Riding Dirty Flying High

Columbia Speed Academy

2012-01-18T12:56:00.000-08:00

Wanna try your might at a 60 minute circuit workout that will likely leave you heaving in the bathroom? Visit these guys...

Columbia Speed Academy

I did one of their circuits on Sunday, and followed it up with a hard 45 miler on the Katy. I'm just now feeling like I'm not sore.

From the self-propelled treadmill, to the ropes, polymetric drills, and five spot jump mats, these guys have a unique circuit that works every muscle in the body. Jason laughed when I told him I've never puked from a workout, and I encouraged him to make me. He did his best, and although I was exhuasted, I still held it in.

But I'll be going back... Again, and again, and again.

Get strong, try new things, break it down and build it up.

G

Optical Illusion

2012-01-13T13:05:00.001-08:00

I took this pic a few days ago. The lake was as calm as I've ever seen for mid afternoon. The lake was even more vivid than the sky, which was amazing itself.

Camera phone shot inverted...

G

3 Day Taintisizor

2012-01-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

Oh my oh my... What a wreck I am today. I had basically 10 days off for the holidays, rode a ton, rested even more, but then ended the break with moving out of my apartment which came down to a 15 hour day of moving/cleaning yesterday. Today I feel a little tired.

I really can't complain at all about last weeks riding schedule. I kinda wished I did more core/upper body work, but alas I had a great week. Monday was a little ride around the farm, followed by leg killer lower body bodyweight workouts. I've been heavy on my one legged butt to the ground squats. They're killer.

Tuesday/Wednesday were back to back 45 miler gravel grinds.

Thursday was an off day, just a little core and upper body workout.

Friday began the three day MTB marathon. It was the best three days of MTB I can remember, only made better by being on the funnest bike to date, the Stumpy EVO FSR 29er.

Friday I hit up Four Winds first at Lake Ozark. A real mans trail... A trail that left me hiking my bike out for 2 hours in 110 degree heat back in July. I was ready for some redemption. I got it. The Stumpy did not dissapoint, and I railed a lap of all that Four Winds had to offer.

A short 20 minute drive later and I was parked at Carls Market, and on to the second trails system of the day, Bittersweet. It's soo soo sweet. A trail that you have to know pretty well to navigate, and a trail that even when known has a tendency to get you lost. I was happy to remember all of the intersections, subdivision divisions, road crossings, and more to be able to navigate the full trail. I finished just as the sun was setting, with a Carls Market sandwhich in hand along with the ever so wonderful Central Dairy chocolate milk.

The SKI jump! This thing is a blast. Tucked away on Bittersweet, you pretty much drop down from some guys back yard, and fly down the trail just like a ski jump. Maybe that's were it got it's name.

The entrance to Bittersweet just down the road from Carls. This is just off a normal busy road. You would never see it if you didn't know it was there.

Sitting in Carls Market. Specialized hit the Flo color on the head with this paint job. It almost glows in low light conditions. Very very bright compared to my other Floyellow frames.

Saturday I rode again solo, because apparently crossers are still crossing. I'm so glad that craps about done. I'm ready to ride dirt again with my semi-mountain biking friends. I say semi, because anyone who chooses a cross race over sweet awesome trail conditions, and 60 degree weather on New Years Eve isn't a 100% true mountain biker. Sorry...

Anyways, I hit up BURP for an hour and a half or so, and then headed over to Swope to finish the evening off for a couple more hours of riding.

Classic Swope.

I got porcelin god praying drunk Saturday night, and even though none of my friends wanted to ride again, I decided I was way to hungover not to ride on New Years day. I enjoy hungover rides. They leave you feeling much better than you are going into them. They actually end up usually being good rides for me too. I'm not sure why, but I usually feel pretty good. Sunday I felt great. Suprising after the last two days of taint and leg abuse, but a good feeling anyhow.

I hit up ISH for the first time. The Stumpy killed it... I hit every feature, and for never dirt jumping, I think I did a fine job of sending it. Spent another hour and half of riding, and called it a day as the sun set again, for the third day in a row leaving the trail.

Then I moved all day yesterday.

I think I'm not going to ride tonight. Lot's of unpacking. It'll be a good night to do some circuit workouts.

Then back to dirt tommorow....

G

Crazy

2011-12-27T14:00:00.000-08:00

It's December 27th... I'm wearing shorts. Crazy

G

The REAL Whales Tail

2011-12-24T08:17:00.001-08:00

Finally! Swope was railed in its full glory for what was a perfect Christmas Eve morning ride. There was only one drop on Marcy's that I didn't hit. Everything else was butta...

G

Quality Time

2011-12-18T18:10:00.001-08:00

It woulda been another great day for gravel riding, but a late night coupled with the first decent Chiefs game in a minute meant I only had a couple hours to ride. I ended up learning the new bike some more instead. Two hours of constant sprints and hucks later and I'm even more in love with this bike. It's amazing what you can do. I rode up a twelve step staircase... Like it was nothing. Any drops in the 3-5 foot range are pillowee. The drop in the pic is a fun one, with a good 2-5 foot range. I've found all kinds of new fun lines around town on this thing.

Now if Swope would just dry...

G

Trail Condition Check

2011-12-17T15:18:00.001-08:00

Rode all over the place today. Checked the trail conditions at Knob. Yup, way wet. Oh well... The rest of the day was sweet, filled with crazy warm temps and never ending gravel. Thought of doing the gravel ride in Lawrence, but its hard to drive that far when you have unlimited gravel out your back door.

No mtb for the next few days I reckon.

G

Welcome to Banger City

2011-12-16T08:23:00.000-08:00

Drew Bezanson from Justen Soule on Vimeo.

Banger after banger, Drew is bonkers.

G

Screw It... I'm going BIG

2011-12-12T12:37:00.001-08:00

After spending three days in the great Colorado Springs on one of these...

I gave in.

I'll have one of these by this weekend...

Oh ya, it's go time baby. I thought the Epic monster trucked. You have no idea. 140mm up front, 135 in the back. I may not be the fastest uphills, but let a rock garden get in the way and I'll show you how to murder it. The bike I rode all weekend only had 130mm overall travel. The Evo should rip rip rip it up all day all day.

Welcome to the big wheel, big travel era... I don't care what they say. These things are way too damn fun to deny. Anyone wanna buy a rigid hartail Stumpy? I've got one for sale...

G

Spot on at 80mph

2011-12-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

Snowy 40 Mile Katy Commute

2011-12-06T10:22:00.001-08:00

I had no idea it was supposed to snow today when I chose to ride my bike to a friends in Booneville last night from work. It's a little over 40 miles on the Katy Trail. Last nights ride was good, but you could imagine my suprise when I woke up this morning. No worries, I bundled up and hit the road. Getting out of Booneville was fun. Cars and trucks sliding everywhere, and me and my bike just powering right on by them. It's was fun to watch the looks as I sprinted up hills they couldn't even drive up.

The ride went well, a little longer than expected but it was fun none the less. Hard too... The Katy hides itself in almost flat demeanor but is far from it on this section. You're either going up for miles at a slight grade, or down. It's the hilliest section of the Katy, and it works ya.

This got me thinking, what's the craziest/longest commute you've every done? I'm sure I'm not the only crazy one. Of course my co-workers thought 40 miles on the snowy Katy was nothing sort of insane. Oh, what they don't know...

G

The First of December

2011-12-02T08:27:00.001-08:00

So Base 1 went well. Nothing crazy but it was a good solid foundation for phase 2. 15 hour/week average, followed by Thanksgiving rest week. Did manage a sweet turkey day ride at Binder on the cross bike.

Today I rode in a pair of knickers and a light long sleeve jersey. Almost like riding in shorts and a tee. Can't beat that for December 1st. A big thanks goes out to my boy JesseGFunk for the helping me get rid of the rigid. He kindly let me borrow one of his Fox forks for the winter. Completly changed the Stumpy... Way better. Thanks dude!

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

Gone Rigid

2011-11-21T09:27:00.000-08:00

It's probably best I start by giving you my background in regards to riding a rigid mountain bike before I state my point. This is also just my experience, and you can take it how you will...

My first 29er was a Jamis Exile steel singlespeed. It replaced the first bike I raced on, a Specialized Hardrock. The Hardrock had seen a hard year of riding and racing, and I was intrigued by the big wheel movement. This was in 07 I believe. I bought the Jamis because it was fairly inexpensive, it had big hoops, and it was sweet looking. Little did I know it was a piece of shit. No offense, but Jamis did not have their stuff together when they launched their first 29ers, the Exile and Dakota. The Exile was steel like I mentioned, and the rigid fork wasn't even that bad. The problem was their welds sucked, and I snapped the downtube off the headtube not once, but twice on seperate bikes. That wasn't as bad as the Dakota though. The headtube snapped clean off the top and downtube, which convienently happend as I was coming down from manualing a creek crossing. The result was my face eating my front wheel, and an otherwise nasty crash that left me licking my wounds for almost a month after. Needless to say I was done with Jamis. (*Note- Jamis seems to have their crap together better now days, and I'm sure they're very nice bikes that hopefully didn't inherit their predessors problems.)

After the Dakota accident, I sold my replacement frame they sent me, and purchased a Surly Karate Monkey. That bike was a blast... minus the fork. Anyone who has ridden the old generation Karate Monkey fork will tell you it was rough. I believe they've redesigned the forks as of late, and I've heard they are worlds better. It was a rough ride, but it rode like a dream. I rode and raced it rigid for awhile, before slapping a White Brothers Magic fork on it. I really liked that fork.

I stayed suspended up front for awhile, then purchased a Specialized Stumpjumper in Fall of 08. I raced the Stumpy for the first half of 09, but in early Fall of 09 I blew out the gears and fork, and decided to keep it simple and ride it single speed and rigid. I bought a Origin 8 carbon fork, and from Fall of 09 all through 2010 I rode the hell out of it. This was also my first real year racing Expert, and I did fairly well given my lack of gears and suspension.

In February of this year, I snapped the chainstay on the Stumpy in the first hour of a three day training block down in Arkansas. I was bummed. Luckily this was about the same time my Epic came in, so I wasn't too worried. Specialized came through with a new 2011 Stumpy frame for my replacement, and it too went single speed and rigid. It, however, only got rode twice due to the Epic. I couldn't not ride the piss out of the Epic. It was a drug I couldn't get enough of. So the Stumpy sat unridden all through this year.

So there's my history. My history with rigid came to a head this last weekend. In a flux without the Epic, or a suspension fork, I decided to take out the Stumpy rigid in all it's glory. I rode Binder Lake in Jeff, which to me always seemed like a good course for a singlespeed and even rigid. I rode a hard sprint interval ride Friday night, and a 3 hour ride on Saturday...

What resulted was my final conclusion on riding a rigid mountain bike...

IT SUCKS!

I'm sorry, but in now way was it enjoyable. I understand the persona behind it. It makes you look tough, and hell you almost have to be to ride one. But bottom line is I ride to enjoy the ride, not to get the hell beat out of me and my wrists snapped. Maybe I'm just a pussy... or maybe I'm now spoiled. I'm so used to being glued to the ground. So used to blasting through rock gardens with high speed and big smiles. Used to riding for hours with no back pain or hand numbness. Sure, the hardtail has it's pluses, with it's flickablity, direct power transfer, and bit lighter overall weight. That being said, the Epic is damn near on even playing feild on the stiffness, weight, and power transfer, but it blows the doors off everything else. It makes riding so much more enjoyable, and overall makes me way faster.

So what's the point of this post? I'm not sure... I guess to say I'm done with rigid forever. With the newest technology in full suspension 29ers, I can't see myself ever going back. I'll keep the hardtail for awhile, but I'll likely buy a Camber for my "other" mountain bike. I just enjoy riding so much more when I'm not trying to fight my bike. We live in a place that's never short on rocks and other bone jarring obstacles. I don't need a bike that makes me feel every one of them.

Maybe I'm just getting old... Maybe I'm just getting smarter. Who knows.

Rant over.

G

Other Things I Enjoy

2011-11-12T20:19:00.000-08:00

I sure do enjoy riding bicycles. That's no suprise. I do, however, enjoy other things in life too. One of those things is hunting. Most wouldn't know it, but I'm a true hick at heart. I grew up on a farm, and my summers as a kid were filled with riding my four wheeler, fishing, hunting, and otherwise enjoying the outdoors.

I never pass up a chance to hunt on opening weekend of deer season. Especially when its with my family. This year is the second year that my pops, brother, and I were able to join forces to hunt our bosses farm in Blairstown, MO. There's some monster deer in these parts, and tonight I took a pretty good one.
It was an extremely exciting hunt. The rut seems to still be in effect, and this boss hog was chasing a doe something serious. I saw him skirt by in the thick woods, and then the doe proceeded to bust me. I threw in a few snort weezes, and about 10 minutes later I had a shot at that dude. It was so fast, and I barely remember even taking the shot. I had a window open that lasted just a few short seconds, but the shot was clean and he dropped in his tracks.

Afterwards is the real work. Skinning and chunking up a deer is always tough, and for some reason there's no place to hang deer here, so that made it even harder. No worries, a dozen Bud Lights, a sharp knife, and a little time is all it took...
Here's a few from my stand. I actually shot him on the back side of my stand in the thick thicket. Pretty sweet land none the less.

Pretty stoked to take down the biggest deer of my hunting career. Now if I can only get my bro to get his first deer tommorow!

G

Into the Dark

2011-11-11T10:46:00.000-08:00

There's something satisying about riding into the dark. Or riding out of the dark, either way. Lately, I've had the pleasure of donning the lights, and getting in some good sunset to darkness rides.

Wednesday night I grabbed my recently overhualed Kona Jake, now with fancy gears and a new stealth black paint job, and headed out for some much needed gravel time. It's that time of the year where my percentage of gravel to overall ride time increases dramatically. However, as long as trails are dry, they eat up the majority of the time. Wednesday's night right was my 45 mile loop I do, with roughly 2600 feet of climbing. It's a good mix of flats and hills, and I enjoyed having gears to be able to push a faster pace on all the flat stuff. About an hour into the ride, I had to switch the head gear on, and illuminate the night with my blasting beam of white light. I felt good, the air was crisp, and the pedals were turning nicely after Tuesday's trainer trashing.

Last night I again got to do some day/night riding up at SMP. I arrived to Burnsey's place early to go out and scout the trails to see if they were dry enough. Luckily for us there were, and I was able to hit some rogue trails out to the mountain bike trails, railed all of those, and headed back to Seans. They were gracious enough to let me stuff my face with some tasty turkey soft tacos, and then it was off to the backyard skills park. Neither one of us had very much skillz, so we played around for a thirty minutes or so, and then decided it was just us two for the Thursday night ride. Fast forward 3 hours later and we had completed the night ride in fashion. Tons of trail, lots of deer, and plenty of goofing off on unique trail obstacles.
I saw at least a hundred deer.
Playing on logs. Pic courtesy of Burnsey.

Two nights, two great rides. I'm pretty wore after yesterday so today I'll be hitting a nice easy 45 minute cross bike ride around some parks, and then another 45 minutes of some heavy hitting core and upper body workouts. Then it's off to deer camp. Yes sir, time to restock the freezer with some wild venison. Hopefully that is.

I'll sneak out tommorow for some three hours of gravel, and then hopefully Sunday have some of the boys down to my neck of the woods for a long day in the saddle hitting up all of Knob in it's full glory. I can't wait to scout some trail I've never ridden.

Improvisions

2011-11-09T08:08:00.001-08:00

I think the biggest challenge most riders who are wanting vast improvement have, is sticking to a plan. I'm no different. Life is a wonderfull thing, but it often gets in the way. Family, work, weather, and our bodies can sometimes get in the way of doing a specific workout we had planned for a particular day. My biggest advice would be to be flexible but yet steady in your course. Sure, you may not get the 3 hour ride in today that you planned, or the power hour yesterday in my case. The biggest difference between the top end guys, and the others, is that even in the face of those things that get in the way, they still push on and get solid workouts in regardless. To me, getting in 5 rides a week is my goal. How I go about that sometimes changes. But out of those 5 I know I want 3 to be good solid, hard workouts. The other two being long slower fun rides.

Yesterday I hooked the bike up to the trainer and set out for what was to be an hour of power. I haven't done this workout since late last spring, and there's no doubt it's a very challenging workout. I choose a 43x12 gear to push, with my mediocre trainer set on the hardest setting. 15 minutes in and I knew that I wasn't going to be accomplishing my hour. I guess I overestimated the gear choice, and so with that in mind, and knowing I would do no good by dumbing down the hour, I choose to do a 2x20 minute workout.

This is another great workout that helps you work on your sustained power output. For me my goal this off season is to build a very solid hour and a half base. That's my typical race length. If I can come into February with being able to ride hard for an hour and a half, then all I have to do is fine tune and sharpen that hour and a half. I need to be able to sprint over, and over, and over, and over again for an hour and a half to be competitive in my level. For most though, just having a solid hour and half fast pace base is plenty to be competitive on the local level. Ideally, I'd like to race an hour and a half on any given course at 12.5+ mph come February. I'll then need to fine tune that and push it to 13.5+. Yes, that's how fast the big boys run. Hopefully I can be a big boy too...

So back to the 2x20. 15 minutes in I decided to take my workout and break it into two longer sets. At minute 18 I was really feeling it. These are called walls. I wanted to quit and call it good. Problem is that's not what you want to do. NEVER SHORTCHANGE YOURSELF! Rule number 1. Walls are meant to come down. You'll never get faster if you're not willing to break down fitness walls and push past them. So even though those last two minutes hurt, I pushed even harder. I sprinted the last minute and ended up hunched over my bike with little air left in my lungs, and legs that felt like burnt toast. If you don't push through walls in your training, then come race day, you'll suffer by not knowing what to do when the the going gets tough. Pain management is huge in mountain bike racing. We all hit walls during racing, but being able to push through those walls, and continue racing at high speed is what will nab you the finish you're after.

I took 5 mintues to recover, and then began the second set, same gear. It was tough to get going, even thougher to get past the 10 minute mark. Another wall, another push. Minutes 10-15 were easier, and then begins the 5 minute countdown. Same as the first set, I sprinted the last 2 minutes and put everything I had into the pedals. I was offically spent afterwards.

To make a good workout even better I capped it all off with a 400 rep core workout circuit. Basically I did a series of core and back workouts, in sets of 20, until I hit 400 reps. All in all I finished right at 15 minutes. As the weeks progress I'll increase each workouts by 60-100 reps.

So no, I didn't do the workout I had planned. I did however adjust to my body, and in the end accomplished a solid workout that will benefit me on my overall goal. That's what you have to do. Find out what your goal is, have a good solid plan to accomplish that goal, and learn to adjust as neccessary.

Some days you won't have it, other days the weather will get in the way. Bottom line is if you train smart, and train to your weaknesses, you'll be far better off than those that mindlessly train just to train. Riding 3 hours when you feel like crap, and having that 3 hour ride be less than stellar most likely won't help you. Take the day off and train the core or upperbody. Take a easy spin. Then go out and hit it hard and get a good ride in the next day.

I'd rather have 3 rides a week that were solid, then try to get 5 in that were half ass. Don't forget the most important part of training though, rest and recovery. That's were the body mends and rebuilds. Sleep, proper diet, and good living will go a long way.

I'm going to document my training this off season so that you can see exactly what I'm doing, and how it's going. I don't recommend following my plan to a T, as it is my plan that's I've put together to accomplish my goal. Your goal might be different, and your weaknesses different than mine. Either way, it's sort of for my own record keeping, and partly so you can hopefully get something out of it.

2012 will be won in the off season. Don't forget the most important time of the year...

G

Dirty Goodness

2011-11-08T13:03:00.000-08:00

Last week marked the fist week of base training for me. I know most of you might find that way to early, but my "real" season runs March-July. Anything after that is just for fun. So basically, I have to be in race shape by March 4th for my first Pro race ever, Mellow Johnny's. I'm pretty stoked about that being my first real pro race, especially after the major win there this year as a Cat 1. I know that my success probably won't be equal next year, but alas, it will be a sweet race and a great course to pop my pro cherry.

So last week I hit the bike, core, and upper body pretty hard again. I took pretty much the whole month of October off, minus a few rides, and Burnin and BT. I ended up getting sick the week of BT but thought I had it cleaned out of my system the day before the race. Turns out I didn't, and the following week pretty much followed a similiar sick fashion. Starting my training block last week was a little tough, and the legs weren't feeling the best, but by Saturday I had what I felt like decent legs again.

Friday night was a good time. Cam Chambers was in town for a wedding, and he was looking to do some dirt ripping with the old Ethos crew. We were happy to make plans to ride with him. Friday night we hit up Swope for an hour and a half of dark awesomeness. Swope was in great shape, and we knew that the next day it would be even better. Trav and Cam worked me over pretty well that night, even though our pace wasn't blistering. It was just fast enough in a few spots though that I got the HR up there. It felt good to push it again for the first time since BT.

Friday night we hit up Nara's for some reverse happy hour sake, sushi, and a half naked model who was having free sushi served off of her. Eating sushi off a half naked chic wasn't something I had planned for, but still we enjoyed the free sushi off of the pretty model anyways. We consumed just enough Tank 7 and wonderful sake, that I was positive Saturday's ride would be chill.

Early rising on Saturday had us at Swope by 8:30. The three of us hit up a short lap at Swope, and then hit Blue River Parkway over to Burp where we procedded to rip dirt up for an hour or so. Burp was definently a little more tacky than Swope, and you could tell the traffic was much less by the excess leaves as opposed to Swope's almost clear trail. Either way, we had a pretty awesome time riding Burp, and then proceeded back to Swope.

We met up with the Pirate for what would finish off our morning of riding. We hit one more full lap of Swope, had some pretty sweet wrecks, and Cam and I took our bikes off of the Whales Tail. Cam had more steez than I, as I haven't hucked a bike in what seems like years. I pulled the drop off, but barely. My suspension gave me a kick, and I had to ride it off one foot unclipped, and off the back of my bike.
The Whales Tail

Sunday rolled around and a quick check of my shock sag told me that Saturdays rear shock problem I noticed was due to a lower than normal PSI. I forgot to grab my shock pump, but luckily Walt's Bike Shop in Columbia was open on a Sunday. Walt's is my go to place when I'm in CoMo. Good guys, and they're always willing to help. Help they did, and my suspicions were correct, I was way low on air. After getting the front and rear dialed, it was off to my buddies house and then a short ride to Cosmo Park. I was hoping for about three hours at Rockbridge but the guys at Walts called, and the trails were closed. Oh well...

The commute over was good, just enough time to warm up and open the legs for what is always a fun but hilly Cosmo. I like that trail alot, but it's not a very long one. What it lacks in miles, it makes up for in steep, tough hills. After 4 laps, I was about worked, and decided to hit the road for the 20 minute ride back.

Three trails, one night ride, and good buddies. The trails were by far in the best shape they've been in in months. It was hero dirt almost all around. I've never ridden Cosmo when it was in such amazing shape. Basically it was perfect hookup, and overall amazing riding. The trails were in need of some moisture, and last week they got them. Yesterday and today was probably a bit much rain wise, but I predict another perfect weekend of trail riding. Like perfect as in the best riding of the year. Don't miss it folks.

