Sunday, October 31, 2010

This pretty much sums up...



Boss Cross #3.

Happy Halloween!

peace and riding!!!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

(: Off Road Goodness :)

Totally deserving of a double smiley:

From Doug "Pappy" Long:

2011 United Federation of Dirt-West Tenative Schedule
April 9th (Sat)-River Trail Mountain Bike Challenge- (Lawrence, Ks.)
April 17th (Sun)-Bone Bender 3/6 MTB Odyssey-(Smithville Lake, Mo.)
May 1st (Sun)-Kansas Fat Tire Festival -(Wilson Lake, Ks.)
May 7th (Sat)-Roubidoux Roundup-Krug Park- (St. Joseph, Mo.)
June 5th (Sun)-The Down and Dirty-(Warsaw, Mo.)
June 12th (Sun)-KC Cup -Mo State Championship (Landahl Park, Mo.)
June 26th (Sun)-Crocodile Rock- Ks. State Championship (Perry Lake, Ks.)
July 17th (Sun)-Shawnee Mission Mayhem (Shawnee Mission Park, Ks.)
July 24th (Sun)-Sunflower State Games (Topeka, Ks.)
Aug. 13th (Sat)-Spoke Pony Showdown 3/6 (Swope Park, Mo.)
Sept. 10th (Sat)-SAC 6/12 (Springfield, Mo.)
Sept. 11th Sun)-Tour de Lizard (Arkansas City, Ks)
Sept. 24th (Sat)-RIM 6/12 (Crowder State Park, Mo.)

That is 9 cross country events and 4 endurance events. Mountain Bike racing is back, big time.

There will also be a UFD East, UFD South, the Midwest Fat Tire Series, Psycowpath Series, AMBCS, Tour de Dirt and Iowa Championship Series for MTB racing within a few hours drive. Holy crap batman!

also from Pappy via Keith Bongrager...badass oldschool CX race: Click me.

peace and riding!!!!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Berryman Epic

Well the Berryman Epic was fricking sweet. This may be a good recap post because I do remember quite a few details of this race..so if you're not interested in the long story here's the short:

57 miles...5 hours 43 minutes...1 broken water bottle cage...1 flat tire...53rd place overall...7th place in 20-29 age grouping...1st overall finisher under the age of 25. It was a good day :)

So my 29r is out of commission right now due to dropout issues...this was a huge blessing as it turned out. SC let me borrow his Mad Max bike fully geared with baby wheels. I used every single stretch of gearing in this race, from granny-granny to big ring/smallest cog.


A bike with full suspension and gears may be in my future...

So this race is 57 miles, 46+ of which is singletrack, the other 9ish miles are on fire/gravel roads. The race begins with a pretty easily graded gravel climb to the first part of single track...I hammered this section going in not too far behind the leaders. The road skills acquired this year helped big time here...lots of sketchy riding on sandy/loose gravel and lots of drafting wheels to keep up.

So I get to the first checkpoint where we have to get colored zip ties. I had no idea this was also the first aid station so I grabbed a zip tie and blew through, didn't refill bottles or grab any food..it was ok though, weather was mid-70s, kind of cloudy still and a decent breeze. I found out about 3 miles later from a guy that the zip tie area was the aid station and we had like another 12-13 miles to go to station 2/the bag drop. I settled into a good rhythm here with Doug Long and Brian Duff on either side of me...that old man Pappy sure can pick some clean lines!!! I broke the water bottle cage probably about 20 miles in so had to stop for like 10 seconds to stuff it into my jersey and put the phone bag in another pocket. Caught back up with them by the aid station and I stopped in, grabbed a gatorade out of my bag, chugged like 3/4 of it, refilled the one empty bttle of water and topped what was probably 1/8 of a bottle of perpetum with heed...still no soild food, I totally spaced it until a couple more miles in....oh well, just stay up and going...I couldn't believe the position I was in and how good I was feeling still, then of course, psssssssss....stan's spraying out of the tread of the rear tire...that's right, the TREAD of a rear Geax TNT Saguro tire. fuck!!!! Thanfully pappy long had thrown me a tube before the race so I had a spare. Denny Albertson passed me about a minute in trying to change it and asked if I was ok...I was so flustered I just kind of mumbled something and he went on...about another minute later Lyle Reidy came by and asked if I needed anything and I told him if he had a CO2 it would make my like a helluva lot better at the time...he graciously jumped off his bike and popped a cartridge into the tube for me and took off. HUGE UPS to Lyle for the help...It saved me some good time for sure, even though I had already lost a good 5 minutes by the time I got the wheel set back in and going again...and of course I had aout 15-20 psi in the rear tube so I took it super easy so not to pinch flat...probably lost another 10-15 minutes rolling easy on the 10ish miles of single track and 4ish miles of nasty roads before getting back to the bag drop/checkpoint 4 (checkpoint 3 was at the the far turn around of the singletrack-->gravel transition). There I grabbed a pump, refilled both my bottles again with heed grabbed 1/3 of a banana and tok off again.

