Lots of stuff already out there on How everyone finished (2nd Place Overall-Team Omnium!)

-FasCat Blog

-303 Cycling

-Singletrack.com

CU Cycling mountain bike team kicked some ass at Nationals and I’m super proud of every single persons effort.  Whether they podium’d or not they were an integral part of the support team.  Also, all of the support crew were incredible.  Cooking dinners, maintaining bikes, helping set up and tear down the pits.  We rocked the house and Ft. Loosing is scared next year that we are coming for them and going topple their reign at the top.

I’m super excited for the Seniors (Peter/Claire) that had incredible races & pumped for all the riders that will be coming back next season!

Far and away we rock on the bike as a team, but we MOST DEFINITELY have the most fun.  When Sam was lined up for the short track and the official were counting down, it was awesome to have the whole CU team standing there shouting GO CU!! And singing the team fight song!  No one else even came close in school spirit!  You’ve seen the race pictures, here’s some fun pictures from the weekend!

Pre-riding the XC course in the snow and mud

Joey is all mud, blood and smiles on course

Sam is a bit dirty after the XC Race

Joey takes a moment to concentrate before his run

Was Successful enough for a 4th National Title in DH

I’m sure Baddick doesn’t want me to post this, those Brits are so shy, but we had fun at the costume party

Hunter S. Thompson came along with team for some reporting

You pretty much had to be there to understand this one

Raddest, fastest team around!

There’s a bunch more pictures, but they are not fit for the interwebs!!

Looking forward to returning with the team for 2012 mountain bike season and unleashing it on the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Conference & nationals again!

Side note: Training for me personally for 2012 has begun, will get a report up this weekend as I hit the trails with the new Quarq quatro and bring everyone up to speed…

The team was a force to be reckoned with during the 2011 season and I bumped into the riders at nearly every race I attended.  So it was a natural fit to ride for them (can’t beat em’ join em’).  I know I’m ready to step up my game for the 2012 racing season.  And I know the riders on the team are stoked and ready to take on an awesome schedule of races for next year.

Full details of sponsors, etc are still in the works, but I know from last year the team is awesomely supported by a huge number of companies.  As soon as the details are available, you’ll hear tons about it.

I’m super stoked to be riding with the best team in Colorado and the best amateur and pro riders around.  2012 is going to be an Epic season for sure!

Like us on facebook

Follow the team on Twitter

Rolled over to Winter Park once again for the King of the Rockies XC race at Tipperary Creek. Had heard tons of good things about the race course. And could definitely tell by the number of people at the race, that the short trip there was worthwhile.  Rolled up with the Big Cat Frank himself (*the last time Frank raced mountain bikes was when I was Colorado to race the NORBA Nationals at Snowmass in 2004!) and we rode the 4-5 miles over to Fraser where the actual start line was.  Took a quick pee and tried to continue my warmup, and nearly missed my start!

Jumped on the back of the group with under 2 minutes to go.  Wasn’t really worried as there was a bit of dirt road before we would hit the first climb.  Was able to position well on the dirt road and was feeling pretty good rolling fast with the group and was where I wanted to be when the group started to get antsy rolling to the base of the Tipperary Creek climb.  The legs had a wee bit of a different tale to tell as I hit the climb, on the early slopes felt like I was going a bit backwards and started to fall through the group.  As we got up higher I started to get more into a rhythm, but it was a tad bit late as the riders whom I could have bridged across to where a bit up the trail.  As I hit the upper part of the 25 minute or so climb, speeds picked up and I caught a rider in front of me.  The climb compared quite a bit to Italy Hill, wide, flat and gently rolling to the top and the descent was nearly the same.

Unfortunately I couldn’t squeeze past the rider in front of me before the long descent down and with as loose as everything was, decided to just sit in and bite my tongue.  When we hit the road and headed into the next section of singletrack, I dispatched him and rolled forward into the super fast, super fun and swoopy trail.  I’d have to say, knowing this trail would have been a huge advantage.  No idea where I was going, but just ripping it as fast as I could and flowing at high speed and having fun on the trails.  I blew a bunch of corners here and there and got caught out in the wrong gear a few times, but all together made it out of the trail and onto the open logged climb.  I suffered a bit here and couldn’t really find a good rhythm on this climb and just worked on getting over the top and down the descent and through the feed zone.

Crossing the Creek!  Photo by MountainMoon Photography $5 downloads yeah!

