I’ve been to Fruita 2x over the last few weekends.  First time was with my Epic Pro teammates.  Got in some great riding, dodged some shoddy weather and I attempted to race.  I say attempted as I had an asthma attack about a few minutes due to the dust and efforts.  I backed it off and basically rode at zone 2 for the majority of the race.  But Chris took a solid 4th place finish at the race.

Check out that sweet stuff out there

Alders and Baddick Strava Hunting on I-70

Round 2 was back at Fruita, this time with the FasCat camp.  An Awesome gang and some super fun low-key skills riding.  Got to rip so much cool trail and ride lots of stuff that missed the 1st weekend.  Doyle and Hanggi even made it out for year 2.  Super fun to get to ride with them.  I wonder who gets to come next year?  Props to Hanggi, rode all 4 days he was here with a BROKEN THUMB and never complained.  Just got it done and railed the trails.

Western Rim

 Gorgeous but long day out there

Props to Lauren Andre, 16 years old and showing us how it gets done 

 Hanggi showing us how to climb properly in bike shoes

Strava hunting on the Horsethief Bench Trail

Round 3 was the Whiskey 50.  14 hours down there with Baddick, Blake Harlan and Tammy Sadle.  Long drive but worth every minute.  North America’s best pros were on hand to contest for the $30,000 on the line.  Rolled into town, pre rode, raced the crit, chilled saturday, then got to work Sunday.  MORE HERE on Epic Blog.  It was just a great weekend to be out and play pro bike racer against so many other great racers.  I’m really stoked with my result.  Everyone always feels they can do better when it’s over, and I’m sure I could have.  But in the end the result happens when you cross the line and not when you rethink about what you could have or should have done during the race.  41st against a stacked field for first real event of the season.  I set a goal time and smashed it and that makes me happy.  Props though to Baddick who took an awesome 13th place!

Rolling out with team Jamis for a pre-ride

Uh! Chris, there’s a snake coming for your snake?!

Whiskey Fat Tire Crit, that shit was hard

In search of trails for some fun on saturday 

 Found Yuki from Ergon out there and got to shred some super fun stuff

Finishing the Whiskey 50

All in all had a boatload of fun the past few weekends, gotta to see some old friends, make new friends and just have a blast riding the bike. Now it’s time to spend some time with the Family though!!

Made it to and back home from Upstate New York and had an awesome time

Met My Niece/God-daughter Reagan

Hung with my favorite Buddy Peyton

Raced my bike Tuesday night at the Park Ave Arrowhead race; the whole family came out and I walked away with the W.  Thick air felt good, slip sliding around on the muddy trails with no rear brakes did not, but happy to have a good race.

Rolled out with the GBC crew for a Naples SoGnar Ride

Yup I remember these muddy, wet, rocky, steep (3 garmins confirmed 51% grades) super fun trails

Went out on the boat on Seneca Lake

Played some more with Peyton in the Pool (yeah yeah I know take the t-shirt off!)

More to come later…. Including a full write-up on the race and what it’s like to go back to wet muddy trails.

We did have some fun though and got in another great day of riding

Anna Climbs up to the top right out of the parking lot

Suzanne hits the lines on the Gunny Loop

Big Rocks, Big Views

Gorgeous Day & Awesome Views

Day 4

Headed back to hit a few trails we missed on 18mi rd.  Ended up Hitting Prime Cut, Chutes & Ladders & Kessel’s Run

Here’s a quick video (uncut & not edited from Kessel’s Run)

Only pic I got of the day

I’ve got tons of video, just haven’t imported it all and processed it yet.  Been super busy, why do you think been so behind on these!

Day 1: Edge Loop

Apparently we rode this completely ass-backwards but still managed to have hella fun!

The Gang is ready to Roll Out! (From Left to Right; Anna Fortner, Ray Fortner, Brad Shields,

Mark Hartman, Suzanne Hartman, Jason Hilimire)

We’re heading up there!

Rolling through the creekbed

Hey Guys, the trail ends here!  I wonder what those ropes are for?

