Boxedbee

2012-01-25T08:22:00.001-05:00

It's my birthday. All I want to do is give a photo or two to my Blog.

2012-01-06T08:34:00.001-05:00

Raccoonology is:"like"

2011-09-20T07:33:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorite sites. Just beautiful photos.

New Post at Find-The-Best

2011-09-20T07:30:00.002-05:00

Just put a new post up at Find the Best. Most of you will live without the info, but it was a little investigation of 2x10 vs 3x9 gear inch comparisons.

More favorites: Because I like a lot

2011-09-11T19:49:00.000-05:00

2011 has been a good year for me and motivation to take photos. I recently lost my little Lika, who served me beautifully for the past three years.

Favorite Pics from 2011

2011-09-09T15:55:00.000-05:00

2011

It might be early, but I wanted to make a collection.

Since I don't pay myself.

2011-09-09T10:11:00.002-05:00

It turns out that just running your own blog is less than profitable. But I like to spew words, and apparently someone noticed that. I'll be blogging under the title "Expert Blogger" for the mountain bike division of Find the Best. It's a pretty interesting concept in bicycle shopping.
They collect and list a pretty complete catalog of the current models out. As a tool for comparing and contrasting bike costs, geometry and componentry it's a pretty solid site.

Check it out at http://mountain-bikes.findthebest.com/

I'm down at the bottom!

My right side slouch.

2011-09-02T10:50:00.000-05:00

Voices in your head should be listened to. Last Sunday I was packed and ready with two dogs to go home. In the space of time equal to a convience store stop, Gertie ate more beef jerky than I've eaten in two years.
I feared the worst on the drive home. I decided to kill some time and let her roam around my friends yard in case she needed to discharge. From whatever end. The problem with stopping at my friend Pete's before they go on a ride in my favorite forest to ride, is that I'll eventually give in to the argument.."Why would you drive home to ride, when you can ride here and then drive home.?" I can't resist peer pressure.
So off to the forest we went, dogs in tow. Gertie had made a few unsuccessful attempts at ridding herself of the jerky. Please god I was hoping the cork wouldn't pop on the way to the trails. We met up at the gut-pile parkinglot with a few other like minded souls and proceeded to role out after the necessary start rituals.
Literally 3 minutes into the ride I have gone over my bars trying to hop an rather high log that everyone else had stopped in front of. Committed I landed on my right shoulder with my hands still on the bar. I heard a funny noise and tasted a familiar flavor. It wasn't a simple dustoff. That was it for me. I announced I was going home. Sorry to leave in a relative huff guys, but I was pissed. I went to see Dr. Evil who told me it was a partial seperation and all I could do was stabilize it and let it heal.

Last year I missed the last Teaberry race while in the series lead and it may happen again this year. I pulled out of the Shenandoah 100 because it's just too close and I rode it injured last year. No need to repeat. I have nothing to gain. Except a weekend at home.....

More Tour Please: Keep it real.

2011-07-19T08:03:00.002-05:00

     Tour stages 4-5 are the days of rythmn and survival. A stage race creates intimacy with yourself, your racing mates, your bike, the weather, le directors and your chamios. In short one-day races, your actions of the day are stories you tell to your friends back at the car or home. In le Tour you show up to eat dinner across from your race nemesis (your new friends). All your actions are subject to scrutiny and if there was a slip of conduct or cool, jabs will abound.
      In other words, this is your family for a week and they retain all the rights of family to make you feel foolish. Unlike a family jab, it's easier to laugh at yourself and forgiveness abounds. If, you can laugh at yourself. I've seen people who have a hard time relaxing, return year after year and eventually their stiff shell softens from the humbling beating. That transformation can happen in a day or a decade.
      Essentially stage racing distills you to your essence. When your body is kneeded, whipped and blanched daily, what rises to the surface can feel very raw. This makes me want some key lime pie.
     Our stay at the Carpenter house has been a tradition for the Cupcakes for years. Ping pong table, Kari, Lindsey and Carp, basement hideouts and an amazing garage so filled with bike carcasses it looks like those monk caves in france with walls lined in human skeletons. It's an amazing safe-haven. This year most of the dinners were held at the Carp house, so for four evenings we'd get back from a stage to find ourselves cooking chicken, sausages, burgers, salad, pasta and whatever else. Yes, we cooked salad.

      Day four was a classic mountain stage. We parked at the Stokesville Church to start the stage underneath a pleasently overcast sky. How the organizers managed to retain permission to park this rolling, heathanistic party on God's soil is still a mystery of faith and forgiveness. I expected to find a bible in my race package for the day. We started with a strolling parade pace up Leading Ridge road and turned our troops up at Todd Lake to climb to the top.
      I can't remember the exact course of the first stage, but I'm pretty sure it involved racing to the top of the mountain then dropping down Chestnut Ridge trail. I believe that would be 1900' of climbing in the first 4 four miles then 2500' feet of descending in six miles. If you've done the Shenandoah 100 then you have gone down Chestnut. It's the second to last trail descent, just before aid station 6. So long, so fast and probably one of the most perfect super-d descents you could ask for. The top section is a snug fit between mountain laurels to the sides and wet rocks from below. They have done a fair amount of work in the past year, so some of the trail is now more flowy for those who like that kind of thing. The over cast skys had made the trails a little slick but I was pretty happy with my traction since I had converted my tires to tubeless with the help of my trusty Stan's tape. Amazing the confidence you gain, and the velcro grip lower pressure gives you. So dumb of me to allow myself to think I could trust tubes. On some of the screaming descents I managed to nail my rims once each and tires held! Across the line I was 8th, further proof that my climbing legs were less than acceptable. Well, that's why I was there. Training, not straining.
     At the bottom was the trusty red truck and the Carps waiting with food and drink. They also had their dogs plus mine, all rolling in the dirt or diving for rocks in the stream. Chilling....
     A parade pace and sprint later we worked our way to the far end of the Narrowback ridge for the next timed section. We would be racing the whole ridge, back to the cars. The last couple miles would be on road, but the ridge miles were going to be a series of rocks that look more jagged than broken glass. Narrowback has many similarities to the trails of Michaux state forest, so I had confidence I could work my way up if I started off in a controlled manner. Towards the end of the "Barely there trail" I felt the rain coming and all I wanted to do was get off the rocks before they got slimey. Allah save anyone who was still out there. About the time I exited the last piece of trail the heavens opened up and it was a serious downpour all the way to the finish. Besides what it does to the bikes and the trail, I love riding in the rain. Across the line in 5th place. Behind, people were getting lost and time was ticking away. My closest competition, Spreng, was sacrificing time to support his teammate who had a busted bike. Good on him!
      All good, everyone safe, and found. Bruce Dickman was the last one in, lost in a haze of lube and party pace pounding. He made it.

Happy face!

Happy Socks!

I'm gonna hold off on the road stage report... This is too much work!

So many days of racing...Day's 2 and 3 of Tour De Burg+ a Local XC

2011-07-12T13:41:00.001-05:00

   Day two of the Tour took us north of Harrisonburg to the Big Schloss part of the Shenandoah Valley. The first big day on the mountain bike was going to also have the biggest gnar factor with rock gardens that had the least amount of grooming. I'd never actually ridden Schloss area eventhough I used to stop and ride Wolfgap on drives between Harrisonburg and Gettysburg. This part of the George Washington National Forest is further away from the trail workers of Harrisonburg and has remained pretty raw.
       I was looking forward to unleashing my Blur LTc on the rock gardens and long descent time sections. One thing had me worried...Tubes in my tires. Why they were still in there, I don't know. I've run Tubeless for over six years and this time I was being a little lazy. I'm used to running my Stan's rims, but the Blur came with non-tubeless ready DT Swiss and the unknown was a little inimidating. Can I convert them? 'Yes' according to some. What do I do? "Run Stan's tape and throw in a valve..." Well, I was out of tape and still not confident, so I decided to let the tubes stay and see if tubeless was all that important....
      It is... Three flats in the first timed section later and a loss of 20minutes in the overall was not a good way to start the tour. I blame the bike...I shouldn't have had so much confidence going into the first long rock garden, but the Blur had disappeared from under me and as far as I knew I was moonbouncing down the trail. It felt so good that I didn't even feel the first snake bite the rear tube. A not so quick change was complicated by a tight bead/rim interface and I accidently pinched the new tube I was putting in.
       At this point the trail turned a little more flat but kept the rock profile and getting a rhythmn was proving to be difficult. Finally I got it rolling again and just after picking up some speed into the next few rock sections, I found myself off the bike fixing a front flat! That one I felt and heard but it was still at a speed I hadn't ever seen on the hardtail. With that flat fixed and most of the field in front of me, I managed to roll on without incident. Well there was one incident left which was seeing Dicky with his second flat and no tube. He'll hate me for saying it, but "I told you so." For some reason my third tube was a 29er and I passed it on to him. At the beginning of the day I had noticed he had no camelback and one tube. He seemed (without humbleness) certain that he wouldn't double flat since he never doubles. The Tour pounced on that smugness.
        After gathering back together at the sag wagon, we ate, drank, fixed bikes, added air to tires and sweated in the shade. A good hour after regrouping and imbiding, we remounted the bikes, paraded out of the stop and soon were getting reved up for the first sprint. I tried to lead out Ryan Fawley but he jumped early and missed first. We slowly regrouped and parade paced till the next timed section which was mostly downhill! It started with enough of a climb that I let myself relax and stay steady to the top, but once it started getting fast and technical I began picking off those who were a little more spritely on the climb. I wish it wasn't a timed section, because I would have loved to stop and taken pictures of the rock shoots and big gardens where everyone had to get off. They would be hard to clean at pleasure pace. If you think you're good, call me up and we'll go down to see just what you got. Good luck...
I ended up taking some time back on the section and rolled in, in third place behind Sam Koerber and Nick Waite. Good Company!

Day Three: 98miles on Road/Gravel

The TDB is a true adventure around the Shenandoah valley and doesn't limit itself to mountain bikes. The thing is, we are all mountain bikers first, so you have to imagine that to keep us entertained there will be a plenty of gravel. True to form we paraded out of town towards the first KOM of the day. Straight up the two mile climb on exposed gravel up Massanutten mountain's back side. I didn't bother with the KOM since there is a limited amount of energy in these legs and I've done that climb enough time over the years in the Hoo-Ha and the Tour. Let the others punish themselves. We had 98miles to go and it was going to be hot and hard.

This is the climb. Generally exposed, always hot, never a treat. Here are the Garmin numbers.

It's important in the Tour to bring the right equipment. It doesn't pay to come with your light weight gear. Fit the bike to the situation, otherwise you'll be crying a lot more than necessary. Burly tires for the road, 25-28+ is a must. Still it's a day with stairways' to the heaven's so a full on cross tire might not be the right balance.

So hot! On the Eastern side of the Masanutten ridge we had the pleasure of crossing the North Fork river.

This is the TOur director, Miquel Carpong. A tour veteran, who was suffering back issues. He's been known to go bigger than all you. At the end of day three I managed to scrape back some more time in the GC. Stage two saw me down in about 20th overall. At the end of day three I moved to 15th. The competition is stiff and traveling up and down the results sheet is easier done going down. I was hoping to work my way into the top ten, and by miracle, maybe I'd get into the top 5. Tides turn quickly in the Valley, and though I wished no one a mechanical or a meltdown, I knew they were around any corner. Including for myself.

Le Tour is not the other Tour

2011-07-08T13:19:00.000-05:00

       Le Tour De Burg is unlike anything else. There are certain facets that will never be fully explained, but the general rule of 'don't be a d***' is important. I'll give Dickey a pass since it's in his genes. For six day's we ride, imbide, race and whine together in a mocking homage to both stage racing and summer camp. The format is shamefully exclusionary, a previous year's rider approval gets you in, but that doesn't mean you couldn't show up and join.
      The problem with arriving unannounced and unknown is the fact that you have no idea what you are getting into. A mentor is highly reommended to help you navigate the political and social quagmire. Not to mention the riding. It's a two bike event; a rugged mountain bike and a fat tired road bike. I chose my SC Blur LTc and my Specialized Tarmac with Conti 700x28 hardscrapes. No other race I know of, expects you to ride the things we do with the bikes we bring. 26-29 hardtails, ridged singlespeeds (rare air) and 6" travel bikes all have their moments. The two road stages involve more gravel than most cross races. The climbing could choke you out. 6 days, 7 stages, 300 miles, 31,600 ft of steep! Two of those stages are less than 7 miles in length. Sooo that means, 5 stages 289 miles 30, 000ft.
      Besides the people and atmosphere, we return because the riding offers no apologies. Oh my, did we just start the day racing up 3,000ft of climbing in less than 10 miles? How about a road stage descent that drops another 3,000 feet in 19 miles, but the first 4 miles almost straight down on forest roads with rocks and ruts. If you've ever suffered the steep part of the climb up to check point 5 in the Shenandoah 100 then you've gone up what we came down. On our road bikes.
   As much as it sounds like a party on wheels, there is much pride on the line. Besides the standard jerseys of GC, KOM, Sprint and DFL, it has been proven that a new jersey could be made up if you are standout enough to create a new jersey. Ask Bruce Dickman about that. The famous mouth from the south pounded so much party pace off the front he earned an imprompt PP Pounder Jersey.

It's not a Rapha Gentleman's race. We're ugly, haggard and way harder than that. Our clothes don't match, our bikes might get laughed at. They drink beer after the day is over, we drink in the middle of the ride. We have coast-offs. Le Tour eats tires and tubes. I carried three tubes, a rear derailleur, a leatherman, a lighter, superglue, ByKyle strap, CO2, a pump, a shock pump, extra gloves, extra food, and a variety of multi tools.
Here is day one.. a Prologue seven miles in length.

Day one's prologue: go up, come down! This is similar to the loop used in the Massanutten Hoo-Ha, except we ride up and descend in opposite directions. The new trail on the other side of the Massanutten access road has become the best addition to the mountain. I'd gone up it a few times, but going down has added a new flavor for Death to dish out.
Day one went good for me with a 6th place finish.

Day two not as good. First timed section sent me to 20th in GC place with a triple flat. I'll illuminate as the days pass, but for now enjoy some pics..

The weak ends. How Ashland Super-D inspired me, and crushed me.

2011-06-21T21:25:00.000-05:00

I made it to Ashland again this year. Last year was an introduction to a new riding style for me. I came away wanting to expand my riding. It's the urge to be progressing. To learn something new. I have to admit that doing 100's has kind of become stale. I still love it, but I needed a new challenge. I guess that is why they call it the Ashland Mountain Challenge.

This year I went out with a different bike, a full face helmet and more time in the air than ever before. I prepared by riding pumptracks and venturing to the Shenandoah Valley for long descents. Still I knew that I was less then sharp for an event that required more than bike handling skills. Being hit twice by cars, almost exactly two months apart and a team switch kept me off the bike more than desired. Still...What could I do?

I went, I hammered, I took my game up another notch. Hit my first 20ft gaps, led people through sections that I needed a lead on last year, rode a train with 10-15 guys with world class pedigree. I tried to be smooth in the corners, I tried to follow the lines of former world champions. I asked Abigail Hippley to lead me into those big gaps in front of these bike aces. She nailed all eight, I cased (but cleared) three while she got cheers for doing what no one else would. I followed her through the last three gaps, including a creek gap. I'll take that.

Mount Shasta in the background.

That guy in the blue...Ross Milan. He won the 4x national championships last year, works for Yeti, and is a super guy.

We turned the Santa-Cruz van into a post race dance club.

Sport-truck waiting to pounce. Now that I think about it, it kind of reminds me of Ross.

Waiting for the Santa-Cruz van to turn around and bring me my computer. Thanks Abby and Ariel!

Once in a blue moon....

2011-01-06T00:18:00.001-05:00

Some of my favorite things from New Years Day. Mummers Parade Philadelphia

2010-10-13T20:18:00.003-05:00

It's as if I never left. Still racing. But now it's on a dirt track with petroleum as my energy food.
God save the Williams Grove Speedway. How can I begin to describe the visceral experience of overzealous gearheads, dirt tracks and velveeta cheese fries.

COsta RIca: Again

2010-04-09T06:20:00.002-05:00

Hey ya'all. It's 5:30am and I'm up and ready for day one of El Reto De Los Volcanoes. Today we got 2 volcanoes on our hit list. Turrialba and Irazu`.
I'll be updating here and at Liberty Sports Mag's blog. It's a little too much to do new things for each so check it out over there....
Pre-Ride
Day before

pura vida

Mr. My old bike is for sale!

2010-03-22T07:28:00.003-05:00

It's sad to say goodbye to an old friend, but I need to sell my first 29er frame. It's the lefty one with Inine wheels, XTR, and Formula brakes. Complete bike has to go. IF you got $3500 and a desire let me know.
Here is the link to it's profile. The wheels are a different color, but other than that it''s all the same.

Comb-Over Yards and Angry Plants.