The final part of the singletrack is on the Brazil Creek part of the Ozark Trail. The only reason I remember this section is because it was nasty...after 40+ miles already hitting some of these rock gardens and roots and killer climbs was taking a toll. I got through though and make the final stretch of 6-7 miles of gravel back to the Bass' River Resort. Big ringed the road the whole way back and felt amazing suprisingly...like I could go another few hours easily. Came in and was handed a beer from the tap not 2 minutes after crossing the line...sweetness.

got a t-shirt, socks, $75 pair of interchangable sunglasses, drop bag, BBQ and beer for the race entry (which was free, thanks Tripp!) Damn good race, aid stations were best I've seen anywhere ever, no lie...and I didn't use them haha.

So yea, I had fun, seems like I should have told a few more detail things but whatever...I should be doing homework instead of this anyway :)

peace and riding!!!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The Boulevard Cup



Thanks to SC for the above picture and the one at the bottom.

There's so much I should write about this race, it was so fun. So much food, so much beer, so many good people. but alas, it has been 3 days and my short term memory burns quickly...but I will feebly attempt.

Big ups to phil for the ride out to the race and to bently for the ride home when I was sauced off the 6! kegs of boulevard beer that there was to be had; of course there was the famous spicy gumbo and penne as well, along with the best assortment of breads and cookies a racer could ask for...super big ups to the Boulevard Brewing Racing Team for making this event happen.

Also, a huge ups to Greg Rupp for the course design...gaddamn man, hella fun but I don't have the roadie fitness to keep up with those dudes on those long straightaways.

So I raced singlespeed again...22 starters this time! fuck...lots of folks from nebraska there. Kent and Britton from my team got 1st and 3rd respectively and I was 12th behind 4 Nebraska guys...cornbaggers. not much to say other than I need better aerobic fitness for 30-45 minute races...I'm redlined for about 10 min, another 10 to recover then a good last 10 to race...need to fix that.

Colavita Corner circa Colavita Creek was in full effect with trombones, digiridoos, hand drums and vibraslaps. We even did the wave multiple times...as you can see, there was plenty of colvita lovin'...


Got confirmation this morning that I am in the Berryman Epic...60 mile MTB race Saturday...I've been out of endurance mode since after KC Cup...we'll see if the legs hold up against the cramps, cooler weather should help :)

peace and riding!!!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

boss cx...



Thanks to Joe A for the picture.

Did the Boss Cross #1 race yesterday...I'm gonna keep it short and sweet, list format. lots of homework to catch up on...

I got 6th.
Britton (teammate) won, 2nd thru 5th were 360 racing guys, then me, then another 360 guy.
It's impossible to make moves when there are two guys on another team blocking you the whole race.
Cross is aerobically intense.
Smoking doesn't help.
Drinking does help, or at least it feels like it does after a race.
Mexican food post-race = food destruction.
Sand pits suck.
Hill/barriers run-ups really suck.
Probably not gonna do another real race until BLVD Cup.
KC Cross scene kicks ass.

peace and riding!!!