Ahh now I see how to get up there

After the rope climb was a brutal singletrack climb, just went up forever

But it led us to some spectacular views on top!

And then onto the hike-a-bikes

… And more hike-a-bikes…

But Suzanne was smiling up top!

We ripped it down the dirt road and then jumped onto Zippety-do-da and just blasted the super fun trail.  Awesome wrap to day 1

Day 2: Kokopelli Trails

Not quite as warm but gorgeous scenery

What’s over this edge?

Some awesome and buff trails to really rip on

Don’t look left!

Big chunky rocks on the Lions Loop

Father-Daughter Bonding time!

Suzanne the Shredder on the ridge

Now that we are up here we get to go back down there to those trails!!

I’ll catch up with Days 3 & 4 tomorrow for sure…

Wrapped up my mountain bike race season with the Shenandoah 100 and the Liberty Classic in Northern PA.  Shenandoah went fairly well.  I was shooting for close to 8 hours, but ended up 8:30 of ride time and 8:45 total.  The soul crusher always destroys me and did so again.  Liberty Classic was a solid race.  Felt really great and was in 4th place until I double flatted on the final descent and finished 6th.

Then I focused completely on the wedding and honeymoon.. and everyone knows what happens once you get married!

Came back home and raced the Cobb’s Hill Cyclocross race…. 2 weeks completely off the bike made for me trying to not finish in last place. Rode well for first 10 minutes, but the climb killed me as 42×25 was waay to big a gear…

Will be moving back to Boulder here very quickly!! Nov 15th and I’ll be working out of the new Performance center. Cannot wait to get back, enjoy the sunshine and bang out some good rides. Look me up if you are out there, lotsa cool stuff coming down the pipeline. Till next time… (hopefully won’t be 2 months!)

Super fun time, but I’m still tired and still trying to catch up on everything. Racing some cross country this weekend at Williams Lake. Not sure why I signed up for a race thats 4 hours away, but ah well. It’s xc racing and it’ll be a blast!

Headed east on Friday with the Minerva Design crew for Battenkill-Roubaix. Got there nice and early and plenty of time to chill in the hotel with Brendan. For first time in a long time I slept like a log when away from home for a race. It was unprecedented, but def worthwhile. Brendan, Drew & Jeff were all in the cat 3 race, while I got lucky and got do an extra 20 miles in the 2 race. Things started great and I had really good position thru the bridge and onto the dirt without issue. Bottles flying everywhere, but managed to sit comfortable at the front. There was a nasty steep dirt climb that nearly cracked me, but I held tight. …. Till the next time we climbed it as we looped back onto the course again. The wind was blowing like crazy and I was just off the back off the much smaller main field. Gave chase for a bit, but the wind had other plans. Decided to just roll it back to the car and tend to my wounded ego. But, Brendan put on big show in the cat 3 race and took home a huge Win in a 3 up sprint. Soon enough I’ll be working for him in the 1/2 races if he keeps up the win streak.

Sunday was the GVCC’s first ever mountain bike race. It was nice to see something that Todd and I had chatted about really come to fruition. The weather was gorgeous and I had laid out a really kick as 2+ mile loop course. Had a few tough climbs, some good single track and some fast field sections. Lake even kicked off his race season in the kids race. He was a little outgunned by the big kids and their bigger bikes, but nonetheless he did his 2 laps around the soccer field and was super pumped all day just to be out at the races. Plus he got to go play on the playground most of the day too! No kid will argue against that!

We had some huge numbers for the race & nearly filled out the expert class with 47 racers! The short prologue field helped thin things out before we hit the single track and opening climb. I made it into the woods in 2nd place and held it till we came out of the elevator climb. Dan Staffo (on a cx bike) attacked hard in the upper field, but I couldn’t close the gap. Spent the next 3 laps reeling him in on the single track only to lose him on the climbs and in the fields where he could fly. On the last lap, Doug Rusho had been breathing down my neck and passed me on the way up A-train. I kept him close and was ready to attack up the moon valley climb, but washed out on the corner before hand and was never able to recover and close the gap.

