the fall after weeks of Hotel time. Even PRO cyclist on the Keto kick, are using sugar on the bike in hard effort formats. The only piece of science that backs your strategy are the cherry picked studies supporting Keto and similar strategies. If you ride a lot of zone 2-3, you can ride without being reliant upon carbs. Carb loading is a real thing, Just not everyone truly understands how to do it. Glycogen is stored in multiple places for multiple uses. Depending upon the effort you are right about not "needing" nutrition. I can ride very hard for 1-2 hours on nothing bout my normal diet, but my performance would be and is better if timed with the right type of Carbs at the right time. For events like the EB, I would take in large quantities of specific carbs and water. I would also be ok mentally with getting on the scale at 3 pounds heavier that morning because your glycogen stores are on the very high end of around 7-800 grams and you are retaining water. Most people will not do well with protein in their gut during an event like this. With that being said, I dont hear of many pro racers being able to handle 500 calories per hour. most of their nutrition is around 250-400 as its tough for the body to absorb much more than that while its under the duress caused by a race. If you are just at a comfortable pace, and his body is capable of absorbing the 500 then more power to him. I bet he feels great on the bike with keeping up with calories that well. Oh, and YES to pizza!

So I guess naming every single feature , hump and bump and jump is not too much to ask for, Ohhhhh and please make sure that there is a map with all this info on it. Also if it isn't too much to ask-- Lets not name the features anything obscene,, I'd sure hate to explain to my kid what a Rim Job is ,, OR why is Eric carrying dicks in a bag Also I'll need a guided tour as well -- Complete with history and explanations of the of it. Yea,,,, Thats all. And If i think of anything else ,, can I have the OG trail builders personal cell , so I can call ? Great,, Thanks

Your old man moaning at the end is golden stuff. I don't mean that in an inflammatory way ether. You get right back up on the horse! But you can tell you took a hit. I've always wanted to see the full speed version of this video. Of course the slow has cool effect, but I think more could be learned in regular speed. Later -CJB

And here's how not to ride it on a Karate Monkey. With a dropper. This is the first time SB got me. No real damage except for my ego 🙂 (The elbow/eye was the second time.) FWIW I have managed to make it over SB without incident, believe it or not. 3-4 times on the day this video was taken even. -cls

This is the argument people always bring up against droppers that I find just plain wrong. Somehow you are more skilled if you don't use a dropper? I call bullshit. The first thing they tell you to do in coaching clinic is drop your seat. It puts you in a better position for riding anytime you are not pedalling (not just jumps and drops). Practicing riding with the seatpost full extended is like "improving" your golf swing by practicing on one foot. Practicing in a forced compromised position does not improve skill. It just makes you better at something that doesn't really have a practical application anymore. If you really want to improve your riding, get better at using the dropper. If you want to shed 1 lb. from the bike at the expense of push-button access to better weight distribution and rider position, ditch the dropper. Just be real about your motive.

I think I was in pretty good shape going in, but I had never done a ride that long so I didn't have a feel for nutrition. I read that terrible hammer article and planned on 150 calories an hour, and basically started to bonk about 30 miles in, but realized it and started eating everything I could get my hands on and managed to recover enough to ride the remaining 40ish miles. I did the EB last year and planned on more like 225 calories/hour, and did OK but had some significant snacks at the aid stations and felt like I could've eaten more happily. If I do the dragon slayer this year I'm going to plan on 300/hr and have an extra 1000+ at the car just in case.

That was a great idea!!! Hell, I'm doing a manual right now as I type this!

I'm looking forward to the edropper

Getting to Mary Moore Searight; There is a housing development between Slaughter Creek Drive and Bilbrook. Formerly the way to get from Slaughter Creek Drive to Bilbrook was to ride up onto the water retention pond's berm and follow that all the way around until it hit the sidewalk behind the houses. Then the sidewalk between the houses, then sidewalk in front of houses, past the swinging gate thing that is always closed, onto to Bilbrook. There is a better alternate, LESS OBTRUSIVE TO THE HOMEOWNERS, way now. When riding across the field from Slaughter Creek Drive, don't go up onto the berm, stay below it at it's base, out of sight (sort of) of the houses on the other side of the pond. Just as the berm is turning to the left, look to your right. There is an opening in the tree line. That single track through the forest will take you to Bilbrook. All out of sight of the houses.