I'm liking the comments below on what we could do better with our Missouri race scene. Some good points were brought up, but keep em coming. I'll be posting up a similar forum/poll in the next few days on Earthriders and STLBiking. I got all of the numbers compiled for the most part. If you'd like to see them, feel free to email me. My contact info is on my profile page. I'm not sure how to translate them from Word to a blog post without it all being jumbled.

More riding and such this week. Tonight is the power hour! Welcome back my old friend. It's time to visit the pain cave again. I'm loving it...

G

Crunched Numbers

2011-11-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

That's UFD East and West, MWFTS, Oklahoma, and Arkansas' total race numbers for the year. Got the first round knocked out, and some interesting things popped up.

I'll compile the numbers soon. Basically we have way more overall racers, however a lower races per racer average, but also well over twice as many XC races. The objective of this search is to find out ways to increase our total racers per race average, to create a better overall race experience for all. Well that and some other stuff.

I'm not short on ideas... I'm interested in what you all have to comment. What changes would you recommend or like to see?

G

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

Ghost Bike

2011-10-30T17:26:00.000-07:00

Epic BTness

2011-10-24T11:34:00.000-07:00

Well that's it... Like pissing on the last few remaining coals of a fire burned long through the night, my mountain bike race season has ended. The flame is put out for the time being. I really wanted the fire to burn hot coming into the BT, but damn its been a long season. I think last time I looked I raced something like 20+ weekends since the first race back in late February. It was time to polish it off like the last corner of some Sailor Jerrys, and then lite up the night for what would be the true reason of the trip... To party the season ender off right.

My race didn't go well. I learned lots though. Like how to ride like a girl, and how to properly rest while on the side of the trail why your buddies pass by yelling at you to quit being a (insert female reference here.) Oh yes, it was a glorious day of epic humbling status. The BT reminded me again on why out of half a dozen attempts of these endurance races I have failed each. Mind you fail is in the eye of the beholder, but my eyes are very sensitive to failure. I see it when others may not. I've never truely DNFd one of these races, although the results from Saturday will say otherwise, but I also have never completed one and done well results wise. For me its top 5 or nothing. I guess that's a skewed way to look at it, but I felt confident it was possible and I always aim my double barreled shotgun high. My hope for the BT was sub 4 1/2 hours. I finished by my phone at 1:45, 5 and a quarter hours from our 8:30 start.

So the DNF you ask? Well that would be due to me taking the road instead of the gravel to the finish. The distance is no different, I just went off how we finished in 08. When I came through the parking lot there was no one around. I didn't really care, because I had only one thing on my mind, the swimming hole. I was submerged in the ice cold water by 1:50. It was heaven. My body had felt like it had just seen the business end of billy club, and my legs were ready for some ice cold goodness. I didn't care that I wasn't recorded as finishing. I wasn't in the money, I wasn't top 3 in my age group, and 30 place never leaves great memories in my mind.

I was happy to finish, and even pleasently surprised at my time. I had well over 20 minutes of stop time, and possibly that in just the last checkpoint stop. I was posted up in a lawn chair drinking some throwback Mountain Dew, (thanks to Daveys wifie!) and it took a lot of motivation to get up and finish the last leg. That coupled with all my side trail rests meant I wasted a lot of time being idle. Couple those things with my lackluster riding from mile 20-58 and I was happy to know that next year, that 4.5 is mine.

Oh yes, I will be back, and will succeed.

I just don't have the endurance skills yet. Maybe doing some 5 hour rides would help. The BT was my longest ride by well over an hour all year. My nutrition also sucked, and has a lot of room to blossom. I am more than ready to conquer the endurance race beast, and the plans are already underway.

What I lacked in riding endurance though, I made up for in party endurance. Seriously, what the hell happend to everyone? It was almost a ghost town by 8pm. Luckily I met some great new friends who were more than willing to end the day right. I partied with old and good friends, and got to hang with some new faces and otherwise badass riders like Garth Prosser and Frank Webber. Good times, peace offerings, and free beer complements of the great Kuat boys were had. Duffys crew turned out to be a hoot to hang with, and they almost partied me under the table. The night capped off with me falling in a ditch while heading to Shoffs campfire, and almost losing my car keys in the process.
Thanks to my boy Sean for the pic of me and Peat Awesome keeping it young.

Thanks to the crew that continues to give us the great BT, all the volunteers, the promoters, the supporting businesses, the people who put their sweat and body in maintaining the trail, the weather gods for such a perfect weekend, my mother and father for procreating and allowing me to enjoy this crazy wondeful life I live, my boys, my girls, my team, my sponsors, and my undying ability to never give up on trying to live life to its fullest and the continuation of my journey of pain and joy.

I have a great life... And I'm happy I can share as much of it as I can with so many awesome people.

2012 here we come. It's going to be the best yet....

G

Self Motivation

2011-10-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

Stoking the Fire

2011-10-16T16:41:00.001-07:00

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7AM Gravel with Numb Hands

2011-10-14T06:26:00.001-07:00

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The Crazzyness that was... Burnin

2011-10-09T20:44:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure what was happening on the crosser scene this weekend, but I can almost certainly guarantee it was nothing even close to the awesomeness that was Burnin. The stories of this race have tempted me for years. I knew the course, Council Bluffs, but I had no idea of the spectical that was to be Burning at the Bluffs VIII.

The story of the 2011 edition started with a little West and East collabo. It was to involve my go to guy Travis Donn, and our buddy and normally duo foe Chris Ploch. Trav asked me about a month ago if I wanted to do a three man team with him and Chris and it took all of two milliseconds for me to answer. Hell ya, there was no way I was passing up that opportunity.

So Friday mid-day we began what would become the Cannonball run down to Council Bluffs lake. We were followed by our new teammate, and eventual destoryer of the 6 hour solo race, Jason Knight. This dude has some serious potential taking not only the Binder 6 hour win for his first mountain bike race, but also the 6 hour Burnin. One thing I don't think he was ready for was following Travis on the winding and long trip down to the race venue. It was roughly 4 hours from my home, and a good 2 of those 4 hours were on some backcountry, fun, twisty roads. Travis drives a Subaru WRX Sti, and he isn't afraid to drive it. Jason on the other hand drives a Honda Pilot, and it sure got it's ass worked on the trip down. I wanted to kiss the ground when we finally arrived at the beach roughly around 6pm.

We donned lights, and took off on a half day, half night lap around the 13 mile course. It was an awesome evening for riding with perfect temps, a perfect trail, and tight backs from 4 hours of being couped up in the car stressing for my life most of the way. All in all it was a great way to shake out the legs.

The night was filled with hanging around the campsite with our gracious host, a bunch of DRJ dirt rippers. We race against these dudes from time to time throughout the year, and they always seem to be a good time to hang around. This weekend was no different. Shottler, Mike Best, and Nate Means, (defending Wicked Fast champs) even came over to hang for a bit. We did our best to joke around with them and hopefully get in their heads a little bit. We all knew we were in for a battle of epic status come 9am the next morning. The nerves were high, and even though we all were laughing and having a holly jolly good time, it was evident that everyone was secretly serious about the following day. The buckles were on the mind...

As I laid down in the tent that night I couldn't help but notice my own nervous engergy. I felt like I had just downed seven Red Bulls, and direct injected pure adrenaline from a pure bred racing horse into my veins. My heartrate was something like 90 even after trying as hard as I might to calm the system. Somewhat worrying, I slipped into the darkness of the back of my eyelids, and had dreams of flooding rains, and crazy racing scenarios. It was truely a wild evening of dreaming, waking up randomly to the loud winds, and the even louder thuds of acorns on cars.

Waking up is always rough for me when camping on the ground. I'm a hotel kind of guy the night before a race. I like taking a shower after a pre-ride, and even better, sleeping on an actual bed. That wasn't in the cards for this weekend, so I made due with it the best I could.

After the long wait to get our timing chips, and calfs marked, it was time to send Chris off for the first lap of the day, and the start of the 12 hour race. The order was Chris, then me, then Travis. Chris was racing Nate, I was to do my best to hold Shot, and Travis had Best.

Chris had a good run, and even better lap, putting in his first sub 1 hour lap. I quickly took off, and within the first few minutes of riding the track realized it was a much tougher trail when you're trying to push it. I was shooting for the fastest lap, so I was pushing limits, and blowing up the heartrate. Luckily I was able to do so even after the worrying about the higher than usual heartrate all the night prior, and even throughout the morning. I did however feel like dogshit on each of the major climbs. I was foaming from the mouth, and feeling like a massive self implosion wasn't far away with each crest of said hills. Luckily I still finished fairly strong and managed to put in a 59:37. Goal one met, the sub 1 hour.

Trav put in a solid first lap at 1:01, and could have easily put in a sub 1 had he pushed just a bit harder. He's a bit smarter than me though, and has experience on these kind of events. He chooses not to blow himself up. I on the other hand blow up first, and try to manage the damage later. Young and dumb they call it.

Chris put in a solid second lap, and I followed up with a 1:01. Trav stayed steady, Chris did the same, and I put in a 1:03 for my third lap. At this time we were up by only 15 minutes, with four laps to go. Team Testes, or whatever those COMO boys called themselves, were proving to be worthy opponents. They weren't giving up, and they were on pace to easily beat their last years time. We however were on pace to do what has never been done in Burning history, 12 laps. A quick calculation showed we could do 1:10's and still hit 12 laps. Knowing this, and also the fact that one bad lap could spell doom in the form of losing 1st place, we all told ourself's to stay steady. That was to be the story of the day.

Chris had the twighlight lap, and still put in a good 1:07. It was my turn to go out on my last lap, the teams second to last. Not only was this my first 12 hour race ever, but this was to be the first time I've ever raced at night. Turns out racing at night is pretty much the shit. Even with tired legs and a worn out body, I was having crazy amounts of fun flossing the trail, and letting the Epic do what it does best.

I feel like this is where I need to put in the Epic plug... I still am amazed at how crazy awesome this bike is. It just takes my riding to a whole nother level, and makes riding and racing so much more enjoyable. Council Bluffs was the perfect mix of trail for the big wheeled dually. Loose fast corners, plenty of little chatter rocks, and fast flats made for a playgound that the Epic and I ate up lap after lap. Most sections could be railed at major high speeds just by pedal kicking twice and staying loose while letting the bike carry high speeds all by itself.

The night lap went well, and minus my horrible spell of bobbles while riding in front of Bob Arnold, I finished fairly well. I still had cramps setting in on the last climb just like every lap before, but I finished strong and came across the line more stoked on life than ever before. It really was a most amazing feeling throwing my bike down for the last time and knowing I had done what I had come to do. My day was done, and with that 1:07 night lap, we had more than enough time for Trav to go our for our 12th lap.

Finishing was a the highest of highs emotional wise for me in a long while. I've been very fortunate to have had a very good season with some great results, but that race was a very up and down race for me and I felt like I raced extremly well for never putting my body through a race like that. The one hour on, two hour off format was new, and between every lap I would feel like death. My stomach was torn up all day, and cramps would rear their dirty head much of the time. But once I bombed down that road, and hit the singletrack all worries faded. The music took over my mood, and the legs did what they do best, push pedals.

As soon as I finished I proceeded to the PBR tent, which was so graciously hosted by our favorite jerks, Team Segal. They not only brought their A game, but they also brought 4 kegs of the delicous PBR goodness. For those of you that were there to witness the aftermath, you know that I had my fair share of that special drank, and was overall enjoying the shit out of the afterparty. I was on cloud nine, and had a blast hearing all the stories from all the cool ass people who I had the luxury of racing with and against all day long. It truely was an epic day, followed by equally awesome evening.

Nothing but amazing things can be said about this event. Top notch scoring meant that you could find out your lap times after every lap. The sweet gal behind the scoring computer would quickly tell you, and never seemed bothered by having to do so. The chip timing is truely where it's at. Mesa Cycles did an excellent job, along with all the volunteers who helped make it possible for us to race our bikes through the woods all day. There were even results posted throughout the day to see where everyone was at.

In the end Burnin lived up to it's expectations. It fullfilled even my wildest dreams, and when all the smoke settled, team Shake 'N' Bake took the top honors in the Wicked Fast class. The belt buckles where ours!!! Shot's team did a most excellent job in making us work for it, and they were nothing short of a very hard team to beat. Consistancy was something they did very well too, along with Shots fastest day and night lap. In the end I was able to hold him to within 30 seconds a lap, to two minutes, which made me happy.

Some sweet machining was done to create these masterpieces.

I'm sure there's some podium pics out there, along with probably a bunch of other crazy shots of my drunken ass. I couldn't help but let loose and have some fun. The season is winding down, and I'm all about having as much fun with my dirt loving friends as possible before we take the break that's known as winter. Burnin will for a long time be a staple in my racing calendar, and of course the dream team will be back next year to defend our buckles.

Because like they say... Winning once isn't the hard part. It's defending it that takes skill.

Skillz shouldn't be hard to find next year, because the stoke o meter will be at an all time high in anticipation for many months leading up to what will be...

BURNING 2012!!!!

G

No Handed Trackstand

2011-10-06T13:27:00.001-07:00

So there are very few races that you'll find me posing for the camera. Melvern was one of those races. After flatting on lap two and having to hike out, switch wheels, and restart the lap, I started to loose motivation to race. So instead I took a moment to pose for the camera. It almost came out perfect... The only downfall was that it almost looks like I'm holding the tree. Trust me though I wasn't. That's the no handed trackstand son...
Thanks to Adventure Monkey for the shot!

Let the Past Be Past

2011-10-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

Our mountain bike racing scene has pretty much been non existant since Summer. It really is a shame. I only hope that the consequences are dealt with with open minds next year. It's been just a few short years since everyone complained about how they wanted more opportunities to race... Fast forward a couple of years and those same people are scarce to find race day. There is to be much change on the horizon in order to make our scene even remotely worth investing in promoting wise. When a promoter busts their ass off to offer us an oppoturnity to unite and race our bikes in the woods, they should be at least fortunate enough to have enough people show to make it worth it. Having less than a hundred racers used to be a joke... Now it's common.

I really hate to be a negative Nancy, but I want to see our scene grow as much as anyone else. Mountain bike racing to me is my passion. It's my escape, my time to dig deeper than I can dig anytime else. You can't truely find out how far you can go, how fast, how hard, until you step up to the line and race a group of equal riders. That's when you truely find out what your made of. It's the stories afterwards. The excitement on a racers face as they describe an epic battle they had fighting for 3rd place. It's the exhuastion on their face when they cross the line, and that faint smile the appears when they cross the line. I love XC racing. It's so much more different than endurance racing. Their both great, but my beloved XC scene has crumbled around me the last few years. I have no one to race against my age... That's a major problem in my book.

There are so many other issues that we must overcome to be anything like the other series around the country. I've been very fortunate to race all over the states this year, and I'm sad to say our scene is by far the worst off attendence wise. There are some series that have more racers in the begginer class than we do our whole race.

I hope to be more involved when I move to KC. I have a head full of ideas and the energy of being young on my side. I don't want to be like everyone else, and move elsewhere to find my fix. Of course I could move to a better race scene area to persue my dreams, but this is my home, and damnit I like it.

On a slightly better note, I'm more than excited to be able to head down to Council Bluffs and participate in Burnin this weekend. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you don't know jack. Burnin has been on my hit list for way too long now. The stories have always been interesting, but I can promise you this year will be as crazy as ever. I'm going to party and race like a rockstar. I'm also pretty lucky to have a pretty bad ass 3 man team. It's going to be a throwdown...

If your riding cross more than once a week right now then I'm extremely sorry. It's another wonderful Fall and trails won't stay so perfect forever....

G

Mid Week Adventure

2011-09-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

Adventures are always welcome in the Riding Dirty world. There's no discrimination on when those can occur either. If there's an oppotunity to go on one, then you'll likely find me tagging along. This week, it was in the form of a good buddy of mine who happened to be in town for one day and one day only. That day happened to be Wednesday, so when he asked about going on an adventure, I gladly said yes. Of course this would require taking off a half of a day, but work can always wait.

Dishman is one of those real free spirit kind of guys. He's never really held down a steady job, mainly because he's never held down a steady state of being. Meaning he's constantly on the move, going from one state to the next, and like me, is always in search of an adventure. He's been living in DC for awhile, but was stopping on the way through to Portland, OR where he's catching the first Cross Crusade race of the year this weekend. Then it was off to Hawaii to volunteer for the Hawaii Ironman, and then a long bike tour on the island for a few months. Must be nice...

Anyways, he wanted to get lost on some gravel, because apparently out in DC, there is none. So lost we got. We hit new gravel, random dirt farm roads, a little road here and there, and even some corn fields cross style. I think we left around 3, and eventually found ourselfs at the winery around 6. Some Red Stripes were consumed, so live music was listened to, and then a half drunken ride back to the Burg was had.

All in all it was a pretty sweet day in the Fall sun taking in the nice weather while we have it. Later that night Dish showed me the ways of the Slackline. I didn't do so well. I could stay on for 5-6 seconds, but nothing more than that. It was fun though, and when I woke up yesterday I was way more sore than I expected. I guess trying to balance on an inch wide line works all kinds of muscles in the body.

Still up in the air about where to go this weekend. It's going to be a long weekend training wise, with the end ride hopefully being the River Front MTB race down in Melvern, KS. Of course I'll be far from fresh but it should be fun. Going for a 3 hour hammer session on the Katy tonight, 3-4 hours of something tommorow, and then either River Front on Sunday, or the marathon class at Warsaw. Depends on who I can get to join in.

Here's some random shots from Wednesday...

G

Just When You Think You Have it Bad

2011-09-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

Took this pic from a wolf book I somehow found myself flipping through the other day.

It should be one of those motivational posters. It would read...

Fucked

When there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Be the wolf... Not the mouse.

G

Chigger Digger Race Report

2011-09-26T11:39:00.001-07:00

I dig the Chigger Digger. It's always one of my favorite races of the year. I'm not sure if it's because it's my backyard trail, the fact that I can wake up an hour and a half before I have to race, or if it's the awesome trail that makes it so great. Either way, this years Chigger Digger will go down in the books as another great time. Seems that everyone else had a very similiar experience too, which is always a plus.

I got to the race about 10:45. A little later than I had planned, because part of me was still on the fence on whether to race Marathon in prep for the BT, or just race Expert and do some extra lap. My decision was made while filling out the forms at registration. There were something like 8 marathoners versus the probably, maybe, if I got lucky one other Expert that might have showed. Race Marathon it was.

I've never got ready for a race so quickly, and I've never started a race with no warm up like that. I changed with the quickness, checked my air in the tires, filled up a flask halfway with hammergel, and filled up my only two bottles with two scoops of EFS in both. That would be my nutrition for the day. Thankfully one of my friends from FreeRide Bike Shop was there to refill my bottles with fresh water. That was a major time saver. No new EFS, just the four total scoops, but fresh water was welcome towards the back half of the race.

Just a short 20 minutes from arriving and Barry shouts go and we're off. I decided to warm up properly by not easing into it, but by instead hammering it right off the line. I wanted to put in a gap and get out of sight. Which almost worked... I'm kinda glad it didn't. Racing is much funner when you have someone on your wheel. A quick look behind me had me seeing only one soul willing to play along with my XC pace to start the 3 hour race. That guy was Cale McAninch. I knew at the start line that he would be one to beat. Super strong rider, which showed as he and I crossed the Start/Finish together after the first lap with a time of 30 minutes.

I let him lead out lap 2, wanting to see how he faired leading. He was hammering the fast sections, but slowed down a bit on the hills. I'm running a 1x10 with a 36 front ring, and 12-36 on the rear. I can only go so slow so on the second big hill, of four per lap, I took back the lead and pushed hard. Halfway through the white section, I hear Cale say some bad words and figured he flatted in the rocks. Turns out that was the case.

I finished lap 2 solo, along with lap 3, 4, 5, and 6. I've never accomplished 6 laps at Knob, let along back to back non-stop. I was very pleased with my form. I had excellent power the whole race on the fast stuff, and managed to play damage control on the major hills on the last few laps. All in all there were 24 good climbs in this race, with plenty of little inclines thrown in between. On lap 4 I started counting down the hills... 12, 11, 10, ect...

My motivation stayed fairly high, although on the last lap my back and shoulders really started to bitch at me. I had decided to incorporate my core/back/upper body workout into my training again on Saturday. I had a slight hiatus from it for a few weeks. It definently didn't help for Sunday, but I managed. I had a little nagging back pain that came and went, but other than that I stayed on the gas and finished my 6 laps, roughly 40 miles in 3 hours and 16 minutes.

Right on target.

Ethos tore it up yesterday. 1st in Marathon, 1st and 3rd in Expert 35+, and 1st in Sport 50+.

I'm feeling really good about the BT now. Yesterday was a huge accomplishment in my books. I've never really been a great endurance racer, and most likely won't anytime soon. But yesterday I proved to myself that I can ride hard again for 3+ hours. I haven't been able to do that for a few years now. Being so XC oriented, I never really train long or race long. I've done Syllamo, Ouchita, BT, and a handfull of other solo 6 hour races, but never did great at them. The BT is perfect in my book. Under 4 and a half hours is right in between XC and Endurance.

Two more BIG weeks of training, and then some taper action. Still a ton of great racing left on dirt. Hopefully I'll get down to do the River Front MTB race this weekend. More on that to come...

G

My Very First Commute

2011-09-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

I'm sad to have to admit to the above comment. I really wish I could say I'm a die hard commuter who only rides a bike to and from work, the grocery store, the trails, and the doctors for my weekly EPO boosts. But alas, I work 30 miles from home, I've only ridden to the grocery store a few times, trails always seem to far away, and that last bit about the doctors visits are completly false. I'm way not that cool...

So yesterday I figured I'd ride to Booneville via the Katy, and then force myself to ride back in this morning. Force being the key word. Getting me up early is about as tough as trying to be a roadie who isn't a true dick. It's tough no doubt.

But forced up in the cover of darkness, I slithered out from the covers, fed my face with some oatmeal, peanut butter, and honey, and then headed out the front door.

I got to work pushing pedals at 7 in the morning, with only 40 miles standing between me and my destination (work). I didn't stop to take any sweet pics, or to meditate and think about life's complex mysteries. No... I put my head down and suffered. I had to be at work damnit, and I didn't have time for the small pleasures of the ride.

I made it to my car which was parked at work just a few short hours later. I was a little behind but I still had time to clean up, change, and grab some Wendy's pick me up by 9:30.

I like that. I feel almost like a true cyclist. I can now say I commute. Because once I start, it's hard to get me to stop. And I can see myself deep in the pain cave at 8am on the Katy plenty more times in the future.

Cross practice tonight, then the Pirate ride from SPDIDDYBURNS casa.

Let the legs learn...