This let the 5th place rider (Rob Pilato) close the gap to me. He hunted me down and off the final descent into the field he used his momentum to swing past me and try to drop me in the grass heading to the finish line. Little did he know i was fully prepped for his move. I simply sat in on his slipstream, let him pull me to the line and jumped him in the final 100 meters to keep 4th place! 1st place was way off the front but 2-5 were only separated by 15 seconds! That’s some great xc racing! I had a ton of fun and hope everyone else did too!

Huge thanks to the GVCC & Full Moon Vista for the setup & support! Hopefully this event continues to grow over the next few years.

This weekend is the Bloomfield road race, then my personal favorite The Prattsburgh Rambler!

Here’s some Pics from the weekend….

Recap: Day 2 Day 1

Day 3

Day 3 looks on paper, to be a super fun, super fast and easy day.

Little did I know what I had in store for me. Since the day was a bit faster, we got some bonus added sleep time as the race started an hour later than normal, though for this race we started in the center of the village. It was quite cool and loads of people gathered round to see us off

We were mostly smiling cause we thought today was all downhill, little did we realize what was on tap!

It was a quick start rolling right through the city village and then up the first of the day’s climbs. Again, I was feeling really good on the bike and happy to be out and ready for another day’s adventure.

The first climb took us up and up and up. At the top was a nice little gathering of the locals, cheering us on pushing us forward. I had slacked off a bit to take pictures and had to rally myself to bridge the gap up to Todd. Once I caught Todd on the road, I rallied him to grab my wheel and we bridged up to the Green Machine for a really fun singletrack descent through some flower fields, mint and other spices. It really smelled amazing (no pics it was too much fun!)

After we hit the days first descent we had another bit of climbing before we would come to the top and descend through some crazy farmland. Riding on a combination of farm roads and worker trails, we cut our way though the fields. Working right into this crazy mud chute, it had to be about 12-15 high and just wide enough for us. Only thing was it was so steep and muddy, I was having a hell of a time clipping in and managing to hold onto the bike as it slid down. There was no control, just riding a bucking bronco and bouncing off the sides for 200 meters.

Once we got out of the chute it was onto the road for one of the hairest road descents I’ve ever been on. The picture above really doesn’t do it any justice. This thing was steep, it made Bopple hill look flat. Swapping between cobbles and concrete, super windy and just blazingly fast. All the while the townsfolk & their dogs are dodging around us.

All the commotion wasn’t good. When I hit a flat spot I decided to wait up for Todd. After a few minutes, I figured he had a flat or something. Then a few riders came down and told me he had crashed. I made my way back up the hill to find him sitting on the fence, with just about every kid in town checking him out. He was in some good pain, had gone down at around 50-60kph on the cobbles, when a dog cut between us. Luckily his pack took the brunt of the blow and the rest was mostly just some deepish cuts, road rash and some muscle bruising. Silly roadies, at least being a roadie Todd was used to crashing at speed. After resting for a bit, we decided to coast the final few kilometers to the next checkpoint and have him taken back to the hotel so the doc could check his wounds and get him cleaned up. After triple checking he was ok and once we got to the checkpoint, we decided that I would go on solo.

Riding solo in an unknown country, and being pretty much at the rear of the field and not seeing anyone for a while was kind of scary and fun at the same time. After I left Todd, I had a hell of a road descent before I dived into the Jungle. I was speeding past the cars at 80-100kph and having all kinds of fun! Once I hit the jungle it was all downhill, fast and flowy farm roads. Just crusing on the bike.

Then came the cobbles, and the cobbles, and the cobbles and the friggin cobbles. 20 straight kilometers of descending cobbles at high speeds. I had to stop and make some fork adjustments cause my hands were going numb even with the fork taking off the edge. It was fun, but quite hairy in the corners as the rocks had a slight slickness to them. I knew if I went down, there was no one to pick me back up.

