From the KC Star:
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/06/18/2028251/volunteers-create-miles-of-surprises.html
From me:
I opened up Phase 3 yesterday to riding, after talking with Craig. First off I want to give a huge shout out to Craig, Scott and Travis, yes even the sunshine man needs some recognition sometime for those insane bench cuts and crib walls he instigates (that's Travis by the way, he doesn't get a lot of recognition he rightly deserves). Without these three men's guidance i wouldn't be able to do half the sweet shit I can do now, and without their trust I wouldn't be able to work out there basically whenever I feel like blowing off some steam. I am pretty sure I can speak for the 4 of us that we are quite glad Phase 3 is almost completely finished...just a couple more connections to finish up in the next couple weeks then we move to the north side of the road to start connecting into 8-pins to finish up the last leg of the camp of the woods phase.
we have 150+ volunteers to coordinate Friday for the Skills USA day. We'll be working on phase 1 of the blue-swope connection. From what scott and craig have told me, it sounds like it will be a very cool place. I'm looking forward to peeping it out tomorrow before we head out friday. tomorrow morning is training with all the crew leaders/parks people/kc wildlands people, etc. then friday is when the kids will be in with us. it was crazy last year and I'm sure it will be again this year too. we do get an absolute ton of work done though.
this somehow turned into a longer post than I planned. i'm starving and have class later.
peace and riding!!!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
arkansas vacation
Went down with Mason last Thursday evening (I guess actually really early Friday morning) for a 3 day riding trip in the Ozarks of Northwestern Arkansas. We left Kansas City at 1 AM Friday to Make the Drive to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and the Lake Leatherwood Trail and Camping area. The drive down was really boring: dark, no air conditioning, listen to a CD switch to another, repeat. There was a pretty decent excursion into Neosho, MO at 3:30 AM to find a Wal-mart so that I could supply up for the trip. Got that done and we were bonking right when we had to take mountain roads back into Eureka Springs. We made it through with the help of Bob and started to arrive at Leatherwood right when the sun was coming up. We got to enjoy a nice drive and sunrise through the ozarks at 5:30 am and made it to Leatherwood, promptly got out tents set up and passed out around 6:00 am.
I woke up at 9:45 the next day and realized my contacts were locked in the car, so I had to wake Mason up. Suprisingly, we both weren't feeling too bad from the lack of sleep so we explored camp a little, got our site paid for the night and went out riding. Our Friday day ride we did 15 miles with an absolute fucking ton of climbing. mind you, if you know anything about me, i ride only single speed off road. I was still geared at my KC gearing of 32-18 on my on one inbred 29er with Reba Team Fork. Mason was on a Specialized XC Comp full suspension that was also set up single speed at 34-20. We did a lot of hike a bike that day. but it was all worth it going down. We did eat it a couple times starting out because the trails in Arkansas are literally like single/double track gravel roads with very little in the say of technical features (rocks/roots). We concluded after our trip that Arkansas' definition of technical means climbing, but more on that later.
So we did 15 miles at Leatherwood riding the Beacham Trail norht out of camp until the Overlook Trail. Took the Overlook trail and this is when the climbing started. As you can assume, the overlook trail goes to an overlook point at the top of a mountain. not good on a stoutly geared single speed. We rode all of this and hit Mulladay Hollow back to camp then realized where we were so headed back out to the Miner's Rock trail. Did that until the downhill challenge course, and we took a crack at that. I needed a rear suspension and Mason needed a bigger suspension haha, it was definitely a blast though. Rode back up Miners Loop to the top of the downhill trail, then back down Miner's again just to say we did it. We needed water so we rode over to the ball fields south on the leatherwood trail. re-watered then took off again up twin knobs, holy crap. talk about straight up and straight down. amazing. Also did all the bench cut loop, back down twin knobs little run to the leatherwood trail back north into camp. insane amount of climbing.
that afternoon we chilled and drove around eureka springs a little bit. cool town along some sweet rock outcroppings and bluffs. highly recommend it. we of course brought our lights so we went on an 8 mile night ride friday as well. South on the beacham trail out of camp to hyde hollow out and back, continued on beacham around the lake, across the dam and took the fuller trail abck south into camp. awesome ride and my light died literally 50 feet from the end of the trail ride. thank god!
