Nervous Breakdown

Blog Hiatus

2011-10-06T22:59:00.000-04:00

Been busy doing other stuff and the blog has taken a backburner. Will eventually come back in full force.

Cross season has been going well. Hope to catch up with this writing about myself on the internet thing soon.

Vultures Knob Double Down Pukefest

2011-07-24T23:50:00.003-04:00

Twice the laps twice the fun!

The good folks at 331 Racing put an event on at the Knob. Twice the laps as a normal cross country race, pretty simple huh.

It was about a million degrees out, so I figured that since I was running so damn late (huge surprise) I'd forgo the usual warmup. Worst idea ever. My start sucked, and I wasn't able to get into the groove until towards the end of the second lap.

By that time, the superheroes of local mountain biking: Walker and Twining were long gone. Time to stay steady and finish.

Shit it was hot. I kept drinking and pouring water on myself and trying to stay cool, but not much was helping. I soldiered on.

Kept it steady, but the heat was really wearing on me. I was riding super sloppy and just couldn't wait to be done.

After crossing the line I knew I was in bad shape. The goosebumps started and I started getting dizzy.

Drank a rootbeer and sat in the shade for a minute. Uh Oh....

Ran behind a car and started puking any and everything out of my body. Fun stuff.

My teammates took good care of me, as did Mindy, Rody and the rest of the 331 crew. After a cold compress and some more fluids into my body I was back with the living.

Nothing huge on the horizon for me, rest week and about to start base for my cross season. Fun stuff.

Tour of the Valley Days 1 and 2

2011-07-09T22:20:00.002-04:00

TT went well enough. Should have prerode the course as I goofed my pacing up a little bit with a few unexpected rollers here and there that got me.

Went out way way too hard, was able to settle into a decent groove and had to fight the mental battle of wanting to give up on the way back. Toughed it out, and after all was said and done:

20:25
9 miles
26.44mph
6th place cat three.

Shoulda did better but oh well.

Road race was a battle of attrition.

On the second lap of the race, a gap opened at the top of the first steep kicker before pancake hill. Worked like a dog to try to bridge the gap right before the KOM pancake hill.

Finally closed it at the foot of the hill. Oh happy days. Got over the hill ok and began cramping super bad and limped in super slow.

Oh well.

Gartman has phat GC points after having a phenomenal ride both Friday and Saturday, so seems like I'll be working for him in the crit tomorrow. He's my hero.

Don't stop being my friend...

2011-07-01T23:32:00.002-04:00

I did a time trial under my own volition. Oof.

Headed out with Rudy and Robert to the Leroy TT put on every Thursday at 6:30 by Jim Behrens.

My legs were cooked from 4 hours and half a pizza with Gartman earlier in the day, but with Tour of the Valley coming up I figured that I would need at least one race effort on my TT bike and all my matching spaceman costume.

The course was a pretty simple L-shaped out and back with a steep little kicker right near the turn around.

During warmup my legs felt horrible and I seriously debated not racing and helping Jim with timing or sitting around or bullshitting or whatever. But when it was go time, I decided to give it a crack.

Once I started rolling, my comptetitive juices or whatever must have kicked in. Either that or the pizza had unearthed itself from my stomach. I started going ok. My legs were cooked, so the little grade up to the steep kicker was really taxing on me, and I lost a ton of time from being unable to stay on top my gear. I kept having to upshift until I was probably in my 53/21 and spinning for dear life.

Felt ok on the home stretch. Tried my damnedest to keep the power down, but the old legs weren't exactly snappy.

Finished in 17:57, which I'm happy with. I'm thinking with fresh legs and more aero bullshit I can cut a decent amount of time off of that too. Plus it would help if I could turn my TT bike without killing myself!

Stats:

Total Elapsed Time 00:17:57
Distance, mi 7.77
Work, kJ 342
Temperature, °F --
Average Power, Watts 317
Average Cadence 86
Average Speed, mph 25.89
Average Heart Rate 179

Reagan Park TT

2011-06-24T00:35:00.002-04:00

Trying to get back into the swing of blogging.

The Reagan Park TT has come and gone another year.

I went for a little course recon on Friday with Chip Meek and Jeff Pendlebury, and the trails were ripping fast. Chip had the lines down, and following him through a few laps definitely helped a ton.

Come raceday, the trails were a bit greasy at spots from the previous night's rain, but all things considered, weren't too bad.

I had maybe ten riders start before me, within maybe 10 minutes I started picking people off one by one. Staying smooth in the corners and jumping hard at every opportunity. For once in my life I felt good.

All was going well, until I ran into a slower vet open expert. Being the considerate mountain biker I am, I tried to politely ask for a pass when he got the chance to slide out of my way.

No response...

Getting a bit less patient, I started demanding a pass: "Yo man coming through... move it!"

Still nothing. I started looking for a split second in which the twisty trail would allow me to pass without crashing into a tree. Lo-and-behold I got a little too ahead of myself and washed my front wheel out on a stick outside the trail. Fucking splendid. Note to everyone, if you're getting passed in a TT by someone who started like 5 minutes after you, get the hell out the way.

Back on the horse. I saw Chip gaining on me through the switchbacks. It was now my goal to not get passed by him. About 2 seconds after thinking this, I ate shit. Whoops.

He went by me like I was standing still. Impressive.

Motoring back to the finish, I ended up in third place with a time of 43:29. That's like 4 minutes faster than when I did the race in 2009, so not complaining.

Expert turnout was weak with 5 people. I got 3rd, which rules, but out of 4 finishers, it could be a lot better. Where's everyone at?

Home Free

2011-05-06T10:58:00.002-04:00

Made it back to the 'burbs last night at about 11. 12 hours to get home. Ouch.

23 hours of riding in the last 5 days = tired me.

Tired me = no blog updates.

Now that I'm at home and near the coffee machine I'll put some updates together!

On Failure

2011-05-03T00:45:00.002-04:00

The Cohutta 100 was a fucking disaster. No questions about it.

I started off the race tactically stupid and got worked over position wise. After that it was a nightmare from there.

The heat was something I was aware of and cautious about, but it still took its toll. Some days you have it and some you don't. I didn't have it, and short of pulling the plug, I decided to just treat it as a training race (albeit an insanely expensive one) and trudge on through. Finished in 8:27, which is about an hour off of my goal. I'll write about it a bit more later on this week.

On the non depressing front...

A buddy of mine is letting me use his cabin in North Georgia for the week. Holy carp it's awesome up here.

Rode a slow recovery loop over Burnt Mountain on Sunday, got 3 hours in on the MTB in Elijay in the Bear Creek and Pinhoti trails today and am waking up ass-early tomorrow to do Brasstown Bald.

All sorts of sweet power data and photos and ride reports to come. I'm getting a phatty suntan too.

Whoa! Blogger Battle Update

2011-04-27T12:21:00.002-04:00

BIG CHANGES IN THE BLOGGER BATTLE!

Due to some technical snafu, Blue Ridge Adventures is now moving the blogger battle voting to facebook.

Thanks to everyone who voted from the get-go, but those votes are now void :-(

THE NEW LINK TO VOTE IS HERE. Thanks for your support everyone.

- John

RATL #1 aka I finally won a road race!

2011-04-25T15:17:00.002-04:00

Quick reminder / plea for mercy...

Everyone vote for me for the Pisgah Stage Race Blogger Battle! Currently sitting in fifth. I know my dedicated friends / enemies can help me get into the top 2 spots and win this free entry!

Ok on to the race report.

I put carbon wheels on my bike, so you know I wasn't fuckin' around.

The race started super easy as every cat 4 race does. We noodled around for a few laps, then a few people started to get into the argy bargy side of things.

Team memember extraordinare Roberto went with a few moves early, but nothing stuck.

Weston Flick and another dude got feisty and went for a prime, and were brought back right at the line with myself and 2 other dudes countering the move.

Sweet baby ray, me and the other two dudes were clear.

Now we had maybe 5 seconds. Time to do some work to stay away. We actually worked together as a cohesive unit to get away. I might have been doing a little too much work, but I felt strong and I was determined to keep us away.

We eventually stretched our gap to about a minute, and then the cat and mouse games started. The Ride-On dude in the break with me was skipping pulls and when he was on the front he was not in the wind for two long. So either he was hurting or saving his energy for the sprint.

Funk dat. I went with maybe 2k to go, figuring if they wanted to win this race, they had to get by me first. I was brought back somewhat quickly, and that let me get on the Ride-On dude's wheel.

Game time.

I jumped right after we went over the bridge, and sprinted as fast as my little legs could take me. Saw the ride on dude out of the corner of my eye, so I got scared and had to throw my bike, bummer as I couldn't do my double flip-off salute I had planned. There's always next time.

First freaking place!

That's it.

Cohutta 100 this week then a week in N. Georgia to get some heavy duty miles in the legs.

Oh yeah... VOTE FOR ME!

The Big News... Pisgah Stage Race Best Blogger Contest!

2011-04-20T18:55:00.003-04:00

I figured my blog needed a bit of a shot in the ass as the race season was upon us and I'm sitting here with a broken hand.

What better way to do that to enter the Pisgah Stage Race Blogger Battle!

I don't know why they made it seem like I entered to take out Team Dicky aka Rich Dillen, but needless to say I plan on taking everyone down in a hail of 1's and 0's.

The top two vote-getters win, so I'd love any/everyone's help!

You can view the Pisgah Stage Race website here: http://www.blueridgeadventures.net/stage/

And you can vote for me here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3Q8WNCK

If you'd like to vote and share this, I'd be forever indebted to you! Might make you cookies or something.

Not sure why I look so mopey in my photo either, but that's the face I'll be making if I don't win this!

