Race Report: Maskenthine Classic

Last weekend marked my return to the Psycowpath series with a race at Maskenthine Lake in Stanton, NE. I finished 7th overall in CAT 2 so I felt ok about that. A preride could've helped a lot. I had never seen the course before lap 1, and that cost me quite a bit of time.

From the start up the short hill climb leadout I was in about 5th anticipating a left turn into the woods...nope...right turn sooner than I had figured which made me almost over shoot it on the outside while 3 ro 4 riders went by on the inside. I made some quick passes in a couple open field sections but quick punchy turns and climbs popped up all over the course.After several in the first lap I could no longer see the back of the lead group. I felt good but just couldn't get a rhythm going. By lap 3 I finally started to get the layout of the course and dropped a pack that had been starting to catch me.

Quick ducking and weaving is usually heaven for me on a race course...unless I dont know when its coming!

Change of plans for Labor Day weekend. Originally was going to race up at Maplelag Resort in northern MN (which is of the tight twisty kind) but situations arose and instead am now heading to Colorado so I'll race at Winter Park for a Mountain States Cup event. There will be a heavy race schedule now until the last weekend in September!

Race Report: MNMBS Great Hawk Chase

Last weekend was the Great Hawk Chase at Lester Park in Duluth. This was an excellent venue for a mountain bike race! Nice river to cool/rinse off in, awesome views, close to downtown Duluth, it was an awesome event! The course was no different – perfect mix of ski trail and sweet Duluth singletrack. It did rain the few days leading up to the race so a few 100 yard off camber sections in the woods were fastest by using cyclocross type skills, but 100% rideable with the right tires.

I did not have the right tire combination for these conditions, but still rode a solid race coming in 4th out of 11. I’m very confident I could’ve been on the podium if I had a more aggressive tire. I could catch and work on passing other riders all the way up until the off-camber slick sloppy stuff, then I would lose them again. Couldn’t keep the max efforts long enough as the race went on to keep re-catching them hoping to stay on their wheels for the last ski trail to the finish were final passes could be made. Their pace was smooth, mine was hard pedal/slide out and almost hit trees/pedal hard again…and repeat! I was only 90 seconds behind third. Overall though I had a blast at this race and I can’t wait to ride and race here again! Very happy with the results while overcoming the lack of traction. It was definitely a solid run to build off of as the MN races haven’t been my strong points this year. Things seem to be dialed in though to finish the season strong!

On Duluth, I love that area – that’s definitely a home away from home, spent a good portion of my life there, and I have family in Duluth that I now don’t get to see very often, so it’s always nice to get back. I get some of the best pre and post-race meals when I’m there ;)

This weekend I’m opting NOT to drive 8 hours one way to WI for the WORS race. Instead, I’m gonna see what I can do at the Psycowpath Series race in Stanton, NE - the Maskenthine Classic. 90 miles will be plenty for me to drive on Saturday and get some R&R away from the road.

Update and Pics

Well things have been shaping up nicely after the disaster at the Border Battle. Some time off the bike can help sometimes. I wasn't completely off the bike, got some riding in at the BMX track and some shorter rides in also about every other day. Last night was the first longer ride since before the Border Battle. I'm feeling pretty good about this weekend. Lots of time around preparations this time. Didn't realize how much I was behind on my routines. My whole "smooth is fast" saying works in the prep times as well.

I'm going to toss up a few pics from previous races over the next couple entries.

Race Report: Border Battle - Major bummer...

I am still getting over Sundays feelings. For how I felt at Buck Hill until the flat tire, and winning the race on Thursday, I was looking forward to a really strong race! I guess I know what happened but...its just never happened to me before! I DNF'd due to borderline heat stroke when I pulled off the course. It was mid 90's with heat indexes into the 100's.

I spent a lot of time thinking about other races and which tire combo to use (because of the heavy rains overnight)...so much time that I didn't not spend concentrating on hydration and nutrition...including the day before.

The warm up ride felt fine, seemed loose and ready. But, as soon as I made the first pedal stroke I could tell something wasn quite right. In the woods especially, I started seeing spots, knicked two trees with the bars, slid out on two corners...saw more spots and felt like I was going to faint. I rolled out of the woods, announced the DNF and barely made it to the tent with water and racer food before I dropped the bike and gear and fell/sat down under the tent. Steve Sturman and others rushed over and helped pour water over me as I drank bottle after bottle and ate some watermelon and cookies. I was very disoriented and questioned whether I needed medics involved - eventually I shrugged that idea off.

First time for everything? Could have done wihout it! But lesson learned I guess. I am very frustrated that this happened.

Race Report: Branched Oak Lake - First 2010 Win!

Got my first win in 2010! ...and placed second overall beating out some CAT 1 guys. They set us off in the same wave with same number of laps. Branched Oak Lake State Rec area is north of Lincoln about 10 miles. The loop is ~5 miles and we did 3 laps. This was a very different race for me.

