Race Report: USA Cycling Nationals

What a week it’s been! I finally got to race in the National Championships! I’ve been looking forward to this since my accident in 2009. With the help of my coach TJ (Momentum Endurance), I planned carefully and trained hard for this. My finish only six weeks earlier in Vail revealed how much work I had to do to be competitive at Sol Vista. This time back to the mountains it all came together and pulled off a 3rd place finish! It was a great feeling to have the COO of USAC ask me to step up on the podium as he hung the bronze medal around my neck and said “Congratulations!”

The course was absolutely awesome and is everything that mountain bike racing is supposed to be. The course was not groomed. The singletrack was a path cut through the trees with rocky…REALLY rocky climbs with sandy, rooted, rocky fast descents with sweet berms and switchbacks that I was able to make up lots of time on the other riders with. Most of the climbing was done on fire road or double track that worked perfect for good passing areas.

At two laps and about 18 miles total, I figured my time to come in around the 2hour mark. So, from the start I didn’t burn myself up on the ridiculously steep climb which was about ¼ mile long. Once to the top of that section we rode out onto a fire road and flat singletrack for ½ mile before starting up another ½ to ¾ mile climb. This process repeated itself about 4 or 5 more times until the top of the mountain and held strong in 2nd place, catching and passing riders from other classes that started minutes before mine - thats always motivating. The next rider caught me a few miles into the second lap. I kept him in my sights for a while but my back muscles couldn’t keep up with the legs and started to fatigue too much.

Once at the top of the mountain for the second time, I knew he wasn’t too far ahead even though I couldn’t see him, so I was hoping to catch him on the downhill as I was REALLY fast on that – I was taking more chances than others were...the "jumps", berms, and swtichbacks were just so sweet! It's always fun to fly into a turn and stab the brakes so both tires slightly spinning and drifting through to the apex and then jumping on the pedals out of the turn. All was looking good to regain second place...

Well, I only had trouble once the whole race…about 2 miles before the finish on the last 3 miles of downhill I crashed harder than ever before. One larger rock had rolled into the middle of the course on a section where I’m going fast but not real fast (maybe 25 mph?). I couldn’t see it around the corner until it was too late – washed out the front tire and pile-drived my right side into the ground. Already gasping for air before this I now had the wind knocked out of me and cheese-grated my right forearm. It took some time to make sure nothing was “injured”, get up, straighten my handlebars (cranked hard to the left side), and start rolling down the mountain – this little mishap cost me easily 3 minutes off my total time, maybe more. About a mile before the end though, I regained a fast rhythm and speed and finished real strong across the line. Luckily I had gapped the 4th place rider enough! ...even with the crash I still had 2 minutes on him at the end.

The people cheering, and encouraging you to pump harder and ride faster, cowbells…the event was just amazing! I loved it all. I worked hard for this in training and during the race. I’m stoked it all paid off. I’m planning for more great finishes this year now in Minnesota, Colorado, and Nebraska...and plan to compete at Nationals again next year!

I’ll post about the rest of the weekend later – more riding and crashing tales to tell…

Race Report: Road TT???

Yup my first race on the road bike. The "Omaha Cycling Weekend" was yesterday and today featuring a Time Trial and Criterium yesterday with a road race today. I learned about this series of races on Thursday. Since my focus is on the USAC Nationals (coming up this Thursday!) there were some other plans for training this weekend layed out by TJ, that I felt would be better prep so only competed in the TT at 9am.

Some serious TT guys were there - aero everything. I did not have "aero" anything (although I did remove the visor from my mountain bike helmet). I was using my mountain shoes and pedals - had one pin in each corner of the bib to hold it on my back - which, I learned that it takes more than that to make it feel less like a parachute at those speeds. Yeah, the Bianchi worked awesome, but was set up pretty much exactly how I use it for training.

Overall, it was pretty cool. Much different. I got done with the race feeling like I had a little more than I should have left in the tank. I'm used to racing for 1 1/2 to 3hours! It was fun though and I'd like to try one again.

My time was only about 27 minutes for 10 miles and total warm up and cool down was about the same; so, yesterday afternoon I headed out on the Santa Cruz to get 2 1/2 hours of dirt work in ;) Good riding day.

Another note, I took Bandit to the dog park on Friday night...which is also right next to the BMX track where they happened to be racing that night! I watched that for a couple hours...cool stuff! I haven't watched BMX (other than on TV) for a very long time.