G

River Trail 150

2011-09-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

10AM on Saturday morning, rain covered windshield on the way back from grabbing breakfast and all hope/optimism for a sweet weekend is beginning to fade. Thankfully they make cell phones so technically awesomely advanced that you can watch the weather from your cellular device, in order to better make a decision that involves weather. Cycling tends to be part of that category. Luckily I've become quite the weather man since I've stopped listening to those fools on TV, and took it upon myself to religously track and watch the rain around these parts myself. I'm usually pretty spot on, and there's only been an instance or two where I've missed out on a great ride by choosing to let the weather dictate me not doing said ride.

So by 1PM, I was packing up the camelback, and hitting the road to make my way to Sedalia, where the River Trail 150 would begin.

I didn't put alot of thought into it. More or less a shoot from the hip kind of ride. Those are the best. Just jump on and go. Dishman and I once talked about jumping a train with only bikes in hand, and see where the train ended. Ride home from there...

This weekend I only knew that I wanted two good days of hard riding on the Katy Trail, and I wanted to end up in Hermann to watch the boys race at 3pm Sunday. I had opportunities to stop/stay in Booneville, Columbia, and Jeff. That's roughly 40, 70, and 90 miles respectively. I hit the trail at 2:30 Saturday afternoon, with just a slight drizzle in the air. It continued to spit little drops for about an hour, but not long after the hour mark I had to stop and take off my rain jacket to keep from internally combusting due to heat.

The trail was in awesome shape. Hero gravel. No dust, hardpacked, and fast. I made it to Booneville in 2 hours flat with two short stops in between. I quickly made my way over the Missouri Bridge, and then huffed it to the McBain exit, which is where the MKT Trail cuts in from Columbia. I decided Columbia would be more fun for then night, so I took the 5 mile trek on the MKT, to where it runs right by a buddies place, and took up shelter.

I was on the trail by 8:45 the next morning, just a short 30 minutes after waking up, once again playing weather man and dodging storms. A quick glance on the phone once I woke up and we were sandwhiched between two rain cells with what looked like about a 3 hour window of staying dry. So heavy legged, I pushed pedals to Jeff in a little under 2 hours. The cell from the West was breaking up, and from there I decided to keep on, rather than stay in Jeff for the day which also sounded pretty good.

The ride to Hermann was nice. Some spots more than others. If you've spent any time on the Katy, you know how beautiful some spots can be, and how boring others are. The Katy is a decieving little bugger. It's like those Sour Patch commercials. First it's sour, then it's sweet. But the Katy is the other way around. At first it's sweet. Then you hit that wall, and it becomes bitterly sour. For me it was about 3 hours in both days. You start realizing you've been pushing a fairly hard gear, non-stop for 60 miles. There's no coasting, no taking it easy. It's flat, but with enough slight changes in grades that you still get some climbing. The section from Sedalia to Booneville is the hilliest.

In all it's beauty, I was still glad to be done and have Hermann in sight. 150 miles of rail trail in under 24 hours, no flats, no mechanicals, and only a few drops of rain. Heck, my bike didn't even hardly get dirty. That's a good ride in my book.

The cross racing was fun. Mainly because my belly was full, and there was free beer. Jeff, you put on one hellava event. Hopefully I can race it one day.

Enough words...

The bike was spot on all weekend, and gears were a nice addition for this trek.

The rock.

Bigger pic of it.

Hermann pumpkins! I miss the Pumpkin Festival. Same weekend as Burning this year...

One of the bridges. And no, those are not ghosts. Just a couple out enjoying a nice day on the Katy.

The action up front between Shot and Devin. I enjoyed watching them hurt.

My view from the stairs all alone. It just seemed like a good place to heckle a bit.

Might just hit up some more Katy tonight and tommorow morning.

It sure is a nice day for it...

G

Friday Project

2011-09-16T18:57:00.001-07:00

Decided at the last minute today that I wanted to make this weekend interesting. That started with a completly trashed Kona Jake frame. Like covered from headtube to the dropouts in dusty mud.

After an hour of deep cleaning, and stripping of all parts, it was ready for a flat black rattle can bath. Paint done it was time to strip the road bike to scavenger the Rival rear derailleur and handlebar/shiffter combo.

Slap those on the new flat black frame, clean up some wheels laying around, and BAM! You have a newly built Jake with the nicest drivetrain its ever seen, and a sweet bar wrapped in 2.5 mm lizard skin grip that I loved so much on the road steed.

Not all is finished yet. Still need to run new brake cables, and a shifter cable. Hoping that should go easy though.

So in order to make tonights effort worth it, Im going on an adventure. Lots of Katy Trail.

Full report to come Monday. Hopefully my trek ends with some Cross watching in Hermann.

Hopefully...

G

Carbon Repair

2011-09-13T10:47:00.001-07:00

So some of you know that a few weeks ago, on a fairly familiar trail, on a fairly crappy day condition wise, I took the Epic and slung it over some rocks resulting in some pretty good dingage on the rear triangle.

This is what it looked like.

This was what it looked like after I had it fixed, just a short week later. .

I was waiting to mention anything about it until I put some good miles on it. I raced Tall Oaks on the repair, and also down at Arkansas. In between I've hit a ton of trail. Last week alone I got in 7 good mountain bike rides, on a total of 5 different trails. Knob Noster, Binder, Shawnee Mission, Rockbridge, and Landahl. Knob three times cause it's just that damn fun.

Back to the repair. I have the dudes info, just shoot me an e-mail and I'll get it to you. Marko is who fixed it for those wondering. He did JPB's Sworks hardtail, and it's still running smoothly. Not to mention Marko puts his stamp of approval with a life time warranty backing up his work. I like that.

So here's to hoping you don't ever have to fix your fancy carbon bike or any carbon bits. But if you do, it's great to know that you can have it fixed. Cheap too. My repair was a smooth 75 bucks. And with a week turnaround in order to get me ready for Tall Oaks... Well that was just the icing on the cake.

To Danny Boy, get better and stay sane. I have no doubt you'll come back stronger. Been on the injured list a time or two, and I always did.

Last Spin Pizza ride is tommorow night from the Spin on Main. Then it's cross practice Wednesday nights... I guess. Here's to hopefully fun times on grass paths!

G

Spin then Pirate

2011-09-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

Last night was another weekly installment of the duece duece ride. Spin Pizza first, then off to Burnsey's for some dirt/rock loving action on the MTB's. Nothing like killing yourself on the road for an hour, and then putting in another 2 on dirt.

Spin went well. We had a pretty big group out with the nice weather. It's pretty impressive the size of these rides some days. We've had as much as 40+ in our "A" group. There's just as many and often times more in the "B" group. Basically we just go longer and faster than the B group. Usually we stay together fairly well until we get out to the loop. Then I like to go fast. Travis held my wheel last night for the first time in a few weeks. He's looking to be a fast dude on grass this year.

Grass racing starts this week I guess. Just ask this dude.

After Spin, I downed some ever so good spinach, grilled chicken, some raisens, a nana, and a protein shake. Last week I stopped at Wendy's and had a double cheeseburger and coke. I felt much better this week riding dirt. Fast food is not food for the soul...

This week it was Burnsey, the Manimal, Trav, Sarah, and myself. Sarah killed it as usual. We rode a pretty tech route, and there's some spots that give even us boys trouble. In the end we hit tons of dirt, rocked some sweet rocks, and had some comical wrecks to make for an always intersting ride. Luckily no one DNF'd this week.

Afterwards the beer flowed, and the hot tube was shown some love. Cooler nights are here, and the night riding is ever so amazing. Take advantage of it. Keep that dirt in your regimen. It keeps the fun alive. Grass get's boring after awhile.

I'm not racing this weekend. I haven't had a full weekend home in probably 6 months. It's either racing or seeing family. This weekend it's all about relaxing and hitting up some good long rides. Shot's looking strong right now. He's killing it, and if I have any hope of holding his wheel at the BT, then I better start riding long.

The speed's there... Now for the distance.

G

Slaughter Pen Jamz

2011-09-06T10:05:00.001-07:00

If there's one thing I love in this world, it's racing my bicycle. So whenever there's an opportunity to do so, I agree, and do it to it. Slaughter Pen Jam was on my schedule of races I wanted to do anywho, and so when JPB asked if I wanted to go, I hesitated not. I rarely hesitate to go race... Throw in some unknown racers who I haven't raced yet, in a new venue I've never ridden, on a hot September day, and I'm even more game.

I spent Friday night dogsitting the most awesome dog in the world. Stella, Burnsey's boxxer, needed someone to watch over her while her owners were gone, so I happily agreed to help a fellow friend out. By time Sunday came around and I had to eventually head home, I was ready to steal Stella. She was such a fun and easy going dog.
Stella

Saturday I met JPB and down 71 we headed. That was until about a mile down the road when we ran into stopped traffic. Being it was 9am on a Saturday morning, we figured something weird had to be going on for traffic to be at a standstill. Noticing people standing outside their cars, and running around frantically pretty much tipped us off that some crazy shit was going down. Turns out it was a poodle on the loose, running straight down the highway, while it's owner and multiple other people tried chasing it down. Traffic couldn't really go anywhere, cause this little yapper was all over the place, and no one wanted to be the one to run it over. It wasn't that the poodle was too fast for everyone, it was the fact that anytime someone tried to go and grab it, it would pull a Cujo and try to rip their fingers off. Finally pinned under a car, the owner nabbed it just in time for everyone to cheerfully clap, but much more time wasted and they very well coulda angerily beat the shit out of him.

So that was a very interesting way to start the day.

Things would again get interesting when we arrived in Bentonville, and had no idea where to go. We happened to be posted up on our phones in a government parking lot, when this SUV with bikes came whizzing through and we quickly agreed following it would be a good idea. Luckily it was, and I'm certain that the wild goose chase it sent us on would have never been achieved had it been up to me and JP to find the venue. Finally we turned on a dirt road, through a farm gate, over a creek, and BAM! There's the venue, looking packed and full of like minded individuals.

So that's a double dose of interesting.

Interestings should always come in three's in my opinion. With that being said, I was cautiously waiting for what would be interesting bout number three. My luck would have it, it came. It came in the form of a bent rear brake pad spring. You know, that little spring that holds the brake pads together? Ya, it was bent, and making all sorts of loud, annoying, and otherwise unsafe noises, along with dragging on my rotor something serious. This was 20 minutes before race start. I kinda spent too much time in the AC of the Flex and time got away from me.

I've become a pretty decent mechanic over the years of fixing my always common untimely mechanicals, so it only took about 10 minutes for me to finally figure out that I would just have to cut the one arm of the spring off, and make due. Make due it did, and off on my 10 minute pre-ride I went.

They started us off in waves, and it looked like there were 30 or so experts overall. Not a huge turnout, but that's a labor day race for ya. With that being said, it was still twice the turnout we have at our races, and not knowing anyone is always fun. You just never know which one of the jokers could play a wildcard on you. There were 8 or so in my group, and before I knew it the announcer counted 3,2,1. I took off like a rocket wanting to stage second or at worst, third wheel. Well, turns out no one wanted to really challenge me, so I took off blindly at a slightly slower than the speed of light pace down the trail I knew nothing about.

That's always fun... Racing a trail you know nothing of. It's even funner when you're the one leading. It's like opening up a present, over and over and over again. Every corner is new, every straight stretch, every rock and root. It was a blast just railing this ever so sweet trail, at a nice fast pace but not too fast. With 3 - 9 mile laps, I made sure not to go out hot. Not to forget to mention hot, it was upwards of 95 degrees when we started. So the first lap I took it easy, kept the HR down low, and just enjoyed railing this trail that I was soon finding out everything about.

The trail was broken into three sections. Each had it's own unique flow, with the third being my favorite. The last mile or two of the trail coming into the start finish was this blazing fast pumptrackish trail. I was in my biggest gear and hammering each time. It was actually easier to go fast, and you would get some sweet air lofting off all the little bumps and short ups. The rest of the trail was mainly benchcut, fast, and very flowy stuff. Some decent climbing, but nothing crazy long or hard.

Lap two and I'm still in the lead. I haven't wrecked yet. I was feeling good. Then WAM! I hit the deck... Hard. Not even sure what happened. I think I was taking a drink and daydreaming of what new color cordination I should do on the Jake this winter. I quickly gathered myself and figured out that I should probably start paying attention. This was a kind of trail that you could wander off a bit on, but as soon as you did you usually hit the deck. I'd do it again later in the lap, but I don't think that one hurt as bad. *Note - The benchcut was my ultimate enemy. I would get caught up in the high side of the benchcut, usually at a very high speed and around a corner, and it was all down to the ground after that. I need to put racing on benchcut better on my list of shit to work on.

Lap 3 was pretty rough. I was getting tired, hot, and all I could think about was stopping and going for a swim in the crystal clear creek waters we passed over multiple times each lap. I wanted to be done, but I still had 9 miles standing in my way. This is where the good wrecks started to pile up. All four of them. Well, at least two were REALLY good, with the other two just being minorly good. I'm still alone at this point, but each time I pick myself up out of the dirt, or have to re-adjust my handlebars, I think that someone is bound to catch me.

In the end no one did... Although the verdict for the overall is still under question. I was pretty spent after it was all said and done, and didn't really keep time of how long it was till 2nd came through. It ended up being a 40-49 year old, who I think started 6 minutes behind me. So it's possible he took 1st overall, and I took 2nd. They didn't pay out overall and I didn't get to see the times so who knows. I was happy regardless. I had a decent race, minus all the wrecking, and I had a great time flossing the trails for at least 20 of the 27 miles. Not to mention I got a decent wad of cash for winning my age group. Why we think XC races need to be so long though I'll never know. I'd rather race 18-21 miles anyday.
The aftermath.

So that's it... Another race down. Arkansas was a state I haven't raced yet this year, and I'm glad we made the trip. It was a fairly short drive, and they did a great job with the course and overall race experience. I'm sure we'll be down again next year. Who knows, maybe even more than once...

Yesterday was my Mum's birthday.
This is her now.

This is what she looked like as a kid.

She's the greatest mum ever. I may be a little biased on that one. She'll always be young in my book, and I'll always be her little boy. Happy 50th momma!

Maybe Sac this weekend? Or maybe a weekend off. Or who knows, maybe even some Lizard action. Or did I just see some Masher action?

So many choices.

G

Tall Oaks 2011

2011-08-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

Ethos 1... Possibly the lamest name ever. I'm going to have to make sure Trav doesn't get that luxury of team naming next year. But regardless, Ethos 1, which consisted of Travis Donn and myself, took it to the dirt yesterday for the annual Tall Oaks Challenge in Jeff City at a little gem of a trail called Binder Lake.

I cut my teeth riding these trails. Back when I had the Wal-Mart Mongoose, I used to go out from time to time and break things pretty much every ride. Then I got the GT Outpost, and continued to ride very rarely throughout the last few years of school. It wasn't till I graduated, that I decided to take up riding a little more seriously, and bought a Specialized Hardrock from Red Wheel. It was there that my addiction truely started. I rocked Binder daily for that first year. It was a year full of weezing and overall being a out of shape wannabe biker.

This was the 4th year that I've done Tall Oaks. I'm pretty sure I've done it every year since it started. This year was about like every year, with the same trail being used, the same format, but better competition and more racers overall.

There were 31 duo teams that took to the dusty trails. The trail was in major need of some rain, and I'm sure every racer who took to the trail yesterday is hacking up dirt flavored lung bunnies today. On one end you had to watch your speed around corners, but on the other end it was so dusty it always looked like there was a racer just up ahead so you seemingly always had it pinned trying to catch that next racer. I know more than one racer that took it to the earth hard on some of the loose corners. But you know who didn't? THIS GUY! I know right, holy shit, the king of wrecking didn't wreck all day long. That's a record I believe.

Big thanks to Nicole Stacey for taking pics. Find them here.

Fast recap...

Travis comes in with Chris Ploch after lap 1, who was racing with ancient but still fast as hell Bob Arnold. At this moment I realized we had already lost the bet of the day. Bob and Chris bet us a six pack a piece that we couldn't beat them by the difference in our combined age in minutes. Basically Bob and Chris's age together was like 90 something, and Travis and mine was like 50 or some shit. Ok, maybe Bob isn't that old, but it still ended up being a difference of 24 minutes (years) or something. We only took the bet because Chris was trying to play the "I'm hungover" card. Which I'm pretty sure turned out to be crap, as he continued to smash 32 minute laps. Anywho, we lost the bet, but back to the first lap handoff. Bob fumbles in his oldness during the handoff and I get out in front of him. I pin it, and put in the fastest lap of the day at 31:07. I felt like shit the first lap. My legs felt awesome, but my lungs were on fire. I have a few ideas why, mainly sleeping in a dungeon the night before. I was shooting for a sub 30 minute lap, but it eluded me again.

We have about a 3 minute lead on now 2nd place, Devin Clark and Rock Wamsley. There are close to 6 teams all within minutes of each other. These teams included pairs like Jeff Yeilding and Mark Gullet, JP Brocket and the Manimal, Andy Gibbs and Andrew Moorman, and Bryce Hylton and Corey Case.

Long story short, Travis continued to put down fast laps, and I did the same. My second lap was 32:02 and I felt like I was working 20% less than lap 1. Looking back I should have pinned it that lap and I probably could have hit that sub 30, but I still had 4 laps and I wasn't looking to loose it for us. So I rode fast but comfortably. Lap 3 for me was 32:35, lap 4 was 33:05, and my last lap was 34:49. I was feeling rough on the last lap, but overall I felt pretty great all day. My legs did what they were supposed to do, and that was crush the pedals for a total of 5 - 7 mile laps. A rough calculation shows I averaged about 12.8 mph overall. That's about what I need for the BT, and I'm figuring it's a fairly comparable course. Now I just have to string all of those laps together back to back, plus add about 3 more.

In the end they didn't recognize the fastest lap. That's a first. Apparently they didn't have time according to Nick. Travis also said he had 50 bucks more in his envelope than mine. Guess I caught that short end of the stick. No worries... Still gotta give a shout out to Nick and Jessica, all their fine volunteers, and Team Red Wheel for hosting this always sweet ass event.

Results here...

All in all, it was great riding against some fast dudes with lots of friends to hang with in between laps. Free PBR from the coolest dudes in black, and a frog leg fry immediately following at Pops. Strike it as a mark in the good day column.

Headed down South this weekend for the Slaughter Pen Jam. I'm ready to jam.

G

Dust and Summer

2011-08-29T08:07:00.001-07:00

Dust & Summer from Harry Nesbitt on Vimeo.

Dust and Summer pretty much summed up Tall Oaks. I'll write more on that later. For now, waste some Monday morning time on this gem.

G

Bocce Ball, Prison Brews, and other News

2011-08-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to have another cherry popped last night. No not that cherry. My bocce ball cherry. I've never played, but have heard plenty of stories of the grand game from my Pops over the years. He's been playing it at Prison Brews in Jeff, and it just so happens the fall session just started last night. Conviently I had to be in Jeff anywho, so when he asked if I'd be his partner, I said sure. A harmless game of bocce ball couldn't hurt right?

Well long story short, we killed it. And it would have been a harmless night... But then again harmless nights suck. So interject a few drinks, and the night ended up being slightly more than harmless. Not by much, but a little. Deb treated me to one of their sampler packs. That sounded nice. Then they brought it out. Geezzus. The 7 house brews came out nicely postitioned in a wooden holder, each glass being roughly 8 ounces big. I happily destroyed every one of them, and then continued tasting more of my favorites throughout the night. The best was the Reformatory Rye Stout. Chocolatey goodness. And it'll get you drunk! I must say, if your in Jeff City anytime, stop by. You won't be disappointed.

I am properly carbo loaded for this weekends festivities.

News... Hmm...

GT is rolling out the stops for 012. The new Zaskar 100, the Sensor 120, and a trick titanium Xizang. The Zaskar looks pretty cool, although its a bit of a porker. The Sensor would be fun to bomb down hills with, but that Xizang is where it's at. It's simple, beautiful, and reminds me of the good old days on my first real mountain bike, the GT Outpost.

Niner is changing up things a bit for the new year.

Surly also has some big tire sweetness going down. I kind of miss my old KM. That steel tank was always a blast on the dirt.

I'm tired of typing... And I have work to do. Damn work.

Let it go down at TALL OAKS!

G

Weekend Photos

2011-08-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Well last weekend went about nothing like planned... But that's the way it goes sometimes. It was a wild, crazy, and downright rough weekend that's still lingering even today. I remember why I don't party much. Two nights of late night fun, and I sure as hell don't feel normal still.

Friday I did manage to get in a solid 50 miler on the road. Went over to the new Missouri River bike bridge. Pretty sweet.
The bridge isn't tilted, but I took this pic riding and kinda liked the almost optical illusion.
The end of the trail that drops you down on the other side.
A nice view from mid-river.

Friday night was a late night with Pops and lil bro as we gigged even more frogs. We have quite a good mess by now, and you could have sworn these frogs were on roids. Some of the legs were chicken drumstick size. I meant to take a picture of some, but never got around to it.
I took a nice easy hour ride around Binder lake Saturday to flush out the system, and get a little blood flowing through the body. I had my fair share of BL's on Friday night, and wasn't feeling the freshest.

Saturday night was well... interesting. Probably leave it at that.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat though. I missed that chick.

Time to get ready for Tall Oaks this weekend. Trav and I will be duoing it up. From the sounds of it, Ethos will be in full force, with quite a few duo teams mashing it up.

Now where's my water...

G

Tale of Two Rides

2011-08-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

I like road riding sometimes... But I love dirt riding. It's where the real shannagans of crazy train fun times go down. I've never had any road ride end up as fun as most mountain bike rides do. So much more adventure can be had in the woods.

Never the less, I did have a little excitement last night at the Spin Ride. Travis decided to drop the back of the pack early, so I ended up trying to make sure everyone stayed together in the back till we hit the loop. About halfway into the loop I tried to turn around and catch the fast boys, and in the mist of laying down the wood, I did this...
That's going straight up on the wall. I was suprised the chain was undamaged, having completly broke through the chainring.

DW and I finished off the ride, and then I followed his vehicle straight over to Burnsey's where the real fun of the night would be had.

Photo evidence was had...
DW, Burnsey, The Manimal, and JJeffries.

The OGs. That's orginal gansta's... Or more like slightly less than middle aged men with weird lights strapped to their heads, playing around in the woods way past bed time. Oh, plus me, the kid.

Fun is never in low supply around these dudes. So to that, I welcome the weekly Pirate Ride into my schedule. Sure I get home at 12:30 AM, and I drag ass the next day, but it's way too rad to miss.

That and soon as Spin Rides are done, we can get to the madness earlier! Oh, and of course there's that whole time change.

Get ready... Not long till 5pm dark rides. Ughhh....

But it's great out now! Go getcha some.

G

Broke Poney and SS Champs!

2011-08-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

As anyone in the know knows, last weekend all sorts of shannanagans went down at Swope Park as the Spoke Poney proved to be another top notch Heartland event. Those guys know how to throw a race like the Chiefs know how to throw a game.

My race went something like this...

3...2...1... GO! Sprint up the hill, take the lead and begin to wonder what the hell I was doing. Most of you know how I ride wet rocks. Kind of like trying to drive square pegs in round holes. It's almost impossible. So it became apparent not long after hitting the singletrack that I shouldn't be leading. I was sliding, and skipping my bike and body all over the place. Somewhere in the mix, I sent my bike into a tree and told Aaron that it was time for me to take second wheel. He quickly took off, and I busted tail to keep up.