The race pace started much slower than I’m used to. Sitting in 5th place about a 1/3 way into the first lap, I saw the leader gapping my group pretty hard. The next doubletrack power climb that came up, I dropped the hammer and spun myself up to 2nd place overall. The gap grew to about one minute in front and one minute behind me and that’s where it stayed. I only had to put in a few max efforts to keep the gap the same behind me. Since this race is more for training, I want to be fresh for the MNMBS/WORS Border Battle coming up on Sunday. No need to push it and crash. I won the CAT 2 division by a few minutes and first prize was a sweet set of Eggbeater pedals from Bike Pedalers Bike Shop in Lincoln. Awesome! In fact, seems like half the riders there had the white/blue Bike Pedalers jerseys on.

Earlier this week I moved the one good Racing Ralph to the front and picked up a Bontrager XR0 for the rear. This combo seemed to work pretty well. The XR0 definitely doesn’t have as much traction as the Ralph but is lighter, rolls faster, and grips plenty from what I can tell so far.

...lookin’ forward to a big competitive field on Sunday...Minnesota vs Wisconsin

Race Report: MNMBS Buck Hill

Wednesday (July 28th) I drove to the Black Hills for a wedding. While I was out there I had some time to take out the Superlight. I found the Centennial trail close by; however, was not totally impressed by it. Maybe it’s better in other areas but it was definitely better suited to hiking where I was. I did get in some nice riding on some trails off the roads though – some really good rough rocky gnarly climbs and descents. Fun stuff!

That Saturday I drove from the Black Hills to Burnsville, MN for the Buck Hill race the following day. I’ve raced so many times here – it’s a really fun course! We did five laps on this ski area – I kind of like the races with lots of laps. More fun for spectators too! From the start I was feeling pretty good. Holding position well through the race and just being smooth – smooth is fast! The Schwalbe Racing Ralph’s were hooking up awesome and the legs feeling good.

Each lap started with a climb from the base of the hill weaving and winding its way to the top mostly on service roads/doubletrack which is perfect! There is a small singletrack section that has about a dozen of these little 2” round stumps sticking out where trail crews cut the path. They stick up about 4” and my front tire caught the rough edge of one and sliced the sidewall just enough for it to leak. I didn’t know this til I got into the singletrack past the top of the hill. Just after it happened though, I sat back in the saddle and rev’d up the legs to about 100 rpm and weaved though a small field of my competition and was gonna challenge for first place! I was feeling really fast!

Major bummer when my tire lost enough pressure and went around a turn and ripped it off the bead. I grabbed my pump from my Camelback and pumped up til I heard the bead snap back in then hopped on….about 300 yards further up the trail, same story…more air…had to do this 4 times total on the last lap. I went from challenging for first all the way back to 5th place and ~5 minutes back by the end. Found the slice the next day.

Back to Omaha that night…lots of driving!!

The Rest of Nationals Weekend

Awesome! The demo program was only $10 more which allowed John and I to use several different bikes on the mountain. I tried the Scott Gambler, Kona Stab Supreme, and the Specialized SX. I loved the SX! It was a bit lighter and more nimble – which for my size and riding style seemed to work the best. The others were sweet too but if I were in the market, I would choose the SX.

The trails at Winter Park of course are amazing! Fast flying over huge rocks, ramps, dirt jumps = good times. The bikes with the extra squishy 7-9.5 inches of travel are so fun to ride over that stuff. I only crashed once due to a mechanical problem - however it was another hard crash. Going into a high speed turn the chain somehow rattled up and off the cassette and wrapped itself in the rear wheel…which according to John riding behind me, all of a sudden turned into a cloud of dust mixed with me and the bike tumbling and sailing through the air, with the 40+ pound bike landing on top of me of course.

Didn’t feel too bad until later…and this, combined with the hard crash a day earlier in the nationals race, is what caused me to have to pull the plug on the Super D at nat’s the next day. My right shoulder and forearm were completely hashed and extremely sore and stiff. Thinking about my wreck last year that took me out for the season I decided it would be best to sit this one out and recover. Tough pill to swallow though…I was excited for it and now even hungrier for next year.

Turned the rest of the weekend into a nice vacation. We drove out to Aspen and Snowmass Village. Then of course, had to swing through Woody Creek to drive by the favorite local hang out (Woody Creek Tavern) and home of the late Hunter S Thompson and pay homage to the man who spent his life documenting his adventures in search of the American dream.

I came back with one medal and a great vacation. Can't wait for next year!

I was kind of beat physically and mentally after the nationals, so I trained a little lighter for a bit – including some cross training in the gym. I had such a good time watching the 4X and practicing on the dirt jumps at Winter Park I decided I needed to get into something like that to mess around on. The closest thing to it around here is BMX…soooo, yep I bought a race BMX bike to help hone some sprint/jump/hard cornering skills. Plus there’s a track to practice on about a mile from my apartment. Kind of doubt I’ll actually race it, just something different and fun to train on.

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).