Mount Evans – 14,130 feet

I did it! Got up early Monday morning and drove to Echo Lake (the base of the Mount Evans Park at 10,000ft), suited up, rode a mile to the park entrance, paid 3 bucks and off I go to climb one of Colorado’s beloved 14ers on a bike. This is also the highest paved road in North America!

I kept the pedaling efforts light because I wanted to be SURE I made it to the top…but the next time (oh yes there definitely will be a next time) I will kick it into some taller gearsI was surprised at how I adapted to the altitude, even got in a few sprints and went past about 20 other riders…not that anybody was racing…but still…I felt good! The grades aren’t crazy steep so the big factors were wind and little oxygen. Getting to the top was a challenging but very enjoyable ride. The views are amazing! …and some of the baffling looks you get from people in cars are priceless.

The ride down was fun… but the wind seemed the worst for me. Unpredictable crosswind gusts can really get the bike squirrelly underneath you, and can get a little freaky…particularly when going 30-40+ mph with 1,000ft+ drops only 3 or 4 feet to the side of you!!

I can’t wait to do this again! I want to take more pictures…and also ride there from Idaho Springs instead (starting at 7,600ft).

4th of July in CO

What a weekend! Saturday was riding quads up in Rollins Pass with Dad. Its always fun to play in the mud, launch off rocks, slide corners and watch Jeeps bury themselves in 3 – 4 feet mud bogs…and also watch them drive up the rushing mountain rivers.Lots of fun and even did a little prospectin’ on the way back down the mountain as we searched out the remnants of a gold mine. The trail off the road that leads up to it is easily passed unless you’re really looking for it…and we found rocks with lots of quartz – which then led to a little… ;)

Sunday, July 4th I took the Superlight and rode Heil Ranch. Unfortunately I did not get any pics of what I was riding but it was some SWEET rough gnarly singletrack – both climbing and descending about 10 miles out and back. I took the Picture Rock trail that leads towards Hall Ranch (I’ve talked a lot about Hall Ranch in other blog posts). They both have their flavors, but Heil was awesome. Perfect stuff to help hone the skills for Sol Vista! Plus, it has an 1930’s Plymouth sedan shell rusted with bullet holes the rear axle tore out of it…no engine (yes I looked)…and also…no road up there. This must have been sitting there for a LONG time…maybe since the 30’s??

Celebrated America’s independence in Estes Park while enjoying coffee from the Kind Coffee Roastery and a slice of apple pie from a place that had “You Need Pie” written in the window – very persuasive…and they were right, it was perfect. I’ll be back there again!

Race Report: Mankato

This course has been one of my favorites in the past so I was excited to race here again! Unfortunately the storms forced a closing of some of the more fun sections of the course but it was still fun. This time the mud was awesome to race in. I’m excited to see some pictures from this race!

With 45 minutes to race start Sport riders were coming off the trail with fresh mud so I decided to change the rear tire, figured that should be good enough…and it turned out to be a wise move.The deep and widely spaced lugs really propelled me through the mud at the top of Mt. Kato – in hindsight I should’ve swapped the front also, but the rear was most important - 100% rideable course nonetheless.

We ‘Comp’ racers had to do four laps on Mt. Kato. It was hot and steamy out there but not terrible. The terrible thing was the mechanical trouble AGAIN on lap four. Same thing as what happened at Mont Du Lac. About a dozen times on that lap the cranks just stopped moving, but I was absolutely not going to DNF. It happened most on the climbs just after I downshift in the rear. I didn’t know what was going on but on the flats and downhill sections I could go without trouble…and when it did lock I jumped off quickly and ran the bike to the next flat or dh.

Not sure how much time I lost (5 – 6 minutes??) but with all that I ended up missing the podium by only two minutes! I was frustrated for that half of a lap until the finish. When I saw the results, I felt a little better with 4th place given the issues. Upon closer inspection when I got home, the bearings in the rear derailleur pulleys are completely shot. Also, I down shifted with a good amount of force on the pedal…and slightly tweaked a couple gears on the cassette. Oh well, better here than Sol Vista.

This was the last ‘tune up’ race before Nationals coming up on the 15th so I’m glad I came out feeling good about it. Riding this week has been intense and I’m feeling pretty strong. This weekend I’m off to do some more altitude training in Colorado – not sure where exactly yet…

On the Citizen Class battle…one did not show thinking it was going to be another Mont Du Lac type race. Looking like it could be the MNMBS Buck Hill race now before that gets sorted out…which gives lots of time for each to find new ways to trash talk and hinder the others training…and still with me and my gas can standing by – “John…Mat loves McFlurrys…you should be a good friend and get him a gift certificate to McDonalds” ;)