I was caught shortly after the feed zone by the single speeders and then up the longer fire-road climb by another rider.  We would continue to yo-yo for the rest of the race.  He’d climb a bit faster than me and I’d bring it all back and more on the descents.  As we neared the end of the race, I knew only had a few more miles to go and attacked him up the short fire-road climb before the final singletrack section.  I had a pretty solid gap going into the woods and it slowly climbed up.  He came darn close to closing it by the time I hit the top of the climb, but as soon as I dropped the descent the gap went right back up and I was able to roll to the finish line with relative ease.  I finished 22/38 riders in the Pro Class and was relatively happy with the race, but definitely need some more work on my climbing at race speed!

Valmont XC

Sunday, decided to head over to Valmont as it was close and have some more fun on the bike and race the Boulder Mountain Bike Festival, it was a fairly small event, but new it would be fun and still brought out some super fast guys!

We had a small but elite group at the race and I had a really solid start and hung onto the tail end of the group throughout the first lap.  Bryan Alders crashed on the last corner and I snuck into 4th and he would give chase for the remaining few laps before zipping past me with a lap or so to go.  Mike West took off on the 2nd lap and I was a few seconds back off the group of 2 in front of me, when I got stung by a bee on the 2nd lap!  Hit me right in the chest and stung me in the stomach, took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on and when I finally did the riders in front where gone.  I gave chase as much as I could over the next few laps, it was brutally hot and exposed but the course was actually quite a bit of fun.

Giving Chase early on

Happy to be done in the heat

Podium time

Even the Lakester got to race!  He was super pumped and ready to go.  Got a good start and when he shifted gears, hit the afterburners and dropped everyone.  He was excited a ton, even got a post race interview…

The Kids line up and are off

Lake dropping the hammer and getting some separation

Top step of the podium

All together was an awesome weekend of bike riding and I’m looking forward to this one coming up.  Going to be some great stuff on tap, stay tuned!

Videos:

Finally got around to editing up a few videos of from When Julie K was in town… Here ya go.  Click thru to embiggen or watch in HD

Air was thin, but views were abundant

Race goal was just to get some intensity in and work on the transition into cross season.  Though, getting intensity in at 11,000ft of elevation is pretty dang easy.  I could barely breathe just warming up on the short start climb hill.  It was fun to take the chairlift all the way to the top of the mountain.  Bridget & Lake tagged along and it was Lake’s first chairlift ride.  He was quite a bit nervous and was a little scared, but ended up getting used to it.

Pro Class start

While it was an unlicensed race, I raced the ‘Pro’ class and had ok field size (bigger than some races back in NY), though the expert and below saw some really great field sizes.  Race started off with a pretty good dirt road climb to thin the field out. I was already thinned out on air and slogged off the back by a few seconds as we hit the singletrack descent.  Super fun, ripplingly fast and technical descent.  Lots of rocks to make you think about your line, but really great dirt and some fun, fast corners.  The technical descent transitioned into a super fast, fun and buff descent that was a bit more open.  Was flying down it and then dumped out onto the fire road climb.  I had managed to pass a rider on the descent and hit the climb with half the field dangling in front of me by about 30 seconds.  At this point the legs were feeling like crud as I couldn’t seem to get any oxygen to them and just decided to roll the climb at my pace (aka slow & steady endurance race pace).  After the dirt road climb, we rolled into  a good long technical singletrack climb.  Pretty rooty and some steep sections in there.  Slow and grinding away, managed to lose touch with the rider whom I passed on the descent and pretty much everyone in front of me.  Worked hard on the descent and could see him at the bottom of the climb, but just didn’t have it to catch him on the dirt road.  So laps 2 & 3 were ridden pretty much solo.  I slogged the last lap up to the climb at the top, and was pretty happy to finally cross the line.  I can definitely say that hurt and underestimated what it was gonna take, after having not raced that hard or at 11k elevation

However, the most fun was what came after the race!  Managed to drop off the mountain with Graham Alderage of Boulder Cycle Sport.  Graham is a moto rider and decided to drop the black diamond jump trail!  Full lycra, rocking the XC bikes.  Graham was catching some big air for sure and I was slowly but surely getting braver and faster as I went down.  Table topping isn’t always my thing, but I got braver and had some more fun and started to get some air for sure.  I can only imagine how insane Marky Mark Hartman would’ve gotten on those jumps as he seems to need a FAA permit for just riding in his backyard.  Mix in the jumps and some crazy huge berms and even a sweet ass raised wooden bridge on one trail and I had a giant ass grin after that.  After all that fun descending, we decided to stick around the mountain; played some putt-putt golf and even rode the alpine slide.  Lake however wasn’t very thrilled with the Alpine slide and literally took about 15 minutes to come down the hill.  Not making Bridget very happy as she was right behind him.  Me on the other hand, I almost blew off the track a few times I was ripping down that thing!