I'll also go on record saying that it wasn't just my bad luck that day that lead to me pulling out of the race. Hitting Phase 4 during the first lap, I noticed that my body wasn't doing well. I was having an off day, and I was wasting way to much energy for as slow as I was going. Not sure what the deal was but my HR was sky high, and I felt like I was creeping along.

Aaron came in a minute ahead of me after the first lap, and at that point Travis was just behind me by 30 seconds or so. Not long into the second lap I took a hard over the bars, and sent my bike end over end on one of the armored creek crossings. I was pretty pissed at this point, as I always get when it comes to me and wet rocks. Travis passed me just like he did at State this year, and I'm pretty sure I said the same thing I did back then. He asked if I was ok, and I replied it was just another great fucking day riding! I was pretty tired of my rear tire sliding all over the place, and seeing a big galge/crack/whatever it is on the rear end of my bike didn't make matters any better.

The crack in question... More on this to come.

The rest of the race was pretty much a joke. I started riding a bit better, mainly because I slowed way down on the rocks, but my luck never got better. I had my first flat on lap two, fixed it on the trail, and then had to stop at our pit to air up and get more tube/air supplies. Coming into lap 3, I was down by 10 minutes on Aaron, with 3rd being a few minutes behind me, and a pretty huge gap over the rest of the field. I figured I'd just play it safe, ride slow and smart, and try to finish at least 4 laps. Lap three was rough to start, and I even had to take a quick breather. Mark G asked what the hell was wrong, and I told him I was being a Sally. I started to feel better, but in the mist of flossing 8 pins, I caught flat number two. Not only did that suck, but my hands and jersey was so wet and slick that I couldn't get my small 16 ounce air canister properly installed on my inflater head, and lost pretty much all of the air that was in the canister. Not to mention the inflater head was acting up, and kept jamming up on me.

Oh well, I was done at that point. No air, no more tubes, and tired of dealing with everything. I hiked my bike out, and called it a day. It was a pretty damn long hike out too...

I left early due to not feeling the greatest, and wanting to get home to rest and get my bike for the next day dialed in. I wanted to stay and party, but the SS Championships were the next day, and I wanted to do well at it more than I did at Spoke Poney so it made sense to jet out early to get ready for round 2.

I was pretty beat up, not really from the race, but more from the wrecking. I decided to go out for another hour ride with some friends later in the afternoon, not only to get a sense of what I needed to do with Kevins bike to get it race ready, but also to get some blood flowing through my beat up legs.

After some major changes to Kevins bike, I was happy with how it felt, and felt good about racing it the next day. I wanted to race my SS, but it's in pretty rough shape right now. It needs a new rear wheel, but more importantly it needs a new tensioner. I have it magic geared at 32x18 which is a great gear, but the chain was a little loose and I didn't feel like risking dropped chains all race long.

I woke up at the crack of dawn again on Sunday, and made the hour trip down to Warsaw for what I expected was a 9am start time. Turns out they moved it back to 10, which sucked because I had to waste more time, and that time would have been nicely spent sleeping in a bit more.

Warming up I knew I was feeling a little rough, but my HR was steady and felt better than the day prior. I did a little warm up, and eventually lined up with the 20 or so other single speeders that came out to fight for the title of SS Champ. It was actually pretty disappointing to see such a small turnout, but at least there were some pretty decent riders who showed up. Turbo from Jeff who took 2nd last year, beating me on my rough day, the other Jeff crew, Dan Furhman, some Springfield boys, some Seagal boys, some Colorado dudes, and a few other randoms who could always turn out to be fast.

We took off up the long wide open double track, and to my suprise, I was able to keep my 32x18 up front until the end when Dan took the lead. He was running something like a 33x17 which was ridiculous. I knew that if he could turn that gear well all race, he would win, but it was a tough course and turning that hard of a gear wasn't going to be easy.

I rode behind Dan until I noticed Turbo working his way up, and about halfway through lap 1 of 3, I took off and for the most part never looked back. I was getting time splits from the Lake boys, and it was never enough to rest easy and spin lazily. I had to pretty much ride fast the whole time, knowing that second was only a few minutes back.

I rode well, and just tried to ride smart and not flat. Flats come easy at Warsaw, but I was running some pretty stout tires. I didn't even take a tube or air with me. I just figured flatting wasn't an option. Sometimes it's best to think it into reality.

I won in the end, with a time of 2 hours and 11 minutes. Turbo put on another impressive SS show, only coming in a minute or so behind me. He had a strong last lap, but I wasn't about to let another SS Championship slip through my hands. I pinned it in the last section, and came across the line in the only position I was after, 1st.

All in all, Mac did a good job of puttin on the SS race. The course was about as good as it could have been, and he kept the price at a nice cool 10 bucks. More racers would have been better, but looking at this year vs last, the competition was about the same. Maybe a few less heavy hitters, but it made winning still worth it.

Aaron finally sent me pics from Nationals. His gal is quite impressive behind the lens of a camera. Here's some for your viewing pleasure.

Spin Pizza ride tonight, followed directly by a night ride with Burnsey and some others! Oh ya, good times are sure to be had...

G

2011-08-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

Why I ride reason #312...

Post ride gluten free pancake packed with cinnamon, peanut butter, home made blackberry jelly, and honey. Usually use local honey but ran out.

I plan on doing a recap of last weekend tommorow. I've been busy, and last weekend was crazy.

Spin Ride tommorow night!

G

Friday Rain

2011-08-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

Will lead to Saturday tackyness that will lead to some Spoke Pony awesomeness! Now if we can keep those rocks dry.

Rest week has went well. Alot of sleep, not much riding, and just a little core work to keep everything fresh for this weekend. SpinPizza ride went well Wednesday. Good size group, and it felt good opening the legs up a bit.

I have to put a 36 tooth front ring on the Epic tonight, along with the new XT ten speed cassette I purchased for my Flow wheelset. I got tired of switching the XX cassette everytime I wanted to switch from my race wheelset to the training set. The XT is almost a quarter pound heavier, but that's why they're called training wheels. I went with a 36 tooth ring over my current 34 due to the fact that I was in my lower gears too much, and none of the races moving forward have any major climbing that warrent the 34. Still loving the 1x10. Simple, light, and effecient.

Of course tommorow is Spoke Pony, and then Sunday is the Midwest Single Speed Championships. It's going to be a tough weekend. I have high expectations for both races, and I'm still not sure which one I want to expend more energy at. Spoke Pony is going to be hard regardless, due to the length of 3 hours. No way am I doing 6... BT needs to be finished in a little over 4 hours, so 6 hours would be overkill. 3 hours at 12mph is the goal. BT will need to be 4 hours at 12.5-13 mph average. Ya, killing it...

Some happenings on the 29er front this week...

Trek is coming out with a 140mm 29er full squish. Apparently they put in in the catalogue this year, only to find out they won't be able to produce it in time, so looks like it's a 2013 model. Not really sure why they went with this certain design. Not only is the main triangle tight, but they have a dropper seatpost leaving only the downtube for any bottle mounts. They should know that most people would like some bottle mounts on this all day type of steed.

G-Ted had a pretty sweet blog about the state of 29ers in 2012 and beyond. Pretty spot on.

Europe is rolling out all sorts of new 29ers for 2012. While we don't see a whole lot of them around here, it goes to show that 29ers will see the biggest boom in the coming years. I mean those crazy Europeans are even adopting them, so the platform is obviously not going anywhere but up.

Who's got some cordless hair dyers we can take out to Swope tonight? I forsee the dirt being in amazing shape, and hopefully we can get enough dry time to dry the rocks. The last few races at Swope have been brutal. Wet rocks suck, and Swope has no shortage of them...

It'll be all good though, so get those chicken legs ready. The pain train will be blowing through in full force tommorow!

G

Ear Muffs

2011-08-11T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hide your children, and put on the headphones if you're at work. If you haven't yet seen this video, then be prepared for some F-bomb droppin awesomness. Almost makes me wanna go out and buy some K-Swiss's. Pretty unique marketing though...

Sleep

2011-08-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

It's the best part of a rest week. I get a lot of it, no matter what the week but on a rest week I get an extra dose of it. I think sleep is the number one overlooked recovery tool. I like to get at least 10 hours a day, and on recovery days 12 is great. Usually this means getting home and taking a 2-3 hour nap, waking up for 3-4, and then falling back asleep for the night. I can do that now that I'm single. It's very nice.

For most people though, that's out of the question. For those like you, I suggest learning the power of the power nap. 30 minutes will still do wonders for you. Find a quiet place, and learn to relax and dose off for a short period. I'm not very good about the short nap. I always tend to sleep at least and hour or more. As we loose daylight, I'll have to mix it up in order to still get rides in.

But for now, nap time is a plenty, and I never have a problem taking advantage of it.

See you all Saturday! Spoke Poney!!!!

G

Show Me State Games

2011-08-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess everyone had other shit to do yesterday. At least judging by the no shows I assume that was the case. No big boys from the Lou, and none of the CoMo heavy hitters showed. I remember back in the day this used to be a very hard fought out race. All the big boys showed up, and it was something to actually win it.

Not to take away from the guys that did show up yesterday, but it was a pretty small expert field none the less. I rode a pretty consistant race, not really pushing it too hard and just trying to stay steady. Ended up coming through about 15 minutes in first after three 7.5 mile loops. Good ride through the woods no doubt.

So where was everyone? I was really looking forward to racing Dan and Best, but neither of them showed. I know Shot is in Colorado, and I haven't heard what Elwell has been up to.

No worries, this weekend will be full of some heavy racing. First Saturday, and then Sunday. My first double header!

Rest week this week... Minus some easy riding, and Spin Wednesday. Oh, and those two races this weekend. Anyways, it'll be nice to take it easy for the most part, and try to get some stuff I've been putting off at the house done. Like cleaning and laundry. I haven't spent a full weekend at home since early Spring. Go, go, go I tell ya.

Oh, I almost forgot about the frog giggin on Friday night. It was AWESOME! It was good to spend some time with the Pops and lil Bro. It was a new experience together, and it was very successful. 86 legs when it was all said and done. Definently a good night with gigs, and even better was the frog fry we had last night.

Don't knock it till you try it...

Hope everyone had a great weekend, and had some good riding. This week looks to be much much better temp wise!

Now if we can just keep this rain away for the weekend festivities...

G

Rainy Friday

2011-08-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

Man, I'm going to be pissed if this rain cancels our race this weekend. We go over a month without rain and then get dumped on just days leading up to the Show Me State Games. Not to worried, it was crazy dry last weekend, and I'm sure any bit of rain will actually help.

What's been happening on the 29er front this week?

Rolf Prima came out with their first mountain bike wheelset, bot in a 26 and 29er version. I have to say, it's pretty lame. Nothing great on the weight front, and a pretty heafty $850 bucks. They remind me of the Ellsworth wheels, but they don't have the width that the Ellsworth's had. 24 spoke just like Ellsworth, and about the same price and weigh. Even worse is their product launch video. Check it all out here...

Raleigh has a new carbon 29er coming out, just like everyone else this year. It's called the Talus and it looks pretty sweet. Not as sweet as that carbon cross bike though...

Jamis is adding to their carbon 29er lineup with a new Dakar. It looks cool, but nothing stands out really.

Tubulars are the new thing in mountain bike wheels now days. Take these bad boys. 1100 grams for a 29er wheelset? Yes sir, and how I just found out about them I have no idea. I sooo need to win the lottery. With new tubular tires coming out every year, I forsee more and more racers going the way of glue on's in the future. Your hardcore racers at least. I'm sure I'll be rolling something like those in a few years. After I rob a bank.

Pops invited me out to a nice boys night out. Something like two gig sticks, three ponds, and two burlap gunny sacks. Oh ya, more froggin baby! Oh to be a hillbilly. You all have no idea...

Then some pre-riding at Rockbridge tommorow, and then race on Sunday!

Come get your race on...

G

Too Many Races?

2011-08-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this whole Cross thing has gotten outta hand. Really though, why in the hell would anyone want to race cross starting in September? I've yet to come across anyone that truely wants too... In fact most of the racers I come into contact with seem to bitch about it like I do and seem to want to race later, like in winter when the conditions are favorable for what is supposed to be cross racing. Not hot, dry, and boring. Make it wet, make it cold, and make the course real! Not some roadie straight, turn, straight, turn drag race.

Why do I bring up this? Because I just found out Manions cross is the same weekend as RIM. Which is also the same weekend as the Knob Noster MTB race. With cross racing starting in September, there will be even few racers at ALL races due to the fact that you'll have some mountain bikers who want to cross it up, and you'll have cross racers that still want to race mountain bikes. It makes for less attendance in both arenas, and an overall less fun race scene all around.

I want to race cross this year, but I sure as hell won't be racing in September. My mountain bike calendar goes right up to November, and mid to late November is when I'll start racing cross. I was hoping to race Manions as I've heard great things about it, but no way in September. Sorry dudes.

Of course I won't even go into the mountain bike scene. It's so great around here that we now have too many races. You heard that right, too many races, and not enough racers in my opinion. I think it's awesome that we have all of these race promoters who are willing to step up and give us something to do on a weekend, but when you have multiple overlapping weekends, along with races every single weekend, it gets a bit much. Take the Mid West SS Championships, which is the day after Spoke Poney race. And then RIM and Knob Noster on the same weekend. Both Knob and SS champs will suffer greatly due to their day after placement of such largely attended endurance races. Not many people will double up like I will, and most will be too spent from Saturday to even want to race on Sunday.

AND NOW CROSS! Common now, someone tell these diehards like Yielding and such to start racing later in the year. I know that they'll bitch about there being to many weekends taken, and they have to race earlier to get an open weekend, but really though. There are always open weekends January and February. If you start the season later, you'll have racers who race later. Now it seems like everyone is so gun ho at the beginning of season, and by late November everyone is burned out.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I just don't know how to build a successful race scene. Maybe you need too many races, overlapping weekends, and a 6 month long cross season.

I'd be interested to hear you all chime in... Public opinion is always welcome at the Riding Dirty household.

Rant over... Sorry.

G

Mondays Lesson

2011-08-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

Today I'd like to teach you a very valuable lesson. Sometimes even when you have all the neccassary tools and supplies you would need to complete a successfull ride, it's still not enough. That's what I learned yesterday.

I've been very fortunate not to have hardly any flats this year. Then again, I change my tires out more frequently, which probably helps in keeping that from happening as much. Yesterday I had a flat, and normally it would be no big deal to fix it, but as it turned out, the ride resulted in me hike a biking for 2 hours in the hot, humid, stuffy jungle that's known as 4 Winds.

I got a good ride in at Rockbridge on Friday, and cooked myself pretty well since it was the last day in a 4 day riding block. I then had every intention of getting in a nice long ride down at the Lake of the Ozarks, at a trail called Honey Run. Well, as my luck would play out for the day, I got lost trying to get to Honey Run, and eventually wasted an hour driving back country roads, and ending up being overall pretty pissed. I don't know what happend, I've been to the that trail dozens of times, but it's been a few years, and for some reason everything seemed differnt. Add on the fact that I had no cell phone coverage, and it pretty much led me to fly blind. And blind I was... I had no idea where I was.

Being frustrated and in the same neighborhood as 4 Winds, I made a decision. I was going to tackle what is known as the manliest trail around. It's everything mountain biking should be. Loose, rocky, and knarly as hell in spots. 4 Winds is the kind of place that when you finish riding it, you feel like you've actaully accomplished sometime. It's not a groomed out, run of the mill kind of trail. Normally it's mostly overgrown, and they've even gone as far as to close the roughest of sections now. I had the Epic, and I was ready to tackle this beast, and conquer it in it's entirety.

Well everything was going well, until about 3 miles in I noticed my rear tire going soft. Knowing I just re-Stansd it, I grabbed my co2, and pumped the tire full of air. It sealed, and I was off and going... For awhile.

Roughly 2-3 miles later, I was picking my way up a rough and rocky incline when I hear the undeniable hiss that was a slit sidewall. No amount of Stans was sealing this one. Damn. Luckily I always carry a spare tube, and I hoped that I had enough air in my BigAir to get it pumped up enough to limp back. So I take off the spare tube that's been fixed to my bike, unmoved since I put it there back in March. Like I said, I've been lucky this year.

I slowly started the fix a flat procedure, but in the back of my head I knew that if I didn't have enough air, or the tube had somehow developed a leak, I would have one hellava long hike out. I was halfway through this 12 or so mile loop, and there was no easy way back.

I hook up the co2, and use every last bit of air it had to give. Only to hear the still undeniable slight hiss that was air escaping out of the sidewall slit. At first I figured it was the air between the tube and tire escaping, but moments later I noticed the tire getting ever so softer.

Damn. Damn. Damn. It's time to walk.

2 hours, 100 seedticks, and a pair of skinned up legs later, and I was at my car. It was a long hike indeed, and anyone of you all know that hiking in biking shoes is no fun. Toss in the fact that the trail is all loose rock, and major overgrown in spots, and you have the makings for what was one rough day in the woods.

I took some pictures of the trail, but on my old Iphone that no longer has service and I can't figure out how to upload them. The trail was beautiful in spots as I hiked back, and horrible in others. I hiked up and down the hills, crunching my cleats against rocks for what felt like a million steps.

I could have been even more pissed at the end of my day. It was a pretty much wasted ride, and it was a rough hike, but luckily I did have the right supplies as far as water and nutrition. When I flatted I still had one and a half water bottles full of EFS, and a pack of GU Chomps and a Honey Stinger Waffle. That made the hike easier. Without any of the above, especially water, the hike could have been very much worse.

I've been going sans Camelback all year, and loving it. I put everything in my jersey pockets, and it seems to make my back happy. Until I run out of supplies and I have to hike 6 miles out. You see, with the camelback, I would have had a hand pump, patches, and another tube. I would have been able to ride on. But I didn't, and I remembered why sometimes it's neccessary to overdo it, just in case.

Anywhere else and I would have been able to hike out in 20 minutes. But as it would have it, 4 Winds made for an interesting day, and in the end it conquered me more than I conquered it.

No worries though, I lived to fight another day.

Another day that will come sooner than later, and will include 4 Winds again, but this time with a much different outcome.

If first you don't succeed, try, try again...

G

Fry-day

2011-07-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

Seems like the main topic of the bloggesphere lately has been the heat. It's been a whole bunch of whining going on I tell ya. I've always been one to accept the fact that there are things you can change, and things you can't change. The weather falls into the unchangable. So deal... Just think, if you train in this weather, you'll be light years ahead of everyone else this fall. Not only does training in the heat and humidity play well for when things cool off, but you also get the added benefit that most don't even ride in this weather. So while they waste precious dry trail time, you're putting money in the bank.

This is money in the bank. Three times this week my legs have looked like this. Two 35 mile gravel rides, and a nice 28 mile ride through the woods last night. Add in some good core workouts a few times this week, and a nice 45 minute minute early morning road ride and I've already got in the same hours I normally put in for a whole week. And it's not even the weekend!

Some things on the web front. KNC has stolen my idea. Not really, but I figured it was only a matter of time till someone came up with a way to incorporate the Shimano Di2 electronic shifting into a mountain bike. They did... and it's expensive.

Marzocchi has come out with a new Corsa 29er fork. It looks pretty sweet, but I still think I'm going with the Sid. Never have liked the look of those nickle plated sanctions that Marzocchi has, and red just isn't my favorite color.

BikeRadar did a pretty good article on the best bike upgrades that yeild the biggest gains for your mountain bike. Not expensive upgrades, but the best, cheapest upgrades. Basically the bar, stem, and tires. I'd agree, those three components can change the way your bike acts and handles greatly, and new, lighter tires can give you that extra 1mph you looking for. Above that, bar no expense cap, wheels are it. But you're looking at dropping 500-1000 bucks for a good wheelset that you can actually notice.

And the douche of the week goes to Floyd Landis! Check this video out. Yup, the beer drinking, rubber burning, exhuast fume inhaling crowd of Nascar will be pleased to find out this ex-doper will be joining the ranks of the Nascar drivers. WHOOO WEE! What a joke...

I'm headed down to CoMo tonight to get a little riding done at Rockbridge. I looked at the race loop they have posted for next weekends Show Me State Games, and it looks to be the same loop they always do. Which brings up the question, why do they include the praire loop? Makes no sense... Not only is it extremely boring, but it's wide open, and always hot as hell.

Then it's a Saturday in Jeff, with some froggin! Oh ya buddy, bringing out my hillbilly roots. It's been years, but I jonsin for some frog legs in the skillet.

Then off to the Lake for hopefully some water fun, and some Honey Run action!

One of the few weekends that doesn't include racing.

I'm going to enjoy it!

So should you...

G

Early Morning Flyer

2011-07-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

It's 6AM, wind blowing by, body and machine slicing through the air like a knife through butter. The Sun is rising to my back, and the road is quiet. The hum of rubber and road are the only sounds I hear, along with the almost silent laboring of my breath. Sweat pours even though the tempature is quite nice. The humidity hangs in the air, causing even my machine to sweat with moisture. I push a bit harder... I go a bit faster... I feel free, because at 6am, flying just seems to come natural.

I really should get out early more often. Then again I'm not a morning person. I find it hard enough to drag myself out of bed, much less throw a leg over a bike and ride in the wee hours of the morning. However, last night my body shut down. It does that sometimes. I got home at 5 and was asleep by 5:30. I only woke a few times, and before I knew it, it was 5:30 in the morning and I almost jumped out of bed I was so awake.

Almost a month of traveling the nation, racing every weekend, and tons of riding in this heat finally cumulated to one of those 12 hour sleep nights.

On the racing news front, Topeka was a whole lot of fun on Sunday. The course was the same as last year, and the tempature was actually very bareable. I took it hard from the beginning, only dragging JPB with me up the grassy hill leading to the singletrack. I stood and sprinted out of every corner on the first lap, which is a whole lot of sprinting. The trail out at the GMansion is loaded with sharp 180 degree turns, and fast and flowy sections.

After the first lap I put it on cruise control and tried to keep a consistant pace. I was able to do so, and in the end I took the overall Expert win. JP Brockett took second, and just like that Ethos took down another 1,2. It was also good to see our St.Joe brothers as they all did very well also, taking home medals galore.

Tonight I'm going to do a little 35 mile gravel grinder, followed by the same ride backwards tommorow morning, and then the SPIN Pizza ride tommorow night.

Gotta get ready for the BT Epic and a couple double header weekends.

That's right Schottler, I got your number son. Ha ha... Well, at least I hope I'll be able to hang your wheel for at least part of that beast.

Here's to 50 miles in the Ozarks at a blistering pace.

Ethos will be there, will you?

G

Listening to For the Birds right now... Local KC band that I stumbled onto after meeting the cello player Saturday night, who also was the cello player for a show Jeremy Collins had,The Wolf and the Medallion. The show really brought home the last few years of my life, and what is my life's journey. Here's to kicking the Wolf's ass, and never letting go of what drives you in life.