We descended down and down through the Macadamia Nut fields

The cobbles continued and continued, and finally ceased. From there it was some crazy fast and fun singletrack. It flowed so very nicely, only thing was it was sooo insanely humid and hot. I felt like my face was going to melt right off. Then I realized I’d not seen any tire tracks or arrows in a few kilometers. I got spooked quick. The realization that I was all alone, lost and in a jungle caused a panic. I mean I’m in a friggin jungle, I could get eaten by a goddam jaguar or something. I decided to turn around and make my way back to where I could find the last arrow. I seemingly wasn’t the only one who missed an arrow as my solo trek soon turned into a gang of 9 riders looking for the course. I had gone quite a way (about 4-5k) and managed to pick up a few stragglers. Luckily was able to get myself back on course and get moving forward.

As I got moving forward, I came to the 2nd suspension bridge of the day. Holy crap, this thing was all rickety, off kilter, about 200 meters long and about 50 meters in the air. It took me a good damn bit of time to cross the thing.

You can see here, I had to actually stop and move my bike to the other side of me. The bridge was swaying hard and really was leaning off to one side and I had to switch sides to feel comfortable. Once I was off the bridge, and now out of water it was one hell of a hike-a-bike out. I had no idea how far I had left go as I lost my computer. If felt like I was going to melt. I contemplated just sitting down and letting that jaguar eat me. Then I heard a few voices, and a few locals were on the climb observing us racers coming over the bridge and they had clean water!! Hallelujah!! I downed about 5 of those little sealed baggies of water (I’ve never seen water come in baggies). Got complety rejuvenated and was super pumped to find out that at the top of the climb, I had a few k of mostly road riding to get to the finish.

I railed it hard to the finish and was super pumped to get there! It had been a long 3 days and know it was to come to a close!! Todd was there waiting, he had been cleaned up and bandaged and managed to limp over and give me a hi-five for finishing. The race, the hotels, the course, the people, the food, the staff, everything about this race was 5 star across the board. I highly recommend it to anyone. Next year I’ll be on my honeymoon as this race kicks off, so until 2012 there’s an open spot, but I hope
to be back in the future!

Day 2 El Reto de Quetzal

Upon arriving back at the hotel from day 1′s journey. I was in such a distorted state I could barely function. I quickly cleaned up and hit the hotel for lunch. I had to eat. HAD to eat, so much so that I couldn’t actually function until I ate a giant plate of pasta, bean soup, couple of cokes and multiple baskets of bread. There’s hunger and there’s ravaged hunger! After that it was simply time to sleep and wait to eat again. The hotel was gorgeous with an amazing view overlooking the lake

I felt pretty hosed after the prior day’s efforts and day 2 was looking to be another epic day. While short in stature it had plenty of vertical, taking us up above 9500ft!! With all the climbing on tap I was wondering how the legs were going to possibly feel and would I be second guessing my 26/36 dual chainring?

The first 10k was a road climb, right outta the gate tires started on the incline. Surprisingly I actually felt really good. I like the long climbs (as much as you can ‘like’ a climb), especially when you’re not running full tilt with such a long day on tap. As usual the front teams took off the front leaving us gringos to grid away till we hit the village at the top.

I was feeling pretty good and sat out to ride some nice tempo up the climb, Todd who had a great day prior was suffering a little bit with effort out of the gate. So I yo-yo’d up and back for a bit with a few small groups. As cool as it was (mid/low 70′s) it was extremely humid. I made the right choice to go pack-less and even had to fully unzip on the climb as I was dripping in sweat. I woulda been dryer had I jumped in the lake.

We continued to climb till we hit the top and blasted down a dirt/concrete road. Only thing with blasting down a super fun fast switchback road, is the locals are still driving up and down the single car wide/blind corner road!! There were more than a few close calls of descending at 65kph and slamming on the brakes around the corners so we don’t collide head on with truck!

After the first descent it was time to go up a bit more (see above). This time we paired up with the Green Machine. Trisha and Steve, a canadian team who were leading the mix category race and gave us a beat down the day prior. Trish is a crazy good climber and spent the day bolting off the front every chance she could, while I gave chase and Todd/Steve were stuck behind yelling curses at us while we climbed away. We had some good laughs and great chats up the climbs together and spent a good majority of the race and after each day hanging out (there were only 4 anglophone teams).

