old school claim to fame

here I am on my first mtb. It was a red Cannondale. I used it for a tour from Washington D.C. to New Orleans after graduating high school. Soon after that it became my work bike when I couriered in Baltimore. This magazine cover is from The League of American Wheelmen(they changed the last word to Bicyclists a little later). My boss at the time wasn't happy with the one-way sign in the backround showing I'm breaking traffic laws....

mount du lac extravaganza

Well we decided to leave early and camp the night before this was a good idea not only for easy pre race prep but more importantly we got to night ride. Damn that was fun too bad my second light joel borrowed lost its juice on one lap or we could have done a second lap.
Riding at night spawned an idea of mine to put on a race either wors or mnscs that is totally at night. i suspect a weekend night fri or sat would work and it would involve camping/party afterwards. but enough on that for now on to the race.

Du lac started us out right up a hill half the distance of manhandler and then right into a long extended up hill which wasnt so shabby itself. 8 of us blew out front and stayed there for the most of the race. me and clayton hooked up maybe less than a quarter into the first lap and pretty much stayed together for the rest of the race.

again we had a guy show up for one race who was pretty strong who lead all of the race. the first lap was a battle between me and pat and andy who are both penn cycle riders. there was 2 peace coffee guys also in front and a jr rider from flanders.

the guy from peace coffee who beat me last week faded during the first lap. andy dropped back also. the remaining peace coffee rider burped air during me and claytons steady pulling up to the lead group of him the flanders kid and pat.

so by the third lap me and clayton started picking it up and clayton pulled maybe 5 bike links in front of me and i wasnt able to catch back up to him for most of the lap. we past the flanders kid a 3rd into the 4th lap and were able to see pat maybe 1/2 way into the last lap.

coming into the final twisting sweltering single track i kept yelling at clayton to "pull from the well" cuz i thought he actual had the speed to catch pat. i turned it up also but wasnt sure i could catch him.

well i did pick it up i guess, cuz coming out of the trees into the first part of the final uphill i saw clayton and pat. Well i just put the hammer down and kept it in secound as long as i could and started to gain on them. i passed clayton on the first 1/4 of the hill and pat just a bit after.

pat picked it up and came back at me on the last 1/4 and i matched him almost to the crest and he had just a touch more and he got to the top first. so going into the final switchback dh i didnt fight him for position he earned that spot in front of me.

so we had a steller day! i got 2nd in age and 3rd overall. it was so fulfilling! i felt great physically!



there was only one good biff which was during the tree down hill on the 3rd lap clayton washed out his front tire and went down i came up fast in a blaze but was giving him distance so i could react if he fell. lucky id did cuz i nearly hit him as he stood up. in the flury he moved up trail as i went up trail to go around him. luckily i only caught a smidgen of his tire and didnt catch his fingers in my spokes. he said he had felt his fingers lightly brush them god that would have fucken sucked if we would have had a team mate taken out a team mate!

new toys at Buck Hill this week

After being frustrated with my cycle computer conking out for the third time in 3 months I got rid of the wires and bought a garmin gps unit. It measures heartrate, elevation, speed, lap time, distance, some other stuff and maps where you go. Check out the data I collected from Buck Hill if you are so inclined on mb.
Also we all ran kenda karma 2.o tires on Thursday and they worked great in the loose and muddy stuff we had to contend with. They added some old trail back in the past couple weeks and it had a lot of the loose stuff. The course was just a little soggy from the rain earlier in the day. We didn't get any rain while racing, but after preriding half the course on my small block eights and hearing thunder while at the top of the hill I rushed back and changed tires. Got to the startline a little late and had to muscle my way into a third row start position. Race went pretty well although we had to run up the first steep climb due to logjam. Here's a bonus photo from Afton:


Stay tuned for some spy photo's of an anonymous birchwood rider showing how they win so many races..