2010-02-16T12:46:00.004-05:00

As much as my generous guide, Dejay, tries to convince me that Arizona is the place to live, I've got to admit it scares me a little.
Everywhere I turn some plant is trying to jab me. If it wasn't for the dry air, serrated mountains in the back ground and an abundance of something called tex/mex I'd assume I was in Florida. It's a place that is flat, hot and dirty like a mangy dog. Charming. Still I can't say enough nice things about the people who are surviving here.

I mean I flew in from a town that was just shut down under 40" of snow. Philadelphia tried to hold me tight by closing the airport the day I was supposed to leave. If I had stayed I'd probably be dead, crushed underneath a snow laden limb in the Wissahickon while skiing.

Instead I was suckered into the desert to be on a 24hr 5 person coed team with Dejay and the Stan's NoTubes team.

Now I have a tan.

I haven't done a 24hr race in 7 years. Ever since I took a nap in the middle of a lap in Whistler in 2003. Since then, I've had an allergy to staying up past 1am to ride my bike.
Still, the coolest thing about the race was hanging out with the Stan's crew.
Getting there was a cluster. After a one day delay out of Philly I showed in Tucson without a bike. Andrew was a doll and picked me up, wondering where my bike was. After calling around for a few hours we put together one of Dejay's bikes. Fortunately my new, never ridden, SS Superfly came in at about one in the AM.

We had fun and managed to win while dethroning the Topeak/Ergon team. Sorry Jeff, Dave, Sonya, Yuki and Rebecca!

The hardest thing about riding in the desert is the number (all) of plants that want to stab me and leave their prickers behind.

After totally crushing the day and practicing our 1000 yard stares into the wee hours, I have had the pleasure of playing in Tucson with Dejay.

There isn't much green here, but the weather at this time of year makes riding a pretty comfortable activity. We rode up Lemmon Mtn, on Monday and touched snow on our hike-a-bike to the top of Bug Spring trail. The hour spin across Tucson on the single speeds was a little tedious after racing for 5 hours the day before, but the tequila stash on the trail and multiple flats on the way down gave us plenty of breaks, for me to silently cry in my thoughts.

The trails down the mountain were a bit more exciting than the 24hr race course with multiple chest-to-saddle drops, some cliff riding and Suarez cactus all around.

Yesterday we rode out of town to the Tucson Mountain Park. Another flat, across town ride resulted with us in the basin of a collapsed cauldron. We ran across Geoff Kabush getting handled by five men with shock pumps and some measuring devices. It pays to be a world cup racer.
Dejay and I took turns doing each others hair and riding down rock features.

Yeah AZ!

Rumors, lies and general vaguness, Plus Pictures!

2010-02-02T05:55:00.003-05:00

There is a shift in the trade winds these days. Like climate change (global warming), the economy and an endangered species' status things have to change. Some call it a cycle, or a balance of the universe's equilibrium, but I'm not sure where I'm going to file this one. Maybe label it with my new favorite term, a nearing to "zero-entropy" or moving my body to room temperature.

No I'm not dying, but I am shifting my focus away from full-time racing to fun-time racing and advocacy. I've joined TeamCF

This is a pretty exciting shift for me. Now I'll have a team close to home, a full suspension big-wheeled bike and a bike with one gear! Thanks to Gary Fisher for supporting the Cystic Fibrosis cause.

maybe I'll dust off..

2009-12-27T22:10:00.002-05:00

It might be time to pull out the Louise the fixie pixie. Starting to feel better!

Where oh where

2009-12-16T20:24:00.002-05:00

I've been off exploring the very nearby world in which I live. In case it wasn't public knowledge, I've had two bulging discs between C5, 6, and 7. So I've been laying low. Enjoying finding new things. Like this clock..
And appearing in major magazines as a hairy me.

I'm having a great time.

I sure do like this...

2009-11-18T23:36:00.002-05:00

Raffle Winners!!!

2009-11-16T20:15:00.003-05:00

Last night I ventured to the far north to speak at the Team Bulldog H2h Race series Banquet.

Other than a stop by mr. officer on the way home for a headlight out, everything went great. It was a huge crowd who came to eat and get their awards.

We also did the Raffle drawing and below are the winners of the 2009 IFRacing team fundraiser.

Thanks to everyone who threw down for me and the team. It's such an important part of us surviving through our season.

And here you are...

Frame and Fork!: Susan Amick
Stan's Wheelset: Lamphier
Time Pedals: Brandon Laurman
WTB Tires: Ken Gilbert
WTB Saddle: David Lowe
Tifosi Glasses: Larry Camp
Ergon Grips: Ron Sacks

Yeah!!!

So Much in so little

2009-11-11T09:02:00.002-05:00

This weekend I've been invited to bore people to death at the annual Team Bulldog banquet. I'll be showing slides and giving about my highly opinionated thoughts on all things cycling. The metaphors will be flowing.

On top of all that gratuitous metaphor composing, I'll be finally doing the drawing for the Frame and Fork. Yeah!

Other news:

My neck is bulging. Specifically between the C 5/6 and 6/7. It's not terrible, but I do have to rest it a bit.

We'll talk soon.

The Raffle has been ---Delayed

2009-10-10T20:39:00.002-05:00

Team IF has come upon an unfortunate situation. It turns out the IFRacing Road team has had it's sponsors leaving them holding an empty bag. After a full year of racing and killing it, their sponsors have reneged on their financial commitment to the team. This has left the team in need of raising some money to pay a couple of bills.
So to help the road brethren, we are pushing the drawing back to November 15th.

To help the situation please go to BIKEReg and buy a couple tickets!

Thanks for your patience!

Getting it back..

2009-10-05T10:55:00.002-05:00

I've been pretty low lately. Hard to feel motivated when the bike creates nausea. The effect of a few fall rides is starting to work at the recharge.

Dominating the world from the back of the room...

2009-08-29T07:10:00.008-05:00

Big race showdown. How to be serious and stay relaxed at the same time.

Arguably the Marathon World Championships should be considered the ultimate race of my racing career. Strangely enough, in the face of an impending ass kicking it's relatively easy to stay relaxed and enjoy one's self. It's got to be a much different burden to think you have a chance to win and to have to deal with the idea of loosing by one place. I, on the other hand, was able to lap up the atmosphere like a year old puppy licking face.

Really that's the way all high pressure moments should be. If you go in knowing you've done everything you can to prepare, you can't be unhappy with yourself. But you might be humbled.
Race headquarters for 2/3rds of team USA, Sweden, Norway and Croatia was the international student housing dorms for the local university. Since it was summer, there was plenty of free space. The flats were a great homebase with full kitchens, showers, male and female toilets and personal bedrooms. Plus we had TV and free Internet and a balcony, which made relaxing that much easier. It was a great place to be situated with the race start only 20min away on a designated bicycle route.

Graz has some pretty incredible architecture and our place was near everything, including a regular morning market, grocery stores, museums, coffee shops and a subtle red light district.
Heather Holmes and I explored the city a bit, found some strange pedal powered art, had cofffee and went to the castle at the top of the hill to do a bike photo shoot.
I love Karate too.

Heather and her ride.
Graz Graffiti.
I'm setting my bike up like this next time.
My friend Rick had to get away from his home in the Hamptons, so he arrived on Friday before the race to be friend and support. The last email I sent him had some really clever directions and pictures of where he should meet me and the times I'd be there. He apparently never saw those, but never the less fate stepped in and as I was sitting at the appointed cafe I see him and Heather across the square calling my name then giving up and they turned to walk back to the apartment. Apparently Heather saw a dude with a cast and having never met Rick, asked him if he spoke English. It's a good thing she made that cautious leap cause, we'd have been going in circles for a while. Yeah chance!
It was a good thing Rick was coming because on the first preride I did of the course, I busted a spoke due to over tightening a computer magnet on the ultra thin spokes on my rear wheel. Basically I created a stress point in an aluminum spoke and it couldn't flex like it was supposed to. That is why you try not to do anything new right before a big race. The biggest problem was I had left all my other spokes at home. Brandi at Industry Nine was a champ and he managed to next day spokes to Rick who was able to get them to me.
Race day was pretty exciting. I felt rested and ready to perform. Rick drove to the race while Heather and I rode there to get our legs warmed up. We got there before Rick because traffic was jammed packed on the entry road and we had to thread the needle a couple of times to make our way to the start finish area. The start line area is best described as a horde of people, beer, food and bikes. Still it was a bike race, so every where you look you see the familiar sights of last minute tuning up, racers spinning the legs, water bottles being filled and chamois cream being applied.
I was pretty excited to be involved in such a huge event. Seeing everyone wrapped in their countries colors, created the sense in me that we had shed some of our personal identity walls and were all a little more open to the moment and each other. There was a lot more smiling than nervous expectation grimaces. It probably was more relaxed down our way in the last rows, and I'm sure the row with numbers 1-30 were a hot bead of flared tempers and dirty scowls.

The two Hungary riders I battled all day, but eventually passed on the last climb. Me on Left.

The Race.
The opening mile of the course is a gentle 3-5% grade. Then the next mile is a senility inducing average of 15% with a max of 28% all on asphalt. This all leads into the opening single track climb on big wet roots. I started out with a plan of not destroying myself in the first half hour. Quickly I found that if that plan wasn't abandoned I'd be at the literal back of the pack. So instead I spent the first 20min of the race with a HR in the 180-185 range. That was not in the play book. Fortunately the course quickly turned to some rather technical trail, and even though it was brief it gave me a chance to make up some time, cause it's true, just cause you race at the top end doesn't mean you know how to ride a bike. I'll give any of the elite riders on the East Coast better odds on the Technical trails than almost any of the Euro's I was racing near.
It took me three days to preride the course, but I'm glad I got it all in. The 20km section that was cut from the women's race, had the second biggest climb of the day and it started with a hike-a-bike. I had lost a few places just before aid station 1 and the start of that section, but I knew what was coming, so I stayed steady, grabbed a bottle from Rick and started hoofing it up that slick hike. It took almost an hour to get to the top, but along the way we had some great technical single-track climbing, which I prided myself on being the only one to clear it in my vicinity, go USA, and in the process I took back most of the spots I had lost earlier.
At this point I was pretty happy with my tire choice. I had on WTB's out of production really big cyclocross tires, the 700/44c Mutano Raptors. They were pretty light, and really knobby and set up tubeless on my Stan's rims so they hooked up on the loose loamy climbs. I also think I was the only 29er at the race!. Maybe I'm the first 29er ever at a Worlds Marathon Course.
In the 53 minutes it took me to do the climb between aid station 1 and 2 had I averaged 174 beats with a max of 185 and there were two 180ish five minute intervals. After that hour my HR never got into the 180's again. Still I would be no stranger to the 170's, but I was done with hitting my max. That climb was more suited for me due to the consistent grade of around 7-10% on gravel, with those steep sections of trail thrown in. Plus the downhill looping back to aid station 2 was had some great off camber single track and pea-gravel roads that I ate up as fast as I could. It required elbow checking one racer, who lost his line, but tried to jump back in at an awkward moment. I apologized, and he apologized and we were all good.
Hour three of the race saw me playing cat and mouse with a couple of people, specifically two Hungarian riders. It was mostly gently rolling hills between stations 2 and 4, but the sections that brought us through towns and the patio of a restaurant with patrons drinking beer kept it entertaining.
I managed to lose contact with my Hungarian nemesis during this section, but I had faith that I'd be able to catch some people on the final climb up to Shockle. The Shockle climb took me about an hour and a half. It started with some gravel road then quickly turned to washed out, unused and rocky dualtrack. Again, I had to thank my knobby skinny 29er wheels for getting me up that mountain. I felt pretty good almost all the way up, really started to fade on the last couple of nasty pitches. Fortunately I had already passed the Hungarians, and a couple others on the climb. Then on the first flirting with the descending I actually got off my bike to run some of the rocky downhill sections because they were so gnarly. My ego was a little hurt by getting off, but I doubt anyone was able to ride all those sections. After that initial bit of rockiness, it got steeper and faster, but not necessarily much easier to ride. The gravel jeep roads were full of rock slabs, big drops and sketchy lines. This was the only section of the course where I was a little bit at a disadvantage with the skinnier tires, but I believe it was worth it for all the other places where they excelled. By the bottom my arms were getting a little tired and my wrist was definitely starting to fatigue holding on so tight to keep the wrist stable.
You'd think that after that climb it would be mostly downhill and a race to the finish from there, but the size of the Shockle climb on the profile puts the next two climbs out of proportion by towering over them and leading one into a false sense of security. After the big descent there is still the biggest hike-a-bike standing in the way to the finish line. A solid 10 minute hike with bike over shoulder. Coming into I I thought I had pretty much sorted out my position in the race, but as I got about a minute into the climb I looked below to see a group of 10 or so guys hoofing it in my direction. Crap I thought. So I found a little extra energy to high step it to the top. I think that demoralized a few of them, because for the rest of the race there were only two or three people trying to creep.
After that hike-a-bike I had thought that was it for climbing, but out of no where, there came another climb that was so steep at one point I had to get off and walk the last ten feet. I was so blown at this point, but knew I couldn't slow down otherwise I'd be loosing some extra spots. So while trying to avoid vomiting in my own mouth I hustled it home. I did loose one spot, but there wasn't much I could do. I was toast.

At the finish line I was so happy to be done and not to excited to find out how I did. Fortunately like all good mountain bike races, there was free beer right after the line, and still inside of the finish area. It was a great way to finish off the race of my life! I stood there stunned for awhile and Rick eventually found me, as well as Heather who had a great race and came in 25th. Pua was there all clean and in civilian clothes. She managed a stellar 7th place.

All was good. Except for the smiling Irish girl who came in with a 6in gash in her arm looking for the medic but seemingly drawn to the beer first.

I send out a big hearty thanks to all those who donated to this happening. Overall the trip cost a lot more than I expected and every penny counted. I didn't have to hitch hike once! I haven't done the drawing for the Trainer yet, but I will as soon as I get organized and the names in a hat.

Of course Rick and I still had to get back to Venice and his rental car made life so much easier. We did an awesome drive to the Dolemites and spent the night, before going on a seriously incredible hike the next day around Cortina. These mountains are now on my top five list of places to go, or I've been. If you ever get a chance don't pass up the opportunity to visit. It's freaking magical!
Good Italian food in the Dolemites.
We asked the people how to rent this place for the next time we come back. It's not for rent, cause it's family owned. Amazing because it's in the middle of the national park and there ain't another house around for miles.
I bought some new shoes to go hiking in, since I didn't bring any and I don't have none back home.
The Dolemites are so incredible!

That's a dwelling from the past.
This is about 3,000 meters up.

Oh, It's Over..

2009-08-25T16:42:00.004-05:00

This is what it looks like to be painted and folded in half, then opened up again. Or that's how I felt after racing like an animal for 5:50. It was an experience. Heather Holmes (on the left) still had some spunk left. It was an incredibly humbling experience. I've seen things....At first I entertained thoughts of a top 30, then maybe a top 50, then I was hoping to be in the top 50%, another evaluation/ number tossed around was a top 70. 87th sure seems like going to the safety deposit box and finding $10 instead of $10,000. Oh well....Still a seriously priceless experience.

More to come, but right now I'm in the Aussie Camp from hell, outside of Venice. Rick and I hiked in the dolomites for 5+ hours today and we're cooked..

Today is it!

2009-08-23T01:06:00.001-05:00

Here we go!

A Worlds Bike Got Some Nitro

2009-08-21T05:40:00.003-05:00

Before I left Philly I took the bike by Bicycle Therapy to get some race tuning advice from Lee Rogers. He helped me with some excellent housing choices and when we were done I weighed my bike to find, to my surprise, it was at 20.5lbs!!!

The most exciting change are the R1 brakes that Formula sent me. Actually Chris and Charlie sent to me. And Formula Italy sent them to them in record time. So Italy sent the brakes to California, then Cali went them to me on Tuesday, then I flew back to Italy on Wednesday!

Well they are so nice. They dropped about half a pound off my bike it feels like. I'm really glad they returned to a wider lever design. I preferred the older style before last years, and it seems that someone in the Design department felt the same way. They feel more powerful than my older Puro Oro's, and it was proven on the nasty long downhills of the Worlds Course. I'd expect many brakes to start to fade due to the fact that you couldn't let go of the brakes it was so steep. The caliper bodies are one solid piece of forged metal, unlike most brakes that are two pieces of machined aluminum that are welded together. The new rotors help dissipate the heat, so that helps dissipate any fading potential.

Hagen with Time hooked me up with some lighter pedals!!!I've decided to go with the WTB Mutano raptors. Sure they are out of production, but they are light, knobby and fast on a course with 12,000ft of climbing and tons of high speed gravel.
Love my Brass cable ferrals
Don't forget the Chris King BB, which I pumped out the old standard grease and pumped in some fresh thinner oil to take out any extra friction.