Saturday, as crappy as my legs felt I had a better day on Sunday.  Decided to ride up to Ward and put in some sweet spot effort on the climb.  Managed to do a personal best on the climb up to Ward and have some fairly good legs.  However had to dive down Super-Jamestown as it was thunder and lightning a bit up top and didn’t want to get caught in it.

Home, Home on the range.. Never seen these guys before and just around the corner

Hopefully a little rest this week and I’ll reap some benefits from this past saturdays race.  Going to head back up to Winter Park for Tipperary Creek on saturday and then hit the Valmont XC on sunday!

They took the term ‘Skinsuit’ in France a bit to literally (From Cyclepassion calendar)

Having fun at Hall Ranch

I hope we’ll get out for a few more rides before she departs…

Laramie Enduro

Rolled up to Laramie this past Saturday night with Scott Upton and Randy.  Got there plenty early to find a nice lil camping spot by the creek, set up shop and relax some.  Ate some food, got eaten up by mosquitos and failed miseralbly at sleeping the night before.  Not really anything new, just have learned to accomodate not being able to sleep the night before the race.

Home for the night

Gorgeous sunset over the sagebrush

Woke up and rolled over to the venue feeling good and ready to rip for the day.  Race started off with a fairly steep dirt road climb into some singletrack, I had made the front group onto the turn of hte singletrack, but immediately had to back the throttle off.  Tons of dust was kicked up in the launch off the line and I was starting to have a bit of a coughing fit.  As I soft pedalled a few mintues into the race, was getting passed left and right.  Was able to keep moving forward but mostly at a tempo pace.  I was coughing so hard a few times in that first hour that I almost blacked out from choking.  Was seriously frustrated, I used to carry an inhaler for when this would happen in the past, but it’s been so long I no longer carry it.  I basically rolled it the first hour or so, trying to get breathing and effort back under control.  Everytime I went hard I would start coughing as my breathing rate picked up.  Finally I was able to pull it together around aid station 2 or so.  I started to feel fairly ok and wasn’t coughing anywhere near as much and able to push myself forward.  I started picking riders off quickly and moving forward, no idea where I was.  Was quite a bit near the rear, but felt like I was moving up nicely.  I felt really rippingly fast on the singletrack sections, but still felt dogged on the climbs.  I just worked on flipping my mind and focusing on moving forward and getting to the end of the race.

Somewhere past aid station 3, I was told I was in 28th.  Right on the heels of the eventual female winner Gretchen Reeves.  I saw a few riders up the trail and focused on moving into the top 25, I easily picked them off on the next climb and got some distance between myself and Gretchen.  We’d been yoyoing for a bunch of the race, she would fly up the climbs and I’d bring it all back in on the singletrack.  This time though, I got some distance and kept at it.  The last 20 miles of the race was pretty heavy with singletrack and I was feeling great.  I kept my focus and kept pushing forward, I was slowly picking off riders here and there throughout the final miles.

Catching some air on the way down the HeadQuarters Trail descent (Cool photos by Action Photographic)

The final up and downs were defintiely starting to hurt, but I knew I was so close to the finish line, just needed to keep moving forward.  At the top of the final descent on the flats, made a rookie mistake.  Took a drink from my bottle and looked around at the scenery and managed to hook a tree with my bar with my hand off it.  Down goes Igby, in a cloud of dust.  Got up quickly, but was caught by the rider behind me.  He pipped me heading into the final descent.  Was able to hold his wheel without issue, but on a little rise a gap grew up and was held till we hit the dirt road that we originally climbed up for the start.  I gave it some gas and was flying down the washboarded dirt and closing the gap super quick.  Pretty sure I was doing 150 rpm as I was spun out just trying to close the gap as the meters to the finish line ticked off.  As we hit the corner to the line with a few hundred to go, I launched an all out sprint, closed the gap, but simply ran out of room.  Both of us in our haste almost took out the poor girls trying to take our number.  Ended up losing by half a bike length.  Ah well, I definitely finished the race strong.

After a crappy start and continuing to move forward through the end, I was pumped to have finished 15th.  I know I can do alot better than that, so the chances are pretty solid that I’ll be back next season to make some improvments on my time/finish from this year.