On Deck

2011-04-20T00:09:00.002-04:00

Recovering from the broken hand quite nicely, and have been getting some good miles in on the road bike.

Cohutta 100 is in a little under 2 weeks, and I'm looking to cut some time off my finish last year. Here's my race report from last year if you're so inclined.

RATL this weekend so hopefully I'll be feeling good for that.

Some big news soon to come on the blogger front, hopefully this is the spark I need to return this thing to its former glory. Heh.

Oh happy days: AKA broken hand

2011-04-03T21:21:00.002-04:00

Some sketchball decided to cause a big pileup at Barry Roubaix and Garth and myself were among the casualties.

For me: boxer's fracture on the hand, black eye (healing nicely), chainring puncture on the arm, and a ton of roadrash.

Should be out for five more weeks. The whole issue with that being the Cohutta 100 is in a little over three. We'll see how the hand is feeling by then, or if I'm gonna have to skip it.

The good news is I'm ok to ride the roadbike and got out for some miles this weekend, so I'm pissed off and stir crazy.

Snake Creek Gap TT Number 3

2011-03-09T11:14:00.003-05:00

Big surprise... I flatted again.

I like Kenda Karmas, but I don't think they're quite tough enough for really rocky trails. I've flatted the same way multiple times now: a pinch flat on a tubeless tire. Sounds hard to do but I guess it really isn't. I'll get a 2 mm or so cut right where the sidewall of my tire meets the hook bead / sidewall of my rim. Because that area is so stressed by sideloads, the Stans doesn't want to seal it. Anyone have tire suggestions for me?

On a more positive note. I felt pretty good. The trial was nice and muddy. Heavy as all get-out. You'd stop pedaling and come to a halt in about 5 seconds, so it was a good setup for me. I stayed on the gas the whole time, and scared the crap out of myself constantly on every downhill as I two wheel slid everything.

Besides that it was business as usual. The trail got super foggy on the backside of the mountain, which added a cool Mordor feel to it. I saw about 6 unattended dogs walking around, probably out hunting with someone, but I thought I was hallucinating for a second. I was winning the battle of attrition until my flat.

It took me about 10 minutes to get the flat fixed, and I only had 5ish rocky miles to go, so it killed my time. I rolled in at 3:30, which wasn't as fast as my February time.

When all was said and done, I was 4th fastest time in the Men Under 30 open class, and 2nd in the Trifecta, which combines your time for all three races. Could have done better in both, but this was a training race series so I'm not beating myself up too much.

Barry Roubaix in two weeks, and Cohutta in a little over a month. Whoop!

Georgia Time

2011-02-28T21:12:00.001-05:00

Headed down to Georgia this weekend for the last Snake Creek Gap.

Legs are feeling good, mentally I'm about as all-there as I can ever be. Ready to go mental.

Um... is this thing on?

2011-02-16T12:33:00.004-05:00

Hey blogworld long time no talk.

Wanted to save you the boring-ness of talking about riding base miles, and haven't had much else good stuff to talk about as work is turning me into a dullard. Sleep, work, ride. Repeat ad nauseum.

Now on to some actual fun stuff. Bike racing!

After the last cross race of the season (a very fun Cap City Cross in rural Columbus) I took a few weeks off.

After those few weeks off, I was back at it in early January for the first of three Snake Creek Gap time trials. A few weeks off after a tough cross season left me with legs fresher than any in recent memory. I was feeling so good, when... wait for it... a mechanical!

The course is sort of like if they dumped West Branch on a big-ass mountain. Tons of climbing and rocks everywhere.

I was boogeying along, well on my way to my best time and hopefully a win, and before you know it, the familiar hiss of Stan's flying everwhere. Rad. At about mile 29 of the 34 mile race, I get a mechanical.

After dicking around with my tire for way too long (thanks to the people who bailed me out with co2 and eventually a frame pump after I exhausted my stash), I was back on the trail 30-45 minutes later. Fuckin' a. Did I mention that while I was trying to get my Stan's to seal up, it was 30 degrees and super windy and I was on top of a mountain ridge?

Less learned: if I flat on the trail, don't screw with getting my stans to seal a cut, just throw in a tire and go.

After that I was super cold and sore and pushed through the last 5 miles pretty slowly. Finished in 3:50, which is ok, but it was a bit of a blow to go from feeling great to that. Oh well.

February saw me doing the race again. I had a semi-big week of training before, so my legs felt like trash. The weather wasn't cooperating at all. And crossing the deep and freezing creek sucked.

Yep... sucked.

It was muddy and cold and miserable, and my head wasn't in it.

Those three factors culminated into me cracking terribly the last 9 or so miles, where the race gets hard. I started getting into the negative feedback loop of "Why do I do this to myself?" and pretty much just started my deathmarch to the finish line.

I still posted up a respectable time: 3:27, which is only 4 minutes off my best time from last year. With the crappy conditions and my mental health issues, I'll take it.

March should hopefully go a little better, and I am shooting for around the 3 hour mark. We'll see.

I'll get back into this bloggin' thing a bit more soon!

My Season Ends with a Fizzle

2010-11-30T11:09:00.004-05:00

Not much blogging lately as it seems the end of my season was one big disappointment after another. Maybe I set too high of goals for myself, or perhaps I just blew it. Oh well, as it's just bike racing: not the end of the world.

The Ohio state championship was this past weekend, and I made the drive down to Yellow Springs with the idea of being on the podium in my head.

The race started way way mellow, and I sat in and bid my time the first 2 laps. It started to gradually ramp up a bit, but nothing too out of this world.

Then I screwed myself.

The course was a bit slippery, but I knew where the problem spots were. For some reason I didn't keep this in mind as I washed out in a 180 and lost contact with the lead group.

I was still sitting in 3rd overall in Ohio, and maybe 5th or 6th in the race so I needed to stay on the gas if I wanted to stay there. As Ernie was hot on my tail.

Staying consistent is key in a cross race. Too many mistakes and you're toast. With that being said, I made the world's biggest cat 4 mistake you can. I ate shit on the double barrier.

I got a little ahead of myself and was thinking about what I needed to do to make contact with the lead group.

One thing leads to another, and I don't unclip in time. Wham! Front wheel into the barrier, me over the bars. I was fine, but 3 people got by me and were long gone.

I had to go into the big as my stem had twisted on the fork steerer, and that was pretty much all she wrote.

I duked it out with 2 Bob's Red Mill dudes for 9th place. Which I was able to get.

That left me 4th overall in the Ohio ranks.

2 more cap city races on the horizon, but after that, a few weeks off, then it's Georgia time for the first >Snake Creek Gap TT.

Iceman Bonketh

2010-11-08T22:10:00.002-05:00

Iceman has cometh and gone. Longer writeup when I get photos.

After dealing with some pretty pitiful traffic, which was a surprise as I was supposed to go with the fastest times from last year. I moved up to where I wanted to be with about 14 of the 29 miles down.

Time to sit in for a second and refuel... I grab my waterbottle and it's frozen solid. Water handup coming too, oh sweet, my frozen hands drop 2 handups.

I blew up spectacularly. Seeing stars for pretty much the last half of the race and barely limping back in.

1:51 for 4th place in 19-24.

Longer write-up on the horizon.

Louisville USGP

2010-11-01T15:29:00.001-04:00

Holy late blog entry.

Louisville came and went. Disappointed with my results, but can't win them all. I had an awesome time hanging out with my dudes and that's what it's all about yo.

The course was super fun. A wild sandpit, sketchy wood sections, a few short super steep climbs. The logistics for the race definitely needed improvement. The thing that pissed me off the most was the fact that they cut our (2/3 and SS) race short because they were running late. Way to cut the biggest field of the day's race short.

I got a reasonably good start. Super duper Clif Bar wunderkind attacked a bunch, I felt good and was able to keep him in site for maybe 2 laps. Then I bit it in the sandpit. Shit.

After scrambling back on, I was riding with a dude for 4th. The top 3 were just too far out of reach.

I got outsprinted at the line by a junior, again, which is pretty much the story of my season. 5th place. I'll take it.

Sunday was a bit more fun, course-wise. They added some distance, got rid of a run up, and this lead to more fun racing.

I wanted to stay out of the wind for the first few laps, so I took the start a little easier. Bad idea. Clif Bar dude took off, and I wasn't in position to chase. No one wanted to go either, as there were still a few dude that start well and then blow up later on leading the way, so they were pretty much at their limits.

I worked my way up to 3rd, and then what do you know, a buried tree stump in some moon dust dirt. I hit it super fast and was scared that I flatted. About 2 turns later I bit it super hard going into a turn very quickly. Flat front tire rolled over.

Trashed Dugast Rhino. Ouch.

After riding half a lap on my flat front to the pit, I was able to get my pit bike. Shit! i forgot to air up my tires before the race. I probably had 15 psi front and rear. I slowly picked myself some places back up for the rest of the race and ended up in 24th I think. Oh well.

As said before, I never want to race cross in 80+ degree weather again.

Creek-less Cross

2010-10-18T23:54:00.004-04:00

Thanks to Kevin and all the fine gents at Chagrin River Cycling for putting on a well run race.

The course was very much different. Not saying that in a bad way by any means. There was supposed to be a deadly climb / run-up and then an equally deadly descent, but I think too many people were scared and / or bitch and moaned until it was changed.

Instead we had a super technical course full of a million twists and turns. Some greasy double track and a little gravel added a bit of power areas to the course. It was unusual, but I think that's what made it very very fun.

I finally got a skinsuit, so I'm an official cyclocross dude now. I had to prove myself and show that my gut was really just belly breathing.

The lemans start was sano. Elbows were flying people tripping over each other, the whole nine yards. Some dude in town from California asked: "You guys don't start every race this way... do you...?" Welcome to Ohio dude. Jungle cross.