we awoke saturday and I talked Mason into hitting another quick loop before we took off to Hobbs State Park and Conservation Area south of beaver lake. This time at Leatherwood we did a 9 mile loop by taking the Fuller Trail north, hooking into the Beacham trail across the dam and around the Lake to Hyde Hollow out the the Lost ridge trails. Again, talk about climbing! They say on the map that its 10 switchbacks and over 300 feet vertical climbing. Well its probably double the number of switch backs and definitely over 300 feet of climbing. Absolutely a bad-ass trail though once we got to the top and could breathe. It traversed all the way arlund the side of a mountain ridge, the way a lot of the trails out there do, but this one was a little more fun, because even though hard as hell, the switch backs made the climb completely rideable on the single speeds. we finished lost ridge trail and did half the bench loop in the other direction this time and ended down the same run of tiwn knobs and leatherwood north back into camp. great trails, great camping area that was only $10/night (showers/bathrooms/electrical/water), great community, beautiful area. highly highly recommend.
we had already packed up camp before the ride so we showered up and started the trip to hobbs. got there about an hour later and it was getting pretty damn hot (96+) at 1 pm. We loaded water up big time and set out on the 9 mile Little Clifty Creek Loop, Did that out to the War Eagle 6 mile loop and did all of that (2 brutal but rideable climbs) then finished the Clifty Creek Loop. We had finished that 15 miles and were completely out of water...both of us had drained our 100 OZ camelbacks and 2 water bottles apiece. We decided to call it a day because of the heat, it was hovering around 98 still at 3:30, and headed into Rogers to find food and camping options. Found a Braums, had the best ice cream in the world and found the Monte Ne at Beaver Lake resort south of town to camp at. This was also a nice, very quiet place, that actually has its own private cove on beaver lake. only $16 a night too for again, showers/bathrooms/electrical/water plus a laundry facility if needed and plenty of daedfall around for a fire.
got up sunday and headed to slaughter pen hollow in bentonville. we had heard great things about slaughter pen and were especially looking forward to the free ride park and dirt jump area. The one word to sum up slaugher pen overall: lame! more to come but the skills area at clinton lake puts the one in slaughter pen to shame. The only cool thing was the mountain cross course that had like 3 table tops, a huge berm, 2 more table tops, smaller berm, 2 more table tops, smaller yet berm, 1 table top. Everything was completely overgrown and/or rutted. Mason ended up biting ass/endo-ing and ripping his brake cable out of his juicy 3 around 10 am so we had to go to the bike shop. of course they didn't oven until noon so we went on a 50 mile mountain cruise on some backroads. got back to the shop at 12:01 pm and they had the parts to fix it, go get lunch and come back in an hour we were told. so we did. and they got it done and now it was 1:30 pm and 95+ again, but out again to slaughter pen we went.
We decided that the freeride park wasn't worth our time anymore so we'd go check out the supposedly awesome downhill trails and all the features everywhere. sad and sad. everything in slaughter pen was easily rideable on a single speed. The only thing I saw on the trails I didn't ride was the drop on scott allen alley, and mainly because I thought it was shotty construction (who the hell puts a log skinny in the middle of a drop?) We ended up riding everything out there plus a little for barely 15 miles. We were both extremely disappointed in slaughter pen and it will not be on my main travel plans anymore unless its a warm-up ride to get acclimated to the terrain again. Speaking of the terrain down there, i mentioned earlier the gravel road like trails. It took me a good 20 miles of riding it to get acclimated to how my tires hooked up to it. Very different from Kansas City dirt, very interesting stuff.
so I didn't include everything, but this is a long post as is. I almost bought a camera just for this trip and wish I would have....this post would have been better with pictures as we saw lots of photogenic things. until I see you...
peace and riding!!!
I woke up at 9:45 the next day and realized my contacts were locked in the car, so I had to wake Mason up. Suprisingly, we both weren't feeling too bad from the lack of sleep so we explored camp a little, got our site paid for the night and went out riding. Our Friday day ride we did 15 miles with an absolute fucking ton of climbing. mind you, if you know anything about me, i ride only single speed off road. I was still geared at my KC gearing of 32-18 on my on one inbred 29er with Reba Team Fork. Mason was on a Specialized XC Comp full suspension that was also set up single speed at 34-20. We did a lot of hike a bike that day. but it was all worth it going down. We did eat it a couple times starting out because the trails in Arkansas are literally like single/double track gravel roads with very little in the say of technical features (rocks/roots). We concluded after our trip that Arkansas' definition of technical means climbing, but more on that later.