PAINsville triathlon

on saturday i raced the paynesville triathlon. we decided to make a weekend of it so my family and a group of friends loaded up the van and headed out of town. we camped at a campground on the same lake where the race was held so we could be closer and not have to get up so early on race day. sounds good in theory but didnt work so well in practice. we stayed up later than expected and when i finally got to bed at nearly midnight i got a call from some other people who were camping with us but drove separatly. they were lost. i climbed out of the tent to consult the map and give them directions and awaited their arrival so i could direct them to their site. after many glances at the time i finally got to bed at 1:00. i still somehow managed to wake up a few minutes before my alarm at 5:30. great! i usually try to get at least 8 hours of sleep before a race and i got about half that. we made breakfast and headed off to check in and get body marking at 7:30. i got a great transition spot and surprisingly wasnt tired. i spent the next hour hydrating and warming up and after my 5th trip to pee the race was about to start. i decided to take a different tactic than usual at the start of the race and not go all out on the swim. i still made my way to the front of the pack but didnt have the goal of being the first out of the water. i settled into a descent rhythm and was the 7th person out of the water. i looked behind me and had a nice gap to the next person. i was happy with that. i took off on the bike and in the first mile i passed the guy ahead of me. i was feelin great. a few miles into the bike i finally started feeling tired. every mile started to feel like an accomplishment. the hilly course was really taking its toll on me and i kept glancing back and could see a rider making ground on me. i really had to will my legs to keep turning and resist the urge to stop and take a nap. he passed me right before mile 10 where the sign read "welcome to pain hill". i had to really dig deep up the aptly named beast so i wouldnt loose too much ground and by the end of the bike he was less than a minute ahead of me. i had a fast transition into the run and had no idea what to expect for the run course. i ran 100 yards and turned the corner right into a steep hill. my legs felt like lead. i felt like i was going incredibly slowly. i got passed by two guys before the water station at the half way point and i felt like crap. i was really pushing myself for the last mile since another guy was about 50 yards behind me and i wasnt going to let him pass me too. i held him off and finished 10th overall; second in the 30-35 division. i suddenly felt fantastic.

An interesting new study on the effects of sleep and athletic performance.

"Although much research has established the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive function, mood and performance, relatively little research has investigated the effects of extra sleep over multiple nights on these variables, and even less on the specific relationship between extra sleep and athletic performance. This study illuminated this latter relationship and showed that obtaining extra sleep was associated with improvements in indicators of athletic performance and mood among members of the men's basketball team."

I think this explains the uphill crash at cottage grove a while back. And Me forgetting to set my lock out to off at afton.
I'm going back to bed!

It's my birthday

So i raced buck hill.
I even had a real awesome start.
then we hit the sandy soft silty dirt and sand and I was sliding all over the place.
I held my own until i crashed in some soft stuff on the first lap. Got passed by almost 10 riders.
But I recovered my groove, and 5 minutes later same exact thing, over the handlebars.

So after the third time I was a lot more timid with the front brakes.
So I reeled in about 4 or 5 riders in the ensuing madness (laps),
and finished somewhere mid pack.

I think I may have ridden over a small bird that didn't get out of the way when I was coming in before I hit the down hill into the finishing area. what a way to end the evening. It made me sad thinking how dumb that was for me to hurt an innocent animal just so I can have fun. I looked for it after the race but couldn't remember where it was that it had happened. The song conscience of a cannibal by drop dead would not leave my head. What a weird thing to have happen that close to the end of a race. I could blame the bird for not getting out of my way like a smart bird would, but I was on it's turf doing something pointless and unnecessary. I hope i missed it.

So yeah , happy birthday to me.
Rushed home to have dinner with some friends at French Meadows, flat bread pizza, vegan entree of curry and brown rice with a "killer" chocolate torte. Talk about the perfect recovery meal, and no dead little birds.

weird


So now I am 20-11 or 31 officially. I seemed to have recovered from Sundays effort nicely. Lets see How I recover from the cold press coffee i had for breakfast. I am still feeling amped at this hour. Yikes
Thanks to all who showed up, sorry to the my fellow hublings, I am bad at organizing things like that.

Putting up with pain

A little late reporting on the Afton Avalanche.

Afton is a weird race for me. Riding there I seem to have no serious problems keeping a high tempo, come race day it's another story.

So what I did wrong
1) Lack of sleep, maybe 6 hours.
2) Poor breakfast choice (not enough for sure).
3) inadequate fluid intake and electrolytes prior to the race.
4) leaving my Fox fork locked out during the entire warm up and first lap.
5) riding lebanon hills the day prior to the race.

those are the major mistakes i made prior to the race.