It’s wednesday and I’m still hacking my lungs up and waking the wife up at night with coughing attacks.  I’m either going to fix it tonight or be in far worse shape tonight after the short track!  Ah well, will have some fun…

Rolled into town in time to grab my packet and get a hotel room right across the street from the start.  The race course started right at Howleson hill, which was literally 2 blocks from downtown.  Super cool and had a great vibe for an early am start.  The course rolled right out of the gate and went uphill. I made it to the front group on the little pavement section to widen out, but then it went straight up the mountain on a loose rocky climb and I picked a bad line and fell in line with the group.  We then tucked into a few bits of singletrack and got held up behind a rider as he dabbed uphill. Things then spread into a long 2-3km doubletrack climb and I wasn’t really ripping it up the climb but was holding my own ok.  Dropped through the first of many meadows filled with wildflowers and then switchbacked its way up a long tortureous climb through the aspens/wildflowers.  You would duck into the woods and then float out through the all flowers, then back into the woods, back into the flowers.  Was kinda surreal but was also super cool.  Made the time pass easily I suffered and slogged to the top.  When I finally hit the top and the feedzone was happy to rip it down the descent.  Only problem was, we were bunched up and the guys in front weren’t very fast.  The guy behind me was yelling at me for a pass, but I was gapping him in easy sections, some griping about how he was a local, etc.  But I managed to get past the few riders and have a clear path to the bottom and ripped it solo.  What was that guy screaming about being a local and knowing the trail?  Well he shoulda practiced going down it some more as I had at leat 2 minutes on the group by the bottme!  The descent itself was awesome, just super long and super flowy and fast, lots of corners but super tachy dirt.  Crazy tall wildflowers though made it tough to see any lines and look farther than what was right in front of you.  Had to be a bit of a Jedi and anticipate what was coming up based on the flow of the terrain.  It was like descending blindfolded in a few spots.

(photo from Singletrack.com)

We kicked out onto a fire road at the bottom of the descent.  Even though I just ripped the descent my legs weren’t ready to go hard with the group in front of me so I sat up and rolled up to the next climb.  A super long singletrack climb, pockmarked by hoof prints, enough so that on the 2nd lap I opened my pro pedal valve up to get some more cush!  Felt ok going up this climb, I had to pee so bad on the first lap that I stopped and took some time.  Got passed by a few riders, but brought them back as I liked the flow of the climb.  Mostly wooded, but would have a few breaks and small descents  carrying speed into these steep uphill sections and could just sprint over the top.  Once you hit the top of the climb, the view was just epic.  I literally stopped pedalling and just was awesomely wowed by the mountains and the area.  Was amazing, reality set in when Katie Compton came ripping by at the top.  In hindsight should’ve stuck in front on the descent as we got in a small group of 4 and no one was going forward.  Would’ve been nice to have hit it alone.  Though the 2nd descent to the finish line, made the first one look sad in comparison.  Huge wildflowers lined the trail all the way down and tons of curves and berms and jumps and just FLOW, more FLOW and your cup runneth over with FLOW.  Barely needed the brakes other than when an unexpected corner came up that you couldn’t see with the height of the wildflowers.  Lots more Jedi descending tricks were utilized to make it down this descent.

Came through in our small group to the finish and went to grab drinks and food out of my cooler.  But some jackass had moved it!  Seriously who moves someones cooler when its just leaning agains the fence?  Rummaged around and finally found it and threw it back into place.  Some lady said she’d move it back (I presumed she was the one who moved it in the first place) and I told here I had riders on course that may need it.  I wasn’t lying as Anna was behind me and there was a spare tube/co2 and some food for her just in case she would need anything.

Second lap was a bit more of the same, except I was mostly alone.  I payed my toll for the heat at the top of the climbs and the legs finally showed some semblance of effort 4.5 hours into the race midway up the 2nd climb.  Ugh, was just a little too tired coming into the race as my heart rate would never creep past 150.  I ended up finishing 30th, not shabby but not like I know I can perform.  Such is racing.  Sometimes up, sometimes down

Ah well that’s racing.  The upside is, this was without a doubt one of the coolest race courses I’ve ever ridden.  My words suck in comparison to how the support, volunteers and the course itself really was.  There was so much FLOW on this course and so much fun.  Wildflowers, Aspens, MEGA climbs, MEGA descents, just awesomenesss all together.  I’ll definitely be back for this one!

On the way back home, I just lollygaged and took some photots and had some fun.

Looking down on the Valley after rolling out of town

Rabbit Ears Pass

North Park

More Mountains

Moose!!

Big honking moose

Pretty certain the moose congregate here so they can people watch

Off this afternoon to Laramie, Wyoming for the Laramie Enduro.  Hoping for much better legs and some fun this weekend!