I didn't get a half bad start, which is nuts as I've ran about ten feet total my entire life.

Weeks got off the front, and I played the doting teammate trying to hold the man, the myth, the legend, Paul Martin off as long as I could. I was actually surprised. I was able to duke it out with Paul for probably 6 or so of the 11 laps (a wild guess to make me sound cool and because I was too gassed to see lap cards.)

After he decided he was done playing around, Paul ripped my legs off and moved up to Matt. Time for me to bridge back up.

I worked my ass off getting back up and had the gap down to maybe five seconds when I forgot every bit of techincal ability I had and washed out on a fucking acorn or something. Damnit.

It was going to be tough to move back up and I had Ernie fresh of a 24 hour race and a cross race the day before, on my tail.

Made good progress to move back up, and fell on like the easiest part of the day. A 2 mph little tight chicane thing. I think was just so gassed that my center of balance got goofy and I just fell. So dumb.

I got back up from that pretty easily and luckily was able to fight Ernie off for third place.

Third behind Paul and Weeks is first in my book. I'll take it.

UCI3 craziness

2010-10-18T23:25:00.003-04:00

Long overdue for a write up on this. The Cincy UCI3 weekend has came and went. Big weekend for me, and it worked out pretty well.

Ok.

Friday

After last year's muddy shitshow, the conditions and course on Friday were a large change of pace. The course was extremely hilly, very bumpy, and full of twists and turns. A drivers course with very few areas to really recover.

Due to my ninja computer skills I was able to procure a front row start. I was going to use this to my advantage and blow the race apart as soon as possible.

Ray Smith took the holeshot with me planted on his wheel. I bid my time and made a pass when the course allowed. Now time to attack!

Attack I did; I ended up opening up perhaps a 30 second gap and was feeling good, aside from the oppressive heat.

Life was fine and dandy until 29er crew rider Travis Mullen made it up to me. He seemed in better shape than me, and pretty much towed me around the course. To say he was smooth was an understatement, he would flow through the turns as I washed out and rode my brakes. For the last few laps I held on for deal life as he gapped me out of the turns and I had to really work to get back on. With two to go, it finally became enough. Travis got away. I was all by my lonesome

On the bell lap, I thought I might be able to close the gap on him, but a lapped rider miss interpreted my RIDER BACK for FALL IN FRONT OF ME. So that pretty much ended the chase. Travis got me by 20 seconds. 2nd place. Thanks bro.

Nonetheless pumped on my result and I didn't die of heat stroke, so life is good.

Saturday

Java Johnny's was awesome last year, and the course was pretty much the same this year. The exception being the double sandpit was replaced by two tight 180s through the sand.

The race started the same as Friday. Ray leading it out and me blowing the race apart as soon as possible. After everyone settled in, myself, Jason and two Red Zone juniors got away.

The race then began to be a battle of attrition. The redzone juniors ganged up on us and would attack and then counter relentlessly. Whenever Jason or I would get away, they'd bring us back. It wasn't looking good, so I wanted to sit on the front and control the pace. I got to show my cyclocross skillz by dismounting on the driveside and taking the quick way around the sand every time and that helped to tire people out and buy me a little gap.

So after lap after lap of being attacked into the ground, one of the attacks shook Jason, so it was the two Red Zone dudes and I. I was liking my chances as they were both seeming super tired and I was opening up a reasonable gap out of turns.

On the two little humps before the paved second, dude number 2, who sat in most of the time attacked. It caught be by enough surprise. I laid it all on the line to close the 2ish bike length gap he had on me before we got to the pavement, but I couldn't.

So sprint time it was. I was able to get about a bike length away, but it wasn't in the cards. Outsprinted by a 16-year old. Haha at me.

Sunday

I was out for blood on Sunday. The course was way wide open and sort of a power rider's course. Not my style, but no biggie.

What do you know, the 16-year-old dude proved he wasn't a fluke and ripped everyone's legs off.

But before that, I once more tried to blow the race apart. I hauled through the start finish and through the sandpit and got a group of 5 off he front with me eventually.

It was all about staying smooth and not crashing and conserving energy on many of the wide open areas through the course. It was 90ish degrees and I was dying.

Everything was going fine and dandy until youngman attacked right before the sandpit. I wasn't in the best position and foolishly instead of chasing, I figured we'd reel him back in. Nope.

Jason, Travis and I were together with someone maybe 10 seconds behind. It was way too hot and I was way too tired to make anything happen, so I hung on to Jason and Travis for dear life.

I finally started getting into my groove and enjoying the course a bit more. I planned on sitting in until the uphill finishing straight and making my move there after getting nice and rested up.

The course had other plans as I ate a tremendous amount of shit on the swooping left before the descent / right hand turn of death.

See ya later second and third place. Hello fighting life and limb for fourth.

I was able to recover quickly enough and rolled across the line comfortably enough in fourth, close enough to second and third to watch Jason take the sprint finish from Travis. Atta boy.

I never want to race cyclocross in the heat again.

The end.

Kings CX weekend

2010-09-23T11:00:00.003-04:00

THE GARTMAC© and I motored down to just outside of Cincy early Saturday morning to race the 2 day weekend put on by 7 Hills cycling.

The venue was pretty sweet, it was an old golf course that was taken over for cyclocross and cross country. We should do that in the Cleveland area...

Saturday's racing was pretty straight forward. The course was pretty much the least technical thing ever. A few fast 180s and a few off camber sections, but besides that, a grass crit, which isn't my strength.

I got a good start, and was with a lead group of maybe 4 dudes for 3 or so laps. It got to the point that they'd put in these gigantic accelerations out of the corners, and I eventually couldn't match them. So off the lead group I went.

It was pretty much a time trial from then. I had to hold off Kenda's Ryan Gamm behind me, and was thinking about making a move up to a Bob's Red Mill dude in front of me, but that would have required a huge effort, and with the big race being Sunday, I wanted to have a little in the tank.

I rolled through in 8th place in the elites. Not bad.

Sunday was the course reversed. Still fast and dusty. The only hard part was the sand from the first day was now uphill. Ouch.

The race played out the same exact way as it did on Saturday. Good start, hung with the fast guys for 3-4 laps, and then had to chase. As you can see in the video, I was in no-mans land.

Same deal as the previously day on the finishing end too. I was able to hold off Gamm, but this time I took the dig to try to catch the guy in front of me. I wasn't able to do it, but such is life.

8th in elites again.

NEOCX race at Kent State Stark this weekend, along with OMBC at West Branch.

Cincy UCI3 is on the horizon, and I'm very excited.

Wendy Park sweatfest

2010-09-13T22:59:00.003-04:00

The photo pretty much describes my feelings on the day... hurt and sweaty

Spin organized the second race of the NEO CX series. It was actually pretty similar to Lake Effect's setup last year, with the addition of a nice long beach section, which was rough, and some additional twists and turns.

So on to the racing: I have had a mental block this year with getting myself clipped in and getting a good start. This race was no exception. I completely blew it at the start and had a ton of difficulty clipping in, so I was probably 6th wheel or so through the first few turns.

Luckily I was able to move up by the barriers and myself, Matt Weeks and Steve Twining got a little bit of a gap. I'm not quite as super stud as they are, so I was able to hold on for a lap and a half, then had to fall back, being passed by Paul Martin and Jason Halloran. Ernie and I rode together for a few laps, and reeled Jason in. The course was pretty much a madhouse. There were people walking through it with their heads down to go fishing, stakes and tape were falling over, people were faceplanting, and pretty much everyone was getting flats.

After Ernie and I got up to Jason, Ernie was able to get away letting Jason and I duke it out for the last 3ish laps. He was riding very strong, so I new I was in for a hard fought battle. When push came to shove, he had the legs that day and I didn't. He attacked me at the end of the pier right before 1 to go, and when I went to counter, I just couldn't get back on, no matter how hard I tried. So, defeated, I was able to keep the rubber side down and roll through in 6th place. Not as nice as the Manitoc results, but the season is young.

Big Valley Day 1: CX Race

2010-09-08T10:40:00.001-04:00

First and foremost, thanks to 331 racing for putting on another awesome year at Manitoc, and thanks to Team Lake Effect and all of our gracious volunteers for putting on a well-ran cross race.

After much anticipation, cross season was upon us. I had spent a day earlier in the week laying out the course, so I knew what to expect: some twisty, rooted singletrack, and some nice wide open grass. A U-Turn sand pit mixed stuff up a little bit. It was a tough course: if you let your guard down for a second you'd pinch flat, or do as I did, wipe out on gravel.

I lined up next to Team Jamis mountain biker Blake Harlan whose bags were lost in transit and was rocking some stylish baggies and a polo.

The gun went off, Blake got the holeshot, and I was right on his wheel. We twisted and turned a little until we got to the first bit of singletrack. It was then and there that Steve Twining made his move, and that was pretty much the last I saw of him all day.

Steve was in the lead, Blake second, and me third. The rooted section was very adventageous for a mountain bike, so I hoped that I could keep them in sight, then make up some time on the grass sections. Matt Weeks was bridging up to me, and when he got there, it was time to do some work together.

That would have been fine and well, until he pinch flatted at the very top of the singletrack section. Time to go it alone. I proceeded to bury myself to catch Blake, and during lap 3, I was able to. Sweeet.

What wasn't sweet was about 10 seconds after passing him, I got a grape vine type twig wrapped up in my cassette, and had to stop to take it out. All that hard work for nothing :-(

I then continued to try to play catch up, burying myself to catch Blake again, and keep Cameron Jackson, who was behind me at a comfortable gap. The laps pretty much went the same. Try to lose as little time as possible in the single track, and then make it up on the grass. Twining was kicking ass, so was Blake, so I figured I'd hold on for third.