So we did 15 miles at Leatherwood riding the Beacham Trail norht out of camp until the Overlook Trail. Took the Overlook trail and this is when the climbing started. As you can assume, the overlook trail goes to an overlook point at the top of a mountain. not good on a stoutly geared single speed. We rode all of this and hit Mulladay Hollow back to camp then realized where we were so headed back out to the Miner's Rock trail. Did that until the downhill challenge course, and we took a crack at that. I needed a rear suspension and Mason needed a bigger suspension haha, it was definitely a blast though. Rode back up Miners Loop to the top of the downhill trail, then back down Miner's again just to say we did it. We needed water so we rode over to the ball fields south on the leatherwood trail. re-watered then took off again up twin knobs, holy crap. talk about straight up and straight down. amazing. Also did all the bench cut loop, back down twin knobs little run to the leatherwood trail back north into camp. insane amount of climbing.
that afternoon we chilled and drove around eureka springs a little bit. cool town along some sweet rock outcroppings and bluffs. highly recommend it. we of course brought our lights so we went on an 8 mile night ride friday as well. South on the beacham trail out of camp to hyde hollow out and back, continued on beacham around the lake, across the dam and took the fuller trail abck south into camp. awesome ride and my light died literally 50 feet from the end of the trail ride. thank god!
we awoke saturday and I talked Mason into hitting another quick loop before we took off to Hobbs State Park and Conservation Area south of beaver lake. This time at Leatherwood we did a 9 mile loop by taking the Fuller Trail north, hooking into the Beacham trail across the dam and around the Lake to Hyde Hollow out the the Lost ridge trails. Again, talk about climbing! They say on the map that its 10 switchbacks and over 300 feet vertical climbing. Well its probably double the number of switch backs and definitely over 300 feet of climbing. Absolutely a bad-ass trail though once we got to the top and could breathe. It traversed all the way arlund the side of a mountain ridge, the way a lot of the trails out there do, but this one was a little more fun, because even though hard as hell, the switch backs made the climb completely rideable on the single speeds. we finished lost ridge trail and did half the bench loop in the other direction this time and ended down the same run of tiwn knobs and leatherwood north back into camp. great trails, great camping area that was only $10/night (showers/bathrooms/electrical/water), great community, beautiful area. highly highly recommend.
we had already packed up camp before the ride so we showered up and started the trip to hobbs. got there about an hour later and it was getting pretty damn hot (96+) at 1 pm. We loaded water up big time and set out on the 9 mile Little Clifty Creek Loop, Did that out to the War Eagle 6 mile loop and did all of that (2 brutal but rideable climbs) then finished the Clifty Creek Loop. We had finished that 15 miles and were completely out of water...both of us had drained our 100 OZ camelbacks and 2 water bottles apiece. We decided to call it a day because of the heat, it was hovering around 98 still at 3:30, and headed into Rogers to find food and camping options. Found a Braums, had the best ice cream in the world and found the Monte Ne at Beaver Lake resort south of town to camp at. This was also a nice, very quiet place, that actually has its own private cove on beaver lake. only $16 a night too for again, showers/bathrooms/electrical/water plus a laundry facility if needed and plenty of daedfall around for a fire.
got up sunday and headed to slaughter pen hollow in bentonville. we had heard great things about slaughter pen and were especially looking forward to the free ride park and dirt jump area. The one word to sum up slaugher pen overall: lame! more to come but the skills area at clinton lake puts the one in slaughter pen to shame. The only cool thing was the mountain cross course that had like 3 table tops, a huge berm, 2 more table tops, smaller berm, 2 more table tops, smaller yet berm, 1 table top. Everything was completely overgrown and/or rutted. Mason ended up biting ass/endo-ing and ripping his brake cable out of his juicy 3 around 10 am so we had to go to the bike shop. of course they didn't oven until noon so we went on a 50 mile mountain cruise on some backroads. got back to the shop at 12:01 pm and they had the parts to fix it, go get lunch and come back in an hour we were told. so we did. and they got it done and now it was 1:30 pm and 95+ again, but out again to slaughter pen we went.
We decided that the freeride park wasn't worth our time anymore so we'd go check out the supposedly awesome downhill trails and all the features everywhere. sad and sad. everything in slaughter pen was easily rideable on a single speed. The only thing I saw on the trails I didn't ride was the drop on scott allen alley, and mainly because I thought it was shotty construction (who the hell puts a log skinny in the middle of a drop?) We ended up riding everything out there plus a little for barely 15 miles. We were both extremely disappointed in slaughter pen and it will not be on my main travel plans anymore unless its a warm-up ride to get acclimated to the terrain again. Speaking of the terrain down there, i mentioned earlier the gravel road like trails. It took me a good 20 miles of riding it to get acclimated to how my tires hooked up to it. Very different from Kansas City dirt, very interesting stuff.
so I didn't include everything, but this is a long post as is. I almost bought a camera just for this trip and wish I would have....this post would have been better with pictures as we saw lots of photogenic things. until I see you...
peace and riding!!!