The course is a fairly short loop, although slightly changed from last year as the bridge was closed.  We got a monsoon rain show in the afternoon and left some wet spots on the course that made it tough to corner quickly and having not ridden in mud for so long, had to relearn how to slide around.  Course starts in the ball field and follows the perimeter for a few hundred meters and then dumps into some tight singletrack.  Quite tight, few sharp corners that make you scrub all your speed then re-accelerate.  Coming out of the first singletrack section, we had a two-way bridge crossing that was a mandatory run.  The downside to this was right after the bridge was a straight up loose, rooted climb meaning 7x would have to lug the bike up the steep climb while running, remount and head into the second section of singletrack.  That section was a bit more open and quick to pass through, though it got super tight just before the climb.  Literally had to come to a dead stop to corner 120 degrees around a tree, over some logs and a quick descent to the new climb section.  Brought you along the backside of the hill at high speed with some off camber bench cuts, then a tight steep switchback climb.  Once off that, quick little technical descent and then weaving through the trees along the creek.  Drop out and run back across the bridge back into the start field and then drop back into the flat singletrack.  Was really fast through here, but the corners were slick and required scrubbing speed in order to not blow them.  Then a quick off camber slippery climb that takes you back out and rolls along towards the start field.  Overall was a solid course and would be fun to race.

Got some practice laps in, and felt good and ready to go.  I knew getting into the woods first would be critical as would have first chance at the run-up (which I suck at).  No room to pass for a bit and I wanted to be out front.  I hit it hard off the line, got out front and got into the woods in the lead without issue.  But it was tight and twisty and slowed us down, I actually felt really great and wasn’t breathing hard at all (sea-level air) and was just surprised at being able to go anaerobic like that without dying.  Got up the run-up without falling on my face and was being chased hard by Andy August.  I hit the base of the switchback climb and accelerated a bit to get some separation and put a few seconds into Andy.  Rolled through the first lap with about a 5 second gap and kept moving forward.  Somehow or other I lost my rear brake, it was straight mush to the bars.  With the millions of tight corners and the mud I needed to set myself up nicely to hit the corners smoothly.  But that was no longer happening, was basically barrel rolling into corners at speed and trying to use my front brake to scrub speed, but had horrible setup coming out of the corners and basically had to soft pedal till I could get my line.  I knew that I was losing time in the singletrack so I made up for it on the climbs and out in the grassy field.  We caught some lap traffic and I think Andy got caught up, but my gap went up to around 20 seconds and from there I basically went into maintenance mode.  Conserving energy in case of a dumb crash or slide-out in a corner but just working my way through the course.

Had tons of family on hand to watch both myself and Lake race and was getting awesome splits and able to keep my pace and just have fun racing my bike around the course.  Felt great to walk away with my first Victory of the season, have some fun riding my bike and show some family a new sport.  Of which most were super excited to see and had a great time.  Thanks to everyone who came out and had fun

SoGnar

Updated with Strava Chart

Southern Greater Naples Area Ride- with the Geneva Bicycle Center Crew.  Definitely what I was looking for!  A big day on the mountain bikes with friends.  We rode up the Orange Trail backwards on the race course, down the carriage trail (past the Jayhole!) took the road over to Bristol, climbed up the backside, dropped Off the Radar, Dugway to the Stid Hill Creek bed, to some unholy steep 4 wheel trail (3 garmins confirmed 51% grade!), then dropped the switchbacks, took the long lonely road back to Cutler and back up the carriage to drop the Orange Trail

Was super awesome to ride with my greatest riding buddies, have some fun and rip some of the most fun trails ever.  Sidenote:  It’s rained a ton and these fellas have been ripping moto’s instead of dirt, which meant mega hard descending.  Friggin A they were bombing stuff, I may have gone harder downhill on some super loose, muddy trails than I did uphill!

Here’s some pics of the day:

We love our Osprey Packs

Heading to the top of that hill in Cutler

Holy Crap is everything green!

Start of the climb on the backside of Bristol Mt

Muddy, loose, rocky & uber steep

Rolling through the Hemlocks

Climbing up the creekbed, this really sucked and seemed to go on forever.  Now I know why I never went this way

Back to Cutler on the Orange Trail.  A trail I may have ridden more than any other as it was once the 24 hour course

All together some awesome riding for sure.  Was seriously amazed at how good it felt to ride back home (the humidity notwithstanding) but never really went anaerobic.  Wish I felt like that all the time on the bike.  Was quite a bit of a difference riding in the thick woods.  So much ground cover and mud, really had to be on your game to know where to put the tires.