Of Course It Isn't That Bad

2009-08-21T02:35:00.005-05:00

Andreas met me at the train station. It was very kind of him and a huge relief to see him after I called Monday at 6ish in the PM to tell him when I'd be coming in. He seemed less than happy to hear it would be about 10:30pm since he had already been to the station 3 times that day, having not heard from me for two days and thought I might be in at any moment. Since my camera battery was dead, we re-staged the meeting the next day when we went to pick up Heather from the Airport. I felt special getting off the train and having someone waiting for me with a big sign. Size matters when it's duck taped to the end of a stick and held high, not against your chest like some mug shot picture.

In a country with a language you can't understand, the possibilities for free association are limitless. There is quite a bit of miss communication. No guide book ever factors into the budget the money spent due to language barriers. This very morning, I ended up eating two pastries because I didn't know how to tell the lady I had changed my mind and wanted to a different one, so I ended up with two. At the top of the biggest climb, Heather stopped to get some water, and when she pointed at a glass to indicate that she wanted the water in a glass she ended up with two glasses of half wine and half water. The Austrian version of Nantucket Nectar's "Half and Half"

So when traveling outside of your language comfort zone be aware of going with your intuitive understanding fueled by body language...I don't know what this sign means or why the dog seems so happy, but as they say, 'when in Austria....lick a deer's genitals'This is either a sign for car delivery or they remove cars by helicopter, crane or fishing rod.
Originally, I expressed some doubt about the course's validity as a mountain bike course. When reading the profile and description you see only about 4 miles of trail and about 88% is gravel or asphalt. Sounds like a white bread, milquetoast slice of Euro trail. I'm not saying the Euro's have taken the soul of MTBing and turned it into blandly packaged rice cakes, but it definitely looked to be going that way. Problem is I have some narrow standards for what what mountain biking is. And if you don't got much to work with there are some methods for keeping it interesting. Namely...
1: Trail is nice. The more of it the better. If you can't have a lot, then it should at least change up frequently. Take that 4 miles of trail and break it up amongst the 60 miles. That makes things go by faster and keeps the brain fresh which satisfies my ADD side.
2: Keep the terrain interesting. Soon after we go through this pathway behind houses and a tennis court, we ride through a school. Then we head out of town, past a monastery/ museum.
3: Use the local wildlife as a distraction. Here is Heather Holmes turning her derriere to the cows.
4: Throw in some people that are doing things more fun and more dangerous than you along the course and it puts the current race situation into perspective.

5: Always more cowbell!!

6: Throw in some snipers.
7: Obstacles that make the racers dismount are sure to up the chances for cramping by 18%
8: Make sure the racers are properly disposing of their needles.

I guess that last one doesn't mean much to keeping the race interesting. Point is, the course is a lot more interesting than I originally thought it might be. Still there isn't a lot of trail, but it is steep, varies regularly and has enough climbing to choke a monkey. It's going to be hard. Especially since it starts with a pavement climb that averages about 15% for a mile. That's enough to have your eye's burning with blood vessels ready to burst.

Europa eh'

2009-08-18T02:47:00.003-05:00

Alps from my bird.

Of course I couldn't make it easy. Originally I booked a hotel in Venice, but on the way I heard that getting around the streets with a bike box and my other stuff would border on boot camp training. So I tried to go to the campsite I originally looked at.
I took the bus the wrong direction, got off at the 2nd stop as I was told and spent 4hours hauling my bike box around trying to figure out what was going on.

A clarification about the Camp Site. You could bring a tent, or use a tent that is already there, or rent a prefab dorm-room by the bed, My prefab home away from home.

or bring in your RV, or get a rustica cabin. Plus they had a pool, an overpriced restaurant and internet (mostly). Really a pretty nice set up. Unfortunately the riding was not worth hanging out for, so after a visit to Venice to stare at dirty water and tourists wandering amongst the quaint, and yes beautiful, streets I hightailed it out of there.

Don't try to catch public transportation during a Catholic Holiday in Italy. Pentecost caused me a lot of headaches. Trains were full, so I decided to wing it by bus. That put me into the second most beautiful place I've to been this year. The Italian Dolomites.

That's a Whole Foods shirt, where he found his cheese passion....

Made a night of it there in Cortina, rode the WWII loop, then caught a bus out, finally on my last leg to Graz. On the Dolomite loop I rode to the top of a pass, where the ski lift stops and a restaurant was waiting for me with an espresso and the rap song, 'I don't want no short dick man' was gently playing in Muzac style while people sipped their espressos and a waitress cleaned berries.

"Awesome" is how I describe moments like that.

I rode the big climb of the Worlds course today, and I'll post some pics later..

I have to say thank you to all the people who have donated to this trip. I swear I'm not blowing it on "my european vacation." This trip is the opportunity of a lifetime and you can bet I'm going to make the most of it. Thank you for sending me here!

Here I Go: World Championship Attack! Win something!

2009-08-02T19:31:00.008-05:00

The day I finished the Breck Epic I got an email from USA Cycling;

"Hello,

As you may know, your top ranking in the USAC Ultra Endurance Rankings has given you an automatic selection to the Marathon World Championship Team. The Marathon Worlds are in Graz, Austria on August 23^rd.

USA Cycling will not be providing any logistical or financial support at this event so if you decide to accept your spot on the team you will be responsible for all your travel, lodging and support at this race.

Please let me know if you would like to accept or decline your spot on the team or if you have any further questions."

I read the email and sort of gave a dismissive 'whatever'. It seemed like such a casual and almost reluctant message that I didn't really understand what it was saying. I guess I'd expect an invitation to the World Championships to have a positive tone to it. Maybe it would start off with "Congratulations" or maybe at least my name. Plus the encouraging message that I'd be responsible for all the financial logistics after finishing an expensive race in CO pushed the reality of the message further from my cerebral cortex.
So you'll have to forgive me if it was a couple of days before I returned to the message and realized that I was invited to wear 'Red White and Blue" and represent team USA at the Marathon World Championships! That should all be in caps!

I was invited to wear 'Red White and Blue" and represent team USA at the Marathon World Championships!

There! That is almost how I felt. The emotions surprised me since I tend to keep my patriotism in a well contained box of sarcasm most of the time. But this is different.

I'm going! With support from my parents, friends, supporters and credit cards I'll be on team USA.

It's a rare opportunity and since you never know what the next year might bring, it's important to seize the moment.

So the Patriotic pride has filled me and I think I'm going to let a tear of happiness slide down my cheek as I stand in the last row of a huge field of the worlds best cyclist wearing the only USA jersey in the field. It would have been two jerseys but unfortunately Jeremiah Bishop had a bad enough crash in Canada to fracture a vertebra. This news from last week really made my heart sink since I knew he was probably the most deserving to be there through his years of effort.

I also feel a little reluctance in going, since I can say that I feel a little unprepared for the race and don't really know if I can be at the ideal top of my game in time. But this is what I know; I can go and be the best I can be that day, and as long as I do that I'll walk away happy and sure that I represented the USA as well as I can. Besides the USA I feel the weight of all the people in the region that I race with regularly and those people in the scene that have supported me and others because they feel so passionate about the importance of cycling in this world. Thanks to all those people a hundred times over!

If anyone reading this would like to help with this "financially unsupported" endeavor please feel free to click the "World Championship Domination Button" above. Since I hate asking for help without giving back, if you donate you will be entered into a raffle for a chance to win a CycleOps Fluid 2 trainer! It's been donated by my local CycleOps rep. Or you can buy raffle tickets as a way to support the effort of myself and the entire IF MTB team. I salute you all!!

And that course profile above is the World Champ course.
65miles
12,300ft of climbing
4% trail
96% asphalt, gravel, cinder path, grass!!

Oh and the Epic

2009-07-23T21:13:00.004-05:00

I love driving. It astonishes me the nonchalant attitude of city kids with abundant public transportation. 16 and driving was not just a right of passage but a necessity in the rural world I lived in. Everything was 20 miles away, but it still only took 20 minutes to get there, whereas it takes 20+ minutes to get 5 miles in this city of brotherly love.

Digressing is a forte' and where I mean to be going with this is the fact that driving out to Colorado might seem like a chore to some, but it's just a natural habitat for me.

This is a big country and like the space between your ears, there is a lot going on between the coasts. I guess if you are a mountain biker you've chosen a pretty exciting time to race your bike. I think the general consensus is that the state of mountain biking in the US is on the low arch. We're waning, not waxing, I think. Or maybe we're at that phase where if you weren't paying attention you don't know if it's disappearing or about to get real full.

I think it's been a historical re occurrence that during the times when a culture, revolution or party starts to hit a lull, and people are standing around wondering what to do next, either the party dies or someone comes up with another plan that outdoes the previous party.
The post 90's MTB hangover has left the mountain world scrambling for a new spark to light the fuse of cycling joy and in the course of the search people are experimenting with race formats. Therefore we have new epic stage races...

Like the Breck Epic or the soon to be coming Pisgah Mountain Bike Challenge. I've got the Pisgah race firmly on my schedule but, I'm not sure why I went to CO for the Breck Epic. Sometimes you do things just cause. Usually they don't cost you a grand to do, but no regrets here since the the trip was a beautiful time.

The Epic was 6 days of racing at 9,600ft+ with almost every day crossing the 12,000ft mark. The first day was an uphill prologue that was supposed to be 9 miles long and basically one harder grunt after another. At registration we were given a start time and a goody bag that included dog tags with our name and the phone number of whoever we deemed would be responsible for our broken bodies if circumstances came to that. Usually I don't get all excited about the swag put in our bags, probably because it's usually just a t-shirt and some caloric injecting substance. These bags were an exception. First off the bags themselves were the reusable grocery bag types. (I use my whole foods bags for about everything except grocery getting). Inside was a cool breckepic jersey that fits and is stylish. Then there was the monogrammed Breck Epic Crank Brothers mini pump. And finally there was some lube. All very useful things. Proof that the promoter has something between his ears. More proof? The bag had an identical bag inside and both had our numbers on them because they would be our drops each day. Mike Mack is a smart man.

It's a fact that I only saw the bags and their contents because I was to proud to to tuck my tail between my legs and drive back to PA, even though that's all I wanted to do when I woke up in the morning. I had been up all night coughing, being too hot, then too cold, then having to use the bath room about 6 times. Basically when I woke up in the morning I felt like a stolen handbag left in the ditch after being emptied by rough criminal hands. The idea of turning my guts inside out to go uphill for an hour didn't seem too appealing. But as I walked up to the registration area to talk to Promoter Mike, I chickened out of backing out and asking for a refund or 2010 comp.

Whatever, it was only 6 days of racing and I'd either get better or worse. I forgot that you can languish between the two indeterminately. I had a 4:19 start time since the open mens class went last in alphabetical order. Fortunately the rain that had started about two stopped at about 3:30. Still the skies were grey and the moisture was thick, not as thick as the snot rockets I was blowing.
My plan was simply to get to the top without dieing. I managed that with my 30 second man Aaron Potts dragging me along up the trail. A lot of time when you go west the hills are long but built with a friendly gradient, to get you to the top in a leisurely manner. Breckenridge is not that way. It can lull you into the feeling that you'll be cruising contour trails, but before you know it the 'breck slap' hits and your wondering why the granny gear feels like it's cowering in the corner. Just about the time that I had started to feel like a living creature I came through a friendlier section and there was the finish. Three miles early.

I hate that. Thinking one thing then finding out the other. I don't think any one knew it was a shortened course. Well at least day one was over and I could go home and try to recover. Then come back later for the 6pm racer meeting. I had a cold can of coconut juice in the fridge that I couldn't wait to slide down my blistered throat. After some typical racer meeting stuff, I went back to Erika and Marks to have them pour more healing meds down my throat and send me to bed. Oh and I was a disappointing 13th on the day. It's stupid but I was still hoping for more.

Day 2 was the eye opener. Because it was so beautiful, and we realized that it was going to be a serious race. Our course took us through sections of the Colorado trail, that I have been a fan of since riding the Breck 100 in 2006. Super climbs to sweeping vistas and then long downhills through the woods. It was still a day of survival, but I was feeling better and managed an 8th place, while racing with James Williams and Yuki Saito for a bit. It's great racing in new places and finding new competition, because it keeps you humble.

Day 3 was a little better, same scenario of tussling with James and Yuki, even though I really felt like crap on the 2nd climb of the day and I thought I would be throwing in the towel if I ever made it back. My competative troll kept me in the game when I was passed by a certain individual who unknowingly creates a burning desire for me to not finish behind. My fires a little turned up, I managed to take 7th on the day and was beginning to see a light where before there was only darkness. I'll say that downhills saved me a lot in the race for rolling back up on people. It gave me time to get my legs each day if I could feel confident that I could catch riders later after they left me on the first climb.

Day four was the best day of the race for me. I felt like the cold was being managed and wasn't getting worse. I still was hacking up lots of strange stuff and having a hard time sleeping, but there were no more feverish nights. I managed to stay in control of my breathing and for the first time felt like opening up the legs a little. At the finish I had 5th place and a new found optimism. We went over the 12,500 French Pass, which reguired a little hike-a-bike and a snow drift ride. I was feeling like a king.

Day five stole it all back as I fell to my knees and cursed the air with it's thin oxygen. Above me was a criss-crossing switch back with the tiniest of people at the top carrying their bikes. Hiking for 45 minutes had out of body and I couldn't hold onto my bike at one point. It reminded me of the 3am experience I had in the one and only 24hr race I'll ever do. There was no where to go but up, so I stared at my feet and willed each step as if I had ESP and was using it to move inanimate objects. Eventually it hurt so bad to walk that I had no choice but to ride the 6in piece of trail. Later people came up to me and said they were amazed that I was riding it. I guess it's like the person who lifts a car to save someone. I had no choice but to ride because walking was failing me. Seriously it was a serious moment for me. I ended up somewhere back around 13th again and my hope for a top 5 overall were slipping away.

The last day was me hoping for a Landis day, where I would somehow make up 20 minutes on everyone and redeem myself. It was noce to wish for but on the first climb I felt like the previous day had never ended. Hoping I would warm up I took it easy to the top and when we turned right onto the trail head I could feel the single track i-v trickle life back into me. Alright, this is what I wanted. I managed to get around four or five people in the luge like trail. As we exited the road and turned our sights up hill for the climb back up, James and I worked like a team to start pulling more people back in. Eventually I dropped James and had Mark Legg-Compton dangling in front. Eventually I caught him and we worked together in the headwinds to get over Boreas Pass. I managed to duck into the super fun single track finishing trails and caught three more people in the Jedi Knight trails. I finished 8th for the day but some solid finishes from others put me back in 9th overall for the Epic.

In the end I had a bad race but a good time traveling there and back, staying with my wonderful friends Mark and Erika and racing through some crummy situations. For a week I was a little burned after the race but I started to bounce back pretty good despite putting a stitch worthy hole in my knee on Wendesday at Wakefied (Go PotomacVelo). Thanks Mr. Childers for patching me up! That's a whole other story.
Now I'm suffering a Fractured Capitate bone in my wrist, and trying to get ready for the World Freaking Championships!
Didn't I tell ya?

Breck Epic: It's the journey that matters! Right?!

2009-07-16T08:54:00.006-05:00

Sea Level to 9,600+feet. At the closing ceremony of the Breck Epic, Mike McCormick asked who came from the lowest elevation to race in the high Colorado Alpine. I thought I might have been close since I had been at the beach the day before I drove west. Then of course there was the below sea level, Death Valley ringer who stole my excuse glory. Then... there was the 62yr old, Wendy, and the other lady who rode the whole race with a cast on her hand. Both of them neutered my "I'm sick" excuse for bailing on the race like I wanted to do after having a fever the night before the start. It's okay that I was about to be pasted by singlespeeders and ladies with one arm. It had been a good trip up to this point and there is nothing like a little alone time to put things into perspective. I decided to drive out instead of flying because I wanted to bring the dog and I wasn't sure how long I wanted to stay out. So for the sake of flexibility and dog company I took the racks off the car, stuffed it all inside and managed 5 extra miles per gallon in the aero tuck.
Proof that roof racks are turning all the bike riders out there into gas guzzlers.
I decided to take 70 all the way out. Along the way I stopped at Buck's Pump track, got pulled by the state T for following too close, rode Columbus trails where I was inspired by a couple kids who jump out of their mini van and were on their bikes in less than a minute (in tennis shoes, and gym shorts), saw an Arch, called 911 on a one armed drunk driver, rode Kansas's Lake Wilson Trails +++, ate at the Hanover Pancake house in Topeka, met Garrett Steinmetz in Missouri (email me Garrett) and watched mile after mile of the American Landscape roll by.

If you've never been to the Jefferson Memorial in St. Louis, I recommend a visit. It's like the Washington monument, except it's made of metal and fell over. I love graffitti and the Arch has it's own special sort. Here is my photo expose`.

The Roller Coaster Trails of Wilson Lake are 15 miles of exposed-to-the-sun fun.