Friday, June 4, 2010
adventures.
Let's see...gotta think about what I've done recently, I've been in kind of a green haze recently since school let out and before it hits again Monday. fuck, i'm not ready for school to start again. At least they're summer classes and I only have them for 5-8 weeks, staggared style. Schedule sucks ass though, enough of school.
I've still been doing an f-ton of work at Swope, not so much this past few days, but I need a couple days off to have fun after 5 straight days of working there 4+ hours a day. Memorial day weekend basically revolved around my time at Swope. I would work there into the early afternoon, go get food, go home, shower, pass out, repeat. But we're to the cross walk and should have it opened up this saturday at national trails day! fuck yes, finally.
did critical mass. lots of teammates/friends showed up and it was a trash fest. lots of pbr tall boys and even seagrams 7 made an appearance. good times.
rode landahl with mason on tuesday. we rock crawled for a long time out there. rode for 3 hours and did rim, family, doubletrack back for water, wills, dave's up, dave's down, scout camp trail, doubletrack to tasty, tasty loop, doubletrack up to rim, rim up to argo. we finished off the day with a night lap at the lawrence river trail. got 5 miles out and my light crapped out, so we jumped on the levee and pacelined back to the car with only the scantest sunlight still available.
rode cactus ridge at clinton the other day. runners even destroyed stuff that far out too. sad.
yesterday I rode gravel out to Lecompton to meet mason for a kayak trip. we dropped in under the bridge there and paddled to riverfront park just north of I-70 in lawrence. damn fun time. I highly recommend up a creek canoe and kayak rental. upacreek.biz check them out, cheap!! and great gear to use. uncle ron was a trip too. yesterday's paddle reconfirmed my love and I think my summer trip will now be a whitewater trip instead of a bike trip. we have great trails in KC, but we don't have rapids. now gotta decide where to go...
peace and riding!!
I've still been doing an f-ton of work at Swope, not so much this past few days, but I need a couple days off to have fun after 5 straight days of working there 4+ hours a day. Memorial day weekend basically revolved around my time at Swope. I would work there into the early afternoon, go get food, go home, shower, pass out, repeat. But we're to the cross walk and should have it opened up this saturday at national trails day! fuck yes, finally.
did critical mass. lots of teammates/friends showed up and it was a trash fest. lots of pbr tall boys and even seagrams 7 made an appearance. good times.
rode landahl with mason on tuesday. we rock crawled for a long time out there. rode for 3 hours and did rim, family, doubletrack back for water, wills, dave's up, dave's down, scout camp trail, doubletrack to tasty, tasty loop, doubletrack up to rim, rim up to argo. we finished off the day with a night lap at the lawrence river trail. got 5 miles out and my light crapped out, so we jumped on the levee and pacelined back to the car with only the scantest sunlight still available.
rode cactus ridge at clinton the other day. runners even destroyed stuff that far out too. sad.
yesterday I rode gravel out to Lecompton to meet mason for a kayak trip. we dropped in under the bridge there and paddled to riverfront park just north of I-70 in lawrence. damn fun time. I highly recommend up a creek canoe and kayak rental. upacreek.biz check them out, cheap!! and great gear to use. uncle ron was a trip too. yesterday's paddle reconfirmed my love and I think my summer trip will now be a whitewater trip instead of a bike trip. we have great trails in KC, but we don't have rapids. now gotta decide where to go...
peace and riding!!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
days flying by...
seems like i've been doing nothing but been real busy at the same time, or at least active I should say.