Cool Friday

2011-07-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

Man it's nice outside. Like as in perfect riding weather. You really can't ask for any better than the stretch we've had. 100+ degrees and heat indexes far above that. This is the weather that'll make a real man, or woman, out of you. If you can ride well in this stuff, you can ride well in any weather. I did notice the humidity hasn't been as horrible, but make no mistake, 40% and above humidity in this weather is still stuffy.

So bake my friends, like little potatoes in an oven. Embrace the heat, take it for what it is, an excellent training device. Drink lots, both water and beer, and make sure to get yourself a good nights sleep. Wouldn't want to be flat for the racing this weekend!

The Sunflower Games MTB race is Sunday. And it's at 9am, which means it'll only be 90 instead of 100. That's a big difference yo! The course, (Governors Mansion)is a good one. From what I remember it was very fast and flowy, with a long section of flat peagravel. Man I hope they have that there this year. I'd love to hit it with gears.

Did you all see the vid of the "A" line at the Missoula Montana ProXtc race? Aaron posted it, and it's no doubt the most insane A line I've ever seen. Maybe because I haven't raced but a handful of national events, but it's a straight up 4 foot drop off. Looks smooth, but damn, I can only imagine the carnage when a group of 50+ racers come up on it. If you're not sure of what an A line is, it's basically the fastest choice of two routes at a particular part of a given race course. The B line is easier but slower. At Nationals, the difference between hitting the rock waterfall, (A line), and the B line was like 30 seconds. Pretty big difference, but you run the risk of killing yourself. Or at least flatting out.

The Tour is hot right now. I'm pretty excited to get home and see what happens today. Yesterday was a great race, until my DVR decided to stop recording with a mile to go. Oh well, I figure I didn't miss much. I don't read about what happens, I wait to watch it when I get home. I can usually skip over the slow stuff, and get right to the goods. It's almost like Nascar racing, only much much more cool.

I'm going to go ride in the heat today. And I'm going to enjoy it. At least I can tell myself that.

Have fun this weekend, and remember, don't let the heat get ya down.

G

Listen to these Jerkwads

2011-07-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

So smart they are... Not only can you not understand a damn word they're saying, but they even have that "smart" accent.

Really though, it's pretty interesting stuff in regards to wheel testing in windtunnels. All in the name of trying to eek out that extra 1mph.

Thank god for modern science, or else we might all still be rolling around on wooden rims.

G

Kill the Hardtail?

2011-07-19T20:05:00.001-07:00

It seems everytime I ride this bike, that thought comes to mind. Is it even worth having a seperate hardtail mountain bike? I mean coming off the Epic to this bike is like going from floating on a cloud being tossed out of a flying car. Even on a smooth trail this thing likes to deliver the pain stick to the body.

I think a suspension fork would really change this bike. The still standing, fairly legit, reason for riding a hardtail over a dually is that its more effecient. You stand, deliver the wood, and they propel with percise precision. While going rigid allows you even less energy loss, the pounding that comes with it often overrides that energy savings. I find I actually tire sooner than I do with the slightly less effecient dually.

So I guess my plan will include buying a new Sid 29er fork, putting it on the Epic, and then put the Reba on the Stumpy. I think its going to turn out to be a great move for both bikes.

But for now, I'll be rocking my squish. The hardtail will do nicely this winter.

Let the war of opinions start, because I know there's still plenty of hardtail die hards out there.

Race in Topeka this weekend!

USA Nationals

2011-07-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

It's was kind of a big deal...

It was staged at the base of a fairly legit mountain, and it was done up big. Not a most dominating, intemidating type of mountain, but one that you knew was going to test your might regardless. Coming from the flat fields of corns and beans meant that I wasn't supposed to do well. Already knowing you have elements going against you will sometimes play hell with your mind, or it will cause you to have no worries, no expectations at all.

I knew I had things going against me, and I had some doubts, but I choose not to let it bother me, and that ended up being much better in the end.

Trav and I flew from KC to Salt Lake, to then Boise, Idaho on Thursday. JP Brockett and KRocket picked us up, and we made the short 2 hour drive to Sun Valley. I have to give a big thank you to them for not only doing that, but then also driving us back to Boise last night so we could fly out this morning.

After arrival Thursday afternoon, we built up bikes and headed down to the venue. We ended up doing a complete lap Thursday, which wasn't on my list of crap I wanted to do Thursday. I was still trying to find my legs after Wednesday nights Spin! Pizza Ride, and the flight that morning. That and I like to take it easy two days before a race, and then open the day before.

That first lap was eye opening. It was a very up and down course. You go up, and then you come down. The climb could be segmented into three seperate sections. The first was the more loose, more steep pitches. It was tough, and a couple of good roots really threw a wrench into the rythm. I hiked a bike a few sections, and then hit the second section. This was less steep, and more open and smooth. Although it sounds sweet, it was still at a good pitch, and you were still redlined from the section prior. Then you popped out into the open, did a hike a bike switchback, and ended up at section three. This last section was a fire road that snaked it's way to the very tip top of the mountain. It was long, steep at times, and very tedious.

But my oh my, when you reached the top, it was all grins and wa-hoos from there!

A fast fireroad decent drops you into the singletrack, were you switchbacked your way down the moutain, over whoop-de-doos, blind bench cut corners, and overall loose, dusty, heaven. Down at the bottom, it was sprint through the start/finish, up the road, over the big fly over, and through this rock section before climbing back up the mountain.

It was a great ride, and I sure as hell didn't do it Friday. I was a bit sore waking up Friday morning, and besides watching KRocket get 4th in her group, and doing a couple of prologue loops, I took it easy.

The prologue lap started our race on Sunday. It was a short lap that included a very steep, not long but long enough climb to get you deep into the pain cave. It was here that I was first slapped in the face with the pain fist of US Nats 2011.

4AM on Saturday morning rolled by awefully quick.

Three hours later and I was sitting second line at the start of what would become a very fun but tough race.

It wasn't that fast of a start at the beginning of our 7:30AM start. But damn, it sure did get hard once we hit that very first climb. I sure didn't have it. I couldn't push any harder, and right off the start I was sitting 10th or so of 17 riders in my group.

We quickly re-grouped after the rock garden, but it soon broke loose again once we started the climb proper. It was a rough go of it for a bit. A lot of hike a biking, heavy breathing, and "Come Ons"! I knew that was going to happen. I knew I should have been in the very front. I knew, I knew, I knew.

But alas, sometimes what you know, and what you can truely do aren't neccassarily the same things. I should have had a better start, but I didn't, and from there on I resolved to start the pick off process.

The climb opend up after section one, and it was there that the real riding hit, and I could start picking off guys. This was also where the leaders of the next few classes started working their way up. Once one would catch me, I'd slide over, and catch his wheel. I did a pretty good job holding wheels, and made my way to the top of the mountain feeling fairly well.

Once the downhill hit, I was ready for the fun break ahead. Problem was I was sitting 5th wheel or so in a group of riders and the dust was so bad you couldn't see anything in front of you. Now that's not usually a great idea when you're flying down the side of a mountain at 18+mph. One bad mistake and you could find yourself in trouble fairly quickly.

I kept the group within site, but still got caught by a couple of riders on the way down. One would be the eventual 4th place finisher from my race. It was amazing how well some of these guys decended compared to me. I made note of that area of riding that I obviously could do better in. We just don't get the luxury of those long downhills around here, and it seems like anytime you get one riding, you want to enjoy it rather than fly down as fast as possible. Make no mistake though, it was a true race to the bottom.

Things were much more open and interesting on the second lap. I had the rider in my group in sites, with a older group rider between he and I. I kept on their wheels, and managed my way through the first part of the climb for the second time. I still had to hike a bike a bit of it, but I never stopped advancing, and before I knew it, I was on the wheel of my age group rider.

I passed him on the more open smooth section, and laid down the wood to get a good gap that I hoped would stick through the downhill and through the finish. The gap worked, but holding it didn't. I dug deep and kept the heart rate pegged at what I at the moment percieved to be the highest I could sustain.

You see, I haven't used a heart rate monitor in over a year or so. I just figure I need to go as hard as I can no matter what. Well that usually works, and if I blow up here in Missouri, I can quickly recover. Not up there. You blow up and it takes much longer to recover. At this point of the climb, we were at around 7000 feet of elevation. There isn't a much oxygen up there, so you find this happy median of going as fast as you can, without crossing the line that blows you up in spectacular fashion resulting in a epic fail.

I held that line at what I thought was the best possible. I climbed well. Really well for not ever getting to climb sustained climbs like that. Towards the top, I saw another rider in my group, and decided to push it even harder to try to overtake him before the crest. About the time that I did that, he caught wind and laid down his own attack, holding me off.

Shit was the first word that came to mind. At this point, I had no idea what postition I was in, but I knew that I just let one slip by, and that could have been the difference between a podium and not.

So the decent began, and it wasn't long and I noticed some riders behind me. Turns out the first two were from an older group. The third however was from my group, the rider who I passed on a climb. I asked what group he was in, and he replied that he was in my group. I then kindly told him he was going to have to work for it then.

Work he did, as he pulled a very slick pass on one of the last switchbacks. He took the tougher inside line, as I muscled my big wheeled bike around the slightly easier outside line. It was a smooth move, very smart indeed. I quickly jumped his wheel until he brought me to the other rider in our group who was in front of us. He quickly passed the rider, and then I followed with a pass on the second to last switchback just like I was passed just earlier. I was pretty impressed with myself. It was the move of the day, and the move that would allow me to bust my way down to the bottom in 5th place for the day.

Crossing the finish line was relieving. An instant weight had been lifted from my back. All the years work finally came to a head, and I had done everything I felt I could. I had a great race, and felt like regardless I did well for myself. I sat back, smiled, and waited for my my teamates JP and Trav to finish.

It wasn't unitl another hour or so until I got to see the final results. 5th place gave me the last spot on the podium. A minute and a half off second, and 6 minutes off our age group winner, and overall winner.

I was pleasantly disapointed. I will always be my biggest critic. But at that moment it was what it was. I had did well, and the beer was calling my name. It was a beautiful day, and with the Pro racing action to follow, nothing could have taken away from the awesome day that it was.

But I could have had that minute and a half. I should have, but you know how that goes in racing.

Should have, could have, would have.

It's all gravy baby, things could have always been worse, and all in all it ended up being a most excellent adventure.

I have give a couple of shout outs to my sponsors and my team for helping me go out and chase my dream on the side of that mountain. I also have to give a big thanks to Travis from BikeSource for helping me get my new rear derailleur put on Wednesday afternoon. They always do me well, and take major care of their racers. Definently glad to have all those people on my side, because without them I wouldn't be able to do what I do.

As for now, party on Wayne... Party on Garth.

Excellent... Excellent!

Ha. Lets ride bikes and have fun.

G

A couple of sweet bikes in front of a sweet view.

These dudes were dropping in all weekend.

My view for most of the day Saturday.

Our boy Aaron from the cornfields to thr Pro field!

Ok I Reckon

2011-07-16T19:55:00.001-07:00

I guess 5th isn't horrible. 1:30 off of 2nd, 6 minutes off 1st overall. More to come...

Welcome to Nats

2011-07-14T17:24:00.001-07:00

It's a straight up 2 mile climb that'll seperate the men from boys, followed by an amazing 4 mile decent. It's going to be tough boys...

G

US Cup 9 Recap

2011-07-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

The Guantlet

That's what this weekend felt like. Not only in terms of a wam bam thank you mam, down and dirty trip, but also in terms of overcoming yet even more problems to somehow manage a good result. I seem to be problem prone, but I will say I've become much better in dealing with problems since having so many over the years. Now days if a trip comes without problems it's a suprise.

This weekend consisted of heading down solo to Huntsville, AL for the US Cup #9. I had one goal, a top 5 in the Cat 1 class. It would be no easy feat on a good day, and forget it on a bad day. There's some fast cats down there, with some baggin ex-pros who make it even tougher to get a good result.

I stayed in COMO Friday night and had a nice dinner with the Mum and Sis, followed by some sweet bowling in which I hit my normal score (77), and some laser tag after that which ended up being a blast.

Woke up in the early AM, and hit the road about 8:30. The 8 hour drive was seemingly easy and fairly fast, and before I knew it I was setting up camp and getting ready for a pre-ride.

I jumped in with a group of three guys who I recognized from Bump and Grind, and we hit the loop railing what would become a very difficult course. I enjoyed the shit out of it pre-riding, but would find out come race day that some sections were much much harder when you've been pegging all race. Riding easyily along was fun though.

The track was a great mix of wide open drag race singletrack, and then it dumped into very tight and rocky singletrack that was a real challenge. The rocks were slick, but they played to my advantage being I was on the rock slaying Epic. Some sweet downhills, some techy uphills, more drag racing, and then it ended with this long, old run down road climb. That thing seemed to go on forever, and it would be here that I would conquer my demons the following day.

Enter problem...

Towards the end of the lap, I'm hammering along feeling great when I hear a loud pop, and my cranks seize. I look back and at first it looked like I had torn the shit out of my rear derailleur. After a little further inspection I found out that I had only sheered the bolt that holds the hanger. What little luck was to be found in this situation was that that was the best case scenario. I could have easily ripped the derailluer beyond fixing. Luckily I stopped quick enough to save it.

So long story short, I didn't have a spare. Neither did any of the three guys I was riding with who all happend to be on Epics. Neither did the Kenday/Tomac crew who had a full shop trailer. Neither did Home Depot. I looked for an hour trying to find a metric fine thread bolt that would work. It's 9:30pm and I still havent had dinner. I manage to stumble into a pub which happend to have very good fish taco's, sweet potatoe chips, and a local stout brew. I never drink before races. I didn't care at this point...

Enter My Hero

Justin Marquand. The equivalent of MacGyver. Several riders told me to see him. I knew him from a few races we raced together this year. He told me he had a ton of those bolts... At home. He was on his frankenbike, a 650B Cannondale carbon Flash. So he left the bolts at home that he would have had if he would have been racing his Epic. But he had a million other bolts, and in less than 5 minutes he had me fixed up. I'm still not sure what he did. I know it involved screwing two different bolts together, to create one bolt that in the end ended up being stock like perfect. Thanks again Justin, without you, I would have drove 16 hours to not even be able to race. Note to self, always have extra bolts. I'm a ex-singlespeeder who hasn't raced gears in years, so it was a common problem I overlooked.

There's something else that Justin saved me with. I thought the race started at 11:30. Not this week he said, we race early, 9:30. Great, I would have woke up and totally missed it all together. I'm a mess sometimes...

The next morning I woke up and headed down to town to grab some breakfast. My phone was dead so I couldn't look up any good breakfast places, so I just resorted to a loaded breakfast burrito and tots from Hardees. I don't recommend them for race day fuel. My warm up was warm. At 8:30 it already seemed to be real feel 100 degrees. The woods were ridiculous. I rode the road climb for the first time, since the day before I had to hike it out.

Enter Problem #2

I've had a slight issue of my chain getting lodged in between my lower derailluer jocky and the cage. Turns out it was getting worse. This isn't a deal breaker, but it makes pedaling a little harder, and you can't back pedal because the chain sucks the derailleur forward. It was stuck after just a short rocky section.

I figured I'd race it anyways... I've already been blessed with the luck of getting one problem fixed, and the bike still shifted and worked, so I hoped for the best and rolled it anyways.

It was a long way to travel not to start.

The Race

There were 10 or so 19-29 experts, and 25+ total experts or so that lined up to start. They started us off in waves, with one minute gaps. I managed to get the holeshot, which was suprising because back at Bump and Grind I could barely hang on at the start. It seemed like no one wanted to take the lead so I decided it was time to see what my legs could do.

I was flying through the first section feeling PRO. I could hear the riders behind me getting shelled off the back, popping like pop corn. I hit the open park area and had to slow down a bit to re-think of where the trail entered. I noticed only one rider had my wheel, Seth Kemp. Some 19 something ex-pro... Ya, ex-pro.

Anyways I find the trail, hammer some more, and then in a moment of G-Wiz glory I do what I do best. Hit the deck. Hard. Like GMapes, head to the earth in a very hard and quick fashion. Sorry G, but you land on your head more than anyone I know.

Seth asked if I was good. I think I said yes. I was seeing stars. Luckily I've wrecked so many times this year that I've become very good about dealing with it, picking up the pieces (which usually means bottles, and glasses) and moving on. Another rider made his way past me, and I slowly began the chase.

I could see them up the trail about 10 seconds after entering the real mans singletrack. It was the rockiest part of the trail, and also the most overgrown. Pretty crazy overgrown actually. It was a constant barrage of getting hit by tree limbs and bushes. It was so overgrown it was hard to see what was around each corner. It was also stupid hot. No air movement, humid, and extremely stuffy. It was night and day the difference between the open singletrack in the beginning of the loop, and the jungle track.

So they pass a pro rider, and I quickly catch his wheel. Somehow I become content in riding his wheel. It was about the time the techy climbs started, and the adrenaline rush had worn off leaving me huffing and puffing in the heat with the hills. I also bobbled on one of the climbs, jamming my left knee firmly into my handlbar,breaking open skin and allowing more adrenaline to flush the system. The saving grace of riding his wheel was he let me draft him up the pavement climb. I actually did pass him, but he caught back up and rode my wheel for a bit of that first hell climb, but saw I was struggling a bit so he took the lead and made sure I stayed with him. He even slowed down once to let me catch back on.

So the beginning of the second lap was uneventful. We caught 2nd place in my age group in the open park, and quickly put in a gap. I kept on his wheel until the middle/end of the lap when I hit a wall. That was about the time Andy Johnston passed me. He was the overall Cat 1 winner, and also an ex-pro. I remember reading on his blog one day that the only reason he races Cat 1 is because it pays better, but preferred the pro races because they were funner. That should have been motivation enough for me to keep his wheel and lay down the wood, but unforunately at this point my wood was getting water logged and I didn't have much to lay down.

It took a lot of self talk motivation to get through that lap. But the motivation quickly picked up when I passed Seth, who had a flat. At this point I was sitting 1st in my age group, and 2nd overall. There's no way in hell I came all the way down here to quit while being in such a good postition.

It was at the moment that I began to face my demons.

These demons have been more prevalent as of late. It seems with the recent change in life, and a few rough races, that I have had doubts and less motivation. It was time to break a few walls down like Berlin and find out just what I was made of. These demons had to meet their maker.

The third lap started out fairly well, and I was still able to power through most of the sections fairly well. Then I hit the jungle. Luckily the first rocky section went fairly smoothly and I stayed very consistant. Then the back half started. It was a section that had no flow if you weren't on it, and I wasn't on it.

I got passed by a 40-49 expert, which then put in me in 3rd overall. I couldn't keep his wheel, and I felt like I was baking in the oven like the Phillsburry Dough Boy. It was hot, I was low on water, and cramps were sitting in. I was fading worse than Lindsey Lohans career.

Then Seth passes.

At this point I have about 3 miles left to go, and I knew that I couldn't give up any more postitions, because even after the finish you have to watch for the guys that started behind you but finish with a better time due to the time splits. I wish I could have stayed on his wheel, but I was in survive mode at this point. I just didn't have it.

I pushed hard, and then pushed harder. I imagine that I spent more time with my eyes closed, teeth clinched then not. I was entering what would turn out to be a deep, dark, extremely difficult pain cave. The last singletrack section consisted of a few decent hills and lots of power flats. I just keep turning pedals, knowing I would pop out on the road soon enough.

And I did... And that's where I met Jesus.

The last time up the road climb was unlike anything I've ever experienced in racing. I was so close to the end, with this cracked, weathered, and worn out road being the only thing standing in my way. I started out fine, but minutes later I felt like stopping and dying on the side of this stupid fucking road. I closed my eyes and thought about every painful interval I've done this year, every power hour, the 14 second lose to 5th place at Bump and Grind. I had less than 10 minutes till the finish on what could have been the missing half of my upgrade, and I was for damn sure not going to let this road get in my way.

So I manned up. I dug so deep that I was either going to finish the climb in glory or break down and have to be hauled off in an ambulance.

I eventually made it to the top, and just like that it was all over.

I collapsed my bike and fell upon a picknick table asking a gentleman for his assistance in filling up my water bottle. I was so drained I couldn't move. 10 waterbottles drank later, and I finally started to come around. I had been severaly dehydrated, and I'm lucky I didn't have to go to the hospital. I knew it, but I pushed on anyways. Two and a half water bottles for a 2 hour and 15 minute race in that heat wasn't near enough. I should have done two bottles an hour. But when you don't have a bottle handuper, you deal with what you have in order to save as much time as possible.

In the end one other 30-39 racer did pass me in the overall, finishing around 30 seconds after me, putting him 30 seconds in front of me with his 1 minute time split.

I finished 2nd in my age group, and 5th overall. Mission accomplished.

I broke down camp, took a quick shower, and drove the 8 hours back to Columbia where I quickly passed out, woke up, and drove the hour to work making it in at 8:30 for our Monday morning meeting.

The guantlet is done. It was success. It was filled with problems, glory, and most of all adventure.

Toss another great memory into the memory bank.

Now I need to get some serious rest and recovery, lick my wounds, and get ready for Nationals Saturday...

Yet another battle looms on the horizon.

Let there be fight left, for I'll need every bit I can muster for this one.

G

I had every intention of taking lots of photos, but due to the craziness of the situation I only managed to snap one. It truely was a beautiful place.

Weekend Lead In

2011-07-08T10:17:00.000-07:00

Well it's half way through Friday, and I'm thinking I'm ready for it to end. Some days I tell ya...

Wanna race this weekend? You have a couple of choices.

First is Castlewood, part of the UFD East Series. We raced State there last year, and it's a pretty cool course. Bring your climbing legs, cause you'll need them. The East series has had even worse luck than us westeners with rain, but it looks like it's for sure going down this weekend.

Up north there's a full weekend of offroad TT, Short Track, and XC racing going down around Omaha, NB. You can find all the dirt for that here.

There's also a race down at SAC River in Springfield, part of the MWFTS. It's been all to long since I've raced down there. My last go at it was a very poor Expert performance that had me DNF'ing. Hopefully I can get down there for teh 6/12 hour race in September.

Me, well I'll be taking a long trek down to Huntsville, AL to race a SERC race, and I'm ready to get to it. Legs are feeling good, and minus some much un-needed stress from work, I'm feeling great. I'm off to Columbia tonight to have dinner and hang with the Mum and Sis, and I'm staying with a friend to make tommorows drive just a bit shorter. Drive all day, pick up my packet, pre-ride the course, pitch a tent, and pass out. Wake up Sunday for some dirt church racing fun.

I saw the bibs earlier this week. They made me think of CChambers. I bet he would rock the shit out of these.

So on to cross since I know so many of you are already quitting racing road or mountain to "train" for cross. Maybe one of these years they won't start cross so damn early... Anyways, here's a link to a sweet set up to run hydro disc brakes on your cross bike. Unfortunetly the Crux I plan on getting isn't disc brake capable, but I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty of disc's on cross bike this season.

Specialized has finally rolled out some of their 2012 lineup on their website. Nothing to special, other than that pretty Venge. I'd take one if they wanted to give me one...