So in a about three days I made it to Longmont Colorado to stay with IF team mate John C.
We rode Halls Ranch, pretty fun but crowded, and ate some serious burritos.
It was time to head to the Tiezen race head-quarters, just north of Breckenridge. My original plans were to do the trifecta; the Firecracker, the Breck Epic and the Breck 100. Being a rational being a-la John Locke, I decided to skip the Firecracker and just watch it. As I stood there cheering on the peeps trying to finish their first oxygen deficient lap I saw a strange sight. A lady that looked like Katie Compton riding an INdependent Fabrication!

So I stalked her down the mountain and when I found her I also found it to be true. Some how she was now a member of the IF crew! If you don't know who Katie is, you might recognize her as the only American to win a World CUp cyclocross race. A national Champion and an all around bad ass.

So it turns out that IF is her new frame sponsor after a loss of her old sponsors. She's still looking for someone with money so if you can help let her know.

Mas Video: Rapha Gentlemans Race

2009-06-29T07:46:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I had planned on having a weekend off from racing. It was going to be all ice cream, hammocks and sparkling water.

Rapha Gentlemen's Race - New Paltz, NY from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Then the emergency 'Brown' phone lit up and on the other end was a gaggle of riders blubbering on about how 'therewassixbutonedroppedoutandnowtheyneedanother'. Turns out it was an unofficial, uninsured and unlikely gentleman's race put on by Rapha outside of New Paltz NY. Bicycling Magazine had a crew of mostly mountain bikers put together and it was captain Cushionbury who had called me (could have been a text, email or twitter).

I had to make the tough decision of sitting at home sipping lemon spritzers or travel for a 125 mile group ride through a place called the 'Gunks'. I can't resist anything called 'Gunk' and so I packed the green machine and headed to Emmaus to meet the crew. I rolled into my favorite Bikeshop/ coffee bar South Mountain Cycles, had a shot, shot the shit and waited for the band of pirates.

Soon teammate number 1 Selene, the Fitness Chick, rode by and informed me that rider Joule (sp) had just called and was out due to a crash on the bike that day. Damn. Now we had to scramble to find a 6th person, so we lit up the hovering network of cell signals in the sky and had a last minute commitment form Aaron Synder himself, despite the fact that he was leaaving for Europe in 2 days and his girlfriend was left not happy.
Now all we had to do was kill a little time while we waited for Mr. Snyder to show. What better to do than ask to take Cush's souped up Subaru WRX for a quick spin. In the space of 30 seconds I was almost hit twice before I even pulled out of the parking spot in front of the 10 people waiting to go, all laughing at me and placing bets on the car's and my survival.

As I pulled away, Aaron pulled in, and when I got back in one piece, we scattered.

There is an ironic element to the fact that I was about to do a team time trial over 125miles. I had just written a point-counterpoint argument about the merits of Solo Mountain Bike Stage Racing for Mountain Bike Magazine, which Cushionbury had assigned to me. Now I was in a position to see what it meant to race as a team, where no one was allowed to be dropped, and all bonking would be shared.

After a day that saw one rider who had come despite a terrifing crash on the Track earlier in the week, began falling apart at about mile 40, another rider fighting through severe cramps at mile 105, a missed turn and one flat, I realized the spiritual value of riding 'with' people. It required an empathy I'm not used to calling forth and the type of team bonding experience I usually leave for the movies I don't go to see. Except maybe 'Shaun of the Dead'.

Anyways it was a great time. Beautiful place and great team mates. Thanks, Mike, Selene, Mike, Brad and Aaron.

My New Formula Rotors

2009-06-25T23:42:00.003-05:00

Thought I'd throw these out there. Got some new Formula R-1 rotors. All steel, extra cut and they feel a ton lighter than traditional rotors even though I think they are only like 20-30 grams lighter each.

The mounted ones are the new ones.

Cows, Bells and stewed. Welcome to the South

2009-06-23T07:46:00.002-05:00

Somethings just get away from you if you aren't paying attention. Shirts mostly. Racing also. I just tallied up my season so far and the season to go, only to find out I've done 19 races as of this weekend. Those 19 races add up to 28 days of actual competing on the bike. It makes me wonder what the hell am I thinking? I think I only did about 26 races last year total. At this rate I'll be almost double by the end of the year.

Crap. Well I guess that that means this coming weekend at the beach is a well deserved break.
It'll be nice to sit back and not think about the night time trials, hill climbs, 100 mile races, xc races, chamois cream, drink mix, packing air, socks, clean kits, the other guys, air pressure entry fees and most of all leaving home. Well, I guess I'm leaving anyways.

Last weekend Jordan and I packed up the 5th Element and turned it south towards the hot hot hot south. Saturday was the USA Cycling Endurance Calender marathon race, the Cowbell Challenge. 50 miles of sweet roots and kick in the johnson climbs. Five climbs that are pretty short but back to back and steep enough to make you feel like you are doing 5 two minutes sprints at the end of each lap.

All in 95+ degree heat and 100% humidity.

The start saw Jafer off the front gunning it for the KOM points while I tried to stay relaxed and entered the single track 3rd or 4th. Taylor Sullivan put in some new technical rock boulder sections that were really fun, if you like squeezing your rear derailleur through some pinch points. Which I do.

So we got down to business, racing. With the heat I fugured I'd try to keep it dialed back to keep from vomiting and make it to the end. And I wasn't sure i'd make it to the finish at all. It could have been the fact i only rode my bike 3hrs the week before, or the heat, or the fact the Jafer and Aaron Oaks were putting the pressure on but I had serious doubts about my day finishing good. I decided that if I could make it to the half way point life might start looking better, and when we got to three laps to go, there was just me and Aaron who promptly attacked and put himself in the hole. So I figured the last two laps I might stay away if all works out.

Going into the last lap I pass Tim who says to me "otheryoulookingrealstrong." I couldn't really understand and thought he either said "You are looking stronger than the rest." or "There is a dude looking real real strong." Well I worried about that and kept looking back to see if I could eliminate one of the options from above. I thought I saw a streak in the single track but it's hard to tell since it's so twisty, but when I got to the bottom of the 2nd climb I looked back and there was Jafer coming after me as if I stole his dog. So instead of relaxing into the last three climbs I had to sprint as if I'd stole someones cellphone while they were talking on it.

Dizzy and done I finished almost a minute and a half up on Jafer, and I had no plan on racing the next day. Of course the pain and memory went away and no sooner did I eat a Ben and Jerry's cone, than I was ready to hit the start line.
The next day was a little cool temperature, but the competition has going to test my legs to the end. We started fast even though it was only 3 laps I was talking myself through the whole race. I made it through 2 laps in the top 5 group and felt pretty good as we headed out for the third and final round, but like a traffic accident, I was blindsided by an uncontrollable urge to stop pedaling, and my vision went a little funny.

Well I decided that I had put myself through enough, rode off the course towards the finish to turn in my chip and stopped at the car to drink something first. Then I sat there for a few minutes, Kyle and company drapped some wet cloth on me and I started to feel a bit better. I cheered on the racers as they went by and as I looked over at the start finish line I decided that the last thing I wanted to do was to have BRuce Dickman giving me a hard time for DNFing, which I hadn't done all year.

So I got back on the bike to finish the lap, and cool down. I went without my jersey and rode in bib glory. I actually like riding at the back of the pack sometimes as I 've expressed before. You get a chance to ride with new people, and there was Sam to keep me company. Thanks Sam. Then I caught Anina, the 2nd place female. 1st place was in sight 30sec up, so I couldn't go in front of her for fear of pulling her up, so I just sat behind her and tried to be encouraging for her to not give up. She didn't yell at me to leave her alone, so I just stayed there and watched the womens race from the course, which was really fun. Good job to both of them for battling to the end!

Colorado NExt week!

Stoopid is as Stoopid 50

2009-06-15T21:33:00.002-05:00

I was but wasn't planning on doing this race. Then my car done broke down and a $500 alternator was needed. Well I could sit around here or go and try to make a little money and get a workout in. Plus I needed to start the Raffle Ticket push in full force to help pay for the Breckenridge Race'n Blowout for the month of July.

So up I loaded Friday night into the Lockwood breadbox with a gaggle of 5, including my dog Gertie. We made it through the early storms to the super secret camp spot, set up the hammocks, watched the fire, climbed the tower and went to bed. Gertie slept in the Hammock with me.

At the start line we had 6 Indy Fab riders there, which was sort of startling. I was really excited to have a crew looking so sharp in our new kits. The start was relatively mild, with a climb that went a couple of miles on gravel before turning left on the single track. IF rider Greg made a couple meat tenderizing attacks, then Rich Straub took a turn, who's wheel I followed, and when he fell off the pace I said to hell with it and took a flyer. Unfortunately I let Jeff come around me at the singletrack and though he has improved his trail riding a bunch in the past few years, I wasn't able to really rock the granite as much as I would have liked.

Eventually I got around Jeff and before me was some of the best technical ridge riding I've had the pleasure of putting rubber to. About an hour in Jeff and Eatough were on my wheel on a nice ribbon of downhill single track. I wasn't trying to push the pace, and had just told myself to relax, not take any risks and ride clean when I leaned into a small pine sapling as if it was ski gate and caught my barends at mock speed. After doing a tuck and double roll I popped up with Eatough and Schalk staring at me wild-eyed and not convinced that I could possibly be okay.

After a quick check of myself, putting my water bottles back, rolling the chain back on we were off. I realized I hit my head pretty good, and found out later I had a broken helmet, still there was no nausea, dizzyness or darkness so I figured I was okay.

From that point on I held onto 3rd place comfortable till the 35 mile mark when Chris Beck rolled up on me. He had flatted earlier and had been chasing all day. I was running my power tap and had an idea of the climbing numbers I wanted to maintain for the workout I wanted. Surprisingly Beck didn't roll on without me, and at one point he asked me what the hurry was. I didn't say it, but there was the little matter of the last podium spot, so I relaxed for a minute then dialed back in my numbers.

There are two big climbs after the 35 mile mark and the first one was an angry ant biting a tied down man exposed to a blazing sun for about 30 minutes.
The second wasn't as long but was annoying. I had a pretty good idea that the finish line was at the end of the next piece of single track. All I wanted to do was get in the trail first, and not flat on the downhill. I had to keep Beck behind me with a few short accelerations but it paid off as we finished 3rd and 4th, at the silliest most anticlamatic finish line ever. I totaly dig it.

Going to Colorado, Wanna go?

2009-06-12T10:24:00.002-05:00

So I'm driving to Colorado for the Marathon National Championships on July 4th and then the Breck Epic from the 5th-10th. If anyone wants to drive out with me to share the drive/costs let me know. We need to leave in time to get there on the 2nd.

You could fly back or hang out and do the races too. Right now flights from Denver are super cheap on Southwest.

Let me know!!

Not Quite Right: Still good times

2009-06-12T09:26:00.004-05:00

Yesterday's ride was a Google maps compilation. So 6 miles in we turn to go up Dennison rd and get a gate and washed out gravel. Oh, and the weather was what BikesnobNYC calls epic. I flatted immediately past the gate. After some turning around and exploring for the rest of the ride, we logged 60 miles, with one highlight being rt. 534 through Hickory Run State Park.

Next time I'll the Skinny Chicken to get the 411

Tomorrow's Jim Thorpe Road Ride!

2009-06-10T18:10:00.000-05:00

View Larger Map

chicken songs

2009-06-10T17:54:00.000-05:00

thunderheist - jerk it from thatgo on Vimeo.

If one aint working get another

2009-06-02T21:37:00.003-05:00

This whole year cycling/ racing has presented one interesting obstacle after another. Each being solvable, thank you, and therefor each being a moment of pride in a job well dealt with. From India to DSG, to this weekend at the Mohican 100 I've come across a problem that when resolved it makes me feel quite accomplished even without a trophy to display.

I suppose that is why racing bikes can be considered an instant gratification device, not unlike crack. I mean anything that makes you feel good can be addictive, even if the process of getting it can be as painful as riding a 100 miles or robbing a convenience store and getting your leg run over as you trip while sprinting away across a busy highway.

There are very few places in life where a mistake can seem so colossal, while actually being so trivial and repairable. Sure if you take a wrong turn during a race after having almost bridged a gap created by an earlier crash, it's going to seem as if all was for naught and the purpose of continuing is questionable. At that point one has to find a good reason to continue.

At the Mohican I went through a list of reasons why to bail, which turned out to be an existential debate on why am I here. I'm here because it's part of a series, and since I'm no longer in a position to get worthwhile points I should ditch. If I do this race then I might be expending unnecessary energy, I should ditch. I could quit and race tomorrow at Iron Hill and make some money to feed my dog. Do 100 milers appeal enough to me anymore? I mean really, the sense of accomplishment is old hat. I've done close to 20 of these things, most of the courses 3 times at least and this was going to be my 4th time around this track.

That's when I realized that the sense of accomlishment comes in a variety of colors. I do sort of like coming from behind. I did feel responsible for leading 5 other riders astray when I missed the turn and they had come from a long ways away. Maybe I should vindicate myself by trying to stick with it and do some work to make their time feel a little more worthwhile.

Eventually that seemed like the thing to do. I put my head down, tried to make up for lost time and kept the pace decent. When I was on the front I tried to do my pentenance. Surely one or two of the lead group would fall off and someone in my group would have a chance to take maybe a top 5. Eventually it came down to Bart Gillepsie from Utah, Rob Litenwalner and myself. Bart was one of those guys I had come to respect just out of seeing his name and understanding him to be a good racer, and I was super excited to get to race him. UNfortunately it was under the auspices of me getting us lost and we didn't really get to have the cage match I wanted. Rob is an old friend by now and he was having a great day, getting dropped then ramping it up to catch back on.

On the last few climbs, Bart pulled away, and all I could do was motor along with Rob as my riding partner. At aid station 5 Rob got hot bottles that had been in the sun all day, and when he had to stop at station 6 I was able to continue on.

The last mile of the race course passes by my car and since I had long given up on caring about the possiblilty of counting the race to my overall series standing I took the pleasure in letting my dog, Gertie, out of the cage and she did her first unleashed trail run with me to the finish. Rob caught us just before the end and offered to wait but I told him to go on and in the end I finished 9th just behind Rob and Gertie.

Well that was over, I felt accomplished despite the race issues of an early stick in the rear wheel and going the wrong way. And I felt really good. It's too bad I didn't have an opportunity to ride with the boys on the front.

After eating I went back to camp, cleaned up and saw Elk come through then my traveling partner Nik Schaffer. After little socializing and eating Nik and I jumped in the car and followed Matt Ferrari home to State college where we slept, then woke up early enough to eat an early breakfast before heading to the Mid-Atlantic race at Iron Hill where I wold get a chance to crush myself and maybe earn back some traveling cash.

As usuall the race was humid, but the course was super packed and after a quick start with the legs punching me, I managed to go to the front and stay there. Holy crap I couldn't believe I felt that good. And I got paid enough to cover my weekend expenses! Ahh the life of a desperate Pro, chasing the bills.

Up next is the Hoo-Ha and then the Cowbell challenge in NC. I'm looking for traveling partners to NC if anyone is interested. Then I go to Colorado on the 28th. And If anyone wants to drive out with me to split the trip let me know. You'll probably have to fly back from Denver since I'm not coming back till after the 18th of July.

I'll be doing to Marathon Nat. Championships in Breckenridge then the Breck Epic then the Breck 100.

See ya.

So Glad to Have You

2009-05-20T11:02:00.003-05:00

I've been longing for this. An East Coast Mountain Bike stage race. I'm not saying that I have anything against the West Coast, Coasta Rica, BC or India, but I'm a little sick of the travel necessary to go and race a great format.

Imagine if every time you wanted to eat Thai food, you had to go to Thailand. Every time I wanted to race a format that I particularly love I had to go to someone else's home. Not really satisfying and I always end up comparing it to riding back home.

So now there is the Pisgah Mountain Bike Stage race. Four days of riding in the Pisgah state forest of NC. Every day we leave from the same town, do a different loop and get an incredible amount of singletrack. Plus it's going to have all the climbing you want without having to be at 12,000ft. My lungs are so happy.

Todd Brenham has proven to be a great promoter with his other races, the Off Road Assault on Mount Mitchell and the Swank 65, so I believe he'll have this pretty dialed right off the bat.

Two Races: Mind over Mud

2009-05-11T18:37:00.006-05:00

I'm only going to post pics from the Dirt Sweat and Gears race I did this past weekend in Tennessee (none of them I took. Except the car). Problem is I've been unmotivated to get my camera battery charged, and I think I'm a little burned from the photo explosion that was India. (Yes I'm sorry that hasn't been updated!)

That story is so overwhelming, I'm not sure where to start, so I'll get current and travel back in time later.

Here are a couple of links with good coverage.
www.cyclingdirt.com
www.cyclingnews.com

See picture above, feel the utter hopelessness that man is experiencing. In the middle of the race, in the woods, in the middle of the course, if you were silently trudging along listening to the sound of your feet making the sucking noise as they were pulled from the jaws of the mud at each step, the silence was bound to be broken by the primal scream of some spirit that was being broken by the trail.