Get the latex mold at michaels using a 50% off coupon Mix with drill is my paint stirrer drill attachment that I use to mix. I like it to be more watery than thick so I add an extra 8 oz of water 16 oz. mold maker ($6.80) 6 tbsp ammonia (free) 16 oz. propylene glycol ($5) -tractor supply 1/4 tsp. xanthan gum (free) 32 oz. distilled water Order to add: • 16 oz water • 16 oz PG • 2 tsp xantham gum (1 tsp next time?) • 1 oz ammonia Mix with drill • Add 16 oz latex mold builder Mix with drill • Add 16 oz water Mix with drill • Add Chunks - half cup of rubber crumb. (I skip this) • Too thick - Add 8 oz water some people add crumbs like model train sand, glitter, or rubber crumbs.

"Need" and bicycles rarely go together for me. "What's fun?" is pretty much my only concern. I find dropper posts fun, even at WC. Regarding the second part regarding other trails...I couldn't agree more.

Four of us spent four hours walking between Cedar Hollow and Crockett Springs to remove all the downed trees from the trail. I've never seen such carnage on a relatively short segment of trail like this before! Here's a gallery of photos: There are still a few trees down between Crockett and Cedar Breaks, and hopefully those will get taken care of next week in time for Cody's two-lap Dragonslayer pre-ride. ..Al

That fall had nothing to do with a dropper. If you look at the video, the body position is wrong, and primarily the foot position is whacky. The feet and toes are pointed down. Your elbows are also straight in and down vs out and in attach position (think military push up vs standard or wide grip). When the front wheel hits the last and final small drop there is nothing to push against to keep your body back and therefore you you get slung forward. you basically had no arm force or leg force capable of stopping your momentum. My best approach to this drop is not to jump off it, but to ride off with heels dropped while pushing the bike forward and dropping your ass back and down. Almost a manual maneuver. Plenty of speed helps. The slower you go, the more rough this drop gets and the more opportunity for you to do things like this and get knocked off of your form. Speed really helps at brushy.

I think the bigger issue might've been riding it on a fully rigid bike! You couldn't pay me enough to ride deception with no front fork. Kudos to you for trying. My order of importance of equipment would be: 1. Helmet 2. Bike 3. Gloves 4. Front fork 5. Dropper 6. Gears 7. Rear suspension

Awesome, thanks for getting out there in this heat! I can't even imagine clearing what we did yesterday without the chainsaws, so mad props to you for tackling it with a handsaw by yourself. I've let others know that there are still trees down between Cedar Breaks and Crockett. Hopefully most of that can be taken care of this week. ..Al

Apparently a microburst at Lake Georgetown knocked over 20 trees across the trail this week between Cedar Breaks and Cedar Hollow. Most of the damage seems to be near Crockett Springs. We're going to try and clear as much as we can tomorrow, Sunday, August 26th. We'll be meeting at 8am at Cedar Hollow, then heading east towards Crockett Springs (about 2.5 miles). We'll work for about four hours, then head back. We'll have two people authorized to use chainsaws, and then as many as possible to drag cut trees and branches off the trail. Bring at least three liters of water, gloves, heat awareness and sturdy footwear. I also recommend wearing pants. If you have a folding saw, please feel free to bring that as well to help cut smaller limbs and branches. Here is the location of the Cedar Hollow trailhead. Drive all the way to the end of W Lake Parkway and park there. If you can attend, please send me a private message so we know roughly how many to expect. This work day is TMBRA Pay Dirt eligible. Make sure to bring a Pay Dirt form and get it signed. Here's a photo of just one of the downed trees: Thank you! ..Al

I had one...ditched after a few rides. Sold to FirstBlood for $20 and a handjob. Dropper post just didn’t do it for me. I still ride like I’m on a hardtail with rigid post...for better or worse. I don’t really take huge drops and I like a bit of sketch feel to my bike.

I was going to say something like this. I wouldn't call "bullshit" though because I'm a non-confrontational sort. But I too just can't follow that logic. I have a sling shot and a rifle. Practicing the sling shot does not make me a better rifleman.

Thanks for all the input, folks. I'm glad to know not everybody is completely sold on having to have a dropper. And the insight from the folks with multipe bikes - some with and some without - is really interesting. I'll probably give it a try later this week, and I might leave the cable installed and rattlin' around as suggested JIC. I will say that I do enjoy my dropper, and have used it a lot, and I have never had much trouble with any of them except the f*cking KS LEVs and their creaky seat mount system. In fact, the dropper I have on the Blur is the 120mm Brand-X Ascend from Chain Reaction Cycles online, which set me back a whopping $120. $1 per mm - that's $25.4 per inch, fellas, and who wouldn't pay that? 🙂 Anyway, like I said, I just have this nagging feeling that I might be able to adapt to riding without it, and I have to find out, because it is distracting. Although the one thing I can think of that may be a deal-breaker is how easy a dropper makes getting on and off of the bike. Especially getting back on after stopping on any sort of incline. Oh, and how comfortable it is to just sit on the bike with the dropper all the way down, and take a break. First world problems 🙂 -cls

Yeah, do we go with dad who has a new sports car and a condo or do we stick with mom who got to keep the house that kind of smells like old Korean food.