Hmmm... how else can I waste time today. Oh, how about Kona again. I don't know why but I've always like Kona for some reason. I've never even have had a chance to ride their rides, but they've always interested me.
Like this, the new Kahuna 29er carbon. This on top of their new 29er All Mountain dually, and the 29er AM hardtail. Bikerumor was on top of it as always.

Alright, enough rambling. I'm going to try to finish up, head out somewhat early and ride trails to relieve the mind.

G

SPIN! Pizza Ride

2011-07-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

So I made it up to my first Spin!Pizza road ride last night with Tdonn. It always ends up being a great ride with good people at a good pace. If by good, you mean fast. I like it fast.

So we met at Trav's place and rode to Spin!Pizza at 4950 Main in KCMO. The ride meets at 6:00, with the Advance group (Us) going off at 6:15, and the more relaxed group going off at 6:30.

There are also rides on Monday at the Spin!Pizza in Overland Park, and Saturdays in Lee's Summit. You can find all the info here. Any place that has cassettes on their hanging lights is approved in my book. Add to that the awesome salads, flowing beer, and even gluten free pizza crust, and you have the makings for a joint you're sure to enjoy.

Anyways, back to the ride. Riding over, I felt really good. The Mavic R-sys wheels were doing what they do best, climbing like champs. Legs felt fresh, and I was ready for some hammer fun time.

The ride over to the stomping grounds with our deep group of Advanced riders was good, and we managed to keep everyone together, even through all the stop lights. That's not easy to do, considering there are a freaking ton of them. Somewhere in the ride over, the constant stop and go started to get to me, and I started feeling a little off.

Luckily we arrived to the gates of Cliff Drive, and even though it's closed, we started on our slightly revised route that turned out to be really fun, with some good climbing mixed in to make it interesting.

We keep together fairly well for the first lap, and then Tdonn called out lap 2. Apparently this was the first week in which two laps was done, because I noticed a few riders were surprised.

So I figured I'd attack and make it even more interesting. I felt really good, but unfortunetly I wasn't really 100% on the turns we took the first time around, so I'd have to stop my attack and look back to make sure the group was behind. I did this 3 or 4 times, and eventually made the right turn, and then got caught by the group as we made our way down to the circle turn.

Keep up, put in a dig on the hill but my core kept blowing up and in the end I managed to lose the lead group of 3. It's always a challenge balancing hard core workout days and hard riding days. I do find that it really challenges the legs though, because your core is already spent, so the sticks are left to do the majority of the work. I was spent, and had a blast getting some good work into the legs.

All in all a great ride with a good group of riders. I'll be back next week, but I'll probably hold the back of the pack down, because Nationals will be just a few short days later and we'll be flying out the next morning.

After that, I foresee alot of Spin!Pizza throwdowns in the future.

Hope you can join us.

G

Re-Connected

2011-07-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it takes a face slap, 10am hungover/still drunk wakeup call via 10 and 11 to really get the soul refired up.

My soul is officially on fire.

You may not understand what just happend, unless you're aware of the goodness that lies deep within Landahl.

Rewind to the happenings of the weekend that led to the adventure today.

Saturday was a blast of heat and a few lessons learned that seem to always re-present themselves in the heat of Summer. I picked up the Epic from Bike Source Saturday, after Travis S worked magic on it during the week to get the creaks worked out. As always, Bike Source and their infinite wisdom solved my noisey problems and had the Epic rolling smooth and silent. After the pickup, it was off to Swope to rail the trail for a few hours.

Man, Swope is sweet. Trav caught me in the parking lot after putting in a lap before I arrived. My stoke factor was high riding the bike of my dreams, and I proceeded to shread a lap at break neck speed flossing the rocks like Bruce Lee whips ass. After stopping for a water break, and a short wait for Travis, we were back off at it. Stopping was a bad idea. The heat was so ridiculous that my body instantly rocketed up what seemed like 10 degrees. Note to selves, don't stop in the woods when it's crazy hot. I never could seem to get cool after that. Once the core heats up, it's like hell getting it cooled down again.

Sunday was a short road ride with a buddy who was in town from Colorado. I'm rolling on some Mavic R-Sys wheels from Trav which felt amazing. I had been rolling some extremely heavy Velocity B43 rims laced to Ultegra hubs. The B43's weigh 770g's for the rim only. But they'll make you strong like Arnold. The Mavic's felt like helium and I was enjoying making my manly gears do work.

So that lead to last nights shannagans. We had a little BBQ with some of the OG's of Ethos, along with our new lady friend racers of 0-11, Sara W and Karen B. Things started out harmless and laid back, and I had every intention of only drinking a few drinks and keeping sober for a good ride today. We'll after the few drinks were done, I realized it was only 7:30 and I was feeling frisky.

Luckily Sara was laying the Worthington hammer down on some margaritas, and she quickly became my personal bartender for the night. I love tequila. It doesn't love me.

Things went bonkers about the time we left to head up to another resident for some fireworks action via said resident's roof. The fireworks were pretty sweet, and I officially popped my KC 4th of July cherry. I was deep in converstation with a cutie, to which I'm sure was full of rambled slurred unfinished thoughts, but in between that I did happen to catch a glimpse of some bright and pretty booms.

There was a big ass block party going down just a block up the road, so the party quickly shifted that way. We then were treated to a very insane drum line presentation done by one of the local schools. They had everyone going crazy, and there was a little dude who had to be only 8 or 9 absolutely killing it on his drum. Many more beers were passed around and consumed as after the drum line finished we were treated to a second floor balconey concert by a local KC band. I forgot who they were, but they were good.

I stumbled back to Trav's with the group, had more drinks, and then sometime later found myself passed out on the coutch.

Today

It's 9am, July 4th and I just woke up... I never wake up hungover. I didn't today either. It was more than hungover, it was more like still under the influence.

1 hour later and I'm standing at the Argo trailhead looking over Jessie's SS Stumpy he let me borrow for the day, wondering what in the hell I was doing.

I shouldn't be here right now. I should be asleep. Or at least laid up on the sofa with a large chocolate milk watching the tour wishing I didn't feel so horrible.

We rode up the open field trail back to Family trail. Then we got to Gunbarrel. We stopped. Trav had the front of his Epic pointed down the chute. If you know the chute I'm talking about, you know that it's the portal to a land of real mans trails, where the weak get spat out and the strong are lucky to ride dab free.

Welcome to Gunbarrel at 10am hungover with a bike you've never ridden when the rocks are slick as snot.

10 and 11 soon followed.

Somewhere deep in that jungle of trail a little light inside my soul flickered. Then it flickered again, and before I knew it I was smiling ear to ear walking my bike up some ridicously steep slick rock hill. I was having fun. And alot of it.

3 hours later and we emerged victorious in an injury free symphony of destruction which included every inch of trail at Landahl. Every little bit it had to offer we tasted, even 10 and 11 in it's full glory.

It's been way to long since I've stepped away from the training routine, and took a good long ride in the woods hungover and looking for nothing more than an adventure. Usually it's go ride, ride hard, do intervals, ride harder.

Sometimes riding slow enough to actually smell the roses is exactly what the soul needs.

Even if all I could smell was the alcohol seeping from my pores.

But my demons were exorcised, and in the end I'm a better for it.

And then I looked at clouds poolside and snapped this picture. It felt fitting. I photoshoped it like I normally do. Phones can do crazy things.

Go have fun this week. Life's to short not to...

G

It's FRIDAY!

2011-07-01T12:58:00.001-07:00

Man, it feels good to clock out... It's 3:30, on Friday and I just finished up my last call for the day. Now nothing but thoughts of sweet trail, my even sweeter Epic, and hanging and eating with good friends cross my mind. With Monday off, it's bound to be a great three day riding block. Today's an off day, with a quick nap, some dinner, and then off to Hazel Hill for some fishing to cap off the day.

Apparently I have teamates who have decided racing road is fun... Not sure why. We're a mountain bike team, but I guess not eveyone thinks like I do. I wanted to race a race in Iowa but no one wanted to go with. Oh well... My two main go to guys are out. One with a broken ankle (Steve) and one with work commitments (Trav). I need to find a few more friends who are always game like these guys.

Next weekend I'll be traveling solo to Huntsville, AL for a SERC race. I don't really blame anyone for not wanting to go on this one. It's a long way for a XC race that wouldn't matter for most. But I'm trying to get that upgrade, and it's a qualifier. Drive down Saturday, race Sunday, and head straight back.

So back to the roadie scene... It's the Tour of Lawrence this weekend. I do hope that at least everyone escapes safe and sound. Apparently there was a really bad wreck last weekend at one of the St. Louis races. I hope Randy pulls it out... I don't know him, but I feel for him and his family.

Anyone catch the newest editions to the 29er movement? One is the Transition Bandit and the other is the Kona Satori. Big trave1 29ers... 130mm full sussy's. I wouldn't mind swinging a leg over one of these and railing Swope. Any where else and you don't really need the extra travel.

Big wheels, big travel.

Also, did you happen to see that the World Marathon Mtb Championships was won on a 29er last weekend? And 2nd was the Epic 29er. Pretty solid results for the big wheels.

Ride Swope tommorow, then more trail Sunday and Monday. I've been really enjoying the shit out of Swope lately. I used to hate it... Rigid out there will do that to you. Then the Epic got a taste of it. Ever since then it's been on like donkey kong.

That's all for now... I'm going to go to sleep.

Hope you all get out to enjoy a ride this weekend, and have a safe 4th!

G

Sun Setting Another Day

2011-06-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

Another Bike?

2011-06-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

Ya, well, apparently I'm wanted on the cross battlefield this year. So that means an upgrade is needed. The old Jake just isn't quite a race machine. It's good, but after 4 years of being ridden hard, it's about time to be retired. It's been my trusty steed through many winters of gravel grinding, all one gear of her. Who knows, I may keep her, but I am definently getting one of these frames and building up a 1x10. That or JP has his Crux for sale. His is a better deal, but damn, you can deny the beauty of this work of art. It'll match perfectly with all my other bikes too...

You can find some info on the 2012 Specialized bikes here... Not all of them, just some. Apparently Specialized is leaking it out slowly.

I do have a 60cm Surly Crosscheck for sale. It's a pretty sweet bike. Salsa cockpit, king headset, messenger crankset, SS with some Ritchey wheels all laced to the gray frame. I need to sell it. I'd let it go for $500. It's pretty. I'll post pics soon...

G

Subaru Cup Recap

2011-06-27T09:46:00.001-07:00

So I guess I can retract my statement below that I sucked. I did fine, just again, not how I could have. It was another race filled with problems and in the end, a less than stellar result than what could have been. But damnit though, I'm learning! It's always something small that ends up costing me the results that I'm looking for, but when you're racing at the top end of the Cat 1 spectrum, small problems cost precious minutes that seperate the best of the best.

We decided to break the 10 hour drive from KC, MO to Oshkosh, WI up into two days because JP wanted to stop and pick his mom up in Burlington, IA to take her up to see some friends in Oshkosh. She was kind enough to house us on Thursday night, and we rolled the rest of the drive Friday to Oshkosh, and then eventually over to Mt. Morris where the race was being held.

Pre-ride commenced, we quickly realized that this wasn't going to be a cake walk course. The starting hill was a real hellava way to wake up the legs after driving for two days. It was the pretty intense way to start a race. After the lung and leg breaking climb, you had a short downhill into another short climb littered with rocks and roots that were slick like snot. The trail recieved a bunch of rain the days leading up to it, and so with that it lead to a pretty slick start of the loop. Luckily the trail seemed to get better the further into the loop it went.

There were some pretty cool features, with the big rock drop-in being my favorite. From the top coming in the first lap it looked like a straight drop off, so we took the sally line around it. Then I looked back and realized it was actually the A line and it could be rolled. Let me tell ya, that first time rolling it was almost a collar bone breaker. I got squirrely coming down off of it and almost got ejected but somehow managed to stay connected to the Epic for what was a pretty Epic moment. I hiked back up and hit it again, this time much cleaner. Sweet, a 5 second saver! Turns out everyone was taking this line, so there wasn't a real advantage.

The course also included some very sweeping uphill switchbacks, the Trek drop zone, and some other rock gardens that could be taken at crazy high speeds. Overall the Epic was loving the course, but there were a couple of tight tree's that challenged my bars each pass, and a tight twisty section close to the Start/Finish that wasn't condusive to the big wheels.

A nice rest Friday night, and then up and at it early to head to the course for our 11AM start. Pre-riding, I felt good. I was attacking the pedals nicely, and recovering quickly. I felt on. Fast forward to 25 minutes to race time, and I notice that a group of racers were already forming towards the Start/Finish.

Going off the Sport start, I figured they were going to stage us by age groups, and getting the the line super early wasn't going to really matter. Turns out I was wrong, but smart enough to notice the swelling crowds to jump in second line just on the outside. I wasn't used to a call up of over 100 riders, and once the cut the rope to make our way to the Start line, all hell broke loose. Luckily my long legs hobbled my way up to the start line, still maintaining my 2nd row postition. Travis wasn't so lucky, sitting 4 or so rows back, and JP Brockett was even more unlucky not showing up till the end and catching the back of the train.

The start was ridiculous. We were packed in like sardines. I had some CycleYouth kid asking me to get his bars in front of mine, to which I kindly replied no thanks, and told him that at this point, it was every man for himself. Normally I would give him the room, but at that moment there was absolutely no room to give. 5 seconds to go, and I wondering how the hell to survive this onslaught.

Luckily I manage to get out of the gates ok, and besides being pushed into the fence, managed to clip in and get going. I couldn't go for shit at the start. Not sure what the deal was, the whole start climb was a blurr. I just didn't have the gas to make it up to the leaders, and before I knew it I was coming into the single track 15th or so, in the line of guys who quickly had to dismount the wet rocks and roots to make it through. Luckily we made it back on our saddles fairly quickly, and the race was on. Apparently the group behind me wasn't so lucky, as the other 90+ riders all bunched up at the entrance of the singletrack, making a rather large group of pissed off Cat 1 racers wait for up to 3-4 minutes to get going. Travis was in the group, along with JP. Apparently some guy wrecked in front of Travis at the start, leaving him to resort to the back of the pack also. Bummer.

So anyways the first lap was going stellar for me. I had a game plan to start picking guys off one by one, and by time we hit the open road by the wake board lake, I had already passed 5 guys. By the end of the lap I had worked my way into top 10 and was feeling great.

That's when my lucky changed.

Coming into the wet rooty rocky section of the start of lap 2, I fell over, and in the process, dislodged my left shoes cleat bolts. I noticed it pretty much right away, and it almost felt like I had broke my pedal, but yet I noticed I was still clipped in.

Shit. Now what.

I could still pedal, and I was still attached so I quickly grabbed my composure and told it to calm down and ride smart. I would just be easy on it. Unfortunatly that meant no pulling up with my left foot, as I didn't want to pull the bolts out completely leaving me unable to be clipped in at all. So basically I lost 25% of my power, on a course with a ton of climbing, and I was only 25% through the race.

It was pretty much downhill from there. Take it easy on the cleat, and try not to fall over.

I maintained position for the most part through lap 4. But then luck would leave me again. Coming off the three stair drop, I got squirrely on a rock and somehow tipped over, landing left side hard on a rock and twisting the bars over my top tube. This time it was the left brake, so now I have identical scratches on the top tube of my pretty flowyellow Epic. One from Mellow Johnny's, one from Subaru Cup. These ProXCT races haven't been nice to my frame.

I pick myself back up, but immediatly think I broke a rib. I'm still nursing a rib injury from Bump and Grind, and I landed on the exact same spot. The wind was nocked out of me, but I scurried to get back going. In the process I lost 4 or 5 more spots. I then procedded to jam the front end of my bike into a tree, causing a major tangle up of bike and wood, and again, lost another spot. I somehow brought myself back to center and finished off the race somewhat cleanly.

What was left of it anyway.

Some guy did pass me on the last hill, and even though I reattached myself to him, I couldn't get the inside line at the finish to sprint him. I tried hard though, and I'm confident I've never thrown my Epic that fast or hard into a 90 degree left hand grassy turn. I had that thing sideways and skidding like crazy. The guy was smart though, and without getting the inside line, finishing in front of him was impossible.

So that was my race.

K-Rocket blew the doors off and took 1st overall in the Cat 1 women. That was huge and she was glowing with excitement. I was wondering what the guy on the top of the hill was talking about when he told me my teamate was winning. I thought he meant Travis, and maybe I missed Travis getting in front of me at the start. Turns out it was our little gal K.

Travis came in 4 minutes behind me, and then JP about another 5 behind that. Oh, well, at least one of us won. That's two overall Cat 1 wins at a ProXCT this year for Ethos. That's pretty huge.

Also in the confusion that was yet another screwed up timing issue, our gal Sara W got pulled coming into the finish because they thought she was going out for her last lap. Turns out she was finishing, and even though she did finally finish, she lost quite a few minutes in the confusion. Apparently the other gals in her race were honest though, and she took 2nd in her Cat 1 age group.

At the end of the day I somehow ended up 3rd in the 24-34 age group, which made no sense at all. According the the results I was 19th overall out of 100+ experts, but not 3rd in the 24-34. I figured they were going to do awards for the Midwest Regional Championships though, which is the age group of 19-24. I was 2nd overall in that age group. So it was a surprise when they announced the 24-34 age group and I was 3rd.

They had the womens results all screwed up, with a ton of gals that were last in the race up in the top 10, and so I guess they also screwed up the mens. Who knows, but I'll take my 3rd. Still not sure if the overall changed though, although it must have, because I was 6th from my counting in the 24-34 group. Again, just screwed up results overall, which surprisingly doesn't change even at the top level events. Bump and Grind was about the same. Texas was however pretty smooth.

Ethos did fairly well though given our circumstances. 3 out of 5 podiums on the Cat 1 field for our crew.

I had a blast overall, and learned yet another valuable lesson. Check your cleat bolts! I think I had a very good chance at top 10, and maybe even that top 5. In the end it was the 17-18 year old juniors that took all the top spots, killing it with their youngness. I was back 6 minutes, which is alot, but not really considering how my race went. My climbing really suffered on the last 3/4th of the race due to the cleat issue. The cleat was moving freely from front to back and side to side, and I don't know how it even stayed on.

But I finished damnit. And I got my medal.

I'm happy. Last year I would have been more than stoked for the same result. I just happen to have higher expectations this year. Although until this year I had never raced a major race like this, and now I have 3 under my belt. I could have of top 5'd the last two, but little mistakes make a world of difference when you're competing with the best.

I'm there. I just have to race clean.

Learning.

It's a never ending process...

No pics yet, but here's the Trek Drop Zone as the lead pack of Pro's came through. Sorry for the nothingness at the start. I was really drunk by this point, and I wasn't focused too well. The after race beer never tasted so good.

Go to Subaru Cup next year... It's a blast. Huge crowds, a great course, and some awesome cheese curds!
G

I Got a Medal But Other Than Than I Sucked

2011-06-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

On the Way To Subaru Cup

2011-06-24T11:40:00.000-07:00

Best Beginner Bikes and the New Jet 9

2011-06-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

Bikeradar.com had a pretty decent article on the best mountain bikes for under a $1000 bucks. You can find it here...

I remember my first real mountain bike. The GT Outpost. Ahh, the good ol' days. Before that I had Wal-Mart Mongoose that I would destroy in what seemed like just a handful of real mountain bike rides out at Binder in Jeff City. The Outpost was legit though, the only problem looking back was that it was way to small for me. It was an 18 inch frame trying to accomodate my 6'2 body. But the shop I bought it from back then wasn't a real high end place. J&D Bikes just south of Downtown. I forgot the old mans name, but I always enjoyed stopping in. It's funny, because I was home the other day for my lil sisses bday party and I happened to notice an article in the paper on J&D. There he was, the old man, still at it. What I truely found amusing was he's comments on how the bike industry has changed over the years and back then there where no specific types of bikes with different sizes and such. Now mind you I bought this GT in the early 2000's, and I'm pretty sure they had sizes then. I'm sure my GT was on sale and he probably said the 18 would be fine. I didn't know what I didn't know.

Bikes have got expensive nowdays. But then again so has everything else. For anyone wanting to really get into this sport, a $1000 bike may seem outragous. Until they go buy the Wal-Mart cheapo and soon realize how inadaquate it is. Of course Wal-Mart has stepped up their game a bit, and even sell a 29er, but in the grand scheme, they're still junk. This is a rough sport on equipment, and having the right equipment can be all the difference in having an enjoyable ride, or a ride riddled with foul shifting, broken bits, and long walks out.

Trust me, I've been there...

I for one have no problem dropping large wads of money on a bicycle. In fact, my tastes are usually so high, that it takes me months and months to pay off a new bike. I have no problem with credit. Give me 0% and I'll stretch paying that bad boy out for as long as possible. That way I can afford other bike crap along the way!

This bike is truely sexy in my eyes. It seems that people are either highly for, or strongly against the new style of the carbon Jet 9. While I couldn't imagine giving up the Epic for one, it still looks mighty sweet. Looks like the frame only will set you back about $2700. You can buy a Epic 29 Comp for that price complete.

This is one of Niner's employees, and I must say, black is almost a pretty as floyellow!

Legs are coming around this week. Weird feeling, but after 15 minutes or so warming up, they open up nicely. Trails are drying up nicely and it sounds like a trip south might be in the plans soon to hit up some of that trail Shoff has been working on. Might even try to make it to the Courtois Challenge.

One last notable today, and that's the new announcement of the COCONUT CHOCOLATE CHIP CLIFF BAR! Oh boy, oh boy... I love coconut, and I really love chocolate chips. This is going to be so sweet! They also have a Blueberry Crisp flavor coming to their Crunch line, which is the equivalent of the Nature Valley bars only much much better in my opionion. Seems Cliff Bar is dabeling in wine now too... Do what you do.

Enjoy the reprive from the heat, it sure is nice out there.

G

Monday Ramblings

2011-06-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

I've had a little bit of the dead legs going on lately. Something to do with too much training I guess. It's not a big deal in my book, just dial it back a little and let the life rebuild inside them until they're ready to explode into a fury of pedal mashing. It's not that I'm not riding strong, it that I'm not feeling as fresh as normal. Alot of it has to do with some recent added stress, and along with that a stray from my normal diet.

Food is important. I feel great when I eat great, and I feel like shit when I eat like shit. It's very easy to eat like shit in todays time. What's that? Arby's brought back the ARBYQ? Ya, just like that. Luckily I can witness my undoing and bring it back fairly quickly unlike years past. Sometimes I would drop off and go a month or more eating off the good for you grid.

My ass still hurts some from the fall at State. I figured it would take awhile, and it has. It was a pretty blunt impact.

I woke up today feeling very refreshed though. Something about being tired and run down for a given amount of time will almost make you forget what feeling good feels like. Maybe I've had an internal virus running rampant. I get those sometimes.