I arrived in the little mountain town of Bailey in time for the packet pickup/racer meeting and was able to catch up and hang out with one of my athletes who was also participating.  Got the down low on the course and headed over to the campground to set up shop.  Camping was basically out in the middle of a field at the top of the mountain.  But it was pretty scenic and thankfully quiet.  Set up shop, downed some food and shut down for the night.

Never actually slept a wink, but that’s not unusual for me when having to get up that early.  Decided against the sleeping pills as I didn’t want to wake up groggy.  Usually wake up frustrated as I didn’t sleep, but refused to let it bother me.  Not sure if it was the fact that it was 33 degrees in the morning or I was just focused that I forgot about not sleeping and was ready to rip.  Thankfully my athlete and her husband were gracious enough to give me a ride down to the start line.  4 miles downhill in 33 degrees was not looking very exciting and even in the 5 minutes I rolled around at the start, I was freezing.

We rolled off the start with around 8 miles of dirt road with a few stout climbs before we hit the singletrack.  I stayed near the front and within my comfort zone on the first few climbs, just trying to warm my hands up.  Up and down a few times and then on one of the descents, hear the god-awful noise of a bike hitting the deck and a body sliding.  Caught a glimpse of green and black and realized it was Jeff Kerkove (click the link if you want to see the carnage).  The group kept rolling up the climb and onto one of the longer climbs and the front group started to splinter.  I was giving chase from the 3rd group in the road, the 3 of us were working together to catch the 2nd group of 5 about 30 seconds up and the front group (guessing 8-10) had rolled off.  I knew that if I didn’t make it to the 2nd group before the singletrack I likely would be stuck in dire straits for most of the day.  As we crested the top of the climb, I dispatched my 2 riders and bridged across to the 2nd group and was able to get in the mix as we headed into the singletrack.

Into the Singletrack (photo Jeff Kerkove)

Rolling into the singletrack was blazingly fast.  It was super fun and flowing trails, super dry and sandy.  Swapped around positions with a few riders here and there depending on who missed a line or crashed.  Was feeling great on the bike, kept on top of my fueling and drinking as much as I could.  My hands finally warmed up about 5 miles into the singletrack.  The first few miles with cold hands were tough, was super sluggish with shifting and braking.  Things moved around and rolled through the first few checkpoints quickly.  Jeff Kerkove came flying by in the singletrack with a look of anger and some adrenaline flowing and could tell he was on a mission to get back up to the front.

We kept rolling on the trails, in and out of the burn zones, rolling up and down the trails.  I was literally just having so much fun.  Feeling great, was jumping off of things and working the trail like it was a pump track to get that free speed.  Rolled out onto the doubletrack dirt road before we hit the Colorado trail, dug into my pockets and at as much as I could before we headed into the singletrack again.  I was in a group of 3 with Jorge Espinoza and Mike Hogan as we hit the long climbs and I let them roll ahead as I was playing conservative on the steep long slogs.  I could see them flickering ahead in the woods every now and then.

I was just watching the clock, hoping to hit the 50 mile mark in sub 4 hours.  My race goal was sub 8 and I knew if I was close to that could pull it out.  I rolled past the 50 mile mark around 3:50 and was super stoked and caught some major adrenaline knowing I could meet my goal. As we rolled out of the woods and into the burn zone again, I could see Mike in the distance and was able to catch him before the long descent into aid station #6.

One of the many burn zones (photo Jeff Kerkove)

Hit aid station #6 and didn’t need anything in my drop bag, I just took off my arm/knee warmers and rolled out.  Had plenty of food in my pockets and was feeling great and ready to rock and roll.  Mike passed me as I was changing, but I hooked up with Nate Brown in the feed zone.  We decided to roll out on the dirt and pavement and just work together.  Best move of the race.  We drilled it on the slight incline and into the headwind along the Platte River.  Just flew along at 20+ mph.  Caught Mike, but he ended up dropping off and we kept rolling.  Caught and dropped a single-speeder and just kept working.  I was doing my best to give what I could, but Nate was riding super strong on the road and I stayed tucked in as much as I could.  As we neared the long open dirt road sections, I was starting to hit a rough patch.  I told Nate to go on ahead and I would see him at the finish line.