Must have been my lucky day, as Blake cracked in probably the most huge way that anyone has ever cracked. I felt bad for him when we caught up after the race. He said he was hurting. So there you have it. I was able to pass him with maybe 2 to go, and opened up a more comfortable gap on Cameron. Aside from eating shit super hard in the gravel, the rest of the race went off without a hitch.

Twining rolled through in first, me in second, Cameron third, Weeks fourth (after being in dead last because of his flat).

Good job to everyone who raced, Lake Effect had a strong showing, with 4 guys in the top 10 of the A's, Julie kicking butt in the women's B's and A's, and a good chunk of B racers killing it.

Cross!

2010-08-17T12:21:00.003-04:00

For those of you who aren't facebook friends with me, check out my new found love for all things American.

Cross season starts in two and a half weeks. I've been on the warpath getting ready. Can't wait.

The local race series is posted up at NeoCX. So I'm going hit most all of those.

Doing as many Cap City Cross races as possible, along with OVCX.

Big weekends include Cincy UCI weekend, USGP Louisville and perhaps Jingle Cross Rock. Maybe nationals if I'm not broke by the end of the year?

Time to go for the elite license. Yikes.

John Bryan 6 Hour Race for Relief

2010-08-10T10:09:00.002-04:00

Photo lifted from Dave from the OMBA board.

Thanks to everyone at MVMBA. This race ruled!

The race for relief is a 6 hour race in the Springfield area, in which the MVMBA uses the proceeds to finance some porta-potties for their trail.

I partnered up with blogger extraordinaire, Robert to take on the men's duo division.

They lined us up for a LeMans-style start, but only had us run about 10 yards. Being the sleep deprived idiot that I am, I got out into the sea of bikes, only to lose mine.

After a few choice swear words, I found it, and busted ass to get up through the crowd into the front.

Our strategy was for me to do two quick laps of the 13.1 mile course, then pass the torch to Robert, who enjoy the advantage of a nice strung out field and minimal trail congestion.

I got onto Dane Sink's wheel, both a nice guy and a very fast local. I followed him around the first lap to try to get an idea of what lines to take. The trail was ripping fast and bone dry. I was in the big ring and my 4 lowest cassette cogs pretty much the entire time. Dane's trail knowledge was quickly apparent, and I let him go and settled into my own pace.

The first lap went through okay, Dane got a one minute gap, and come lap two, it was time to go a little faster and catch up with his teammate, Phil Noble.

Things were going well, I was hauling ass, then I leaned into a turn a little too hard, and washed out my front wheel in some loose stuff. See ya later catching Phil and see ya later hope of winning the day's fastest lap. Nonetheless, I recovered as well as I could, and finished a minute behind Phil on that lap too.

Besides that, nothing to write home about, My lap times stayed pretty consistent in the 50-52 minute range for the first 4.

Robert was movin' too, turning in 55 minute lap times. Consider me impressed.

Then things got interesting.

You'd figure a 6 hour race that started at 9 AM would end at 3 PM, right?

I did.

So when Robert went out for a lap at 2:15 PM, I figured that was it for us, and time to get on to the most important thing of the day... food!

After I pigged out on some well deserved food, I was sitting and relaxing when I remembered that at the prerace meeting they said they'd give us an extra 15 minutes of bonus time.

Shit! Robert was going to come in under the 15 minute bonus deadline, leaving me to do one more lap with a stomach full of coleslaw, pasta salad, and a veggie burger.

As the minutes ticked away, I was curious to see where Robert was. With a whole 2 minutes to spare, he came sprinting out of the woods with his bike. It turns out he flatted about a half mile out. He got to the line with a minute and a half to spare.

After seeing that, I was inspired. Pasta salad be damned. Mountain biking is unpredictable, and it only takes one broken chain or flat tire for me to catch Phil, would was out on his team's final lap.

So off I went. Man I felt lousy. I was able to troop it out with my slowest lap of the day at 55 minutes, but it felt good to do one more.

We ended up in second in the men's duo. Congrats to Julie and Rudy, who were also second in the co-ed duo.

The grand totals:

• 8 combined laps of the 13.1 mile course.
• Me with 5, Robert with 3. So 65.5 miles for me, 39.3 for Robert.
• My fastest lap was 50:30, which gives me a cool 15.56mph average.

Bring on cross season!

Tour of The Valley

2010-07-13T16:00:00.002-04:00

Fun weekend. Thanks to Dan, Erin and Carbon Racing for putting it on.

Friday was the prologue time trial. This was my first TT, so I went into it with no idea of what to expect. After some good advice from Sean I went into it excited to give it a go.

It went well. Similar amount of suffering to a mountain bike race, but no trees and stuff to crash me. Sweet.

Ended up posting a time of 20:35 on the 9.6 mile course, which was good enough for 4th. It was strangely addicting, so perhaps I'll get into the TT thing more.

Day two was the Columbiana road race. It was a 33 mile loop with a KOM 8 miles in (contrary to what the race info said!), good for some bonus points for the GC. I was feeling good about my chances, as hills and I get along.

The race started off slow, and really didn't ramp up until the KOM, which was 8 miles in, not 22. I missed the sign going up, and didn't realize it was the climb until I was about half way up. I then ramped it up a little, and in spite of this, two guys took off and got me to the KOM line. Oh well.

After that, the field was pretty much decimated. Our starting 60 was down to about 12 riders. The race then got boring, as Cat 4's are pretty good at chasing down anyone who tries to get away. I attacked a bunch, was brought back by a field that promptly sat up. Repeat ad nauseam.

It was time for the field sprint, and my skills in that respect suck. So I tried to get a good wheel to jump on and take off as early as possible. Ended up seventh which I wish was a few places higher, but oh well.

I was now sitting in 4th in the GC, so the crit on Sunday would be the deciding factor.

What do you know... I fucked up the crit.

Thanks to Julie for the snap.

After riding myself into the ground during the road race, I figured I'd sit in for the crit and jump late to save myself. Bad idea. There was all sorts of sketchy business going on in the turns, and when I went to position myself for the last sprint, I got chopped in a turn. Damnit. Mostly my fault because I waited too long to move up and got caught in the shit.

An abysmal 9th place, which left me stuck in 4th overall in the GC.

Fun weekend though. The team killed it. Julie, Robert, Rudy, Nate, Pete, THE GARTMAC™, Phil, Dick, Chris, and anyone else I forgot. Rad job everyone.

Laying low...

2010-07-06T21:09:00.003-04:00

Not much on the race front for me in the last couple of weeks. That's good as it let me get the chance to catch up on... well, life I guess.

Cross bike is shaping up pretty well, parts are here and frame is due in this upcoming Monday.

Weekend-long race extravaganza, so hopefully I'll have some fresh content up with some cwazy racing.

Vulture's Knob Three

2010-06-14T16:31:00.003-04:00

After a week-long sabbatical off the bike to recoup from Mohican, the Vulture's Knob race was upon me.

It ended up being a pretty shitty race for me, but it happens.

The expert class was a bit thin, with the Big Bear 2x12 going on, the field was split.

I ended up getting a good start, and there was no carnage this time, so that's good. I took the lead by the gravity dropper, and was feeling good enough. My legs didn't have much snap, but I'll blame that on Mohican. As long as I rode smart I should be doing ok.

Then something interesting happened... I was going to ride the goldfish pond skinny, and what do you know... It wasn't there! The recent rains must have floated it away from it's normal spot. I was screwed.

Everyone else went through the reroute, and I lost probably twenty seconds trying to tip-toe across the slippery, shaky skinny. Yikes!

After that I knew I didn't have the legs to chase back on the main group, so it was into survival mode hoping to stay steady and pick off people as they fell off the pace due to the heat and humidity.

Thanks to Roberto for the pic.

That was going ok until the chainsuck started. That threw a bit of a wrench in my plans. Then I flatted the 3rd lap. Crap! I put a little too much faith in my Stan's and didn't have a tube with me, so when it wouldn't seal back up, I was walking. Thanks to Tim Carson, who had a tube an extra CO2, and bailed me out from having to walk the rest of the lap.

Hopefully I can get my legs back under me this week. The Wayne Ultra is coming up in 2 weeks, so I'm trying to get back to full steam by then. We'll see.

Mohican 100

2010-06-07T19:42:00.004-04:00

This picture summarizes it...

I was feeling fantastic, sitting in the top ten-ish for the first 40 miles or so. Then I cracked in the most terrible way I've ever experienced. My stomach must have not liked the mix of high temperatures, humidty, and perpetuem, and I started dry heaving at the sign of any kind of exertion. Not good.

I rode backwards until the 4th aid station where I was going to throw in the towel. After some help from Juan(thanks!), and encouragement from Ethan, I got back on my bike after an hour and a half of sitting around feeling like death.

We braved tornado sirens, and I finished up with an official time of 10:40. I don't know if I ever want to do another 100 miler again.

My Weekend

2010-05-23T18:19:00.002-04:00

Not so good...

Was very excited for the Knob race, but that all went to shit when I got taken out in the first turn by Dave Walker. No apology either. Classy.

Worked my ass off to catch back up, but my bent rear derailer hanger finally broke my chain on the third lap, right before the suspension bridge, quickly taking me from fourth place to last. Whatever I guess. I put it back together and limped across the line.

Today I'm laying low as I feel like I got hit by a car, but Mohican in two weeks, so I'm excited for that. Time to clean off the bike, and see how broken it is.

OMBC Grassman Quick Recap

2010-05-04T16:50:00.004-04:00

Immature humor out of the way: every time I see grassman, I sort of think of the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer gets the ASSMAN license plate. Ok glad I got that out of the way.

The race was pretty much a battle of will. The course on a dry day would be a bit more fun, but in the wet, no thanks. It was a muddy, rooted, slippery mess.