Did my first ever road race in auburn, ks. 39 mile loop for the cat 5. I stayed with the pack almost the whole time and got dropped on the one climb towards the end. Kevin from Trifam and myself however worked our asses off taking some pulls for about 4-5 miles and caught back up to the lead group. About ten seconds later we hit the 1 K make and the front jumped. I desperetly grabbed any wheel I could, looked upand could see the finish line so I hammered it and passed a couple guys at the end to finish in 10th. not to shabby for a first timer I would say. Colavita Parisi cleaned up the cat 5's: mike e. won it, jake got 7th, ty 9th, me 10th, john p. 18th, nathan c. 19th. Phil w. got 10th in a tough 4's and matt got 11th. spencer m. got 2nd in the 3's, while matt o. got 3rd in the 1/2/3 behind tilford and adam mills. britton and jk were also in the 1/2/3, jk said he was way out of shap and called it after one lap (they did 2) and britton lost the group abou 3/4 the way through he said. all in all a good day for the team.
have been doing a fuck ton of trail work recently. I am officially at 100 hours! Here's the breakdown (formatting's a little off because of copy/paste and laziness):
Date Trail System Hours Total Hours
11/16/08 Kill Creek 3 3
12/6/08 Stocksdale 4 7
1/3/09 Landahl Park 4 11
1/31/09 Blue River Parkway 4 15
6/20/09 Shawnee Mission Horse 4 19
6/26/09 Blue-Swope Connector 5 24
10/3/09 Blue-Swope Connector 4 28
11/7/09 Swope Park 4 32
11/8/09 Blue-Swope Connector 4 36
11/21/09 Wyandotte Lake Park 4 40
12/6/09 Swope Park 3 43
12/17/09 Swope Park 2 45
12/18/09 Swope Park 3 48
3/19/10 Swope Park (IMBA) 3 51
3/19/10 Swope Park 3 54
3/26/10 Swope Park 3 57
3/28/10 Swope Park 3 60
3/29/10 Swope Park 3 63
4/25/10 Blue River Parkway 4 67
5/1/10 Swope Park 4 71
5/15/10 Swope Park 4 75
5/18/10 Swope Park 7 82
5/19/10 Swope Park 4 86
5/21/10 Swope Park 6 92
5/22/10 Swope Park 4 96
5/25/10 Lawrence River Trails 4 100
have had some interesting discussions with the lawrence trail hawks regarding destruction of clinton lake. it's not their fault, it's just sad to see clinton is such disrepair. Read more here: http://forums.earthriders.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11533 and here: http://lawrencetrailhawks.com/blog/2010/may/25/post-race-trail-conditions/
swope phase 3 is damn near ready to open to the public. mucho man hours in that section. still a lot of rock work and benching to do though.
helped art king yesterday do some mowing and built the new "chicane" right before the 3 mile maker. we took a huge rutted mess and made it into super fast twisty banked turns. getting ready to go try in out in an hour :)
my lasagna's probably cooled down now after this type fest. later on.
peace and riding!
Did my first ever road race in auburn, ks. 39 mile loop for the cat 5. I stayed with the pack almost the whole time and got dropped on the one climb towards the end. Kevin from Trifam and myself however worked our asses off taking some pulls for about 4-5 miles and caught back up to the lead group. About ten seconds later we hit the 1 K make and the front jumped. I desperetly grabbed any wheel I could, looked upand could see the finish line so I hammered it and passed a couple guys at the end to finish in 10th. not to shabby for a first timer I would say. Colavita Parisi cleaned up the cat 5's: mike e. won it, jake got 7th, ty 9th, me 10th, john p. 18th, nathan c. 19th. Phil w. got 10th in a tough 4's and matt got 11th. spencer m. got 2nd in the 3's, while matt o. got 3rd in the 1/2/3 behind tilford and adam mills. britton and jk were also in the 1/2/3, jk said he was way out of shap and called it after one lap (they did 2) and britton lost the group abou 3/4 the way through he said. all in all a good day for the team.
have been doing a fuck ton of trail work recently. I am officially at 100 hours! Here's the breakdown (formatting's a little off because of copy/paste and laziness):
Date Trail System Hours Total Hours
11/16/08 Kill Creek 3 3
12/6/08 Stocksdale 4 7
1/3/09 Landahl Park 4 11
1/31/09 Blue River Parkway 4 15
6/20/09 Shawnee Mission Horse 4 19
6/26/09 Blue-Swope Connector 5 24
10/3/09 Blue-Swope Connector 4 28
11/7/09 Swope Park 4 32
11/8/09 Blue-Swope Connector 4 36
11/21/09 Wyandotte Lake Park 4 40
12/6/09 Swope Park 3 43
12/17/09 Swope Park 2 45
12/18/09 Swope Park 3 48
3/19/10 Swope Park (IMBA) 3 51
3/19/10 Swope Park 3 54
3/26/10 Swope Park 3 57
3/28/10 Swope Park 3 60
3/29/10 Swope Park 3 63
4/25/10 Blue River Parkway 4 67
5/1/10 Swope Park 4 71
5/15/10 Swope Park 4 75
5/18/10 Swope Park 7 82
5/19/10 Swope Park 4 86
5/21/10 Swope Park 6 92
5/22/10 Swope Park 4 96
5/25/10 Lawrence River Trails 4 100
have had some interesting discussions with the lawrence trail hawks regarding destruction of clinton lake. it's not their fault, it's just sad to see clinton is such disrepair. Read more here: http://forums.earthriders.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11533 and here: http://lawrencetrailhawks.com/blog/2010/may/25/post-race-trail-conditions/
swope phase 3 is damn near ready to open to the public. mucho man hours in that section. still a lot of rock work and benching to do though.