Nate rolled up the climb and got about 500 meters ahead and something clicked over, I just started feeling really great.  Rolled up past Nate and kept charging, saw another rider and rolled past him.  The legs were feeling super and the adrenaline was flowing.  Saw Mr. Kerkove and rolled past him asking how the leg was as I could see the bloody remnants from the crash.  I rolled over the top and just kept pushing it with everything.  As the road kept getting steeper I felt like I kept getting faster going upwards.  I was finally moving forward instead of backwards at the end of the race.  Focus was there and I just kept pushing it.  I caught a Honey Stinger Rider on the next climb and kept pushing past and down the dirt road descent.  Then the nastiest part of the race, we had a gate crossing of stagnant Bison poo and no way around it.  Had to go right through it and was just covered in dirty black sludge.  Could barely even read the garmin after wiping it off a few times.

Was now within the 15 miles to go.  Random spectator told me another rider was only a few minutes up.  I continued to push it with everything on the climbs and just kept working.  Caught another Honey Stinger rider and rolled past him on the climbs and kept working hard. 10 miles to go caught the last feed zone, got a heed and kept pushing it and back onto the start road we were on.  Random rider in reverse direction yelled out I was in 10th.  10th?  Holy crap how did I get up here, I also noticed the miles were ticking away and was going to blow away my goal of 8 hours and was know shooting  for sub 7:30.  Kept pushing it hard and the last few rollers were brutal.  The legs were now starting to catch up and ache.  The sun was baking me on the exposed dirt roads, but I just kept pushing and staying as focused as I could.  I finally breached what I though was the final climb, only to drop down and realize I was at the base of 1 more monster.  Looking up, I saw 2 riders ahead.  Was there enough time to catch them?  Did I have it in the tank?

I surged for a few seconds, but knew it was futile they had rounded the corner to start the descent and I still had a little bit to go.  I stayed on point but no longer giving such a hard chase.  Just wanted to get down the final descent without crashing or flatting.  Was easier said than done as it was just a loose 4 wheel trail with no real lines.  Almost went down at full speed, but kept it under control and rolled into the finish line at 7:21 in 10th place!!

Hundo Finish (credit MtbRaceNews)

Super ecstatic to have had a great ride and just having really put out a great effort.  The winner Colin Cares of Kenda had rolled in at 6:42 and 2nd place was Brian Alders at 7:02.  Just a great day on the bike and hoping for a few more results that will match this effort!

Looking forward to heading home this coming weekend, seeing some friends, family, new family and riding some old trails!

At least I got off the start line nicely

I’ll gladly admit wasn’t ready for this race at all.  Started off with a really quick start and I got to the road on the front, but knew I shouldn’t have been there and backed off.  I really am lacking vo2 efforts at the moment and knew I’d pay for the efforts.  I rolled to the back of the group and just worked on settling into my own kinda pace.  Which for the record, didn’t have me on the front, but it was damn near the fastest I’ve averaged on a mountain bike.  The first 2-3 laps had me averaging over 15 mph on the dirt!!  Never ever left the big ring, for pretty much all 60 miles

Go big or go home

The 80 degree plus heat took it’s toll and after a few laps, I was seriously bored with the race course and just ended up rolling the last few laps.  I stopped and chatted a few times with Bridget and Lake in the pits, and probably should have taken lots more water on (2 bottles per lap instead of 1).  I flatted on the 5th lap, but was able to get the stans to take hold (that’s a first!)  Rolled it in for I think 28th place overall, hopefully some work in the future can get me up a bit closer.  Pretty certain just need some race miles and hard efforts to do so.

Gowdy Grinder

This past weekend, headed up to the Gowdy Grinder, just east of Laramie, Wyoming.  The race was 10 friggin bucks!!  That’s not a typo. 10 dollars to race, seriously $10.  No t-shirts, no big prizes, just $10 to race.  Who the eff would go to Salida for the MSC and pay $60 to race?  Pretty short trip up there, 90 minutes from Longmont.  I was hooked.

This is Wyoming… Oh the nothingness

Rolled into the venue with plenty of time.  It was crystal clear skies, but as is typical for Wyoming, blasting with wind.  Decided to roll out and pre-ride the first lap.  I took it pretty easy and followed a few of the intermediate racers around the course, careful to stay behind them.  A few times I went back and re-rode some sections to check lines, etc.  It was definitely a blast of a course.  Started out with a super tough steep climb and then onto the fire-road and into the singletrack.  Once into the rocky technical singletrack, there’d be no place to pass for sure.  Crazy tight in there and if anyone made a mistake, you would be going backwards.