First lap took off. Team mate Kyle Spisak got the holeshot, I was second on his wheel. Ben and Brad behind me. We stayed like this through maybe halfway through the first lap, where Ben and Brad took off, and I latched on to follow.

We stayed together for the whole first lap, Ben taking us through our local trails, me holding on for dear life. Ben's gap steadily increased, and I did my best to keep Brad in site, hoping I could make something happen on the third lap.

These hopes were quickly dashed, as I bit it on a rooted section, and Brad was gone. After that it basically became a matter of survival. I knew I had a decent gap on fourth, so I just needed to stay upright and it'd be smooth sailing.

About that staying upright... not so easy.

As you can see, it was a battle of attrition. I had my gameface on.

It began to rain pretty steadily through the 2nd and into the 3rd laps, so the initially wet trail became a greasy mudpit, and the roots became even more deadly. Kenda Karmas were not a wise choice for these conditions.

After falling about a hundred times, often times in a pretty spectacular and painful fashion, I walked my bike up the last climb, which was way too slick to ride by this point and motored in ending up in 3rd place.

My first podium in the expert class, which is neat. We'll see how it turns out when more than six people show up :-)

There were tons of people out shooting photos, so when those turn up, I'll be sure to put them up.

Kudos to Ryan O'Dell, Danielle Merry and the rest of the OMBC crew for listening to rider suggestions and making some awesome updates on the administrative end. From an organizational standpoint, this was a really well run race. Thanks!

Off to Westlake!

Cohutta 100!

2010-04-29T16:28:00.001-04:00

After a long wait and much anticipation, the Cohutta 100 was finally here.

Similar to the earlier races in the year, Rusty and I took off from northeast Ohio Thursday night, and rolled into the lovely Ocoee River Whitewater Center to get our packets Friday morning.

As normal with my luck, they lost my packet, and I had to wait about 45 minutes while they made me a new one, consisting of a number plate written in magic marker. PRO!

But seriously, the woman was nothing but helpful, and I'm cursed when it comes to any sort of race registration / results, so whatever.

7am Saturday morning came way too early. I dragged my ass out of bed and to my surprise. No rain! Forecasters were calling for an 85 percent chance of thunderstorms, so waking up to an overcast, but dry morning was okay with me.

Rumor had it the climb on the road out of the Whitewater Center was quick, and getting in the singletrack early was very important, so I made sure to be ready to go off the line. Lo and behold it was.

Everyone took off, and I got on a wheel and held on for dear life. My lockout on my fork happened to break earlier in the week so I bobbed my way up for 2.5 miles and entered the singletrack in the top 20.

I rode for a bit with the man, the myth, the legend, The Pflug for a bit, which was rad, and then we hit a nice rooty section that helped string people out. Over the infamous rock crossing pictured above, we were done with the first 20 miles of singletrack and on to the fire roads.

The race gets kind of nondescript this this point, as the fireroads all looked the same, tried to settle in with Tim and Rob from the 29er crew for a while and that was going well until Ernie came cruising by on a hill. Tim and Rob jumped on his wheel, and I followed suit. This lasted for about fifteen minutes, until I had the realization the race was about a quarter of the way over and there was no way I'd be able to keep up the pace. Bidding them adieu, I fell into my own pace.

Aid station two went by, and I stopped and pissed (thank god) and switched out my waterbottles. Little did I know, immediately after was the big climb of the day. The climb took you up Dally and Watson's gap, and just never seemed to end. You'd work your way up a mountain, get to the top, descend for about 30 seconds, and what do you know… another mountain to climb.

When I was getting close to the top of this climb, and saw aid station three. Life was good, but the wildcard for the day: the weather, started to come into play.

The temperature began to drop, the wind picked up, and some thick fog rolled in. Thunder was heard in the distance, and the descents became treacherous as you could only see about three feet in front of you at times.

Not much choice but to put my head down and go. And so I did.

After a fun longggggggg descent, the computer was reading 65 miles, and I was feeling good.

Then the torrential downpour started. Holy crap it was miserable. I was able to ride with some gents from Freeze Thaw Cycles in PA, and we traded pulls. They seemed to be a little less cooked or affected by the weather compared to me, so the time came when I had to drop back off of their wheels about 80 miles in.

No biggie.

I put my head down and went on, hoping to get myself out of my current misery. The clock was ticking and my window for a sub-8-hour time was coming to a close. I got to the last nine miles of singletrack in 6:45, and wasn't prepared for how bad of an absolute horror it was.

I was able to get through it the best I could, over the slippery roots and rocks, deep mud, and huge puddles, I made it to the end of the Thunder Rock Express in one piece. Rad!

What wasn't rad was the cold headwind I had to face motoring it back to the finish line. Shit that sucked.

Nonetheless, it was a drop in the bucket compared to all the suffering I had taken part in through the rest of the day, so I was able to cross the line without anyone passing me...

In 7:58. Hellllll yes! Good for 20th place in Men's open.

Awesome job to anyone who didn't instantly curl up and die when it started raining. It was miserable but a lot of people (Rusty, Kelly, Brian, Nelson, etc etc) were able to push through it.

Cohutta 100 Preliminary write-up

2010-04-26T10:47:00.001-04:00

Rain held off for about 3.5 hours. After that it was miserable. 50 degrees, lightning and a torrential downpour. I was soaked to the bone.

Rolled in at 7:58, good enough for 20th place in men's open. Full write-up to come soon. I think I might have the flu, yuck.

Mohican Wilderness: DNF!

2010-04-19T09:40:00.002-04:00

Bummed about Mohican Wilderness yesterday.

I was feeling good, and looking forward to racing at a course that really suited my strengths: climbing like crazy, and a nice open field section to put the hammer down in.

The race started off well, I was third wheel going into the singletrack, when a unnamed person decided to chop the corner and try to cut everyone off. He got shut down pretty quickly, but it caused a big pileup that pretty much stopped everyone. I thought I was going to get around it, but in the middle of doing so, someone crashed into me and I had to dab a foot.

Nonetheless, I got out of the pileup relatively unscathed. Into the field, it was Steve Twining in first, Jeff Pendlebury in second, me in third and Ben Ort in fourth. Ben and I would go back and forth on sections of the trail.

All was going well, and I was feeling strong. Us four had a pretty good gap going, and I was feeling consistent. Then; what do you know, bike problems.

I was railing a turn right before the chute and I went down. I was a little curious why this happened as I wasn't too off balance, and the trail was super grippy. I shook it off and figured it was just a fluke.

After that, riding on, I noticed the front end of my bike started feeling a little funky, I thought maybe that I fungo'ed something on the crash. I didn't want to lose any more time so I kept going and tried to do some mid ride diagnosing.

When I dismounted for the downed tree, I had a chance to grab my front tire and give it a squeeze. Holy piss it had about ten psi in it. My tire must have been too low intially, and it folded / burped on that turn, and that's why I went down. It all started making sense.

So I had to stop, got out the CO2 cartridge, no big deal, and got my front tire inflated again. Good to go... but wait. I have the worst problem with my Stan's valve cores unthreading themselves all the time. Today was no exception. As I unthreaded my CO2 tool, the valve core started coming with it. I saw this and tried to stop it, but without needlenose pliers, I was pretty much out of luck. My next strategy was to cover my open valve stem with my finger. Get my valve core out of my inflator with my teeth (ouch), and do a quick switch by removing my finger and putting the valve core back in.

I did this, but it didn't work too well. I ended up with the same 10 psi I started with, albeit 15 minutes after I first stopped.

By this time I was pretty much in dead last, and it was a long walk back to a pump.

Resigned to my fate, I threw in the towel and moped back to the car. DNF.

Steve ended up winning, with Jeff in second. They're unstoppable this year.

Rudy killed everyone in the Sport 50 plus age group, winning by a healthy margin, and Robert was plagued with some mechanical problems too, but was able to post up a good time on a tough course.

Cohutta this weekend, if I can make it through the workweek in one piece.

RATL #1

2010-04-17T22:02:00.003-04:00

Once again, thanks to Julie for braving the cold and taking some awesome photos.

RATL was a pretty good time, aside from the 35 degree temperatures and snow-like mixture. Man that sucked.

I'm still trying to get the hang of this road racing stuff, and the one thing I need to realize, especially in the Cat 4 races is to be patient.

So far I've been a bit anxious, and pretty much try to attack every lap. It gives me a good workout, as road racing is pretty much training for MTB. It also mixes things up and makes the race a little more interesting in my mind. But nonetheless, I need to work on the tactical end of things much more.

The race was so so. It was cold and windy. Windy enough that every attack I tried to launch was quickly brought back because the wind pretty much stood me up. There were a few sections of flat that I was moving 16 miles an hour at 550 watts. Yuck.

I was able to take a flyer on the Chipotle prime and hold everyone off. Free burrito! That strung things out well.

When it came down to it bunch sprint as per usual. I attacked a little further out to try and avoid this, but I waited too long, and wasn't able to get away.

3rd place. Not bad. Not a bad workout either. Mohican Wilderness tomorrow, we'll see how that goes.

Some power data for those so inclined:

Total Elapsed Time 00:55:05
Distance, mi 20.65
Work, kJ 817
Average Power, Watts 247
Average Cadence 85
Average Speed, mph 22.45
Average Heart Rate 171
Ride Time (Time Moving) 00:54:58
Weight, lbs 150.0

Groovy / Vulture's Knob Race #1

2010-04-14T11:18:00.003-04:00

Phew okay finally had some time to catch my breath.

This past Sunday was the first race in the Groovy Cycleworks / Vulture's Knob race series.