helped art king yesterday do some mowing and built the new "chicane" right before the 3 mile maker. we took a huge rutted mess and made it into super fast twisty banked turns. getting ready to go try in out in an hour :)
my lasagna's probably cooled down now after this type fest. later on.
peace and riding!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
gravel circa lawrence, kansas, usa
went on a little recon mission for the lawrence legato yesterday to make sure my map was alright. surpisingly the first 3 miles of the river trail were about perfect on the cross bike and the gravel roads were butter good. checked the route around the airport and it looks good. there was another levee (mud creek) that I could have thrown in, thre's some nsty gravel up there though so I'll leave the parallel gravel road as the route.
gonna go explore the rest of the route I haven't ridden yet between the grant township and phillips road. mason is going to join me here in a few minutes and we're gonna get out before the rain hits.
so far i've ridden all but probably those 5-7 miles of the route. It's gonna be extremely tough on a SS MTB. The best bike is going to be a fully-geared hardtail MTB with a front suspension that has a good lockout function, or even a full suspension that has front and rear lockout capabilities (you'll want suspension of some spot at clinton, I guarentee it, actually not really, a fully rigid MTB could handle it but clinton white won't be fun, haha)
Hopefully I can get some pics of the route today, if I can find a camera...
peace and riding!
gonna go explore the rest of the route I haven't ridden yet between the grant township and phillips road. mason is going to join me here in a few minutes and we're gonna get out before the rain hits.
so far i've ridden all but probably those 5-7 miles of the route. It's gonna be extremely tough on a SS MTB. The best bike is going to be a fully-geared hardtail MTB with a front suspension that has a good lockout function, or even a full suspension that has front and rear lockout capabilities (you'll want suspension of some spot at clinton, I guarentee it, actually not really, a fully rigid MTB could handle it but clinton white won't be fun, haha)
Hopefully I can get some pics of the route today, if I can find a camera...
peace and riding!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
here we go...
so i am finally gonna report some stuff for you....let's see, hmmmmm....
april 10 was the lawrence river trail UFD race. I of course opted for the marathon class (3 hours) on my single speed. didn't finish too terrible, 9th out of 19 marathoners...finished 9 short laps (4.7 mile laps for 42.3 miles total) in 3:15. The only real complaints I had were the short laps the promoters decided to run...the whole loop was ready to go and it should have been used, but I guess I can't complain cause I'm didn't help do any work...thanks to free state racing for the good time. by the way, my boy steele mopped up the sport class winning by 11 minutes in his first MTB race, which was pretty sweet.
april 11 was the god's country duathlon, again at the lawrence river trails. started with a 2.3 mile run, followed by a 14 mile bike, and finished with a 2.2 mile run. First run was ok, i was proud of myself because I ran the whole thing and didn't walk any. transitioned to the bike and started passing people like crazy. probably passed 60 people during the bike portion, no lie. there was one section I was off in the grass/woods passing a train of 20 or so riders. I had seen it ahead and told myself to just keep railing by and keeping yelling out to people i was coming through, or I would never get through. It ended up being the right call for sure. My overall time was definitely saved by the bike portion. The second run started well, and exactly at the 1 mile marker I started to cramp up and my legs decided that I hadn't trained enough on the running. The last 1.3 miles was a half walk, half jog strip fest, as I had to pop off my jersey cause I was burning up once we popped back out on the levee. finised with a total time of 1:48, good enough for 46th overall out of 104 participants. unfortunately for Chris, I think the numbers suffered a little from the rescheduled UFD race the day before. It was an experience working with him and the crew for sure, getting flyers distributed, setting up and marking the course/transition area, getting registration going, and finally tearing everything down. sunday was a long day all said and done and finished a great weekend of racing in lawrence.