A breakup... That will run you down. Especially one following a span of two and a half years together. Oh well, life moves on, and sometimes it seems to pull two people apart eventually driving a wedge so deep that it cannot be ignored. It was time for me to let go and let us both go our seperate and I'm sure much better ways. But damn, it's never easy doing so. It's getting better though, and the thoughts are starting to space themselves out making it easier to forget.

Enough of the sappy shit, this week is HUGE!!! Big time racing going down. After having the Lost Luau cancelled, I'm even more raging for some racing. This weekend we'll be traveling up north for the Subaru Cup. I'm ready for some fun, and that's what I'm going up for. At this point, I'm not worried about my result, just ready to jump into a fast field and mix it up a bit. I take shit to seriously sometimes.

Locally we have some fun going down on both ends of the spectrum this weekend. Over in Kansas, Crocodile Rock is going down up at Perry Lake. Lyle puts on one hellavu good race, so I doubt this one will disappoint. Not to mention it's the Kansas State Championship, so if your a Kansan, then go get your race on! Over across the pond in the Lou, the Broemmelsiek Challenge will be gettting underway. Either way, there's some good racing action to be had this weekend.

I'm going to bust the cobwebs off the Epic tonight at Knob. Just a couple of easy laps to shake the legs up a bit.

Anybody catch the announcement of the new E-Ultregra? Pretty excited about this one. I've tested the electronic Dura-Ace, and it's pretty amazing, but now they've trickled the technology down to the Ultegra level, giving us more mortal roadies a chance at some electronic goodies. What a minute, did I just classifly myself as a roadie? Na, not me...

But a new Tarmac laced with the E-Ultregra next year sounds tempting....

Again, there's never an end to new shit to buy.

G

The Year of the Carbon

2011-06-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

So with all the rumors, talks, and press releases as of late, it seems everyone is touting 2012 to be the year of the carbon.

Take these two for example...

A new carbon Niner Jet9.

Or the newly announced Scott Spark 29er.

Theres also talk of the Tomac Carbide SL 29er carbon coming out. Then you have the Cannondale Scapel 29er.

Yes, all this carbony goodness is bound to get your panties wet, but dont forget the master of them all, THE EPIC!

I need to put a write up together on this bad boy, but it's pretty easy to describe it as the most amazing bike I've ever ridden. Surely these newly introduced bikes above will be nice, but the Epic is so smooth, and so stiff. No one has had anything but great things to say about it.

I do have one gripe though, and that's that I was a year late on getting this bad boy.

The new Sid 29er that will come stock on the 2012 Epic S-works. Ya, might just have to see about working out a deal to get one of those race machines.

The scope of the mountain bike universe is getting quite vast now days, and I only wonder where it will go in the future. What's next past carbon? Or will it rule the roost for the unforeseable future?

I do know that with the every changing landscape of bikes and parts, one thing is for sure, you never have a lack of new shit to buy.

Here's to that...

G

Recovery

2011-06-15T08:05:00.001-07:00

Seems like plenty of people are in the same boat as me after last weekends race. Recoverying from the onslaught that was RIM. Guess I can be fortunate that I came out on pretty unscathed, unlike my buddy Stevey. Apparently he came out with a broken ankle. Oouch...

Trav put me on a pretty cool little product that I was for some reason unware of last week. After having some tight back issues, he mentioned that I should try some Tiger Balm patches. Or something along those lines. These little gems are great. Put one on before bed and wake up feeling much better. I've been patching the ass since it's fall on Sunday, and it's doing much better. The patch seems to loosen it up and allow it to heal faster than without. I've used these and similar ones on anything from my glutes to my back, and I always seem to feel better after using them.

Monday morning I was in the middle of some core workouts before work when I heard a very loud POP! Immediately I was forced into the fetal postition with what felt like a knife in my side. After my wreck at Bump and Grind, I figured I had bruised a rib, or had what's called a rib out. I'm pretty sure it was the rib out, and how it stayed out that long I'm not sure, but that loud pop was surely the rib repositioning itself, and it hurt like hell. Luckily a Tiger patch and a day later, and I was feeling much better.

I want to give a shout out to my latest and greatest sponsor also, Complete Chiropractic in Knob Noster. Doc Yates has been working on me for years, but I took the plunge in asking him for a little more help in the way of a sponsorship. He kindly agreed, and I'm sure this is the beginning of a very good thing. I've noticed my back getting tight during the last few races, which I was sure came from a direct result of not going to the chiro in over a month. He really does do wonders.

Good intervals last night, a nice rest night with some fishing tonight, and then two back to back hard days leading up to the weekend and hopefully some Lost Lua racing action.

Here's to some dry weather...

G

Getting Grounded

2011-06-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

A Tough Go

2011-06-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

A real lack of motivation to post lately. The motivation to ride has been steady, but a little funk has arisen.

Bump and Grind didn't go well for me. The pace was sky high to start and just about the time I got settled down sitting in the 8 man lead train, I wrecked my brains out, and lost an immediate 30 seconds. It wasn't easy catching back on but I did... Right before the 4 mile climb. Redlined and needing rest, they lurched forward on me leaving me to fend like the 9th little piggy on an 8 titted sow.

The climb blew me up. I didn't feel it at all. Very unlike me, but the early efforts were unlike any other start. I managed to peddle my way to the finish for a 5th in my age group. I was extremely excited to see that I had also finised 5th overall. But apparently they fucked up the results and I lost 5th overall by less than 15 seconds. Son of a bitch. My time would have put me 5th in the pro class and the winner of my group would have placed 2nd. Some 19 year old ex-pro. Oh well...

KC Cup blew today. At least for me. I had really high hopes as I knew some heavy hitters where going to show. They did. After slamming down a 26, and 27 minute lap on Thursday with some still in the tank I was confident. I was high on power and flossing rim. I can do dry rocks. Today they were wet. I don't do well with wet rocks. Looking back I shoul have run less psi, but I was more worrie about banging my carbons rims I guess.

Pace was conversational to start. I attacked on the grass hill, as I planned. Kent McNeil put a quick move to cut me off into the singletrack, which wasn't part of my plan. Nice move on his part though. Travis pulled a fast one, which would has been nice to know as I could have done the same and we would have been 1-2. I'm stuck behind Mcneil. I make a valient dismount pass on RIM and take the lead ready to track down Travis, and a quarter mile later hit the deck hard.

I landed right on my right ass cheek. Harder than I've ever landed on it. I picked myself up and desperatly jumped on to catch back up. I immediately realized something was wrong, as with every right peddle stroke, sharp pain shot through my right ass cheek and back. No power and my stand and sprint was immobilized.

Rode the rest of the race at half power and full of struggle. Timid on RIM and in deep dark pain the whole way. But I finished. 5th overall and 1st of 3 in my group. People wondered why I wasn't happy with that. It's because when I know I have more than what I was giving, I get pissed. I had the legs, but a stupid mistake took me out of the real race. I wasn't in the right mind to start though, and the slick rocks of rim had me a bit worried. So was the problem. I worried therefore I wrecked. My positive mojo was compromised.

Time to regroup. Bring it back to center. Get the body recovered.

I wanna race the Lou next weekend at Lost Valley. Anyone interested?

G

Word

2011-05-26T10:40:00.001-07:00

My world is always better when a bike is under me.

I had a very nice converstation with a client of mine today. Watching the emotion in his face as he explained his massive lose of weight by riding a stationary bike was exciting. He told me how when he first started, he could barely ride 10 minutes. Then it was 15, then 20, 30, all the way up to an hour and a half. He lost 40 pounds just like that.

It was cool. Unfortunately his wife has some serious health problems that curtailed his biking, but she's better now, and I hope our talk today re-ignited his fire to get back on.

We got hit with a tornado yesterday. It was pretty crazy, but the great news is everyone is ok. There's a lot of damage. Especially to a few of my clients. Nothing compared to Joplin, but crazy none the less.

I was at work... The safest place in town. It's an old bank. Limestone built, with bomb shelter underneath. We missed it by a mile.

It's Memorial Day weekend. Sounds like most are headed up North to race skinny tires. Not me. Just relaxing. One week left till the next big show.

G

Dirty Little Secret Recap

2011-05-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

That's a pretty spot on discription of that trail. It's a Dirty Little Secret. Nestled in the hills just north of Manhatten lie a sweet little gem of singletrack. It's a very sweet mix of fast, flowy, techy goodness. Within it await a couple of nice size rock gardens that take skill to manuever, and a few hills that take legs to conquer.

I somehow got away to race this UFD race. It wasn't in the plans, but late Friday night, I got the go ahead from Jamie to leave Sunday and race. I say permission because I told her I wasn't going to race this weekend. We had a friends wedding, and the last wedding we had, I was a little of a Debbie Downer due to having race the next day. She told me as long I promised to have fun and keep from being a DD, then it was no problem. It also didn't hurt she had a baby shower to attend all day Sunday.

The wedding was very interesting. The pastor seemed to be on another planet, and made the Bride and Groom say "I Do" three times. It was a very interesting ceramony. The after party was fun. I ate a moderate feast, but then preceded to eat well over a half dozen fat pieces of the most amazing wedding cake I've ever had. That along with the sixxer of Hoegaarden, and a few jello shots, had me feeling pretty good.

I woke up feeling great somehow. The drive to KC was good, but the drive from KC to Manhatten was rough. Sick to my stomach, tired, and overall a pretty crappy feeling. Luckily Nestle makes some life saving chocolate milk, and I was back to feeling good again.

We arrived a bit late, and kind of rushed getting ready, and going through our pre-ride. We hit the first rock garden and I figured the day would favor Travis more than I. He seems to ride rocks better than I do, although my new steed makes it much easier for me to hide my technical deficiences.

Upon getting ready to have our neutral roll out by a man in blue, they asked us if we wanted to do 3 or 4 laps. I didn't really care, but luckily the main census was to cut it a lap down to 3. This turned out to be a great choice.

We start to roll out, and at the blacktop corner, the cop pulls off and we're off up the pavement to the singletrack. I hit the woods in 4th spot, right behind Aaron. The first technical section had everyone stumped, and I was the last man in the train meaning I got gapped. Getting caught up behind 3 other riders was no fun. This happend twice before we popped out on the long grass section. I was pretty spent from having to bridge back up twice, but luckily the grass proved to be in my favor.

I jumped Farmer and Ryan Feagan to slot in behind Aaron again who was just behind Trav leading the pack. We cruised the grass at a comfortable pace, and put a small gap on Farmer and Ryan. Once we hit the trail we gapped them a bit more, and then came another big rocky section. It was pretty comical. Travis bobbled, then Aaron bobbled, then I bobbled. It was a cluster.

Travis continued to lead, due to some sweet blocking techniques. The pace was seemed almost lazy like. We were still holding a consistant pace, but I knew it wouldn't last all race. Anytime you have three guys riding together joking and talking during a race, you know they're not going hard enough.

Well the moment came, and Aaron attacked Trav on a hill, and put in a quick 10 second gap. This was towards the end of the first lap.

We hit the pavement with Aaron up the road. I told Travis we had to reattach and to grab my wheel. I powered up the engine and crushed it to the singletrack, and proceeded to make back our lost time. Unfortunatly Travis blew up in the process, and luckily I just barely kept from doing so myself. I had caught Aaron's wheel again.

Photo thanks to Kenneth Rodriguez. Photos of the race here...

We rode together for awhile, until the grass section. Aaron put in a pretty hard dig, and put in another 10 second gap. It gassed me pretty well, and in the process I tried to take a drink after hitting my gel flask, and dropped my bottle. I was hualing, and there was no salvaging it. I had to finish the lap waterless...

Aaron dropped his chain and I caught back up, only to loose him again not long after. My hungoverness started to rear it's ugly head again, and I was lacking the power to keep on his wheel. My back started to throw fits, and not having water was keeping me from recovering as well after the hills. Luckily I didn't loose much time.

The third and final lap was pretty uneventful. I had water again, but still no power. I put it in cruise control and finished something like 30 seconds or so behind Aaron. I would catch a glimpse of him from time to time, and I would dig, but my digs weren't very impressive. Just didn't have it all together. Travis rounded out the top 3 just a few minutes behind me.

In the end I was glad to be done, and glad I had done it. I was also glad not to have ripped a deruilleur off, and I was glad I was bashing my training Flows vs. my carbon Rovals. The rovals are fast by far, but when it comes to a training race with rocks like that, I stick to the wheels I don't mind beating up. It was a great race, a good workout, not to mention a very generous payday. The BBQ was awesome refuel, and the beer wasn't bad either. Not Weston quality though, which we somehow forgot to pack. The raffle proved to be uneventful for me, as they always do, but they gave away a ton of stuff.

The crew at Big Poppi did a damn fine job putting on their first race, and we'll all be back next year. The only part of the day that wasn't top notch was the scoring, but I'm sure they'll have it ironed out by next year.

If you near Manhatten, give the boys at the shop a call, and they'll give you the skinny on the Dirty Little Secret. If your into fun, fast, and challenging trails, then this one will suite you well.

One more week of hammering it, and then some rest before the big race. Time to dig deep.

G

Make Your Moment

2011-05-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with my father the other day. It's a pretty on par converstation that randomely occurs when talking to people who don't understand why we do what we do. Most people can't possibly comprehend why we would ride bikes like we do.

What suprised me about this convesation with him was the fact that he says he used to be full of adventure too. I remember the fishing trips we would go on as a kid. He always seemed to enjoy that. He was also a bullrider, a boxer, and played football in HS. So it was unusual to me to hear his particular perspective on this conversation.

We were talking about life moments. I expressed that money wasn't as big of a deal to me, because I value the moments in life over the amount of money in my bank account. Sure I enjoy having enough money to do those things that I love, but ultimately I base my life fullness not on my possessions, but the memories that I possess. Sure, I bought a crazy expensive bike, but it was a means to a way. I could do probably as well on a less expensive bike, but I also recieved such a great deal on the bike that in the end I'll at least break even. But back to the means to a way, it's a way to help me possess the memories that I'm after. My sought after memories are different than your's, but that doesn't matter as long as you're depositing memories that mean something to you into your memory bank.

He said as he's grown older, that memories don't mean anything anymore. The past is dead and none of it matters. As he's aged, the things that matter to him the most are what lies ahead. It seemed to me that what he meant by that was having a house that's paid off, a retirement account, and a secure future.

I can't blame him I guess. To each their own. Maybe I'm wrong in my thinking that the only thing that matters to me are the places, people, and experiences that I have encountered and still seek to encounter. Life outside the confines of an office have always been what drive my life's ambitions. The office isn't what fuels my soul. Money isn't the root of my happiness. I don't care as much about what the future holds, because the future may very well not extend past tommorow. I've had moments in my life where if luck had not been on my side, I could very well not be here.

Most people seem to share his thinking. They focus on all the wrong things too much. Sure, there's still a place in making sure that your future will be stable, but making your whole life about just securing a secure future doesn't make sense to me. What's a secure future mean if you had to waste you life getting it?

Money won't go with you. Possessions won't follow you. Memories will always remain. I'll remain on my path of memory collection, and continue not to sweat the details of life. Work will always be there. The future can always wait.

Today is primed for memory making.

Hope you make some sweet memories this weekend.

Bikes are a great way to do so...

Clif Bar brought this post up... Check out their Make Memoments website. Pretty cool.

G

This Weekends Races and Syllamo Reports

2011-05-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

Looks like there's going to be plenty of opportunities to race this weekend. Granted this crazy weather holds up.

There's a XC race in Manhatten, part of the UFD West Series.

Want to go a little longer? Try the Indian Creek 3/6 Hour race out East, part of UFD East.

Doesn't look like I'll be doing either one, against my will of course. Sometimes other shit just gets in the way.

Next big race looks to be the Bump and Grind down in Alabama. I've heard good things about this race, and it should be plenty of fun to warrent the 20 hour roundtrip drive.

Sweet vid of the course.

Check out the Ethos blog. Some pretty good Syllamo report reads from our boys Dave Wilson, SSP, and JessieGFunk. Looks like they had quite the time down south last weekend. Also a big shout out to our gal Sara Worthington for taking a hard fought 3rd in the Womens division. Apparently she lost 2nd by a second due to a soft tire.

I found this old race report from the last time I did Syllamo. I was a different cat back then. I think it's time for a little ramatch. Can you say Syllamo 2012?

That's all for now, good luck to all you punks who get to race dirt this weekend.

G

Battle At Rhetts

2011-05-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

Not often do I feel like racing in the mud. Something about trashing the bike, and trashing the trails doesn't sit well with me. But... there are those times when I make exceptions, and yesterday was one of those days. I had a SS I didn't mind trashing, and the trails at Rhett's are used to wet abuse.

I built up the Stumpjumper 29er I've had sitting in my living room for the last few months late Saturday afternoon. After a quick stop in to the bike store, I had everything I needed. Well, as it always goes with doing shit last minute, I ran into minor problems. Mostly the tensioner I was going to use to run it SS was broke, but luck would strike in the form of a 32x18 magic gear. Basically that means that that specific gear was perfect to run without a tensioner, and the chain was nice and taught. The new Hive BB went on nicely, and the crank fit like a charm (which wasn't the case when I original went to build it.) That's part of the reason it's been sitting for the last few months. You might remember a picture I took back after one of our Arkansas trips, when I snapped the rear triangle of the original Stumpy.
The New Ride!

So off to Rhetts Sunday morning with Travis, misting and looking like rain the whole way. We show up and do a pre-lap, joined by Justin Farmer, and I immediately think it's going to suck. It was slick, muddy, and the I wasn't feeling worth a shit after two hard days of back to back training Friday and Saturday. Luckily, towards the end of the lap the legs loosend up a bit, and I started getting my mud skillz back.

We lined up with a few of the Lou crew, Aaron Elwell, Dan Miller, and a handful of other experts. 5,4,3,2,1, we're off and Travis takes off to lead just like he so loudly announced he would before we started. The beginning was hectic for me. I couldn't get going, and found myself 6th wheel or so.

The first half of the lap everyone stayed together. Then it all came unglued up the "FU" hill we'll call it. It was basically a quarter mile hike a bike. Well, at least for me it was. Some guys were able to make it up the first part with gears, but this steep and muddy hill was very unpassable on the SS. So you basically ran up this steep face, on a flat for 20 yards, tight uphill switchback, another 20 yard flat, another tight uphill switchback, one more quick flat and then up the last tight uphill switchback hill. It sucked. I ran/walked it everytime.

After that hill I was 4th sitting behind Travis, with Aaron and Dan about 20 seconds in front of us. Coming though the start/finish I pinned it a bit to try to catch them, and Travis decided not to chase. I spent that lap pretty much solo in between Trav and just a bit off of Dan.

Coming into lap 3, I was only a bit behind Dan, and in somewhere in that lap, I caught on to his wheel. He endoed something pretty amazing coming into the FU hill, which put me in the lead.

Coming into lap 4 I had Dan right on my wheel, and figured it was time to strategize a bit. There was a rocky uphill, followed by a quick downhill, and another rocky uphill not long after the soupy powerline section. I had held Dan off through that said soupy powerline section, and figured that hill would be where I would make my attack. It was one of those hills I made only half the time, because if you didn't play it just right, you would slid on the big rock and have to run it. Well, I played my card perfectly, and made it up as clean as ever and followed it up with a quick ascent of the following hill only to look back and see Dan right on my heels. That didn't work so well.

I figured at that point it would come to a sprint finish only as long as I could hold him off till the FU hill and lead coming into it. I hate to block, but it's a race, he had gears and I didn't, so block would be what I was after. Well on another big hill, I lost traction, and he slipped by. He gapped, and I had to put in another dig to catch back up. Catch back up I did, and I was riding his wheel right up to the FU hill. This is were he made the play of the day. All be damned if he didn't clean the first section like he was completly fresh. I surrendered defeat. There was no catching him at that point. He had 30 seconds in that short period and I had to walk the whole damn hill. That was the 4th time up it, and I was all but done with it at that point.

Cruise control to the end, and a 3rd overall. I was happy with it. Travis came in a minute behind me, I was 30 seconds or so off of Dan, and exactly 3 minutes off Aaron. He pretty much checked out for the day and showed us how it was done.

To bad I was the only 19-29 expert. That's twice now. Unfortnately my main competition for the year in my age group, (if I can even be called competition), is Shottler, and he was out with a broken wrists. He was however out there bouncing all over the course cheering and heckling us on. He was also the one who took those sweet pics.

Aaron made a mention over on his blog about doing the payout for the overall. I'm all for it. They did it in Nebraska, and it seems to work out fine. Pay out the top 5 overall. You can still use the age groups for points, and USAC classification, but lump the payout in the overall. I think that would draw more racers to the races from all over. The top guys from the region would travel if they knew they could make a little dough to cover the cost. When you can only make 60 bucks max, traveling 2-4 hours to race doesn't seem as appealing. Now I know there's plenty of you that race just for fun, and that's all gravy. I'm no different. But if I'm going to travel, which we do often and sometimes very far, I'd like to know the incentive is there to make my travel expenses back at least.

Just a thought.

No racing for me this weekend. I don't think. Wedding to attend. More training. Go. Go. GO.

G

Hello Again Cross Eyes

2011-05-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

Inside everyone lies a deep dark cave that most never venture to explore. Inside this dark place awaites a creature that most never get to meet. Some call it the pain cave, or the hurt locker. I call it my happy place. Inside my cave lies Cross Eyes. When I venture deep enough into my cave I meet Cross Eyes, and at that moment I know I've reached my destination.

Intervals always get me to that deep dark happy place. The feeling of finishing a set and barely being able to see straight always brings me a feeling of accomplishment afterwards. It's also in this dark place that you become familiar with the feeling of being on the edge of making it, and breaking it. Flirting with this edge will teach you just how deep and far you can push the body before it truely crumbles into submission. This place is almost always farther than you'd expect. I like to flirt with that line because when we race, that moment almost always rears it's head. It's being able to understand how to deal with that moment, and to keep pushing on that allows you to keep pounding pedals, and not stopping by the side of the trail hunched over feeling like death.

Last night the intervals went something like this...

Warm up for 15 minutes.

13 minutes of 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off

3-4 minutes recovery

7 60 second intervals with 30 seconds rest between

3-4 minutes recovery

12 minutes of 15 scconds on, 15 seconds off

These interval mimic mountain biking to a good degree. There's alot of stop and go with mountain biking, because most courses are far from straight. Corner, explode, corner, explode. That's the 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off. The one minute intervals are almost like hill repeats. Most hills don't last longer than a minute around here, and you're lucky to get a 30 second break before hitting it hard again.

Find your deep dark cave sometime. Push just a little harder than you think your capable of. You'll find you'll be able to go harder than you expected. And when you bust, take a break, and then hit it hard again. Then next time your out hammering it and that feeling starts to take over, you'll know exactly what to do...

Rhett's is ran or shine this weekend. Come have some fun...

G

Robidoux Roundup Recap

2011-05-10T15:57:00.001-07:00

If you climbed a set of stairs in your home 360 times, that would roughly be how much climbing we encountered at Krug last weekend. And if you happend to miss that fun, well my appologies in advance for you missing out on the complete awesomeness that was the Robidoux Roundup.

A stroke of luck hit St. Joe in the form of no rain Sunday morning. That stroke of luck missed KC, as I remember waking up to pounding rain in the wee hours of the morning. Luckily for us, the trails remained bone dry and ready to roll.