As many of you know, I've got some high hopes for this year. I've moved up and started racing expert with the big boys in hopes of learning from the experienced guys and hopefully being able to mix it up with them. I've been working my ass off with Sean Gilbert trying to get ready for the season, and what do you know, the season is here.

It was a beautiful day at the Knob, 60 degrees, sunny, and the trails were fast. I lined up next to Brad Wilhelm and Jeff Pendlebury (aka the future of mountain biking).

(thanks to Julie for the photos!)

The gun went off, and there we went. Steve Twining and Brad both got awesome starts, and turning into the top of the Furnace, they already were starting to pull away. Jeff got by me pretty soon after. This had me sitting at 4th place and I expected something like this, so I stayed on the gas and kept consistent.

After motoring through the prologue, I saw Brad on the side of the trail with a flat tire, right at the powerline downhill. Sucks bad, hopefully he has better luck this weekend and we can race together. That left me in third, whoa!

The new stuff built at the Knob before the race was tricky, some bumpy off camber stuff before the landfill climb, and the over / under has a drop-in to it now which makes it the earth's most scary thing at speed. I'm surprised I didn't die on the loose rocks. By then, Chip Meek, caught up to me, and we were going back and forth. He'd get a little gap on the climbs, and I'd reel him in on the flats. This went back and forth for the next lap and a half.

All was well, and I was feeling good and had my sights on Chip, and 3/4ths of the way through the second lap; what do you know I crash into a tree. Nothing gets you out of your groove quicker than that. So I get back on my bike, kiss my chances of catching Chip goodbye, and hope to stay consistent enough to keep Ross Clark and teammate Kyle Spisak from getting by. I had about a minute gap on them, which was good enough, but I started to see them on switchbacks and that put the fear into me.

I was able to hold on, and rolled across the line in 4th at 1:58:23, a little less than one minute behind Chip.

I'm pretty jazzed on that, and I figure there's no where to go but up this season… until Dave Walker shows up, then I'll go one more place down :-)

On to the other races. Rudy kicked some but in the old-man sport category, and pretty much put on a clinic on the sharp new Cannondale Flash 29er he got. He had to deal with a ton of traffic, and negotiated it very well to win his class. Robert did not have much luck. He was in the front group (big surprise…) of all of the sport racers when his crankset decided to explode. I'm sure he'll unleash his vengeance this weekend at the OMBC race.

In the expert race, Kyle Spisak rolled in 5th, a minute behind me. Luke rolled in strong holding down the top ten. Todd Bolgrin had a good race too.

On a team-related note, huge thanks to everyone at Bike Authority: Sherm, Mike, Sean, Chris, etc etc etc for getting me up and rolling this season. My Cannondale Flash 1 29er was awesome through the rocks, the big wheels handled it with no problem, and the Lefty smoothed things out well, no deflection off of anything. My Stan's ZTR Race 29er wheels were light and snappy up the hills, and held up even better than expected down the nasty stuff of the over/under.

First crit: RATL this Saturday, and first OMBC race at Mohican Wilderness this Sunday. Looking forward to it.

Good Weather

2010-04-01T19:54:00.002-04:00

All's well on this end.

The weather has been great, and I'm trying to get some miles in the legs. Intensity has been ramping up a little bit. If anyone wants to see the e-wang (aka power files) I'll post them up, but I don't think most people give a shit.

Was out and about in the metroparks yesterday and crossed paths with the Spin group ride. After turning around and hauling ass to get back on, I rode with them for about an hour and a half. It was reasonably fast for the early season, so maybe I'll start riding those on Wednesday nights to get a little more intensity in the legs.

LT intervals and 30 second sprints today. Fun fun. 82 degrees wasn't bad though. Plan on riding Mohican this Sunday in the AM if anyone wants to come with.

Anyone want to share a cabin for the Cohutta 100?

2010-03-25T10:59:00.002-04:00

Getting the word out there...

I'm booking a cabin for the nights of April 23 and 24 about 25 minutes from the start line. Camping / hotels in the area seem to be pretty scarce, so this is the best bet.

It's pretty boss setup, as the photos show:

I've got myself and Rusty both committed, and it's going to be about $285ish after taxes and all that. So assuming I can get one or two more people in. It shouldn't be too bad.

Drop me a line if you're interested click here for my email.

Laying Low

2010-03-23T11:59:00.003-04:00

My apologies to the five people that read this thing that I'm not updating more frequently.

The fact of the matter, not much is going on in the cycling end. I've been riding a good bit, but most people probably don't want to hear about base miles. Sean has got me upping the intensity a bit now in preparation for the beginning of the race season, so that's good to break up the monotony.

Going to Barry Roubaix fell through, so chances are I might be doing the Malabar Farm RR, which will be my first ever, hairy winter legs and all. Should be interesting...

Trying to do some RATLs and Covered Bridge races too, to keep up the fitness for MTB season.

Besides that, got the registration cash in for the Cohutta 100, April 24th, and I'm getting ready for the first race of the Vulture's Knob series. I'm racing with the big boys this year, so I'm getting ready to have my ass handed to me. At least I'll be having fun in the process.

That's about it on this end.

Snake Creek Gap 3

2010-03-10T11:59:00.001-05:00

After February's debacle, I thought the Snake Creek Gap had scarred me for life. The crappy conditions combined with me not being in the best shape to push a SS gear up all of those mountains put the hurt on me pretty badly.

Surprisingly, March's Snake Creek went nothing like that.

Camba race team member Rusty Brown and myself loaded up his jeep and left from Kent Thursday night. After motoring on down I-75 though the wee hours of the night, we arrived in Dalton, Georgia at about 9 am Friday morning. We passed out for a while in the hotel then woke up and took a little spin on the trails to loose up the road-weary legs, and to work as a bit of a shake down from my brand new bike.

Yes, folks, I wised up and got myself a new bike:

Yep it's got both gears (27 of em!) and a suspension fork. Thanks to Bike Authority for getting me up and running.

So moving on to race morning. It was 40 degrees or so at the start, which felt positively balmy compared to Ohio, and off we went. I think a combination of the new bike, the great weather and the work I've been doing with Sean had me feeling great.

I pretty much put the hammer down from the line, and tried to stay strong throughout the 34 mile race. This was ultimately a training race, so I tried to not go anaerobic too often, and for the most part, that worked out well.

This is me saying thanks to a little dude that was helping at a road crossing.

For once in my life, things went to plan. I was loving the ability to shift, and the fork helped avoid the dead arms that I experienced in February's race. I did fall into a giant pricker bush when hauling ass on a descent, hitting my pedal on a log, almost losing it, recovering, and then washing out on a log at low speed when I thought I saved it.

I was glad no one was around to see that as I tried to untangle myself from my bike and all the thorns that were ripping my legs up.

But back on the horse, all went well.

I rolled in with a time of 3 hours 23 minutes. Good for second place in the Men under 30 class.

This was only a 1 minute 50 seconds slower than the guy in first. I probably could have cut that time down by not stopping at the second aid station, as I was pretty okay on water and gel. Maybe I played it a little too safe, but hindsight is 20/20. I did get a pretty badass plaque for my toils:

Rusty battled through some mechanical problems, including a broken chain, and came in with a time of 4:09, good enough to put him within the top 15 in his class.

That being said, I'm super excited at how the race turned out. For riding nothing but base miles in the last few months, I'm glad to see the results in as race when I push it a little more. Hopefully this momentum will carry over to the start of the Knob series, OMBC and the Cohutta 100.

Finally talking about Snake Creek Gap

2010-02-18T20:34:00.005-05:00

A combination of being over-stressed from work (this real job stuff is bullshit) and finally getting over the trauma that was Snake Creek Gap has me writing about it about two weeks after it happened.

Crap it was hard.

Aaron, Rusty, Mike and myself left Mike's shop in Akron at 11PM Thursday night bound for Dalton, Georgia and the Snake Creek Gap time trial.

After ten hours of driving, we finally arrived in Dalton and all promptly passed out for a few hours. After getting up, we ate some Panera, unpacked the bikes, and got all of our stuff ready for the next morning.

Waking up Saturday morning, we were greeted by rain and temperatures in the mid 30's. Woohoo.

We make the 5 minute drive from the hotel to the race registration area. After suiting up and getting the bike ready, we all hopped into buses and vans, and the organizers put our bikes on trailers and drove us to the start about 45 minutes away.

Luck had it that our van was the last to arrive, so I was pretty much the last person to start the 34 mile ride. I was warned about a creek crossing within the first 3 miles or so, but nothing could have prepared me for it. Waist high and freezing! Yikes!

Only way to beat hypothermia was to keep on moving, so on I went. The trail was absolutely beautiful, but by far the hardest mountain biking I've encountered so far. 5200 feet of climbing in 34 miles, and since I'm currently without a geared bike, I was on the singlespeed pushing 32x19 in the mud. Ouch!

After some absolutely killer climbs and equally bad descents, I was along the home stretch. Everyone warned me that it'd be hard, and my friends and I actually hiked it the day before, but after 3 and a half hours in the saddle, I didn't want to deal with these huge rocks anymore. But all good things must come to an end, so after much mental anguish, I was treated to a 40 mph road descent, and I was done!!!

I rolled in at 4 hours and 4 minutes, which was only slightly above my goal of 4 hours flat. It was good enough for 5th in Singlespeed Open behind 4 locals. I'll take it. Hell of a job to Mike and Aaron for finishing that beast. The sport class won't know what hit them this year.

Rusty and I are headed back March 6th to do it again. Should be some good stuff. I've got myself a geared bike again, just picked it up yesterday. So the read question is, do I bring it, or the SS?!

Snake Creek Gap

2010-02-04T19:59:00.001-05:00

See ya Northeast Ohio. Snake Creek Gap this Saturday.

Doing it on the singlespeed. Should be fun. Race report and photos soon to come.