All in all I felt really flat the whole race, I was never really able to lay down some power and just blast up any hill. The start was good as usual, i was in 4th place leading into the single track with two flanders guys ( both who have in races finished ahead of me at least once). I was able to hold with them and this guy in a funky yellowish orange jersey who I have never seen before. The first serious climb near southern switchbacks the guy in yellow takes off past team flanders. If you read Sean's post you'll see he was gone for good, never saw him after that climb. Once into the single track i get right on Peter O's wheel (this kid is gonna be in expert class in the next year or two) and today he seems to be hating it right. I'm not having any fun either, my breathing is labored and my traction is horrible, scaring myself through every corner. All I can wonder is do my new tires suck this horribly? Well after riding behind peter for a bit and watching his teamate pull ahead I let him know we are coming by. Sean and myself that is. We catch his teamate in the 1st of 2 rocky sections, not because we are seriously fast, but because he is frantically trying to get his chain from between his spokes and his cassette. I still am hating the traction on these tires and am barely able to hold a line, it's hot, high 80's hot and i am bumming. Manhandler didn't seem so bad , but then again I wasn't really pushing it, so Mr peace Coffee rolls by, i stay on him until the downhill, and Sean ask's if i want him to pull and chase the peace guy (he's maybe 15 yards up the trail).I say yes take a swig of water, and watch them ride away from me. about 5 minutes later I look down at my fork and notice that I am locked out, FUCK ME i think, so I unlock it and ride a much better second lap. I save my energy for the third lap. All the while Sean Has a Minute on me and peace coffee guy has a slight gap on Sean. At the End of the second lap I have a a penn cycle guy near me, I take a water hand up and a dousing from the water station. I then feel the first of what is going to be 40 minutes of cramping. Every pedal stroke begins to hurt, little twitches of muscle spasms with every upstroke and down stroke of my leg. Not a good sign for the last lap. Penn guy passes me like I am standing still, I am now spinning in my granny gear the entire race, is it me or is afton 80-90% uphill? Not that I normally ride uphill, but this sucks when it's hot, your cramping and the water you were handed is hot gatorade. Damn now I can't cool myself off at all. I get passed halfway through the lap, with 2 guys about 30 seconds in arrears of me. I get to manhandler, and just spin, and cramp, spin and cramp, I am going 3.1 mph, so I hop off the bike and push the bike, I am going 3.1 mph, and cramping in different muscles, ah relief is different pain. I hop on my bike, look back and see the guy behind me is to close for comfort, and there is a struggling expert rider in front of me, I ignore the pain as my legs want nothing to do but lock up on this last little climb, and blaze down hill for the glory of 4th place (for the 3rd time) in my age group, and 6th overall. Thats up from 8th the week before. I think I am going to treat myself to a massage this week. Next is Mont du Lac, supposed to be fun and no way can it be as hot as afton. Is that a podium place I see?

race week, phase two

so I got myself out to the first of the summit series at dakota tech this evening.. there were about 25 riders in the masters 3,4,5 race. I recognized a couple of riders, including Joe Hamlin from silver cycling.. big strong guy who can sprint .. it was a ten lap race with two primes.. enough wind to discourage breaks. nonetheless, I had to chase down a couple of guys (including Hamlin) early. There were a few teams well represented including spbrc, loon state, silver.. anyhow, one silver guy out front on the first prime lap, I bridged up, and no one followed.. weird. I drafted the dude until the last corner, and easily took the prime. He tried to get me to keep going, but I was pulling my water bottle out of my back pocket for some hydration. It was 90 degrees.. so then I'm back in the back for the next couple of laps until a couple guys try to get away again. I bridged up. We dropped one , and so another hollywood rider was dragging me to the finish line again. I'm starting to like these guys ! .. anyhow, he was more ready than his team mate and held me off at the line for the second prime. I'm back in back, and finishing my water.. about 4 laps left.. pace is up and down, with most of the pack still in the race. two laps to go and a little jump. I get on Hamlins wheel and won't let anyone take it away. 1 lap to go and another hollywood dude drifts off the front. I jump and again nobody answers. So hollywood #3 is again leading me out. I look behind and we have about 100 yards.. might be enough. with a couple corners left he's still cranking away , and I'm watching behind.. starting to hear the wheels of the group, but with the corners coming up, I'm sitting pretty. around the last corner I swing wide, and I see the front of the group on the inside. I think I have a chance at passing my lead out dude , but he's just ahead of me and I'm not gaining after I get to about his saddle.. at the line Hamlin catches me and takes second place by about 1/2 wheel.. the judges have a hard time scoring anything lower than 4th place because we first 3 were so tight.. great race ! next week, we should all get out there, it's a really fun place to race. I brought home 10 bucks too ! ... so that's a first place last thursday (buck hill) .. 2nd place sunday (afton) third place tonight.. I'm really on a downward track. Speaking of track, race week concludes with thursday (if it doesn't rain) and saturday evenings at the ncs. SERIOUSLY it would be a great place to ride as a team out at dakota tech. check the calendar.. we could all do the cat 3,4,5 race.. late,r