My own spirit was in danger of being stolen away. I had to yell some explicatives at the ground because it's well known that is how you deal with mother nature. Scream in her face like she's a crowd sometimes.

I'm not sure what it is that makes me hate quitting. I guess ultimately I realize that very few things kill you, and our bodies have an amazing ability to forget pain due to a natural process that helps us repeat mistakes like returning to the abusive relationship I have with racing. That took a year off my life. Mother nature is coming for me. I knew she was waiting, but I walked right into her backhand.

Last week I thought I had gotten the advantage by surviving Michaux Maximus, (a known abusive partner), when I came out in first place after riding all day in the rain, playing it cautious and tip-toeing around the rocks in my way. That was good. I was on a high, thinking I had achieved a new mental level of calm in the face of prize fighter.

Apparently the forces of nature were only delivering their warning through meger messengers, and when it it came time to answer to the sky directly I was humbled. I was reminded that I'm not that in control of my chi as I'd like. I think alot of Chi was demolished in the woods of southern Tennessee last Saturday.

I guess it's fitting that when you gather some of the biggest names in American endurance racing in one spot you are bound to have other forces ready to tussle. A big pot of money brought the names as well the fact that the race is part of the National Endurance Calendar. Name dropping would include Jeremiah Bishop, Evan Plews, Josh Tostado, Brandon Draugalis, Ernesto Maranchin and me.

I had cordinated with Bishop to car pool down, but he decided his wife and kid were more important, so I lucked out and had my tenant/roommate/ housemate/ Sponsor, Levi Olson come down with me. His parents lived an hour away from the race and he knew how to drive/ change tires and build bikes. Ultimately the most important function Levi performed was cleaning bikes.

Thank you Levi! Each bike took about 20 minutes to get the mud off and he was cleaning 3 bikes a lap between me and Bishop. I'm not sure who was more beat at the end than I was.

So Levi and I loaded up my new/used car and headed south with two bikes on the roof and one frame with a bunch of parts in the car. I'm sad to see my little Subie go but my nephew will get a few more good miles out of her, and I now have 'the grey squirrel' to take care of.So we made it down in luxurious style, with working cruise control and AC! 14hrs of traveling, one bike ride, one rack replacement and multiple conversations about bike related things Levi and I got to his parents house at about 2:30am on thursday night. The next morning we drove for the longest consecutive period with out being rained on since we left to the race venue, where we found a field full of weirdos riding two-wheeled machines obscured by a layer of mud and hay. Turns out they were bikes and when I realized that my pre-ride would result in that I decided that a road ride would be the best choice for a warm up. Jeremiah and I went out for a cruise but on the way back in curiosity got the best of us and we decided to explore a little of the course. I got a mile in and said no thanks, turned around and tried to get out of there before Jeremiah returned to ask Levi to clean his bike.

Plus we had a bike to build if I was going to have a second ride for the day. Turns out I couldn't have done it without another machine. I had just gotten my 08 bike back from the factory with reconditioned with a new team paint job and I was eager to get'r up and running, knowing that certain death was instore for any bikes being ridden the next day.

Of course I was missing an essential (in my mind) spacer so I had to make the bike go..Coaster in place, the outlook was good since it hadn't rained yet and the race was bout to start. At the start line with a minute to go, the skys delt us the joker card. Rain was coming down as the RC plane circled above us, inviting lightening.

Lap one I took it relatively easy. I had the wrong tire on the back, and figured I had plenty of time to make up time on the three people ahead of me. I'd get Levi to switch tires as I went out for the next lap and things would be good. About an hour later lap one was done, my bike was exchanged and the rain was starting to slack off. JB had 3 or 4 minutes on me. That didn't seem like a big deal since we had 11 more hours to go.

This is where I make note to self. When a muddy race is emminant go to front. About 15minutes into lap two the rain had stopped and the mud began it's grabby, sucky, sticky, clogging ways. I soon had no drive train that I could see. My tires were the size of mack truck rubber and my bike weighed 50 lbs. This is where the trail ended, the novelty began for 2 minutes and the misery began for 6.5 hours. Riding downhill was hard and required pedaling. Riding on flats felt like a sprint on a stationary bike with the resistance turned to 11.

Bikes began exploding all over the course, as if someone had a super weapon that tuned into the frequency of bike, and shattered them with sound waves. Some how my bike escaped, probably because it was no longer a bike and had turned into the swamp thing.

Not my bike above, but a good representation. By the end of lap two I had screamed for forgiveness a few times while somehow moving past Tostado and Brandon, which put me in the unfortunate position of being in 2nd place and in the money, enough to think that quitting was real stupid. I concluded that if I trudged forward as if a sherpa carrying the goods for the money I would be alright. A couple curses along the way would release the steam building up in my 30 lb shoes.

It didn't even bother me that I was grabbing trees with poison ivy all over to help me hoist myself two extra feet up the trail. One of the rare times I could ride. Notice this bike had my 700x45c tires on it. The no longer in production Mutano Raptors cut a half hour from my 3hr lap times. That meant I could ride 2.5 of the 10 miles verses 2 of 10 with the other bigger tires. But no matter what tires you rode, it sucked. As in the mud didn't let go.
I couldn't believe what we were doing to the trails or ourselves by continuing on with the charade of a race. Fortunately they were private trails and the owner was the promoter, and he said keep going, until he realized that with 4 hour laps no one should go out past 6, inorder to avoid people getting lost in a mud bog at night. I came in around 5 and Jeremiah was there waiting for me, and was ready to call a truce in order to avoid going out for another lap. No protest from me and we waited to see if third place was willing to do the same if they came in before 6.

I lost a couple of years in the race, but Levi was key to Jeremiah and my success. I stayed in second, while the legendary Andy Applegate got 3rd with 4 laps also. Last year the winner got 11 laps in. Draugalis only did 2 laps and got 4th overall after getting 2nd last year with 11 go arounds.
Indy Fab rider Kylie rode on a coed-duo team for her birthday!
Seriously that was the worst thing ever. But like I said before, my brain has a way of making me forget the miserable activities so I might go back.

Michaux Reminder!

2009-04-29T06:09:00.002-05:00

Since there seem to be a lot of racing choices this weekend, I thought it might be fitting to let you know that Michaux Maximus is going to be something worth considering.

For 2009 the course has been almost completely changed. A lot of the course was designed out by Tomi, from Tomi cogs, and in my opinion is going to blow the doors off pretty much every other race out there. 45 miles of mostly new, or new to non locals, will great you.
There are some classic trails in there I haven't done in years, after burns and logging erased access to them. Consider it if you are a trails rider.

It's the race you'll find riders like Eatough, Bishop, Dragaulis and myself at. Why do laps on something that doesn't change or challenge you with the new?

Relax we're late..

2009-04-15T22:38:00.002-05:00

Taxes done, now back to the story.

Fires, smoke, small showers, tea.

As I was saying, perspectives are important, and happiness is easiest to maintain when expectations are constantly being updated.

After traveling for two days I figured my first priority was to put the bike together and get a ride in. It seemed like the best option in the face of the wall of bs what was coming our way. I spent the morning putting my bike together in front of a crowd of people. Again another theme to get used to was being a spectacle where ever we went with the bikes. India is probably one of the few places where my drunk and prematurely dropped wheelies are appreciated.

After my ride to the North Sikkim boarder I returned to find Doug sitting in the tourism office. That was some good timing. We cheered each others familiar faces, exchanged funny horror stories about rides, food and prison cell hotel rooms.

In the tourism dept I come face to face for the first time with the man who I have been working with for the past 6 months to promote the race in the states. He is the event manager and responsible for the racers comfort for the next 11 days. When Tim says he looks like the man from Indiana Jones who ripped peoples hearts out, I should have seen that as forshadowing.

Still at this point we are all glad-handing each other, smiling and getting introduced around.
I go to Doug's dingy hotel hanoi and tell him he needs to come to our place the next day.

No Bananas: Weirder is India

2009-04-08T20:02:00.004-05:00

Before I left for India I new it was going to be an experience of a life time. When pitching a story to a magazine they want an angle to know where the story might be going. Unfortunately the way I travel tends to be more about getting there than the actual destination. Or it's the strangeness of the destination that makes the traveling more unpredictable. Going to the other side of the world could be judged to be the extreme of the travel page. In the end I ended up physically where I predicted, but was taken on a whole other journey that tested my mental, physical and social constructs.

I'm embarrassed to say that the Khachendzonga MTB Expedition turned out to be amazing despite it being a total joke of an organized race. True there was good racing going on, but as far as being compared to what other stage race participants might expect, it was like buying a box of Lucky Charms and getting rice inside.

India is technically an english speaking country, but don't let that fool you into thinking that communication is easy. I'm wondering how much of that was an issue with the person I had been in contact with through out the planning of the trip and the race. In exchange for my help in promoting the race in the US, the promoter had promised to pay my entry and my airfare to the race. Seemed like a sweet deal. To sweet.

Remember nothing is free. Upon arrival in India the promised transportation wasn't there. One of the most daunting things is being in a foriegn airport with a language gap, tons of luggage and no idea what to do next. I called Saroj, he talked to the tourism guy there, gave him an address and we prepaid at the taxi booth for the destination. As our taxi wadded its way through the Delhi traffic, past three wheeled vehicles, pedi-cabs and burning trash our driver got a call from the organizer, who proceeded to tell me that there was a problem with the pre-arranged accomodations. Instead we were taken to an expensive hotel and left till the morning trip back to the domestic airport for our next flight.

On top of this introduction to the subcontinant, we were on an 11 hour jet lag. The hotel had what was to be the last bath tub we would see for the next three weeks. A surreal walk through the back streets to a market area was our next task in a search for food. A few moments of calm was welcome. Then I check emails and got a message from Doug who was a day ahead of us saying that the promised shuttle from the next airport to the race start wasn't there and they didn't even know about the race. This was starting to look ominous. My heart was sinking and I was wondering what I had gotten my friends into.

At least we were prepared for the next day's trip and welcome in Bagdogra. Courtney and I grabbed a taxi to the next town over to get our Permits into Sikkim, but found the office closed when we got there. The next step was to grab one of the waiting trucks to ride to the Sikkim boarder and get the permit there and maybe sleep.

When a foriegner in another country it always feels like someone is trying to get more out of you and the need to be on guard is mentally fatiquing, but we payed our $8, climbed into the back of the truck and realized that we didn't get the 3 person bench to ourselves but had to share it with 2 others, making the honda RAV sized suv an 11 passenger car.

Luck had us in a truck full of helpful people, and when ever there was a snafu they sort of just made our next trip decision for us. It was interesting how when a problem has to be tackled, people will gather and discussion will begin. All of this in another language, so we were left on the outside looking into our destiny. At the Sikkim boarder we had to get out, walk across a floodlight lit bridge through a wet road as if it was the DMV. It turns out that the state we were leaving, West Bengal, was suffering from some bird flu outbreak, which kept our chicken and egg consumption on the rare side for the next three weeks.

Courtney and I had originally decided to break the trip up and not travel all the way to Gantok, but we also realized that when traveling going with the flow is essential, so when the pasengers decided we should go all the way, who were we to argue. Since it was night time for most of the trip we were denied the pleasure of seeing what we were getting ourselves into. The one thing that was recognizable was the snaking lines of wildfires rippling up mountainsides. Ominous foreshadowing? Fortunatly one of the passengers was affiliated with a hotel, so at about 11:30pm we found ourselves in front of the Manul Inn. Unknown at the time was that this was to become our base for the rest of the trip, due to our incredible host.

Awake in the morning we are greated with a pleasent little room, sun streaming in and a hazy sky that prevented any views. Bummer since we had expected to have the third highest mountain looming in our peripheals the whole visit.

I guess it was time to change the perspective.......

Incredible India

2009-04-01T22:42:00.003-05:00

I don't have time to really get in to it now. I'm still in India, recovering from the race.

Here is the short of it.

I won

Corrupt organizers

Beauracratic weasels

Media explosions

http://www.sikkimexpress.com/archives19.htm#31

Today we start

2009-03-19T20:19:00.002-05:00

We couldn't wait to leave Delhi, but not sure that we ever want to leave Sikkim. Just about the friendliest police state ever.

We are taking off today for the start. I can't some it up here but maybe a haiuku will help.

Chance in eleven

person box, no choice is ours.

Eggs not allowed.

A place of Contradictions; Cliche, cliche

2009-03-14T00:06:00.003-05:00

As I'm reading up on my immanent trip to India, over and over the reference books warn you/ me to be prepared for a land of contradictions. Bustling cities/ Empty country sides, Wealthy middle classes/ extreme poverty. Hot/cold, Spicy/ mild.

Cows in the streets, religious groups that let vultures carry the dead away. Tibetan refugees in lands where plastic bags are confiscated at the boarder as if it's a smutty magazine in church.

Interact with nothing but your butt with your left hand and green and yellow are lucky colors, instead of a sign of vomiting.

Men hold hands with each other and women are both leaders of the country and at one time encouraged to throw themselves on their dead husband's funeral pyre.

The list goes on. That's not my list. It's my research. I'm leaving final conclusions on hold.

From what I just heard, no India Currency is allowed to leave the country.

I'm excited to get to know another culture.

The race is from March 20th-29th. Keep your eye out.
www.sikkimmtb.com

Attacked by Animals: Returned to Earth

2009-03-02T23:10:00.006-05:00

I like to travel. Usually its a chance to step outside myself, be a fly and watch the world do it's own buzzing. Now that I've given myself sufficient distance from the month of February I think history is ready to reveal the success that the month was for me. Like the former president I like to think that time will be the true judge of a life traveled in haste.
Being that it was bitterly cold in the northeast with sub double digits temperatures and I had a growing intolerance for my beard, layers and frozen dish sponges, it was time to go south. I decided to make the trip serve multiple duties. One: do the second Snake Creek Gap race on Feb 7th. Two: Have a mini training camp in Asheville with IFers. Three: Visit all the family members that I have been pissing off by not stopping by and saying hi during hurried trips through their areas. Four: Race the 12 hours of Santos in Florida. Five: Get some tan lines that you could use as a straight edge. Six: Gather up my Lady friend and have a romantic drive up the East coast back to the big chill.

It's a BUI warning sign in NC.

Asheville NC was my first stop on Friday night to meet up with Sam Koerber to join forces in driving to the Snake creek gap race. After much committing and recommitting to going tonight, then in the morning, then no tonight, actually in the morning. We slept for a good 4 or five hours before waking up in time to make the drive and catch a shuttle to the race start. It was still cold but I went with shorts and short sleeves to psyche out all the comp. I had high hopes for a sub 2:50 time, since master trash talker, Bruce Dickman, had challenge me with a stay at the Mulberry Gap lodge as incentive.
Well Sam and Thomas decided to leave me to my musings in the first 30 min and I found myself wishing I was skipping stones on cripple creek. With three people in front of me I was thinking I was the biggest turd for thinking I could break 2:50, much less get top three. Then I was tweeking the bean thinking about the fact that it's only Feb. "Why am I going this hard?!!"

I barely caught Tim Carson before the final 6 miles and was a little happy to at least be sitting in 3rd place, but that guy is persistant like a street lamp shining at your eyeballs through the window while couch surfing at someones house.

Well with that race out of the way and me 2 min shy of my one goal in life, I decided to head back to Asheville with Sam and start getting to know some of the new IF team members. I went directly to Kylie Krauss's house and rendezvoused with Kylie and Kyle and got ready to come eyeball to eyeball with my first one-eyed cat.

He's not really a pegleg.
Chedder's care taker, Kylie

Asheville was a visit, where I finally got a chance to feel like the traveling fly I want to be.
Staying on Kylie's couch with Kyle, we got to be in attendence of a deep frying marathon birthday party, a couple steller mountain rides, some dumpster diving, scotch drinking,
race strategerizing and my newest favorite hobby; cast iron cooking.

Kylie's house mates had the cast iron cooking down to a "T" (as in the golden love that is southern sweet tea.) I knew my cosmic energies were lining up when, a few days later, my visit to one particularly neglected Aunt resulted in a found dutch oven on her property as we were doing a walk around. She lovingly took it back inside, scrubbed out the rust and reseasoned it for me. A symbol of our familial tie reseasoning.
I got ahead of myself here. Directly after Asheville I drove to my Granmothers outside of Fort Walton Beach Florida. After a long drive, my Gandmother was still up with a glass of Scotch in one hand and food wating for me in the kitchen.

A full nights sleep and a full gut, fueled me up for my ride to an Aunts house in Alabama about 90 miles away. A headwind of about 10mph fought me on the ride there, as well as the horror that riding highway 98 for 40 miles through Pensacola can be. Heavy traffic, navy fighter planes screaming by over head and the accelerated heartbeat thump of low flying military helicopters, make for a sensory overload. Strange that my city life hasn't desensitized me to these external anxiety machines. Fortunately the last 40ish miles were in Alabama.
I never thought I'd think to myself "thank god I'm in Alabama". The roads there were clear, calm, rolling and bereft of white noise. Each car that came by actually possessed a moment in time, standing out as a significant event.