Mohican and Lumberjack 100

2010-02-01T21:49:00.003-05:00

Got the registration in for the Mohican 100 miler. I'm beyond looking forward to this.

Here's a recap from last year. I'm doing everything in my power to not get lost, and I actually have a bit more of a clue what in the hell I'm doing. So it should be good. First peak of the year, so I'm really working up to it.

The ultimate bummer for me is that the Lumberjack 100 sold out in 12 hours. Registration opened at midnight when I was fast asleep, and I was going to wait until I got home from work to fork out the dough. Well isn't that just swell. Hopefully I can score a transfer.

Not sure how close Mohican is to filling up or anything, but might be a good idea to register sooner rather than later...

Laying Low

2010-01-28T23:28:00.002-05:00

Not much going on in blog-land. Working a ton, putting in a shit ton of base miles, and avoiding the cold.

I'm working with Coach extraordinaire Sean Gilbert this upcoming season, and I'm really optimistic he can help me work towards my goals this year.

The 6 hour rides start soon to get the base built up nice and big. Looking forward to it.

My bike stable is getting a bit revamped too, after things settle down with that, I'll post some photos of the goodies that are coming through.

Winter Trophy Cross Finale

2010-01-12T09:47:00.000-05:00

You know a race is tough when a solid two days later you still feel like crap.

As of 9:12 AM, Tuesday, Jan. 12, I can safely say I still feel like crap. My legs are so unbelievably sore that getting out of bed is a little bit of a task.

On with the race report: myself and some other brave souls make the trek out to the last Winter Trophy race.

The turn out wasn't too bad, considering the freezing temperatures and solid foot of snow on the ground. There were seven people in the A race, which made things fun.

On the line, people were advising us to run our bikes from the get-go. I figured they were messing with us or something, and didn't listen too closely.

I quickly learned they were serious. I took about two pedals from the start and came to a dead stop. I ended up shouldering my bike and ran like the dickens.

Thanks to Julie for the awesome photos as per usual...

I'd very quickly get used to shouldering my bike, as I had to do it a shit-ton throughout the hour. This created a pretty hilarious dilemma for me. I've got little chicken legs, and even though my leg warmers are size small, running causes them to fall down.

And fall down they did. (Sorry for subjecting you to this)

Not very pro at all.

So I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. After running my bike, I'd get out on the road section, which was a great time to put the hammer down and try to close some gaps. I really never had the opportunity to do so, as I was too concerned with riding no handed and pulling my leg warmers up. It was freezing and without them I think I would have died.

Besides that bit of hilarity, things went well enough. It was a very singlespeed unfriendly course, as the road section was good for my gearing, but I was wayyyyyyyy overgeared for the snow, hence my dead legs two days later from pushing a 42x17.

This look of agony on my face was pretty much maintained the entire race:

I ended up rolling across the line in third behind Garth Prosser, who I think had some secret to riding the snow and lapped the field twice, and Matt Weeks, who was having all sorts of mechanical problems.

I'll take it.

The race schedule should be done for me... but surprisingly it's not.

Next up is the Vulture's Knob cross series for a couple of fun races, then it's back into the base miles.

You Should Have Stayed in Bed CX

2010-01-04T16:33:00.001-05:00

Turns out the name was right... Sorry Rody :-)

After having the Winter Trophy Cross race cancelled, I figured I'd man up and go to the Groovy Series out at the Knob.

As I went outside to start loading stuff up in my car, I realized the accuracy of the name, made a prompt 180 and went back to bed.

When I finally awoke from my slumber, I ended up realizing my mistake and regretting it all day. It was freezing, yes, but I should have still went. It was too late to pack up and get to the Knob, which is an hour away, so I was resigned to my house for the rest of the day.

Or was I?!?!?!?!?

After much bugging via text message, I somehow convinced Scott to get out of his house and go for a ride with me, -10 degree windchill be damned.

So off we were. We ended up with 30 rolling miles around Hinckley. Me on the fixed gear, Scott on his cross bike. It was cold, but actually pretty managable once you were moving. I am going to invest in some winter shoes though, as my booties don't want to fit over my shoes, and are very quickly giving up the ghost as a result.

Here are some snaps from the ride:

End of the year part 1: The races

2009-12-29T11:52:00.000-05:00

With the season coming to a close, I'm taking the next few days to reflect on my year, hopefully I don't become too sentimental. Today is racing, tomorrow is stuff, Thursday is people. So look out for it!

So, as a little bit of background, this was my first full year racing. I did a few cross races at the tail end of last year in the C category and that planted the seed. So, when spring rolled around, I gave the whole racing this a shot.

What do you know, it was a blast.

Being able to race with so many different people and head off to places I'd normally never set foot in (Coburn, PA, anyone!?) was an experience in itself. The bike riding was just an added perk on top of that.

A few highlights:

• Mohican 100k

This was my first experience with any sort of an enduro race, and man it was awesome. Even though the 7 am start was wayyyyy too early, tearing through downtown Loudonville was awesome. I felt pretty good for not knowing jack shit about nutrition or pacing myself or any of that mumbo-jumbo. I was scarfing down granola bars having a blast. While getting lost for an hour plus may have been a huge kick in the nuts, there's always next year when I'm going to unleash some proverbial whoop-ass on that race.

• Manitoc

331 promotions really knows there stuff. A huge thanks to them for putting on this really well-organized race. The weather looked really ominous before this race. I left my place in North Royalton (20 minutes away) to a torrential downpour, but when I got to Manitoc, the trails were dry and the rain held off. Crazy stuff.

It was also one of those races where everything seemed to click. The bike was running well, I didn't crash like crazy, and I was able to power through the entire race. A 1st place plaque and a Chipolte burrito were my reward.

It's a shame the trails aren't open year round, but hopefully my good dudes in Camba have some luck with getting the Valley opened up for bikes.

• Wilderness 101

The hardest thing I've ever done on a bike. Seriously. Next year I'm putting a suspension fork on and maybe that will help me not think about dying on some of those descents. Yikes. But besting my goal time by 40-some minutes was something for me to be really happy about. Let's see if I can drop it down another 40 next year.

• West Branch OMBC

I got my start on a mountain bike at West Branch a few years ago. So it was awesome to be able to ride my home trail in a race. Once again it was one of those days were everything clicked.

• Kirtland Park CX

Fast! It was wild to be able to hang with the front group for a bit and see how insanely fast those guys were. Riding with Twining was always good too, as I've got a lot to learn from him. My best Lake Effect result of the year too.

I could probably write something about every one of these races and how much I liked them, but man this post is getting long so I'll save you the boredom.

But here is is a long and boring list of all the races I did this year... if you're into that sort of thing.

Mountain Bike

OMBC Series:

1st: 3/29/09 OMBC #1 Mohican Wilderness, Loudonville

5th: SATURDAY 4/18/09 OMBC #2 Vultures Knob – Wooster

1st: 5/3/09 OMBC #3 Mountwood Challenge WV

1st: 5/17/09 OMBC #4 The Wilds

2nd: 7/12/09 OMBC #6 S&S Trails - Mt. Perry

2nd: 7/26/09 OMBC #7 Alum Creek – Delaware

2nd: 8/23/09 OMBC #9 Caesar Creek – Waynesville

1st: 9/27/09 OMBC #11 Westbranch – Ravenna

1st: 10/11/09 OMBC #12 Mohican SP – Loudonville

1st: 10/25/09 OMBC #13 Mohican Wilderness – Loudonville

1st overall Sport Senior (19-30) category

Other XC races

1st: 8/30/09 NEO Power Series Big Valley Race at Camp Manitoc, Sport class - Peninsula

1st: 6/13/09 Vultures Knob #3: Woo-town Singlespeed Challenge - Wooster

1st: 11/7/09: Iceman Cometh Challenge, Sport 19-24 - Traverse City, MI

Endurance Races

20th: 8/1/09 Wilderness 101: Singlespeed Open - Coburn, PA

12th: 5/30/09 Mohican 100k: Singlespeed Open - Loudonville

Cyclocross:

2nd: 9/13/09 Bike Authority CX #1: Wendy Park, B race - Cleveland

1st: 9/26/09 Bike Authority CX #2: KSU Stark, B race - Canton

1st: 10/3/09 Cap City Cross #1: Alum Creek, B race - Delaware, OH

9th: 10/4/09 Bike Authority CX# #3: Leroy, A race - Panesville

7th: 10/9/09 Darkhorse Cyclo-Stampede International Cyclocross, Cat 2/3 - Covington KY

12th: 10/17/09 Bike Authority CX #4: Todd Field, A race - Willoughby

10th: 10/31/09 Bike Authority CX #5: Chagrin River CX day one, A race - Bainbridge

9th: 11/1/09 Bike Authority CX #6: Chagrin River CX day two, A race - Bainbridge

21st: 11/14/09 Bike Authority CX #7: KSU Main, A race - Kent

7th: 11/22/09 Bike Authority CX #8: Kirtland Park, A race - Cleveland

5th: 12/5/09 Cap City Cross: #6: Smith Farms, A race - Columbus

9th: 12/6/09 Bike Authority CX#9: Boughton Farm, A race - Copley

1st: 12/19/09 Cap City Cross #7: Infirmary Mound, A race - Granville

3rd: 12/20/09 Cyclocross Winter Trophy Series #1, A race - Akron

9th overall Bike Authority CX: A category

Keep an eye out tomorrow: I'll be posting about some of my favorite gadgets / gear of the year.

Finishing up the season strong: Cap City #7 and Winter Trophy Series #1

2009-12-21T13:31:00.000-05:00

After Boughton Farm I was toast. My body has been pretty well-abused since April of this year, so it was break time.

I spent two weeks without even thinking about my bike, and while it was nice, I was starting to get a little stir-crazy by the end of things.