Once over the top of the 2nd climb we had an amazing descent into the valley. Some nice cliff edges and beautiful views of the gorges and surrounding mountains. But as had been par for the course it meant a nice long climb out. The climb out was actually fun as it had some nice steep sections and some good rolling recovery sections. Todd was ready to roll at this point and we flew up the climb passing a few team and making up some ground. As far out as were were from any village, there were still locals kids here and they even were running along side and pushing me up the climbs. I got a kick out of it cause they were all too far gassed to offer any help to Todd!

Though once out of the valley climb it was back onto a long grind dirt road climb. After the fun of the previous singletrack climb, it was actually kind of hard to really get ourselves into a rythmn and get moving. And lo and behold the Green machine like the crazy robots they are churned away and pulled us back in.

A quick stop at aid station #2 for a refuel and were off to make the long singletrack hike a bike to the top. This trail seemed to go on forever and with all the climbing we had done mixed in with the elevation, it was gnarly to try to get moving and just put down any efforts. There were more than a few pit stops to catch my breath as I felt like I was just going to black out from the fatigue and the elevation.

Once we got to the top things opened up a bit and we were able to get back on the bikes and rolling.

I tried out my trials skills on a very tiny off-camber rock section. Got the front wheel up and across the gap, but the rear wheel slid and some big consequences. Off the side down into the ravine I went. A good 20 foot fall, somehow I jumped off the bike landed on my feet, but was moving so fast I had to jump again and again each time going down about 5-10 feet and finally slowing down by jumping into some bushes. I came out unscathed, but had the adrenaline flowing now!

Another pit stop at the aid station for some more of that delicious watermelon and still had 45 more minutes of climbing!! As we topped out at 9580ft of elevation it was time to do nothing but go downhill!! A super fun long descent all the way down the other side of the mountains we had just climbed. The descent was super fun singletrack, rocky, rooty and even got some crazy greasy clay sections with loads of ruts.

At one point were flying down the descent and came across a group of locals carrying firewood. Generally a good Ola! gets em moving out of the way, but for some reason this time they didn’t hear or decided they weren’t moving! Well it was a super greasy clay descent with loads of ruts everywhere and we were descending around 50+kph and they happened to be walking the best line. I moved off the line across some ruts and suddenly my rear wheel came sliding around and was know in pretty darn even with me and within my peripheral vision. Seeing your rear wheel at that speed isn’t usually a good thing. I started to think about how damn hard the crash was going to hurt as the wheel was sliding around and then, BAM! the wheel caught the side of a rut, straightened right out and I was on the move again. Todd who was descending right behind me could barely believe I pulled out of it, I jokingly bragged it was all in the skills (the chamois stains proved I was scared though).

Once off the singletrack it was onto some farm road descending for what felt like a good 20-30 minutes. Super fast 50 kph, slightly downhill banging it out at full speed flying along riding. It was the best part of the day, just churning the pedals away feeling like you had no chain. The road was pretty buff as far as no rocks or whatnot, but it was still dirt and bumpy making you really pick your lines at that speed. But it felt great to just punch it as hard as you could and feel like you were really flying. In fact the descent was so much fun, it made you forget about all the pain and suffering of going uphill the whole day.

Day 2 was in the books 5:45 of time on the bike. Grabbed our bags, showered up and grabbed some lunch as quick as possible. After the long lunch, it was back to the room for an hour of naptime and then right back to the restaurant to eat a 2nd lunch. We were quite famished and the first one barely touched us. Our 2nd lunch gave us some incentive to rest some more and then head to the dinner buffet where we gorged ourselves on anything we could find to fit in our bellies. Stage racing,,, ride, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, eat, sleep. What’s better than that?

Day 3 to come soon…we’re almost there!