Wow that felt great!

well first and formost it was incredibly satisfying to end up in 4th overall after such a hellish race!! i know it may not have been as hot as last year but it was enough for me and three laps.
I made sure this race to get out front and put it down for the first lap. it started right out with me and clayton following three cats. clayton pulled for the first half of the first lap. i took over and i think clayton dropped somewhere before the nasty climb before manhandler.
We passed one of the 3 and the other flatted. During all this a peace coffee guy which i think i took by like 4 places last week moved onto our tail. he moved in front of us while clayton was pulling and i even told clayton to not worry about him he will fade. um no he didnt lol.
The lead guy was long gone and nowhere to be found. so it seemed a battle for 2nd and 3rd. During the secound lap he pulled in front of me and i let him have it why not draft i thought. well that was my big mistake of the race. i let him decide the tempo i stayed behind him all the way to man handler even though he even offered to let me pass well before then. if i had i woud have rode my race and made him adjust his tempo to catch me. bummer im not sure how it would have ended up but i suspect things could have changed.
during our constant battle a nature valley 19-29 rider just plain blew past us on the big hill neer the 24 hour of afton start/finish area. he kinda turned it up a notch somewheres behind us and damn we didnt have a chance.
So there ya have it. afton alps continues to be the hardest race all year hot and nasty, and All i know was riding thru the pain and discomfort of that awful race got me the spot it did.
pa pow.

avalanche

Joel rode in the 'expert' , Sean and Clayton rode in the 'comp', I rode in the Single Speed cat, which was in the 'sport' race. It was hot... and very hot for the later races.. here's a quick report from my race, and some photos.

wow, that was tough.. I went out in the first wave of the Sports, which included single speed riders and some younger age group, like 29-35 or something...anyhow, at the start I blasted up to the top of the first hill and into the lead just for grins, then let some mtb racers through so I could see how to do this stuff... fell, got up, then got stuck behind a guy that 8 minutes into the race was hitting the wall. I was all "hup, hup, hup" behind the dude while the top 3 ro 4 riders were building a little gap..this was just at the end of the first section ( the bridge loop) .. I passed him and got the leaders back within sight, .... continued that way for the first loop, then beginning the second loop I passed one of the ss riders who had a flat. I thought he was out of the race.. turns out he fixed his wheel, and got back in... anyhow, at that point I figured there were just two guys ahead of me, the leader (who was riding ss, and was way out front) and the geared bike dude that had been riding with the guy who flatted. I thought I had an outside chance of catching that guy, but didn't want to overdo it trying to move up on him. I could see some folks behind me on the switchbacks, but I felt pretty good, and didn't worry about them too much. I had walked a few of the hills on the first lap to conserve energy, and give myself time to actually drink the energy mix I'd carted up to the top.. then, when the hills weren't as steep, I felt strong, and could really hammer. That strategy worked well on the second lap when I heard the guy coming up behind me.. I knew he must be working hard, and was watching me walk.. he probably figured I was fried.. Just as he closed the gap though, I finished my water, and hopped back on, and blasted up the last hill. I figured if he could hang with me on that hill, I'd pull over and pat him on his back on his way past. Well, that didn't happen. I finished about a minute ahead of him...When I checked the results I was surprised to see that I was 4th overall..... dang, thought I got third ? well, dont forget the waves,and the elapsed time that determines the results.. so I got 'edged' out (by about a minute) by a 14 year old riding for hollywood .. dang. but that kid will probably be one heck of a bike racer in 20 years! .. The scoring on the race is by age group.. even for the ss riders. So there's no separate ss category, and I'll have to check if either of the two guys who finished in front of me were actually in my age group.. In my mind though, I got third place out the group I went out with, which included three of the four fastest riders in all the sport categories ..

I (heart) mtn bike racing

well, I did it again. I notched a post in the win column.
Here's a pic of one of my awesome bikes: and now I'm going to have another beer while you drool over the fastest bike in the recreation race, Buck Hill, June 7, 2007.