It's travels and such.

Rain can't take away the Barrons

2009-01-08T18:33:00.005-05:00

When there ain't nowhere else to go, visit the Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens of NJ.
This was a rest, but the Official orange trail crosses the sandy roads, and gives 20miles of only singletrack.

Then there was Tustle at the Trestle. Forgot about that. This is what it looks like when cleaning up after.

What fun

2008-12-31T07:43:00.001-05:00

Merry Holidays: Junkyard Cross

2008-12-24T12:24:00.003-05:00

photo of me courtesy of lockwood @ www.bittergravity.com

Tis the season for unofficial racing. Hola FatMarc!

Glove Love. Pink Punks no More

2008-12-19T20:17:00.004-05:00

My current glove collection has no redundancy in glove applications. Currently at 21 pairs complete.

This past weekend included FifthStreetCross, where I defended Belgian Night, a trip to Michaux with my tire and saddle sponsor man Dain from WTB and his tag along Mark Weir, as well as Mr. Cushionbury from Bicycling. We were on our way to Dirt Rag's Punk Bike Enduro. West coasters got a taste of Pennsylvania's punishing winter weather, trails and jumbo buffalo wings.
Some how I was the only one who didn't wake up in the middle of the night vomiting.

Michaux

Maurice's pinball machine. One of many.

La Ruta post. This will have to do.

2008-12-17T15:33:00.003-05:00

This post is the one I put up on the IFracing.org website. I wanted to get more detailed on my personal blog, but doesn't seem like that is going to happen. So to get it out of the way...Here is the day by day of La Ruta racing.

Seems that the IF mountain bike team is not satisfied with one below the boarder stage race. The weekend after Wurster went to the Baja Epic I journeyed to Costa Rica for my second chance at the La Ruta stage race across the country from the Pacific to the Caribbean in four days, 300+km and over 30,000ft of climbing. I went in 2006 when it was only a 3 day race, got lost on day two and ended up 20th overall.

This year I was better prepared, less tired and rolling with bigger wheels, which I thought would be the secret weapon for the last day. I had the Ti Deluxe 29er with some out of production 700x44c Mutano Raptor tires from WTB to tackle the first two days, which promised lots of mud and relatively benign downhills. I was worried about their lack of air volume, but running the tubeless setup gave me some confidence. For the last two days I would switch to a 2.1 Nano up front and a 2.1 Vulpine in the rear.

Day 1

Day 1 started at 5:30 in the morning from the beach town of Jaco. We had a chaotic and sketchy controlled start for the first 10k before the climb hit dirt and we started going straight up. Trying to ride towards the front with 400 people clawing at your back but 5 quads controlling the pace with blasts of 2 stroke exhaust was less than relaxing.

On the first climb, of a 4 day race you have no idea how you are going to compare to the people around you. I started at a decent pace, said good by to the Olympians and World cup racers, and settled in in the 15th place range. At the top of one of many false summits a Tico took a left and insisted it was the right direction, even though there were no tracks. So a group of us hesitantly followed through the thickest mud of the day. A short slick muddy hill greeted us. Some got off to push and others barely to ride it. At the top I asked again if they were sure it was the right way. Insisting it was they kept moving but I went with my gut and turned around, dropped down the hill and went back to the road where a quad came up and told me where I came from was the correct direction. So Back up the hill I went and when I got to the top of it a quad was coming from the other direction telling me to turn around, cause that was the wrong direction. At the corner there is an arrow pointing both directions. This time I was finally going in the right direction and wasn't sure what had happened to the people who insisted the other direction was correct.

So at that point I spent the rest of the day catching people I never should have been behind, which I find really frustrating. On the way down the hill I saw my soon to be North American Rival, but nice guy, Corey Wallace fixing a flat. For the next few km was the worst mud of the entire race. Steep sections where toe spikes were very helpful, and an ice axe would have been welcome. Fortunately the tires did their job of slicing and dicing the mud, and when I finally hit the 25k pavement climb they rolled faster than Rasta Rob. I rolled with Thomas Turner for awhile and this other Costa Rican who had a support Moto with wheels following us the whole time. Thomas and I didn't benefit from that moto, but the kid was definitely getting handups, which was totally cheating according to the rules.

On the next section I steadily caught people till I hit the last sections of climbing where I ran into Brian Cooke from Canada with about 6k to go. On the last hill I dropped him and spent an agonizing amount of time up the road thinking the finish would never come. When I crossed the line I had an 11th place which was better than I ever expected.

The food they had at the end was great, and as I was sitting in the grass to give myself a self massage to loosen up, the Massage guy for the biggest team in Costa told me to wait and he would take care of me for much better and for much less than the official race massage people. I hadn't bought the package cause the funds had been tight and I figured I'd have more money at the race and would pay for the package then, but then they said it's be $40 a day for what I knew would be a joke of a massage. Rafel was my savior and in the end I paid him for $60 for three days of some of the best post race massages I ever had. I think those were a big reason for my ability to feel fresh each day.

Day 2

A 7:00am start was much easier to handle, and when we left the start gate for the controlled start I was feeling pretty good. The starts were the perfect warmup, but at the 5k mark the game was on. We pretty much started climbing some of the steepest gravel road pitches I'd ever seen. I had put a bit of pressure in my tires and was regretting that when the concrete climb got so steep I had no other gears and the avg speed was 5kmh. It was insane, but having spectators there yelling "Esso, Esso" was encouraging. Later on I heard some people from further back in the pack wondering if anyone climbed it and they were doing some serious speculating.

Fellow USA rider Thomas Turner and I were able to separate ourselves from most of the rest, and we cruised on the climbs with a kid named Milton from Honduras, but living in Spain. On the 1st downhill section Turner flatted and Milton and I cruised on. At one point on one of the rollers Milton came around a blind corner and ran into the back of a motorcycle. He got up and started rolling but had dropped his water bottle. I yelled to him and threw it to him. I thought I had done a good thing, but it didn't matter, cause his Motorcycle support wasn't too far away and got a fresh bottle anyways.

After a couple more climbs I managed to drop Milton and picked up a Super-PRo rider who was the Costa Rican U23 national Champ. Even though I had caught him, he managed to pick up the pace then drop me an hour later on the last big climb of the day. At that point we were in 9th and 10th place, and I could see Correy Wallace the Canadian at the top of the climb. Coming over the top I did some serious descending. Some of that included blowing by road crews and riding hot asphalt right behind the truck that was laying it down. Since I had been dropped, I was alone and at about the 70km mark I was on a flat road, putting in some TT efforts when I missed a left turn. Fortunately when I got to a couple of small towns down I ran into one of the support crews who told me I was going the wrong way. I turned around and about 5km later saw the turn and learned that there was a big Coke truck parked in front of the arrows. In the end I went about 11km out of the way, and I was pissed. The markings are so inconsistent.

Still I took off on the last 8km of rollers to the finish and tried to not give up any more spots. A group of three guys were behind me at the bottom of the climbs, as I crested each one I could see them. Eventually one kid charged and I spent the last 5km trying to stay in front. He eventually caught me after some loose down hilling, and as we passed another rider we began to attack each other. In the last 2km we each attack the other 3 times until I decided to save some for the next day. After getting lost for about 20min I ended up in 19th for the day and feeling a little robbed after the hard efforts of the day.

Unfortunately you just have to assume that being a non local you are going to give up some time to directional issues.

Thomas Turner's friends were driving around to help him and some friends, and I got to benefit from that help though their cheers and bottle hand offs on the next couple of days. We did everything by the books tho and all support was given within 500ms of the aid station.

At the end of the day I was 15th overall and 3rd North American behind Correy and Thomas.

Day 3
My watch wore a hole in my wrist from this downhill.

Day Three is my overall favorite. It's a 70km day, with half up and half down, up and over the Volcano Irazu with the highest elevation being about 8,500ft. The initial climbs are steep on gravel roads and one section you have to get off and walk because it is so rutted out. After that section it turns to an endless pavement climb. All toll it take about 3hrs to get to the top before you drop off the other side and start descending some of the worst dirt roads you've ever seen. Usually the weather is Maine style socked in. Micro Climates of rain, and fog and cold make the climb and initial descent treacherous. But somehow I bring good weather to this race casue we had sun to the top. I never put my vest on, and only pulled my arm warmers up briefly.

On the pavement we had a good group of about 6, and according to position we were in the 12th to 18th positions going over the top. Fred Drier from Cycling news showed some excellent form on the day and pulled away from our group early in the climb, but as we got nearer to the top his altitude legs came back to the group. A nice kid from Mexico was mixing it up with us, riding real strong, as well as Turner and Cooke. About 700m from the top I attacked and pulled away from the group to have a clear line on the downhill.

Vladamir was at the top, passed me a quick bottle and off I went. At one point both feet came out of the pedals and I had to ride the bike bucking-bronco style straight at some bystanders at the apex of a corner. I pulled that out and went on my way looking out for the turn I had missed the previous race.

The road was much more washed out than last time, and it was hard to get a good flow, but the added difficulty was to my benefit as I cruised down the mountain I picked off four people. I saw Roberto Heras looking at his chain at one point, and when I came to the last couple of paved rises I saw Correy wallace, and surprised him. We rode together for a second, then he attacked right before the last downhill section through the coffee plantations. That gap stuck and I came in about 30 seconds behind him. And in 8th place!
I was pretty excited to break the top ten, and now going into the last day I was 13th overall, one spot ahead of Thomas and 12 minutes behind 10th overall.

It was going to take a miracle, but I felt I had a chance to squeeze into 10th.

Day 4

This was the longest stage of the whole race in miles, but not time. We would be starting out immediately with a 4km climb up what we descended the day before, then hit a series of rollers till about the 40km mark where we would hit the last selective 5km climb of the day and the race before spending 80km on a false flat riding into the hottest part of the race towards the Caribbean. Also a big factor was going to be the Train tracks we had to ride down the middle of. That was where I planned to put my 29in wheels to use. My goal was to get over the top with a lead group and hopefully my close competitors wouldn't do the same.

As the gun went off we took off up some of the loosest gravel of the race. I was feeling really good, and when I got to the top I was with the group of Heras, Dietsch, Manny Prado, and Enrigue. All those guys were 3rd through 7th overall and my closest competitors were somewhere behind! Not long after Correy joined us, and my heart fell a little. He was the one I needed to beat by 12 minutes to take the 10th spot. As we got to the first rough downhill section Correy took off on his dual squish bike and I thought he was being a little to eager. Even if he got away by a minute, a group like this would catch him soon on the flats. Not surprisingly I saw him fixing a flat pretty soon, and tho I felt bad for him, I also thought he was taking unnecessary risks. I was surprised to see the Heras could actually ride his bike in the rough really well, then he to flatted with Stan's spewing everywhere. He had a moto with a wheel change right there tho and I knew we'd see him soon enough.

Not long after we hit the rolling sections at about 25km, Thomas Turner and Radoslav Sibl the Czech rider caught us with Heras and then soon after it was Correy back on the group. With three guys off the front, I figured a group this size would be able to catch them, but no one seemed willing to work. We kept a steady tempo, but I was actually surprised when those other riders caught us. So rolling 9 deep we pushed on. Just before the big climb I crashed in a corner taking a stupid local line and banged my knee pretty good, but was able to get back on and forget about it. 6 days later now and I can't forget it because it's swollen and I think I chipped a bone. When we hit the last big climb, everyone managed to come back together after the top.

The next battle would be for position on the train tracks. In the heat and endless flats it was becoming more difficult to follow the direction arrows, but the locals in the group kept things straight. Correy flatted again after going to the front and running into a section of tracks that were deep. I threw him my extra tube but only had one CO2, so he was going to have to fend for himself. I felt bad, but also knew my overall finish was depending on how fast he got that fixed. If I had an extra air cartridge I would have thrown that down to.

On an early train track section and over the biggest bridge I got a taste for what my bigger tires were going to be able to do. Without much effort I rolled away from the entire group and put about a minute on them. When we came to the next section of road, I kept a good pace up but didn't try to stay away from them since we still had about 50km to go. The heat was getting oppressive, like living in an all glass home in Chicago with no AC in the summer.

As the group meandered it's way through one small village to the next, constantly crossing the tracks I tried to stay as aware of where the next and final train track sections were going to be. I wanted to be first on them. That meant not sitting in a whole lot and staying towards the front. When I finally saw the tracks in a distance I made a couple quick moves, got to the front then pulled some (in my mind) super smooth cyclo-cross dismounting and remounting moves to be first. On my wheel was the Czech Radoslav and I found a pace that was just above comfortable and set the cruise control. I knew we had about 20 minutes of the tracks then we would get off of them and ride a beach road for the last 10 km. Some how Radoslav stuck to my wheel despite having a 26in wheeled hardtail.

I give him credit for being able to suffer, because when we got off the tracks we had such a gap on the rest of the pack I could barely see them through the heat waves. The last 10km was pretty agonizing. We worked together really well, but I could tell I was the weaker rider. Every time I came to the front we dropped about 3kmh, but I was able to hang on his wheel to the end. Where he got 4th and I was 5th. That was sort of beyond my expectations.

I could barely walk to sit down and start counting down the time to Correy. Apparently our attack had brought back the lead group to under 5 minutes, and put 5 minutes on the group of Heras and Dietchs. By the time Correy came in I knew I was almost guaranteed a top 10 spot.
It was sort of stunning to me. I thought top 15 was realistic, but really wasn't sure if top 10 was. To top it off, being the first North American across the line was definitely the coconut on the flan!

My friend and understudy Janel had herself an incredible race. It was her longest days on a bike and first stage race ever. She consistently was battling for the 6th and 7th places. Inthe end she ended up 7th, which was a great result given her newness and the competition.
Tim on the other hand was back for his 3rd attempt but was thwarted when he had to pull out at the 1st aid station of the 1st day with hip problems. Theory is the horseback ride the day before threw him out of whack.

Thanks to the IF crew, Carl, my Family and the friends.

India Stage Race: Info

2008-12-06T16:33:00.004-05:00

The Khanchendzonga stage race is shaping up. A new web site is about to be launched. www.sikkimmtb.com
Of course my www.indiastagerace.blogspot.com blog will be trying to sort out the details. If you are interested in going, please let me know so I can add you to the list of interested parties.
So far we have as almost positives...

Me
Janel
Tim
Topher
Rick
Josh

Then a bunch of others on the interested side of the fence..

Oh and don't miss the www.bikerumor.com interview I just did about the race.

And here is a race post from the Sikkim Tourism Department..

La Ruta: Circumstances and Happenings

2008-11-30T18:55:00.005-05:00

At first I thought that outside of the parameters of the La Ruta race logisitics, Costa Rica was a scene operating like this. Take six ropes of different colors. Ball them up, then grab one end of the red rope and pull. When the rope doesn't come out, instead of trying to methodically untangle the rope, get six friends with each grabbing a different colored end and keep yanking at the ball in frustration.
That's the equivalent of a non-native speaker who can't speak the language, saying it louder and in slow motion in their own language, as if that's going to suddenly going to translate.
Operating in Costa Rica is a practice in patience.
It seemed to me there was no coherent method of operating. But I think what I came to realize is that everything is done with intention. Like that ball of rope. I would start by trying to get it untangled quickly while a Tico would probably get a stool, sit down with a glass of watermelon juice and start a slow effective disentanglement.

La Puta here I come: 1st San Fran

2008-11-18T23:08:00.004-05:00

Lets start from somewhere towards the beginning. How about the moment when I'm sitting with my back to the wall and there is a large Flat Screen TV hovering above my head interrogating me as if it's the detective and the bright light at the same time. Its the Chicago Midway airport's way of keeping me entertained while I wait for the next flight to San Francisco. Chicago's daily pick lottery numbers are bubbling up in the number poppers. The first number drawn, and the last one I care about is the "Pick 3". Having just sat down and not yet being occupied with my normal airport activities I watch as each ball pops up, and when the last one is standing, the number "833" is king of the mountain. I look at my fight number. "833".

Really I felt like standing up and shouting. I'm a big fan of making a big deal out of relatively random coincidences. Maybe I'm just trying to add a little bit of meaning to my life. Maybe I'm a drama king. It's adventures in transferrance. From that point on so many good things happened.

Free upgrade to Mustang from the Mazda at the rental agency cause I joked with the lady at the desk. Ran into Mark Slate, one of the founders of WTB, who is my tire and saddle sponsor on the trails in China Park. Rode with fellows from Bike-Rx, and rode across the Golden Gate bridge twice. Saw a man with white Parrot. Managed to snag a window seat on a sold out flight to Costa Rica. While waiting for the bus I ran into an old friend in San Jose who I hadn't seen in five years and now lives in CR. She does massage and surfs in Jaco, so I got a pre-race massage and a little surfing in! Top ten finish in La Ruta. Special Massage treatment from opponent team's massage therapist.