It’s not too often that you take your definition of “Epic” and completely redefine it. Most of the time the word often gets overused a bit, but I doubt there is a better term for the El Reto de Quetzal race that I participated in October 9,10,11th in October. I teamed up with local supa fast roadie Todd Scheske (who convinced me to go last winter). We put in lotsa miles on the 29ers down in Naples hitting up the trails and working on riding together.

I was a a little tentative and scared to head to Central America at first, but in the end everything worked out fine and it was actually pretty easy to get there and deal with customs. We arrived on wednesday prior to the race. Giving us some time to get settled, rest up, put the bikes together and explore the city of Antigua via bike. We rolled through the cobbled streets and markets with the locals gawking and staring at us and finally made our way out of town. We climbed up the highway out of the village up the mountain, but unfortunately we couldn’t find the way back down! This meant we ended up doing the ‘death descent’ down the highway using the shoulder into oncoming traffic. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been that freaked out on a descent in my life before. There are pretty much no rules for driving in South America and cars were whipping all over the windy blind corners, passing the chicken busses wildly and not even realizing we were there to try to descend down. Luckily we made it down without dying!

Day 1

Day 1 started us right in the City center of Antigua. Rolling out on the cobbled streets of the city, zig-zagging out way to the day’s first climb. Right away the fireworks hit and the front runners pulled no punches and lit it up the first climb. It started out steep and just got progressively steeper. The first parts of it were paved in the city and then we hit the dirt. With the slick clay it became pretty easy to justify hopping off the bike and saving the efforts.

Once we got up over the climb we did some rolling fast efforts through the farms. Lots of little ups and down that quickly took their toll. As we worked ourselves over on the bikes, the locals were toiling away in the fields, often rarely noticing what we even doing. (BTW Guatemalan produce is insanely large, cornstalks are 10-12ft tall and the carrots are as big as baseball bats!)

However, when we did come across and thru the several towns, there were loads of school kids with flags and plenty of enthusiasm to cheer us on. All day the kids and the locals yelled. “Animo, Animo, Animo!” It wasn’t till afterwards that we really realized what animo meant, kind of “get moving” or “go forward”. Every now and then the cheers allowed you to crack a smile through the grimace.

The reasons for the grimace were aplenty. For it seemed for many miles, the them of the terrain was insanely steep switchback descent, followed by an incredibly steep hike-a-bike climb out. We did this more than a few times. At one point, Todd and I were griping about the lack of noting that these were hike-a-bikes and someone yelled down, “What I don’t mark well enough, for ya”. Just happened to be one of the promoters sitting at the top chiding us on as we hiked up the climb.

After we made it through the hell section in which, I was multiple times sent into slumped over the bike/death march mode we proceeded to descend down the road, quickly. Continuing to roll through some small towns and making our way toward the final climb. I jokingly pointed and laughed as we rolled through one of the small towns to Todd, that we were heading towards what looked like the city wall. Well, it was a wall for sure and it was paved and we had to go up it. I’ve not seen pavement that steep, and for the first time I was forced off the bike and walk up a paved climb. I’m guessing it was somewhere in the mid 30% for grade, damn it was steep.

This finally brought us to our final climb of the day. ~8k of pavement in the sun. As hosed as we were at this point, we were no longer ashamed to stop and take a break in the shade. This was rough, but we were rewarded with a checkpoint at the top and loads of watermelon. If you’ve never done an endurance race, it’s worth it just to get the watermelon. Watermelon tastes so damn good when you’re hungry, thirsty and tired…

After the long climb we were rewarded with the gem of the day. The crazy descent into Panajachel. Riding the singletrack overlooking the lake and volcanoes across the lake. It was dam near vertical drop at some points right off the singletrack!

As we descended for what seemed to be ages, we came to the terraces and finally into the village.

Coming through the villages was on of the most fun descents I’ve ever done. Urban singletrack. We were descending through alleyways and corridors with very little room, and loads of continuous stairs. Zigging and zagging down and having some fun! The locals heads popping out around the corners and trying not to take em out.

By the end of the day, after 7:20 of riding I was never happier to be off my bike and finished. Though it was only 1 day down and we still had 2 more to go!

Find Day 2 here