April 18 was the bonebender 3/6 hour race at smithville. absolutely perfect trails and administration of the event. I opted for the 6 hour solo single speed. nutrition was off for sure as I ended up having to pull after 5 hours. finished 4 laps (11.5 mile laps for 46 miles total) in 5:10 which was still good enough for 12th out of 21 in my class. I expereinced the worst cramping I'd ever had during the 3rd and 4th laps and finally threw in the towel. better training and better nutrition will solve these problems. It was fricking sweet to see 250+ racers out there though. The first two laps were spent basically in a pace line through the woods, lap three our group broke off, but we still had 5-6 guys in a group and lap four we were still in the group, lost one to a flat, another crashed hard, then I bonked and had to stop and stretch cause the cramps were getting so bad. it was really fun to see the whole racing scene, from cameron in his special bibs to all the ladies and kids that made it out for the fun.
found out my boy steele is moving to austin cause he got a job in a sweet shop down there. sad to see him go, but it'll be good for him, great trails and a real freeriding scene. looks like a visit to austin is in the works for the future.
did some more trail work at swope may 1 and knocked out around 300 yards with a great small group of peeps. see details here: swopetrails.com
sold my full suspension specialized to mason so that I can get a new bike... http://www.jamisbikes.com/usa/thebikes/hardtails/dakota/10_dakota29team.html ... I'm just getting the frameset and moving all the sweet parts from my on-one to the new extremely light carbon frame. I'm thinking it'll be about 20-21 lbs. as a single speed with my reba, stans wheels and carbon flat bars/ergon grips w/ bar ends. either way, I lose at least 5 lbs off my current set-up, look for the new bike in June!
ok, so you got a good write-up and pictures! which I hardly ever do. looking forward, mason and I are scouting the lawrence legato route later this morning, more trail work at swope this weekend, maybe a race in columbia on sunday, riding with steele before he leaves, and chilling until classes start back up on june 7. until then...
peace and riding!!!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
freedom!
I've finished this dreadful semester, freedom!
i still am going to do race reports for the river trail XC, duathlon and bonebender.
but it's nice outside and i need some liquor in me to celebrate, and i'm gonna go ride some bad ass KC singletrack.
so i'm gonna go do that now and write later, since i've typed over 4000 words today.
peace and riding!
i still am going to do race reports for the river trail XC, duathlon and bonebender.
but it's nice outside and i need some liquor in me to celebrate, and i'm gonna go ride some bad ass KC singletrack.
so i'm gonna go do that now and write later, since i've typed over 4000 words today.
peace and riding!
Monday, May 3, 2010
dead...
I've read 316 pages, typed 15 pages, and done a GIS powerpoint presentation in the past 27 hours.
I'm tired.
I'm tired.
Friday, April 23, 2010
new stufffffffff
not gonna post a lot right now cause I need to do school stuff but...
racing season has begun, here's some results (pics and write-up's later):
Lawrence River Trail MTB Race: Got 9th out of 19 in the Marathon class on my SS. Did 9 laps (42.3 miles) in 3 hours 15 minutes. Not too shabby.
God's Country Duathlon: Got 46 out of 104 overall. Finished at like 1:48. Running sucks ass, especially a second run after running then biking and doing a marathon MTB race the day before. I couldn't walk well on monday morning.
BoneBender: got 12th out of 21 in the 6 hour single speed class. Had to call it quits early because of the worst cramping I have ever experienced in my life. Pre-race nutrition needs to change and I'd be right up there I think. ended up with 4 laps (46 miles) in 5 hours 10 minutes. smithville isn't the most technical trail, but there are sections, and it definitely isn't as flat and smooth as the lawrence river trails. pretty early in the season for a 6 hour, especially since my training has gone to shit because of school.
ok, enough, gotta read/write some more.
peace and riding!!!
racing season has begun, here's some results (pics and write-up's later):
Lawrence River Trail MTB Race: Got 9th out of 19 in the Marathon class on my SS. Did 9 laps (42.3 miles) in 3 hours 15 minutes. Not too shabby.
God's Country Duathlon: Got 46 out of 104 overall. Finished at like 1:48. Running sucks ass, especially a second run after running then biking and doing a marathon MTB race the day before. I couldn't walk well on monday morning.