From that point on I felt things were going to have to go well. My friend Lenora who recently moved to San Fran picked me up from the BART stop despite being tired and over-worked. It was my first visit to this city by the bay and I fully expected a parade of LSD victims to greet me with candy canes and bumper stickers on foreheads.
Instead, as I took the escalator out of the underground subway to the surface, my ride up was accompanied by the soundtrack of a traditional Mexican tune sung in the fine gravely voice of an elderly man playing an electric piano. The acoustics were perfectly tuned to his warm words which I couldn't understand but didn't need to, to appreciate. Since he was at the bottom of the escalator and it was a particularly long one, the escalator was the perfect DJ as it faded out the old man and faded in the city's sounds of the busy intersection of Mission and 24th street. Buses, cars, horns, voices in Spanish and English, kids running with TV remote controls.

As Lenora's friend described San Fran. "It's like preschool, but not." Absurdity and the surreal hang in the air in the preschool style where Count-Draculas and talking giant birds head butt a new endless array of social rules made up at the whim of underpaid full time baby sitters.

I digress.

I like San Francisco. Big hills, bridges and water from the Pacific. Culturally it's a diverse place and mentally it's nice to be in a large city with a palatable lack of edginess and paranoia.

My friends wedding was Saturday so Friday I had time to go for a bike ride over the Golden Gate. I felt like a fool when I couldn't figure out that the first bridge was the Bay Bridge, not the GG. After I got back on track I crossed that famous landmark, through the Perdido military base and made the jump across the water. The Golden Gate was cool, but what was really amazing were the size of the cables, each as fat as my wrist.

I had written down the addresses of IF dealers in the Bay Area and I was on my way to Bike-Rx in Mill Valley. When I stopped in I met one of the best IF dealers in the country. They were receptive to my dropping in on them like that and we planned a ride Sunday with a group on the local trails. After that I got some directions to the trails behind their shop and in the shadow of Mt. Tam.

On the trails I saw a man hiking with a white parrot on his should. Another good omen.

Saturday I went to the Car rental agency with my expired drivers license and note from the DMV saying it was okay. Event with the manager sitting next to her the counter gal accepted my documentation, and upgraded me to a fancy 2009 Mustang since they were all out of the cars I had originally booked. A car really can make you feel like a different person, and I quickly molded myself into a muscle head, rolling up my sleeves to show my guns and turned the radio up every time Def Leopard came on. Really I tried to lower myself down in the seat to be as inconspicuous as possible. Still the car was fun to drive with all the perfectly banked and curvaceous roads to Mendocino and my friend's wedding.

Eli's bride choose to have an outside wedding, in the wettest region of California, so while the guests were under umbrella's and the bride along with her maids were wearing stylish galoshes I watched one of my oldest friends wedded.

After a late night drive to San Fran, I got up and went to meet Scott, Chris, Grant and Jeff for a ride Sunday morning. They took me on some cool trail in China Park area. That again is Mt. Tam in the back. Mt. Tamapalis or the birthplace of mountain biking. Supposedly...
After spending the majority of the day riding and wondering if I was doing myself a disservice riding 9 hours in three days when I should be resting for the longest race of the year, I hung out with my friends' friends for a late brunch. When we got back to Lenora's place I checked my monday flight time and realized I had booked a 12:35am plane, which was technically Monday, but meant I had to get ready and go to the airport that night, not the next day... That was just my preparation for Costa Rican logistics...

Tomorrow I get to the race.

Day ONe La Ruta

2008-11-12T18:28:00.001-05:00

11th place. I´m happy. Tired, can´t find Tim or Janel.
http://adventurerace.com/web-ruta/index.htm
===== ============================== ==== ==================== === ======= =======
1 RAMÍREZ MÉNDEZ FEDERICO 1 BCR-PIZZA HUT CRI 5:54:40
2 MONTOYA CANTILLO PAOLO 2 ECONOMY RENT A CAR - CRI 6:04:54 10:14
3 ARTAVIA CEDEÑO ENRIQUE 28 SUPER PRO - ECONOMY CRI 6:18:17 23:37
4 PRADO MANUEL 11 SHO-AIR/ROCK N'ROAD CRI 6:19:58 25:18
5 HERAS HERNANDEZ ROBERTO 5 ESP 6:20:01 25:21
6 THOMAS DIETSCH 3 GEWISS-BIANCHI FRA 6:22:59 28:19
7 SÁNCHEZ CALDERÓN ALEXANDER 12 BCR-PIZZA HUT CRI 6:28:16 33:36
8 SIBL RADOSLAV 30 BIKEZONE.CZ/MRX CZE 6:30:18 35:38
9 CAMPOS SUAZO MARVIN 23 SUPER PRO - ECONOMY CRI 6:37:34 42:54
10 PORRAS MURILLO DENNIS 27 SUPER PRO - ECONOMY CRI 6:38:08 43:28
11 PRICE HARLAN 47 INDEPENDENT FABRICAT USA 6:47:44 53:04
12 COOKE BRIAN 75 BICYCLECAFE CAN 6:48:05 53:25
13 RAMOS GAMEZ MILTON 61 BICIACCION.COM ESP 6:51:02 56:22
14 PEREZ EDDY 64 SEVEN CAPITAL LTD. CRI 6:51:07 56:27
15 TURNER THOMAS 60 VAN MICHAEL SALON / USA 6:53:21 58:41
16 ABELLÁN OSSENBACH CARLOS 54 CRI 6:57:58 1:03:18
17 WALLACE CORY 13 FREEWHEEL CYCLE / SP CAN 7:01:08 1:06:28
18 SIBAJA MONGE LUIS DIEGO 29 CICLO GULLY - POWERA CRI 7:10:44 1:16:04
19 ROGEL GONZALEZ LEONARDO DANIEL 68 ALUBIKE MEX 7:14:18 1:19:38
20 LEIVA ARAYA 87 TURRIALBEÑO INDEPEND CRI 7:14:52 1:20:12

Test Your Awareness : Whodunnit?

2008-11-05T09:43:00.001-05:00

Are we paying attention. My biggest fear is taking out a fellow cyclista.

Frame Raffle Winner

2008-11-03T07:33:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to let all the people who bought raffle tickets that a winner was drawn. John May of Mass was the lucky guy. Thank you to all my friends and and everyone who bought tickets. I wish everyone could win, and be riding an IF. Unfortunately only one can be chosen a year, but the money that we raise is very important to us being able to race.
Look out for next years raffle, which I plan to make bigger and include a lot more things for the taking. See you at La Ruta

Funny to be sitting here: 8hrs later

2008-11-02T20:18:00.005-05:00

Two Thursdays ago I got an oil change. Now I'm 500 miles away from needing another, that's if I follow the oil industry's self promoting recommendation.

It all started when I was getting another awesome Stago massage on Wednesday when we came to the conclusion that I was leaving for NC in two days and she was going to be flying to Raleigh on the same morning. Well hell that sounded like a carpooling opportunity, so we planned for me to drop her off, and I would continue on to the 8hr October Challenge race. She had to be there by 1pm so we left reallll early. Thermos in hand, two bikes in the back and a cooler full of eats.

I was headed there to do the last race of the USA Cycling Endurance series. They like to call it the NUE series, despite everyone knowing that that is an owned and trade marked acronym for the 100 miler series. Those guys in Colorado are strangely oblivious to the obvious.

Anyways I had hoped to make it to more of these events, because they tend to get attendance from a list of riders who get their names in the cycling press a lot, and me being a competitive leech I was eager to race some of that name brand blood. Tinker Juarez was going to be there, Jeremiah Bishop, Nat Ross, Ernesto Marenchin and a fast colombian named Diego were signed up. Holy crap!, A two title National Champion, an ex Olympian, a 24hr world champion or two.

This was on like a budda's gong.

After dropping Steph off at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh I got lost a couple of times. Called my friend Marcee, who was going to meet me at the race course and would eventually by my life saver for the weekend. She got me squared away, and ignored the tired frustration in my voice. I made it to race sight with about an hour before dark, jumped out the car, said high to Nat Ross, kitted up, and hit the trails.First thing I noticed was that I was right at home. Literally, the trails were very similar to what I ride a mile from home. Woody, rooty, tight and twisty. Throw in some cool technical features. Sort of like getting on a return flight and doing the same crossword in the airline magazine you had done on the flight out. About seven miles total with 5 being in the woods, and 2 in the open fields with 3 steep punchy climbs.

Marcee was back at the parking lot when I got there. We set up the tent and I followed her with half closed eyelids through the rain to her parents house for a home cooked meal a shower and a bed.

I got all that plus her cool parents, antiques (they had the original Krispy Kreme hand carved sign) and four dogs.

In the morning I did some final adjustments to the bikes, (I finally got both up and running), ate breakfast, and followed Marcee back to the race.

At one point www.Bikerumor.com interviewed my bike about the upcoming race. Then BikeRumor sat me down amongst a class of riders I didn't have much business being compared to. Olympians, National Champions, World Champions and me. We got asked questions, which I can't remember, but I think there is a video somewhere.

A rain that was on it's 18th hour stopped a couple of hours before our start, so the trail was on a new level of slippery. Every corner had a root lying across it, and each corner was slick like soapy hands holding a new Iphone. On the first lap Ross led off, Diego was there, Tinker and another local. I was on their wheel with Jeremiah on mine. I watched the guys riding in front and gathered quickly they were less than comfortable on the terrain. My goal was to go into the single track first at the start of the next lap and turn the traction control off.
Past the tents, and my pit crew, I attacked enough to get in first and Jeremiah followed me tight. Going into the North Carolina clay was tricky, but fun. Basically you have to be very comfortable letting the wheels slide over everything. The rear end of the bike just has to have the freedom to flail.

I set a nice pace, ditched the bike once, but kept it under control enough to come out of the woods with a good 40 second gap on Tinker. Jeremiah was with me, and we set a nice but not blazing pace up the climbs to the start finish line. I figured we could continue that pattern for the rest of the race. Let the others kill themselves on the climb while we floated the single track. It should be noted that the middle climb was so gooey that I choose to walk it the first 5 or 6 laps before it dried out enough to make riding it less of a drain.

By the 4th or 5th lap JB and I had about 2 minutes on everyone else, and we started to jsut enjoy the ride. We'd pass people chatting about random racing ideas, and live video game style feeds of races. It was still work, and we wore ourselves out, but in the woods you can only go so fast without crashing.

One of my favorite trail features was the option line to the step-up jump up onto the bank and over the root. JB and I started sessioning it and were soon comfortable hitting it like a freight train.

We were averaging 30-35 minute laps and Marcee was doing an excellent job as my pit crew. I got some bike changes, plenty of bottles and food, all without a hitch. As the night laps came up I was doing the math in my head and it looked like we were going to use every inch of the 8hrs of the race. One confusing thing that Jeremiah and I weren't sure of was the race cut off of 7:30. Apparently if you came to the start finish line after 7:30 you were done. We were asking people if that was the truth and it screwed with strategy. I knew Jeremiah was probably stronger on the climbs, so I was hoping to ditch him in the single track and run like mad for the finish.
Unfortunately he attacked at 7:22 and we crossed the line at about 7:28 which meant that he had a nice gap on me in the woods. I couldn't make up enough of it to the finish and after being down by as much as a minute (i think) we came across the line 12 seconds apart, after he dropped his chain on the last climb.

Oh well. It was a good race, and nail biting to the end. Thanks Marcee for the stellar pitting!
Cyclingnews article
Velonews Article

CycoCross

2008-10-20T19:04:00.006-05:00

Racing around a horse track and fair grounds this weekend. They say it's spectator friendly and with a Victory Brewing tent at the top of the run up and bleachers in the middle I'd have to agree. I raced 60 minutes of purgatory and ended up in 34th!. "Purgatory" because you know how to get out, but the act of leaving the course is denied you unless someone laps you. I don't want to quit, but I don't want to get lapped, but what is the point of racing for 34th place?
Venturing from the North was a contentious group from Independent Fabrication. Drew from Engin cycles invited a mini collective of hand made bicycle builders to come and set up a tent with wares to wow the crowds.
The crowds were wowed. I of course didn't take a picture of anything I should have. Like the beautiful bikes on display, or the company tent, or a group photo of someone sticking their tongue out with beers in hand.
It's strange that when I think of cross racing, images of chaotic elbow rubbing, line snatching and throat scorching from the friction of breathing so hard are the memories I keep. I'd think that my photo's would sort of reflect that, but when I go back to them I mostly see these tranquil images.

Drew from Engin. His bikes got some bikesnobnyc time. Which I think means bike snob was at the race. It's sort of like realizing that someone had been in your house, sifting through your drawers while you were asleep.
Topher in form.
A barrier shark lying in wait.
Pink Socks in the kitty litter.
That man is Pete. He was the Colavita Team mechanic for the 08 season.
Indy Fab's head of shipping and quality control. Leah. She explained she tried to smile.
Race director Kelly.

Why am I going back?

2008-10-15T18:57:00.002-05:00

La Ruta is a huge pain. My bike is going to be ruined. My mind is going to go.
My competitive half is excited, my responsible half says I don't have the time or money.
Maybe I'll get some dogs. Word is convicted doper Roberto Heras is going to be there, accompanied by 2008 3rd place world championship TT finisher Svein Tuft.

Rat's out of the bag

2008-10-09T09:08:00.001-05:00

A Festival of Note: TORC thank you!

2008-10-08T20:21:00.004-05:00

Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill form what is known as the triangle. I'm partial to triangles. Squares as well, but I had a personal invitation to this particular triangle by a group of off road cyclists known as TORC. Maybe you can figure out the acronym.
The invite came through an individual who had been particularly interested in my bike. That interest grew into an invite to come and participate in the festivities. It was take a kid mountain biking day, so I went out with some youth, and played on the trails. Most of those kids were labeled as "at risk" which I took to mean they were particularly subject to being under the influence of a crummy world. All that was left behind, and since I didn't know they had been labeled till afterwards, we had a good time, just hanging out in the woods, riding bikes.

That was definitely a highlight of the the weekend. I wish I could have done rides with the kids all day. Other than that I got to talk to a lot of people interested in endurance racing and IFs' bikes. I had front row seats to the pixie cross race, spent some time on the pump track in the woods and rode with people during the 6hr race. I got to help a man named Topher fix a chain, then after a minute of riding behind him and witnessing a good toss off his bike, I got to untaco a wheel by slamming it against the ground repeatedly. I like beating things into shape!
The festival brought together a community of people who had a common interest, and created a shared experience. I tend to ride my bike alone a lot, but the TORC fest reminded me about how social cycling can be for a relatively antisocial activity. Maybe not anti-social, but it is definitely a sport outside of most social norms, which is strange since just about every kid rides bikes with a group of kids while growing up.
To illustrate the point I went to visit my cousin in Raleigh. Her new neighborhood had the quaint and quiet streets you might you expect a southern suburb to have. Kid's on bikes soon to be left to rust in a couple of years. Yep, and at some point they'll probably get in a car and throw a cup of hot coffee on some cyclist in spandex...
Well, probably not and it's less likely if there are groups like TORC around, pulling kids in and showing them that riding a bike is fun when ever your age. Thanks to groups like TORC!

I want to thank Marcee for getting me to come down. I'd start a list of people to thank, but I'm bound to leave some one out, so I'll leave it at Marcee for now, and the rest of the TORC community!!

And the Upside is I gained enough encouragement to think it's viable to do La Ruta now. Thanks everyone and especially Mr. C.

Adirondacks: Where to Barn Dance

2008-10-08T20:08:00.005-05:00

Hello Tarheels and Sweet Tea

2008-10-03T07:04:00.003-05:00

The Triangle Off Road Cyclists (TORC) have invited me to participate in their Fat Tire Festival. I'll be there in the Indy Fab tent, giving an Endurance Clinic, riding with kid's for 'take a kid mountain biking day', and in general trying not to make a major gaff to disappoint the constituents. Come say hi if you are in the area.

The India Stage Race blog..

2008-09-30T14:14:00.001-05:00

Go to the dedicated blog for the KHANCHENDZONGA MOUNTAIN BIKING EXPEDITION 09.

There you will find regular updates. Become a follower.

Is it wrong if no one cares?

2008-09-26T10:23:00.005-05:00

Rode a little 42 mile trail on Tuesday. Actually only got 36 miles done in 8 hours.
Drove up late Monday..
Fly's are attractive,
Ahhhhh,
Learning to become bowlegged,

As we were looking for water...
Don't cut it out, ride it out..
Lichen..

The Real Stage Race: Himilayas!!