The start climb, straight up right away (I’m actually right behind Webber in 6th wheel)

Had a nice front row starting spot, but somehow missed my pedal.  I got off the line ok, but really needed to get into my pedal to get up the steep hill.  Coming around the right hand bend into the straight up, I kinda got chopped and lost all of my momentum and was slowly moving down in the group.  Once we got to the top of the climb, you pretty much had to be in the group or you were just left out into the wind to fight alone.

Right off the bat the group spreads out on the fireroad.  I’m in about 10th here, at the tail end of the split

I ended up being out in the wind and had to work super hard to stay with the group.  A bunch of riders rolled past me and I managed to jump at the top of the climb and get a few key positions back and make onto the wheels of the second group into the singletrack.  We were a pretty tight knit bunch for the first lap, then slowly dudes started making mistakes.  This allowed gaps to open up here and there in the group, but with no place to pass, just not much you could do.  Picked a few riders off, and made up some spots at the start of the 2nd lap and worked my way up into the top 10 during the 2nd lap.  Was hitting it pretty good and riding strong.  Coming around for the 3rd lap, just had to maintain and ride another solid lap. Dumb, dumb, dumb, forgot to grab a water bottle.  I had set one up on the fence to grab for my 3rd lap and was pretty much on an empty bottle to start it.  I really didn’t cramp at all, but just started slowly drifting off my pace.  Never had the punch on the climbs and ended up just continually getting reeled in by dudes who had a solid grasp of the pace.  I lost about 4 minutes or so on the final lap and  that would’ve put me inside the top 10 had I held it (results here).  No complaints though, still working into my season.  Was a super fun race course and come on at 31, I was the 2nd youngest guy in the top 15, so that is a great thing to look forward to… getting faster with age!  Here’s a sweet write up from Mountain Flyer magazine and where I stole the pics from

Raced for Peyton

The bummer of the weekend, was that my nephew Peyton was in the hospital.  He’s 2 years old and was having complications with his shunt and they weren’t sure if he’d need surgery or not.  I felt helpless so far away and really wanted to be home and with family.  That’s probably the hardest part about being so far away.  I just focused on how much of a fighter he is and always will be his whole life, racing a bike is a piece of cake compared to what he’s been through.  Hopefully someday he’ll be able to ride a 2 wheel bike without help and I want to be right there alongside him when he does.  Until then, I cherish that I’m able to do so and hope to carry his strength into my races.  The suffering of legs screaming from an effort is laughable compared to what he has been through.

Next race on the calendar is the Bailey Hundo.  MEGA training block on the schedule over the next few weeks to get myself prepped and ready!

I had wrapped up the Pueblo XC and the big man, Brendan Housler was making his way to Boulder (his report here) to test his 3rd place at Battenkill Pro/1 legs at altitude.  Can his jet engine fire at 5500ft?

He did some mega miles and fared pretty well and was happy to have him come out here and ride for a bit. Even if the dogs ate his bread, I think he still had a great time.  And I certainly hope he comes back, he’s gonna be off to good things these next few seasons.

Climbing up Sunshine Canyon

Jet engines firing up 4 mile canyon

Voodoo Fire RME 70 miler

Headed back down to Pueblo for my first endurance race of the season.  Keep testing the legs and having fun.  A quick change of the course had us doing 3 x 23 mile laps instead of 2 x 35 miles.  No worries, means easier access to the on course feed zones.  Having ridden the trails the weekend before, I knew exactly what I was up against (and this time I would have the corners down).  I hit the start with the front group and just slowly went backwards over the course of the first 2 laps.  It was cold and chilly and my legs weren’t that bad, I just couldn’t ride fast.  Scratching my head, I was on the right lines, just couldn’t keep it up.  I faded a bit on the second lap and almost considered quitting the race.

Decided to just stick out the 3rd lap and have some fun and get in some good training.  Few minutes into the start of the 3rd lap, my rear tire was a little low.  Stopped to put some co2 in it.  As I was spinning the wheel to get to the valve stem, realized the wheel barely turned.  Try again, nope few inches.  Well, that’s what was slowing me down!!  Frigging disc brake was rubbing solid.  Quick fix of that and the wheel spun freely.  I ripped it apart on that final 18 miles.  Was rolling past tons of zombies on the trail who were a bit tired from the days efforts.  Felt like I was flying, guess that I was as I took 10 minutes off of my lap times….

Nothing I could do except laugh and keep on riding.  It was good to just be out there and race.  I managed 16th in my age, 33? Overall.  Not overly disappointed, but I know I can do quite a bit better.  On to the next one I guess

Up next will be the first few days riding with the GBO gang before Fruita MTB Camp (i think they changed their name from GBC at least that’s what the logo looks like