My race went well. Something like this...

Line up with 14 total experts. We had a nice little paved climbed to start, and I figured I'd punch it from the start to see if I could string everyone out. Look back and everyone is still bunched up not doing anything. So I let off the power and regrouped, only to come bombing down the grassy noll and hit some major air coming into the single track right where I wanted to be, behind Aaron. Trav slotted in right behind me, so overall we had a pretty good postition.

I rode Aaron's wheel, which had me about as pinned as I wanted to be, and just past the cedar section, he took a wide line and had to dismount, leaving me to the front. Pinned it from there, looking to gap him, he rejoins, and I make some comment on how I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be leading him.

Somewhere near the end of the lap I look back and he's not to be found, so I pinned it again down the last downhill and up the big grass finish hill. I was the only 19-29 Expert so I wasn't racing for the winnings, but there was a $50 gift card to Bike Source for the fastest lap. I was all over that...

I had about a 20 second gap after lap one. Lap 2 came together nicely and I was able to ride my own pace which happend to feel really good. I was covering the hills quickly, and pushing through the corners knowing Aarons tires weren't treating him the best. Lap two actually ended up being the fastest lap of the day.

Lap 3 was uneventful. I was still thinking Aaron was behind me, and every once in a while during lap two I would catch a glimpse of Travis also. I did make another rookie mistake and totally forgot to grab my second bottle for the last lap. So I ended up only having one bottle to drink during the entire race. I came in after lap 3 at 1:46 for the overall win.

Trav came in about 3 minutes behind me, and Justin Farmer took 3rd overall about 3 minutes back from Trav. All in all it was a great race. What made me feel even better was having a good race after training hard the day before. I'm doing things different this year, and training through all of the local races, and tapering for a select few like Subaru Cup and Nationals. This way I can still get my training in without wasting training time always trying to be fresh for every race.

Big thanks to the teamates up in St. Joe for pulling the big weight to get this race put on. Also got to give thanks to everyone else who went up and helped prep the course, set up, and tear down. I think Ethos put on a pretty sweet race. You can expect even bigger and better next time.

It's looking good for a trip to Tennessee this weekend. My man Steve is game. Travis got swamped at work. There's a US East Cup race, and from the description, it should be interesting. Three 11 mile laps. Six miles to the top, a couple flat, 3 or so down, and one on the road to the finish. Should be great training for the Nationals in which I'm sure they'll have us climb and then decend.

If not TN, then maybe Como. They have a race going on down there this weekend. You should go.

G

Mellow Johnny's Recap

2011-05-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

I'm still a little lost for sleep, words, and emotions. Let's start by saying I'm pretty damn lucky. Lucky to be able to ride my bike everyday, and lucky to have a couple of crazy friends who started a mountain bike team, that happens to support the hell out of me and my racing adventures. So a big shout out goes to Ethos, Travis, JP for driving all weekend, and everyone one of you all that throw in to help support a brother like me.

My Team

Enough of the sappy shit... ETHOS THREW IT DOWN! I honestly didn't know what to expect. We've only raced in a relatively small pond, and the Mellow Johnny's Classic isn't necessarily a small pond. Nestled down in Dripping Springs, TX lies a ranch owned by a relatively famous cyclist nickednamed Juan Pelota. Which means One Ball. The course is also named Juan Pelota, but after riding and racing it, I'm pretty sure all of two balls where needed. It was no one ball course.

We left Thursday, and stopped in Norman, OK for a little break from driving, and to shake the legs out at Thunderbird Mountain. It was a pretty decent course. Lots of sand, not much climbing, and some pretty sweet wooden features with lots of g-outs. It felt good to be back on trails.

More driving, and a stop in Dallas for the night, followed by the last push to Austin in the morning. Check in, unpack, and head down to pick Graham Aldridge up at another hotel, and then off to the venue. There wasn't any hotels close to the course, so it was an hour drive to get to it each day.

Riding the course Friday was interesting. It was something like 90 degrees, sunny, and Kansas windy. The dust immediately covered everything in sight, including the car, bikes, and us. We hit the course and immediately I became aware that this was going to be a demanding course. Plenty of rocks, not a ton of climbing, and some loose corners. There were some freaky fast rocky short decents also, that took complete attention. This wasn't one of those cruise control, let your mind wander kind of course. It required all of your attention, which can be trouble mid-way through a 2 hour race. I rode one of our full laps with Trav, and then rode the Pro course with Graham. My legs felt alright, but I could tell they were still waking up from the rest week.

We packed up, headed back to the hotel, grubbed at Pei Wei, and then headed to Mellow Johnny's for the kick off party. Pretty cool seeing all the top Pro's hang out and talk about the upcoming race.

Saturday was the Pro race, and our boy Graham was in it. Some of you all might remember this young punk from back when he was stomping everyone's ass at our local XC races. I remember him kicking mine a time or two, but never really knew him all that much. Turns out he's just a goofy ass kid like myself, who happens to be really fast on a bike, and lives a life that many of us would be jealous of. The Pro race was pretty intense. We got there in time to catch the last half of the Pro women, which KRocket enjoyed. She'll be in that mix one day. Then the Pro men lined up for their race. The start was lightning fast, and watching the Pro's climb made me realize that I can improve greatly in that area of riding. Todd Wells looks like a monkey humping a football climbing, but it turns out that's a very effective way to climb. Lots of upper body english thrown in.

We were bouncing back and fourth all over the course cheering Graham and Aaron Elwell on. I often times had to tell myself to sit down, because I knew standing all day wouldn't be great for my race the next day. Oh, did I mention it was hot? Ya, the Pro's must have felt it too, because there was some pretty rough looking expressions of their faces. We pre-rode the course again, in 90 degree heat, and not as much wind as the day before. I did some openers, and wasn't real impressed in how the legs were acting, but I didn't put much thought into it.

Georgia, the Pro Women winner.

Pro Men Start

More Pei Wei that night, and an early bed time led to waking up early Sunday morning to another continental breakfast consiting of eggs, sausage, yogurt, OJ, and a big waffle. Not Texas shaped waffles like we consumed in Dallas, but good waffles none the less. We packed up and drove once again the hour to the ranch.

I put on some Jazz to calm the soul a couple hours before the start. My mind was processing everything that was about to happen. The mental aspect of my racing has made giant leaps over the last few years. From a emotional back of the pack finisher who seldomely ever had it together, to a much more confident, calm minded racer that I am today. Of course I still have my moments, but overall I've calmed down quite a bit, and learned to have complete trust and confidence in every race I encounter. This was a unique one for me. I've never raced a National level race, and I had no idea what to expect. The only thing I kept telling myself was that this is what I trained so hard for, and that I have done everything I could have done to get ready for this moment.

I suited up, and the music changed from soft soothing Jazz, to fast upbeat Techno. Like fist pumping, rave happening Techno. It was warm up time. The time to pump up the mind, and get the legs ready for what they were about to experience. Pain.

Lining up, I was less nervous than expected. I casually talked and joked with my fellow Cat 1 19-29 racers, while waiting for our call up. They went PRO-1's first, then Jr's, then SS'ers, then us, and then everyone else. I knew that lining up behind the SS'ers was a bad idea, and that we'd likely catch them immediately. With only a minute between us and them, that would be the case. There was no real countdown. Just a 15 second warning, and then a GO!

My start was less stellar than usual, but I managed to hit the single track in 4th or so postition. As expected we hit the back of the SS class right away, and it was a battle through traffic for the first half of the lap. Luckily this played out very well for me. I rode behind 3rd as we made our way up through the SS'ers. I was riding very well, and it was almost easy the pace we kept. My HR was low, and I remained calm as we passed one after another racer.

Somewhere in there though, I got stuck behind someone on a tech uphill and managed to turn my bars. I had to stop quickly and fix it, and managed to quickly catch back on. Then 2nd bobbled, and we quickly made our way passed him. I was riding 3rd place at this point, and I noticed that the 2nd place guy was having some troubles. He said something about the heat, to which I told him we needed to bridge up to first. I told him to latch on as I passed on the false flat section, only to look back after that section to see him 15 seconds back.

I casually made my way up to 1st wheel. It was a guy named Joshua, and according to the last guy I passed, he had been winning all the local races this year. I said something like Hey-O to which he replied "Is that Missouri?" He was one of the guys who I chatted with at the start. Sure is was my reply and we quickly made our way through the last tech rock garden. He seemed suprised that I knew how to ride rocks, and replied that there must be climbs and rocks in Missouri. He too was looking like he was feeling the effects of the hot heat, and so I kindly asked him to pass, and pass I did. He latched on, and I figured he had been holding back and was going to ride me for awhile. I pushed hard up to the big hill at the end of the lap, and put in a big effort on the climb knowing he wasn't climbing well earlier. Hearing the crowd cheer and one look back confirmed I had put in a nice gap.

I took a nuetral bottle hand up and used it to cool my back, head, and core. I was riding exceptionally well given the nature of the heat. After the first small climb, I went to finish off my first bottle, only to look back and see that I had lost my 2nd bottle somewhere along the way. I only had a third of a bottle left, and I was 7 miles from the Start/Finish. This was no bueno. It was hot, and I typically don't do well without water. Once again though, I kept my cool about me, and told myself that it wasn't that hot and I didn't need water. Both were lies, but it's amazing at what the mind can do when you tell it what you want.

I pushed harder the 2nd lap knowing that the traffic was less, and that if I could put in a solid 2nd lap, I would have some room in lap 3. Somewhere in lap 2 I took a corner way to fast and ate it pretty hard. I drug my brake over my top tube, scratching my pretty stead and making it tough to re-straighten the bars. Luckily the handlebar managed it's way back over the top-tube, and I was back on my way. A little inspecting while riding and I was injury free, body and bike. Like I said earlier, you couldn't take your mind off the course.

Coming into lap 3, I took two nuetral bottles, hosed down with half of one, and used the remainder of it and the other bottle for hydration on the last lap. The rest of the lap was a blur. I kept telling myself to ride smart, and every time I passed someone I told myself to put in a gap. That kept me rolling strong, and the onset of cramps didn't hit till the last rocky tech zone towards the end of the lap. I held them off, and crushed the climb, cruised the forest, and came out towards the Start/Finish with a crazy amount of emotions running through me knowing it was finished.

What just happend?

I didn't even put my hands up like a pro coming through the finish. They were doing the awards for cat 2s and so there was no announcement, no big crowds, no big cheering. Just me, my bike, and the sinking in feeling that I had just won the biggest race of my career. I immediatly went to get a couple of more bottles, downed those, and hit the cooling tent. Ice, FRS, water, diet cokes, I was downing any fluid I could find. I was silent. Nothing but a smile on my face. Then Travis came through. I let out a shout of excitement, knowing that I hadn't seen any other Cat 1's come through. We had just took the 1-2.

Lost in emotion.

It was a pretty amazing experience. I was happy to have finally had everything I've worked for for the past 5 year pay off. All the training, all the pain, all the sacrifices. It's not easy doing what we do. Especially when you're tying to compete at the top level. Luckily like I mentioned, I have a great support crew. From my family, to Jamie, who for the most part puts up with my crazy bike life beautifully, to all the teamates and friends.

Top Step

The drive home was long. I couldn't sleep. My mind was still racing from the day. I did however pass out around 2am, only to awake and drive myself the hour home, where I finally got to pass out at 5. Another weekend come and gone. Another race done and checked off the list. Now it's back to more training, and getting ready for the next big show.

Make sure you come out to Krug Saturday. We're putting on a race. It's going to be a blast.

G

Mellow Johnnys Results

2011-05-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

They Do It Big

2011-04-29T08:58:00.001-07:00

Snack Attack!

2011-04-27T11:06:00.001-07:00

My Little Ones All Grown Up

2011-04-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

Well after 5 or 6 years, the little swimmers that were once just inches long, have all but grown up into almost too big for good eatin hogs. The little Sis and I slayed 6 in about an hour yesterday, with this biggun being my biggest. I found the meat to be a little on the red side for my taste, and tough to skin. That means it probably won't be as good eating, but a little extra batter, and a little more fry, and it'll be just fine. The best is that 3-4 pound range. Nice and white.

A few more days till Texas bound...

G

Forward Looking

2011-04-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

Bone Bender Recap

2011-04-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

Trav and I seem to make a pretty good team when it comes to some Duo dirt action. This race was no different.

I really wasn't that excited about this race. Not sure why, just wasn't. I was coming off of a weird spell of dead legs, and put a pretty good week in of full on intensity. Between Monday's trainer ride, Tuesday nights crit, hot laps at Knob on Thursday night, and Friday early AM intervals, I was pretty cooked. Luckily the legs came back around and were ready by Sunday morning.

Met up with my boy, and winner of the Clydsdale 6 Hour race, Kevin, and we headed to Lawrence for the 3rd running year of Bone Bender. The fist year sucked, last year was much better, and this year was pretty sweet too.

Travis and I duoed it up as mentioned, and after some convincing, he took the first lap which includes the always dreaded LeMans start. I don't know why they do that. Pretty dumb in my book, a rolling neutral start followed by a random gun shot would do much better. No one ever seems to like running to their bikes.

Anyways, Travis had a decent first lap, but apparently had to nurse a flat tire. Shottler had the lead, (doing 6 solo), followed by an Iowian (3 solo), then Travis, with Chris Ploch hot on his heels. I didn't even know Ploch was there, much less doing the duo. I meet his partner about 10 seconds before we hit the road for our first lap. Dan I believe was his name.

Dan quickly sucked my wheel like a seed tick as I pulled us up the pavement, and through the field before hitting single track. I was actually a little worried I was going to have a battle on my hands. Not that I don't like battles, but I don't care for having someone sucking my wheel. Don't get me wrong, he was doing what I would do too, but I just don't ride well with someone on my wheel. On the first tech uphill burst, I got twisted up, and actually twisted my bars sideways. Awesome... A great way to start. I stopped, and luckily they straightend out fairly easy. Dan got by, but it wasn't long and I made my way past him. Then came the first real rocky uphill, and I pinned it from there. Looked back after a few minutes of huffing, and Dan was no where to be seen. Alrighty then...

Thanks to my boy at ClassyKC for the pic...

First lap felt like a XC race. I was redlined pretty much the whole time, and my goal was to catch Shot and the other dude. I caught up the the 3 hour dude fairly quickly, and then Shot not long after that. He had to stop to seal a flat, so it was me up front from there on. My back was killing me towards the end of the first lap, and I thought the lap would never end. I still put in a decent time at 44:14.

Trav put in a smoking 3rd lap, his 2nd. Apparently it was a 38, even though they had it scored as a 47. Plochs wifie did however confirm it, so I guess it was legit. I'm still a skeptic, as that would be stupid fast, and I felt like my first two laps were fast as it was.

My second lap, our 4th, was good. I got in a groove, and even though I wasn't gassed near as much, I put in another 44 minute lap. Back was much better, after some good stretching post lap 1. Trav put in another clean lap, my 3rd was 47 minutes, and Trav finished his 4th without any other issues. I wasn't looking forward to that 4th lap, but went out knowing all I had to do was finish clean. At that point we had about 20 minutes up on Ploch and Dan, so I pretty much put the cruise control on and quickly soft pedaled my way through it. 49 minutes was the final lap time.

Course was awesome, and I think my pre race non-motivation came from me wondering just how good they said the trail actually was after Thursday and Fridays rain gushers. After hitting the trail, I quickly changed my tune, and enjoyed the shit out of riding all day. My legs finally felt like they had come back around...

The after race story telling.

JP Brocket and Karen won the Co-ed Duo, Kev won the 6 Hour Solo Clydsdale class, Mark Cole won the 6 Hour SS class, Jessie took 2nd in the 3 Hour SS, and Sara took 2nd in the Open 3 Hour Womens class. Those along with our first, made for a pretty good podium contingency for Ethos.

One more week of training hard before resting up and getting ready for Mellow Johnny's. Here's to that....

G

Rock Chaulked That Shit

2011-04-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

I'm Going To Kick Your Ass

2011-04-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

But only if I had handlebars that pedal too...

See all the craziness which is this contraption here...

Here's to hoping Bone Bender doesn't get cancelled...

G

What Your Wife Would Write About Mountain Bikes

2011-04-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

Read it...

Oh yes, a good read indeed.

g

Fish and Chips Part 1

2011-04-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

Crits

2011-04-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

I rode in one yesterday... It was actually fun. I enjoyed pulling multiple attacks, and not having the legs to finish off the "B" crit in winning fashion. Looks like I'll be back next week as we have to work the crit, and if I'm lucky, I'll be able race again.

Tuesday Night Worlds they're called, and even for a dirt lover, they're pretty darn fun.

G

Swanson River Shootout Recap

2011-04-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

This weekend, the three amigos headed to Nebraska to get a little racing in the legs after a long winter of not nearly near enough dirt time. Luckily the boys up north were putting on a XC race, at a venue we soon would find out was a great one. Swanson River trail is a sweet little gem that has the feel of our Lawrence River trail, with a few other elements tossed in for added fun.

The weekend fun started with Trav and I trying out our new carbon Roval's over at the River Trail in Lawrence. We both quickly agreed that they were the best wheels either of us has rolled before. Stiff, fast, stiff, and more fast. The trail was in awesome shape, and we quickly knocked out two full laps before heading over to Free State for some great grub as always.

Sunday morning came, and after a most excellent breakfast made by Dana, Trav's wifie, we packed up in Stevies car. I like these guys, because when I asked who's game to go race up north, they both said yes. They always say yes. That's the kind of guys I like to have in my corner.

We jetted up north, with beautiful weather in tow. Got to the race venue plenty early, grabbed our numbers, and did a pre-lap.

The course was perfect hardpack, almost no rocks, a few shorter climbs, and only one section that proved just a bit technical. The only thing I wasn't to keen on was all the twist and turns. This place would rival if not beat the Lawrence River Trail in corners. They had corners everywhere, and when you roll big wheels, that's not always a plus. No biggie though, it would be a great workout regardless with plenty of power ups.

The Expert group lined up, something like 14 deep. Pretty much all the NE boys were there, along with Cam Kirkpatrick from Iowa. My goal was to take 2nd or 3rd wheel and ride it for a few laps to get a little more comfortable with the course. I pretty much figured it would be a fast start, and with guys like Cam and Kent McNeill lining up next to you, you pretty much have to accept it's going to be a hard race.

This was the most calm I've been at a Expert race. I still had the jitters joe, but I was confident that I would do well. That's what good training will do for you. The only thing I was a bit concerned about, was not riding much last week. It was a rest week, and you never know how the legs will react. Usually it takes a few rides to get them going, but I was thinking the 18 miles on the river did a pretty good job.

3.... 2.... 1.... And we're off. I shoot off somewhat quickly, with a nice clip in. Somehow I'm off the front, coming in to the corner leading to the straight away to the singletrack. I laugh and say no thanks, and let Kent pass to lead the way.

Kent was rolling smoothly showing me a few lines, and holding a nice pace that was comfortable, but yet not easy for me. I noticed though that we weren't putting in any time on the group behind us, which I was hoping we would.

When we hit the exposed hill during lap one, Kent bogged down a bit, and I decided to take over the pace leading. In honesty, I saw the group behind us, which included more than one of his teammates, with Trav in tow, and I figured Kent was trying to let them catch back up to work together. Not having any of that I put the hammer down, only to find out that Kent must have been holding back, because he stuck like a seed tick.

I pulled the remainder of the first lap, and all of the second. I was feeling pretty good, but about the end of the 2nd lap I started to realize that I couldn't lead that pace for 3 more laps. So I looked back at Kent and said your up buddy, you turn to lead a lap. Just like the badass racer he is, he didn't hesitate, and lead us through lap 3. About halfway through lap three Cam caught up to us. He was raging, and I surely figured he wanted by to drop us. But he didn't, he just sat on the back of our three man train. One thing I will say is that Kent raged the back side of the course on lap three. He was flying so damn fast, he almost dropped me. Luckily my climbing legs seemed to be with me so I pulled Cam and myself back up to his wheel on the last climb of the lap.

Coming into lap 4, Kent pulled over as to let me lead, to which I pulled over and told Cam it was his turn to do some work. He being no less of a badass racer as Kent, took the front. This is were I made my rookie mistake. I had my bottle sitting on the trail sign, and I managed to grab it just fine, but upon putting it in the tight space that is my bottle holder, I dropped my bottle.

BAM! 20 seconds open up between them and myself. Shit, shit, shit... Time to put the hammer down. Even though lap 4 was my slowest, I still maintained the gap. I could see them, and I noticed that Cam dropped Kent somewhere in lap 4.

Lap 5 was the last lap, and coming into the woods, I saw Steve, another NE boy, coming in hot out of the woods roughly a minute back. Alright, it's go time I told myself. I told myself that this was what I came for. The pain cave moment. The moment where you're tired, but it's the last lap and you can't give up. So you push, hard.

Somehow I noticed I was gaining on Kent and another rider about a third of the way through lap 5. I put a good dig in, and latched on to Kent's wheel. I could tell he was in survive mode, so I decided to make the pass. The other guy was also an expert who I guess broke a pedal and was just riding to finish. I passed him before the exposed hill, and put a good dig in to make sure I had time to spare on the last half of the lap.

It worked, and I pulled in for 2nd overall. The bad news is I didn't get to race Cam for the win, but the good news is I still got second, I had good splits, and I didn't loose any time to Cam on the last lap. 1:08 is what he had coming into lap 5, and that's how far ahead he finished.

I felt great, it was a good feeling to know that you're training has paid off. Now, I will say the NE boys weren't 100%, as they raced the day before in the TT and Crit, but I'm always one to take it how you can get it. They all raced really well in my book, and if they'd have been fresh, it would have been much harder to claim the same result. Cam however didn't race the day before, so I was still happy to stay as close as I did to him.

Trav was coming off of a sickness, but still showed he has massive skills by pulling in 5th overall. Ethos takes 2 of the top 5 spots! Steve got lumped in with the 45+ category, but still did very well. He's going to be rocking the old man's class this year.

All in all the crew from up North showed us a great time, the results were quickly posted, the podiums nicely done, and we were in and out of there without much time wasted. Not to mention the scene up there is pretty big. They had right at 200 racers, which is pretty freaking awesome. The results could be found last night on some of the local sites, and pics are already up. All in all, they have the system down pat.

Rest week done, now it's time to dig another three week hole...

G

Swan River Results

2011-04-03T15:17:00.001-07:00

Race Ready

2011-04-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

Special Greg is Bonkers

2011-04-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

I always enjoyed wasting some life time watching Nitro Circus. Those boys and girls do some pretty crazy shit.

I like this flip. Pretty much amazing...

Get a Cue

2011-03-27T11:33:00.001-07:00

Go Go Racer Boy

2011-03-23T19:18:00.000-07:00

Sofa King Pretty

2011-03-17T14:47:00.000-07:00

Broke

2011-03-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

I was sad... Now I'm glad. Speshy rocks.

I have a new 2011 black/flowyellow Stumpy frame that will be joining the Epic.

You will see amazing soon...

G