BoneBender: got 12th out of 21 in the 6 hour single speed class. Had to call it quits early because of the worst cramping I have ever experienced in my life. Pre-race nutrition needs to change and I'd be right up there I think. ended up with 4 laps (46 miles) in 5 hours 10 minutes. smithville isn't the most technical trail, but there are sections, and it definitely isn't as flat and smooth as the lawrence river trails. pretty early in the season for a 6 hour, especially since my training has gone to shit because of school.
ok, enough, gotta read/write some more.
peace and riding!!!
Monday, April 5, 2010
spring break wrap-up
so spring break was good/not so good in some aspects...
first off, my grandma died. not really to big of deal, she was old and had really bad alzheimers. still pretty shitty.
and my boy, busy b, brandon price, died in an industrial accident. I'm sure none of you who actually read this blog knew brandon, so I won't waste you to boredom. i'll just say he was my boy, through and through, and he'd been through a lot of shit in his life that was entirely too short.
also on the crappy side...i've needed to get this book from the UMKC bookstore for 2 weeks now, and its been "on order". I had a paper due on it this morning at 11 am, still had no book, so skipped class since i didn't have a paper to turn in. checked the bookstore this afternoon and it's still on order. jesus fucking christ, i could have gotton it from amazon.com by now. so still no book and now my second late college assignment...
so now for the fun stuff in life :) got some great kansas city mountain biking in this past week. here's how it went down:
friday march 26: 3 hours of trailwork & 3 laps at swope...saturday march 27: 20 miles at the lawrence river trail...sunday march 28: 3 hours of trail work at swope...
monday: 3 hours trail work, followed by laps at swope.
tuesday: picked mason up at jccc, we went to swope for a lap, where I blew up my rear tire. went home, got more stans and some food, then back to swope and rolled another couple laps.
wednesday: mason and i bussed from downtown KC to lawrence (3 hours, I don't recommend) where we met up with steele and did 25 miles at the river trails. fucking awesome time.
thursday was grandmas funeral. I was basically on the road from 8:45 am--8:45 pm.
friday, looming rain threatened the trails so i headed out to swope, got to the top of the hill and the rain came hard. really hard. chilled in the afternoon, then went out for a hammerfest ride on the road bike during the evening. 20.22 miles in 57 minutes.
saturday was the mtb-kc event. great time! mtbkc.blogspot.com for more!
sunday rode with the roommate and girlfriend down to cliff drive and back home into a killer south wind. good recovery.
monday meant the real world again. whats that matchbox 20 song? i wish the real world would just stop hassling me? or something gay like that...
i'm tired of typing, you're tired of reading, its nice out, go ride!
peace and riding!!!
first off, my grandma died. not really to big of deal, she was old and had really bad alzheimers. still pretty shitty.
and my boy, busy b, brandon price, died in an industrial accident. I'm sure none of you who actually read this blog knew brandon, so I won't waste you to boredom. i'll just say he was my boy, through and through, and he'd been through a lot of shit in his life that was entirely too short.
also on the crappy side...i've needed to get this book from the UMKC bookstore for 2 weeks now, and its been "on order". I had a paper due on it this morning at 11 am, still had no book, so skipped class since i didn't have a paper to turn in. checked the bookstore this afternoon and it's still on order. jesus fucking christ, i could have gotton it from amazon.com by now. so still no book and now my second late college assignment...
so now for the fun stuff in life :) got some great kansas city mountain biking in this past week. here's how it went down:
friday march 26: 3 hours of trailwork & 3 laps at swope...saturday march 27: 20 miles at the lawrence river trail...sunday march 28: 3 hours of trail work at swope...
monday: 3 hours trail work, followed by laps at swope.
tuesday: picked mason up at jccc, we went to swope for a lap, where I blew up my rear tire. went home, got more stans and some food, then back to swope and rolled another couple laps.
wednesday: mason and i bussed from downtown KC to lawrence (3 hours, I don't recommend) where we met up with steele and did 25 miles at the river trails. fucking awesome time.
thursday was grandmas funeral. I was basically on the road from 8:45 am--8:45 pm.
friday, looming rain threatened the trails so i headed out to swope, got to the top of the hill and the rain came hard. really hard. chilled in the afternoon, then went out for a hammerfest ride on the road bike during the evening. 20.22 miles in 57 minutes.
saturday was the mtb-kc event. great time! mtbkc.blogspot.com for more!
sunday rode with the roommate and girlfriend down to cliff drive and back home into a killer south wind. good recovery.
monday meant the real world again. whats that matchbox 20 song? i wish the real world would just stop hassling me? or something gay like that...
i'm tired of typing, you're tired of reading, its nice out, go ride!
peace and riding!!!
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