2008-09-24T16:44:00.002-05:00

THE KHANCHENDZONGA MOUNTAIN BIKING EXPEDITION
I'm looking into this stage race in the North Eastern state of Sikkim in India. The link has last years race details, but I am told they are the same for 2009. Last year only 38 people did the race, mostly do to the location. The entry fee of $500 gets you 12 days of being taken care of. 9 of those days are racing 15-42 miles a day on the mountainbike. They don't seem like long days, but the climbing is going to be the biggest challenge.
The numbers are a little confusing, and I've been in contact with the tourism department to get some clarification.
9days
430km
14,000m of climbing
highest elevation is 6600ft. But in the region with the third highest peak in the world.
three hotel nights
9nights in two person tents.
Food, breakfast, dinner

Flights from JFK to New Delhi are looking to be in the $1000 dollar range. But once there a second flight needs to be taken to the closest airport, BAGDOGRA AIRPORT.
KAYAK has the best search engine for finding flights.
The promoter is trying to get discounts on the flights for international racers.

If you are interested in going let me know. From the research I've been doing, the event will be the experience of a lifetime, at a very inexpensive price. The tourism department is very motivated to get international participation. If you want to ask them any questions direct your questions to me or Mr. Saroj Nayak (sarojy2k@gmail.com).

It looks like I am going to be the US public relations person for the race. So if you decide to sign up, let the promoter and myself know. We will do what we can to make the trip planning go as smoothly as possible.
Some related links:
http://in.news.yahoo.com/ani/20080310/r_t_ani_nl_nri/tnl-mountain-biking-expedition-gets-unde-d03182a.html
http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/3/12/95442/7231/travel/Mountain+Biking+in+Thin+Air:+Khanchendzonga
http://sikkim-himalayanreview.blogspot.com/2008/03/padam-kulbir-kaur-and-ang-win-in.html
http://sikkim-himalayanreview.blogspot.com/2008/03/nepal-duo-wins-khanchendzonga-mountain.html
http://sikkim-himalayanreview.blogspot.com/2008/03/nepal-rider-going-great-guns.html

I'm gathering more information daily.

Frame Raffle Update

2008-09-23T23:35:00.002-05:00

Just a reminder about the IF Frame Raffle. Get your tickets now.

Dear IF Racing racers and friends,

The team is currently at the end of its budget and we are attempting to raise monies to finish out the 2008 season and fulfill our fundraising goals for the Pan Mass Challenge. We are currently $6000 shy of our $24,000 commitment to the PMC. We are attempting a few last minute fundraising events before our October 1st deadline.
The money goes to a good cause, the PMC.

This raffle has been extended and the drawing will take place on October 24th.

Thanks,

Jon Bruno

Tahoe-Sierra 100 dusty times

2008-09-09T12:47:00.004-05:00

Just in the airport returning from the NUE series final, la Tahoe-Sierra 100. Moon dust, fire roads, longish climbs, 90 degree heat and a good promoter. My number for the race was 104, my placing was 4th and my series overall was 4th. The trip was highlighted by the time I got to spend with friends Erika and Mark Tieszen.
We'll get more down later...

You Suck at Photoshop #2: Covering Your Mistakes

2008-08-15T22:36:00.001-05:00

We all need a little help sometimes.

Everyone should get one...

2008-08-07T09:41:00.003-05:00

I just got this performance enhancing attachment. It's easy to find. Throw yourself down some steps. If the emergency room says it's only a severe sprain, demand your right to a second opinion (I recommend Temple Orthopedics) to get what you need... A diagnosis of a compression fracture. Unfortunately it's only good for about 4-6 weeks, then you have to do it all over again. Yes that is a symbolic anchor.

My bike, my bike, my bike is on fire......

2008-08-06T15:32:00.002-05:00

This is my downieville set up. The weight came in at 23.6lbs. Normal race weight with NanoRaptors is 22.3lbs.

Downieville, Mt. Snow and Wilderness 101 walk into a bar...

2008-08-04T16:02:00.008-05:00

Downieville is everything people rumor it to be. I slept next to a smoking frog, next to a cool mountain stream and fractured a pinky in the Pixie Cross World Championships. Locals were life-stylers and the pressure was on them, so all I had to do was show up and tear it up.
I'd write more about it but I lost the huge write up and instead of procrastinating longer I'm get'n'r done. WTB hooked me up with some fresh rubber in the form of WeirWolf 2.55 tires. Thank you Dain. I now know where they excel.
Stubby (with his mobile bike repair truck) picked me up from the airport in Reno and Yuri with his Wife Vanessa grabbed me in Truckee.

Perfect traveling mates!
I was happy with myself and my times. 9th on the xc day and 9th on the Downhill with the 29er gave me a 7th overall. A little more push on the climb and a 5th overall would have been in sights. Silly sick downhill! I loved it and you should go love it too.

MT. Snow.
National Championships. Hey, I had to try it at least once. So I reached my goal of a top 20 in the mens race with a 20th spot. I'll take that considering I gave myself a mild concussion a couple hours before the start doing a super-d run. Super-D in Mt. Snow was what they said it would be. Stupid on a Hardtail. But whatever, I got a better hole shot than Craig only to have him come around me in the first single track. A 8th for the day was fine with me, since I didn't take anymore skin off.

Wilderness 101.
I keep going backwards in this race, but somehow I get to the finish faster. 1st in 2006 with a 7:30 time, 2nd n 2007 with 6:57, and now 3rd with a 6:49. Eatough and I were supposed to sprint for the finish, but I punctured at the end of the tunnel with a mile to go. We cat and moused it. I covered two of his attacks and by the time I was going to make my move at the last corner with 200ft to go my front tire was too low to negotiate the corner with aggression. when in doubt go early. Next time.

Too much fun.

6 Days, 2 Jerseys, 1 bear. Honor or Dollars?

2008-07-07T09:28:00.003-05:00

Viva La Tour!

Jimmy blowing smoke.

Now that everyone has been adequately exposed to the existence of the IF Frame Raffle, we can get on with other business.
It's July and my schedule is tight. Having slayed the dragon that is my house, I'm able to be what it is I want to be. Mr. Cycle jock, racer boy/man.
I think I've talked about traditions in the past, how they merge with rituals and obligations and maybe I touched on how they are different.
Le Tour De Burg is a tradition that makes a person want to come back. For six days a group of cycling legionaries gather to explore, race and bond over 305 miles and many thousand feet of climbing on gravel roads, groomed trails and unkempt forgotten paths through the woods, resulting in exhaustion, chaos, bike explosions and body lacerations. The TDB is as close to perfection as it gets. Like the early days of a band, when the moment always seems right, the shows are tight and there is a communal experience, the TDB embodies those moments, but on a bike.
A shining star in the world of unsanctioned cycling events, TDB is the supreme example of an event you want everyone to experience but know that growth might kill it's intimacy. Fortunately the difficulty of the 6 days trims the number of people able to participate. And though it's not technically "invite only", if someone showed up and didn't know anyone they might feel a bit on the outside. The traditional format consists of a MTB prologue hill climb with a decent lasting about 30min. Then the next five full days start with 7 or so hours on the mountain bike, a 90mile road stage with lots of gravel, another 5-8hrs on the MTB, another gravel road stage of equal length and a final mountain bike stage about the same as the others.
Like it's little brother the Tour De France, there is a leader's Yellow Jersey, sprinter's Red jersey, king of mountain Green jersey and a DFL jersey.
It's exhaustion to an euphoric state.
I love this event and encourage everyone out there to create something in their world that gives them as much pleasure.
The 6 days can be a great training block and would have set me up to peak for the the National Championships, but I also had two other factors to consider. The Downieville Classic in CA the next week and money. Recovery from the Tour in a week is pretty difficult and the trip out west was coming out of my pocket, so I decided to do three days of Le Tour, Tues-Thurs, then drive up to PA for the Marysville stage race for the rest of the weekend with local gal Michelle. In essence I'd be racing for 6 days still but the last three days would be a much lighter load than the full pull of the Tour, plus there was green to be won in PA.
Tuesday Pete and I drove down for the 6pm prologue start at Massanutten mountain. After the usual greetings of old pals and a little pre-riding warm up tour director Carpong's wife and daughter sent us off in 30sec intervals. Due to some suspicious "lost" paperwork. I was signed up at the last minute which saw me taking an almost last position on the line. Sam Korber got out of his car right before I took off, and since he was probably going to be my challenger #1 the playing field was a little more level. To give you an idea of the course, my overall time was 29min, and 17 of that was climbing, which meant the other 12 minutes was mostly going downhill.
Now if you take those 30 minutes multiply it by three, and do that two more times every day with bookend and sandwich sections of sweet group riding, you get an idea of what the rest of the days are like. Group ride, race an hour+, group ride, race, sprint line, group ride.
Wednesday we were on the mountain bikes for about 7hours. In the first timed section Sam took almost 3minutes out of my 5 minute lead on him from the day before. It's all right I told myself, the 1hour climb was perfect training for the Downieville classic. Then on section two we both were running way to low of tire pressure, and crawled on the first downhill section to avoid ruining our wheels. In the end I managed to cross the line about 9sec's up, which meant I was able to hold onto the Yellow jersey another day.

Joesph Von Blowsof resting between timed sections

Thursday we pulled out road bikes, and rolled from town. The Tour guide book said we were in for a 75 mile day but by the end everyone's computer's were reading 90 miles, and about 40 of those miles had to be on gravel. At the end of the two timed sections I had managed to put another 2 minutes or so on Sam. It's strange how good legs can feel after racing for multiple days and I have to admit to feeling on fire, and not feeling to stressed at all. Since the day went longer than expected we hardly had any break between getting back to home base and leaving again for the MTB time trial through the city park mountain bike trails. Some choose to not even change chamoises. The Hillandale park trails exemplify what you can do with a college full of underage drinkers having to do community service. A tight network of trails with trails for all levels of riders. Somehow I tied for 2nd place, and headed back to the house to shower and take a break before going to eat Ethiopian buffet.

Buck could only clean himself outside.

At the end of the three days, Michelle and I had to give up our yellow jersey's with shame for abandoning the Tour in search of funding from the north.

Tour Director's Daughter taking finishing times off of New Market gap.

Michelle and I arrived in Marysville PA about 2hours before the Mountain bike Night Time Trial on the Oesterling Farm. A slight drizzle, fading light and our tired legs from the previous three days had us both questioning our choice to leave the Tour.
On the pre-ride the course was proving to be a dangerous little weasel. Wet roots in the corners, technical climbs and high speed turns were going to only be conquered by a smart controlled ride. No matter how many times you preride a course like that, it never compares to race pace panic. I made a few mistakes, passed a few of the riders who went off in front of me and blew one corner. I didn't expect to have a great time, so I was surprised when the times were posted to have a top finish at just under 19 and a half minutes. Crazy I thought to myself. The tired legs sort of disappear when racing starts.
Well the next day was going to be a greater test of tired legs with a full 21miles of cross country racing.
The short of it was me trying to do as little work as possible to start but holding a controlling position. I tried to stay in the front and watch Ryan Leech, who was second the night before. After some accelerations from Kyle and such Ryan and I started to pull away. The first time I came around the front we were cruising through some log jumps and my pedal unclipped sending me over the bars to a pretty solid crash. I got up quick, pulled back to Ryan and the second time I came around him I started pulling away. In the end I had a 3 minute gap and another win for the weekend.
After the XC race, we ate, listened to some live music on the farm and threw lighted frisbee's into the darkness at people you couldn't see. It was fun and dangerous, which is probably why it was fun.
Day 6 of racing had an early 9am start to a 3mile hill climb. We mass started, lead by four wheelers, rolled through the Oesterling farm, past another turkey farm and started climbing up a loose jeep road to the top of the ridge. I hadn't pre-rode and wasn't sure where the top was. Again my legs came to life and after about 10 minutes I started to pull way. Kyle kept a good pace, but I was able to get about 12sec on him at the end for my third win of the weekend. It was huge surprise to me. All the people I was racing are people that had beaten me before and not in the distant pass. Ryan was definitely riding strong, but at this point my fitness must be good, which is a good sign after a slow start to the season.
After the hill climb we all went back to the farm to try and get rested and ready for the short track. Definitely my weakest event. As a matter of fact I'd only done one other short track in my life, and the VisitPA team was full of short track specialist and cyclo-cross rock stars. I figured they would all be trying to mark me and try to get Ryan a good finish. The short track was a perfect place for team strategy, and since I was alone I had to plan my defense and wait till just the righ moment to make a move. I was half considering just sitting in, saving the legs, and just taking a comfortable finish to guarantee the overall win.
I had to toss that idea when my sister and nephew decided to show up and stay to watch. With family there I felt the need to go for it, so I marked every move, sat second wheel, and when Ryan came from behind to attack with 5 laps to go I went with him. We got away with 4 laps to go but Aaron Snyder was creeping up. I came around Ryan with 2 laps to go and when I came around for the bell lap I pinned it for the whole 2minute lap to take the win by 6 seconds.
I have to admit it felt great.
I'm sad I had to leave the Tour but the Marysville weekend was a great event which helped me forget what was going on down south. Oh and the prize money was pretty good, so now I can pay my dentist and have some spending money for the Downieville trip.

Wondering what I got tour director Carpong

I hope to one day be able to quaff ice cream like my heroes.

Official 08 tour slogan.

Just three of the 166 bloodied appendages after flying through an overgrown brier section of trail on the Elliot Knob Downhill. We were going so fast, but the section was so long that it felt like someone ripping bandaids off your hairy arms for 2 minutes straight.

Frame Raffffle! IF needs you.

2008-06-18T22:23:00.002-05:00

It's gotta happen again. Indy Fab has decided to allow another frame raffle this year. Here is a chance to take home the ultimate custom bicycle, for mere pennies on the dollar. In fact if you bought one raffle ticket and won you would be so far ahead of the game rules would have to be rewritten.
Same rules as last year. Raffle is for a steel frame and fork and all upgrades are the price of the difference in cost. It can be a Steel Deluxe, Crown Jewel, Independence, PLanet Cross. Your choice, fully custom bike. Standard choice of paint and decal.
Seriously IF is raffling off another frame to help support the team make it through another year. Every ticket purchased will be used to pay for riders expenses through out the season. These funds are extremely important to our survival, and ability to show up to the next race. Take for example my recent trip the the Lumberjack 100.
Race entry: $150
Gas: $250
Lodging: $79, 70, 70, 12=$231
Total for the weekend= $631
of course I split gas and lodging so my personal expense was only about $400
Winnings: +$150
So okay in the end I was only down -$250
That is one weekend race.
Kind of a poor business plan eh?
So that is why we do these fundraisers. Check out the link, buy a ticket, and enjoy the months of anticipation.
I heard the other day about a company that sells mystery gifts. $10 buys you something, but you have know idea what. People say it's the anticipation that makes it worth it, even when all they got was "Worlds greatest waterfall" mug.
So add some of that childhood anxiousness back into your life and get a ticket today.
We will love you for it forever.

Weather dodging

2008-06-17T07:27:00.002-05:00

The Lumberjack 100 in Michigan is over. My mother and I barely escaped loitering raccoons, hail and tornadoes. It was a good race for me, I made it to the podium in third place, four minutes back from 1st. Whoop! But it was the weird weather that stole the show. Apocalyptic thunder and lighting, along with floods. Gotta finish writing other things, but I'll get back to this.

Smell nothing

2008-06-06T07:58:00.002-05:00

Lost my ability to smell. Just wanted to remind myself that even the things that smell rotten, moldy or dead are missed when it's taken away.

SDS: Stay in School

2008-05-21T07:16:00.014-05:00

the valley between the ridges

You just don't know, and I can't explain, and the pictures won't do it justice.
This weekend was the 5th edition of the Stokesville-Douthat-Stokesville mountain bike ride.
145 miles in two days, split into 12hr days of 75 and 70 miles. A true MountainTouring Production.
If you touch your index fingers together and then your thumbs together, imagine that where your thumbs meet are Stokesville, (where we started), and the point of the index fingers are the lodge we stayed at in Douthat State park. If you rode along the right hand, that would be the western ridges we rode out on and then coming back along the left hand would be the eastern ridges, with the huge valley in between. About 50miles across the valley. 30,000 feet of climbing total, which translates to an equal amount of descending. Despite the two flats in Michaux two weeks ago, I decided I couldn't pass final judgment on my new WTB Weirwolf tires. Their volume seemed perfect for the not to safe high speed descending we would be doing. Glad to say I had no flats, and the tires really excelled in the rocks. Some of the slow rock crawling i had to do to make passes on people who put their foot down in the gardens were some of my best moments. I give these tires credit for hardpack and wet rocks ability.
Easily the best two day ride ever. Not to many people on my list were ready for this but I wanted a partner to drive down with, so I called Pete, one of the toughest cats I know. I figured he could handle the numbers, the hike-a-bikes, the hour long pushing through overgrown trail sections. By the end of the trip, when it was announced that the last climb was "only an hour" it was actually a relief. Our perspectives were skewed. Thank you Chris Scott, Mike Carpenter, the ladies and everyone else responsible.
Day two, started misty then went wet, and thats when fires were built. According to Carp, he saw deep into our souls during the hour climb when the rain and cold were at their worst.
The cell tower on the top of Elliots Knob had a vent that blew hot air.

One of several hike-a-bikes.

End of Day one

Mathew Lee, Tour Divide record holder, the only causality.

This is not right.