Funny, as I'm pretty sure I yelled out, "Stop sanitizing the trail!" a few times yesterday. 🙂

Please stop sanitizing the trails. I keed! I keed! I didn't hear anything on the weather about a wind event out there. Amazing. And good work by the way.

Or perhaps the rocker-recliner? Do manuals in an instant without even trying!

I'd probably do better if I did. I just go with a large carborrific meal about 1-3 hours ahead. Then 1 gel an hour and 3 to 4 scoops or Perpetuem about every 3 hours.

Before I did the nutcracker (LGT+brushy+connecting stuff loop) I read this article: https://www.hammernutrition.com/knowledge/less-is-best-the-right-way-to-fuel/ and it really fucked me up. It recommends 120-150 calories/hour, which was spectacularly not enough food. I have no idea how that is advice given by professionals.

How yall gonna be mad during a Bob Marley song? Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

You don't need a dropper at Walnut. Expand your riding experience to other local trails, and you may find it invaluable.

Thanks a bunch to you all Albert! I'd like to buy beers for that crew. You all deserve it, that had to be some serious work. If everything get taken care of between Cedar Breaks and Sawyer, then it would get everything. The rest of the trail sections seemed fine to me. -CJB

usually aluminum nipples. bought a salvaged specialized hardtail from yellowbike and 60% of the nipples were broken

I used to lace all my own wheels, then I got lazy. That should be a VERY simple fix. I would check to make sure that the spokes aren't cut too short.

InformalCrazyHypacrosaurus.webm

An acquaintance of mine- Todd D did something like this a year or two back. IIRC he started at 12-1am and I believe rode LGT prior to EB. I think he finished that but then fell short of some other crazy goal he had for the end of his epic epic.

Compared to my last 1 car garage, i couldn't give a flying fk about popcorn, paneling, or ceiling fan location. The 70s called, and i gladly answered.

I said earlier in the thread that I’ve done it 2.3 times. That’s because my third time was when I had a 6 month old and didn’t feel like I could be gone all day (takes me 12hrs to finish). So I did what I call the breakfast platter. I rode to Walnut from home, rolled out with everyone and did the BCGB portion. Then I rode the route towards City Park, but I stopped at the shopping center at Bee Caves rd where I had left my car the night before. Yeah I could’ve gone farther of course, but I got in a good ride and enjoyed the camaraderie. The year before I trained some beforehand and set the goal of completing it in 12hrs and riding every climb (HOL, Courtyard, City Park, Jester, St. Ed’s, Youpon, and even the last awful climb out of Thumper). I did it. Came in around 11hrs 50ish min. But I’ve never felt closer to death than I did while finishing Walnut. I bonked so hard. I couldn’t eat anything, felt nauseous, and my calves and thighs would immediately cramp up if I pointed my feet down. I rolled in to mulch island, got my photo with the plate and pink fork and then promptly was driven home by my wife before having some soup and going to bed. Totally worth it! Refusing to quit or planning ahead to quit. Either one works. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nerd.

props to those who can fit more than 4 hours of weekly ride time into their schedule!

If you move your mouse over the Like (thumbs up) button, a small popup should appear giving you four additional choices. Right now those are "Thanks", "Haha", "Confused", and "Sad". Once a post has some sort of "Like" applied to it, you can then click the icons to the left of the thumb to see who reacted in what way. ..Al

I'd be down for a harder version, although I'd like to minimize road if that's possible. I'm all for hurting myself on a trail, but getting drug to my death under some milf's SUV b/c she was sending emojis to the dude she's dinking at work isn't high on my list of things I wanna do on a bike (or on a milf)

I agree with this - I don't intentionally go looking for stuff, but when I see that the Pay It Forward thread has a new post I go look at it. Moving it to a different place will result in less activity and eventual disuse. I actually feel the same way about the sales items. Look at how often people post to the For Sale forum and then cross post to Voodoo. Nobody really looks at the sales forum. But then ... Forum Administration is much like trail building. If I'm not going to offer to help set up (and I'm not), then I should be happy with the design that you come up with (and I will be). If you choose to leave a few tree gates along the way, I'll happily live with them. Thanks for all your work setting this up and getting us moved over!