So the first time back on my bike after my time off was the Cap City series finale at Infirmary Mound.

I woke up that morning to a solid inch of snow up in the Cleveland area, went to pick up Robert and off we went.

Two-and-a-half hours later, and a few "Hey I'm lost" phone calls to Matt Weeks, we rolled into Granville to a snowy and muddy race.

I got a warm up in and cheered on Robert, who was kicking ass in the B's on his singlespeed. He ended up in second even after a few mud-induced mistakes (*cough* sandbagger *cough*) oh my excuse me... Heh.

So the A's lined up after that. The official announced that because of the conditions the race was going to be cut short to 45 minutes. Big old bummer, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

The whistle blows and we're off. I got out in the front with Weeks, and then it became very apparent, if it hadn't been already, how much he's on the next level. I was turning myself inside-out trying to keep up with him, and he was probably going not too hard. It was wild.

The course was a half-muddy half-icy nightmare, and staying upright at times seemed an impossible challenge. Luck was on my side though and I kept it rubber-side down minus a few foot dabs here and there.

So Matt and I rode rode together most of the race, with Garth Prosser trying to bridge up most of the time. His gap may have gotten down to ten seconds or so earlier on, but by the end of the race, we had it opened up to a solid minute. Probably a few minutes behind him was the Katsu and the chase group consisting of the rest of the A racers.

I was able to nip Matt at the line, which I'll take a wild guess and say that was his Christmas present to me :-).

So there it was, my first victory in an A race. To say I'm excited about this is an understatement. I was able to nab my first win in both a B race and an A race in one season. Wooooohoooo!

Hopefully this momentum will carry over to next year. I've started working with Sean Gilbert recently, and hopefully his coaching wizardry will pay off for next season.

After the icy drive home, It was wash the jersey and go to bed time.

Up the next day I started getting ready for Shawn Adams' Winter Trophy Series.

I looked at my destroyed bike from the previous day's Columbus shenanigans, and pretty much said screw this to the thought of washing it.

It was single speed time!

I got to the course, and very quickly though that I was screwed. It was pretty flat, and my singlespeed was geared at 40x17, which I thought was a bit low. Oh well.

I put the Grifo XS file tread on the front, which hooked up really well in the ice and snow at 20ish PSI, and off we went. Ernie and Matt took off pretty much immediately, as my gearing spun out a little below their speed on the start.

As we settled in, Rudy and I were pretty similar in pace, and we worked together pretty much the entire time. It's always a treat riding with Rudy, as he's been racing for probably about as long as I've been alive, so I sort of sit back and watch and learn. So after trading pulls, getting some motivational beeps of my car horn by my girlfriend who was both watching and keeping warm, we got the bell, and Rudy sent me off.

I rolled across the line in third, really happy with how I rode. I think I'm going to race the SS for the rest of the series, maybe with a bit taller gear.

Ernie and Matt put on pretty much a cross clinic on how to ride the ice, and finished in first and second, respectively.

After a few detours (sorry Srokas!) we ended up at a little get together at the Matinee / Mr. Zubs. Some good food, a brew, and some chatting with the other racers.

I would recommend everyone comes out to the rest of the series, it was a blast. Big thanks to Shawn Adams for putting it on.

Boughton Farm, Finally

2009-12-11T14:40:00.002-05:00

I've been putting off a Boughton Farm race report, because I feel pretty non-descript about the whole affair.

The race was hard. It was muddy and required someone who could put down some power to get through some of the more muddy sections.

I also made my typical mistake of falling really early into the first lap and having to work my way back up from dead last. That's something I'm going to stick to next year, racing within my abilities and ensuring that I'm not a human yardsale the entire time.

Oh, I should use this as a formal apology to anyone I've fallen in front of this year and probably scared the shit out of you. My bad.

But yeah, race was over with me in ninth.

Even though my race was lackluster, I ended up in ninth overall for the series too, surrounded by some great company. I'm beyond thrilled about this, and I'll write an end-of-the-year recap soon talking about my ups and downs on the year.

Thats it for now. A few weeks off to relax.

Anyone want to share a ride to Cap City tomorrow?

2009-12-04T09:27:00.002-05:00

I'm driving down to Columbus for a Cap City race tomorrow. If anyone wants to come with, I've got a spot on my bike rack for one more. Shoot me an email if you want to come with.

Here are some details on the race. I'm racing at 2 PM, so I planned on leaving at 10 AM, but if you are racing earlier, I'm down to leave whenever.

State Cross Championships

2009-12-01T16:43:00.001-05:00

After a whole season of anticipation, States were finally upon us. After a Thanksgiving full of stuffing my face, and an oh-so-nice day off work on Friday, I readied myself to take off Saturday morning. The Sroka's graciously offered a spot in their car and I was happy to oblige.

We ended up getting to John Bryan State Park at probably about 4 PM on Saturday, just in time to meet up with the Maruts and Jeff Craft to take a few practice laps around the course.

Riding the course, I was pretty concerned. It was extremely wide open with little to no technical stuff, and as flat as a pancake. It suited a rider that could keep it steady the entire time. That's pretty much the opposite of me. I like little short punchy surges and technical stuff as an opportunity to recover. Oh well.

So with pretty much half of Team Lake Effect together, we were able to take some practice laps and geek out about tire choices for tomorrow. After that it was off to the hotel and time for dinner. I'm not sure what the drive did to me, but I was exhausted by 7:30 PM and in bed by 9:00. This was shaping up to be the first time in history I was going to be well rested for a race.

Morning came bright and early at 7:30 AM, which actually wasn't too bad for this newfound workin' man. We got to the park by Ten and were able to watch Scott Marut turn in an impressive finish in the Cat 4 35+ field.

After witnessing numerous state championships being brought back to Cleveland (Nate Loman in 35+ Cat 3, Rudy in 45+ Elite Masters, and Robert in 15/16 Juniors) I realized it was about time for my race.

I took my warmup around the park and my legs felt like trash. Not good. Desperate times called for desperate measures and I had enough time to get on to the trainer for some high cadence action in an attempt to blow the stink out of my legs. To my delight, it actually worked.

Lining up, I got to talking with Tony and realized we were about an equal level of nervous. The whistle went off, and I was able to pull together a strong start. The nerves quickly subsided and I was on my way to racing my race.

For the first lap I was hanging with the front three. I very quickly realized this wasn't going to last much longer, but I needed to hang on as long as I could and avoid the bottlenecks and try to open a gap when they did.

Starting the second lap, an Essex Brass rider attacked, and Jon Card countered. I pretty much couldn't do anything but laugh at that since I didn't have anywhere close to the legs they did. They were off, and Tony, myself, and one other guy formed a chase group.

I was holding off blowing up spectacularly, and though I might have been able to tough it out for the rest of the race. If anything, I saw Shawn Adams and Matt Weeks were catching up mighty quickly, and I wanted to help them bridge up to the front group.

So big plans swirling in my brain, I take the sharp off-camber turn right before the finish chute.

SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT my tire rolls. Not again. Not today. Not now. Piss.

Since I'm very quickly becoming an expert at this, I don't panic. I roll my tire back on the rim, and head out towards the pit very gingerly. As pretty much everyone passed me en route, my big dreams vanish in a poof of tainted tubular glue.

As I got to the pit I was sort of at a loss. I didn't bring the pit bike, because we didn't have enough space. The plan was to put my pedals on Rudy's bike, but I was too busy warming up to remember. I'm on a slightly antiquated 9 speed setup, so no one had a backup wheel for me.

DNF. Fuck.

On a good note, Matt and Shawn both finished second and third in the state, respectively. Tony finished in 12th, in the money just as he expected.

The one strange thing that I noticed on the day was the lack of recognition that the Cleveland area riders were getting. Not sure if it was because the announcer was from the area and saw familiar faces he could talk about or something else.

Hopefully by next year he'll realize that Cleveland riders brought home a serious chunk of hardware from this year, and might give a bit more credit where it is due.

Thanksgiving Day Bad Dude Challenge

2009-11-25T16:26:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking about 8 am, meet in the Valley at Lock 29 parking behind the Winking Lizard. Plan on five hours give-or-take, with many options to bail out early for turkey. Anyone down, or am I doing this myself?

CVNP Death Ride

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Kirtland Park

2009-11-23T10:47:00.002-05:00

Kirtland Park was awesome.

The weather was perfect, there were a ton of people there, the course was really fun, and super dry to boot.

At least on my end, the race went off without a hitch. The course, for the most part seemed to suit my strengths pretty well. Lots of twists and turns, some tricky off camber sections, and I was probably most pleased with the hills! I love climbing, and it's usually in short supply on cross courses. Not here; there were a few nice short steep climbs that proved nice and tough every lap.

With the conditions as nice as they were, and a big A field, I knew the racing was going to be fast.

Off the bat, it definitely was.

I was up in the lead pack going up to the stair runup/ride up. I knew that'd be a spot to get a gap, provided I could beat the bottleneck and make it up.

Luckily I did, and I was able to hang onto the front group. They then promptly worked to turn me inside out. There were some areas, namely the big open grass starting straight that played into my weakness of not having the motor needed to stay on someone's wheel.

So I'd try to stay consistent through all the climbing and other tricky stuff, and try to catch enough recovery to hang on the grass field dragstrip. It worked for maybe 3 laps, then finally I got spit off the back. It wasn't all bad, as I could keep them in my sights, and did so for the rest of the lap; with big hopes of bridging back up.

Then I dropped my chain...

Shit.

It was on the really bumpy downhill right after the stair runup. I went to pedal and nothing happened. Sweet. This pretty much plagued me and I dropped it twice more in the race for a grand total of three times. I'm ponying up the cash to buy a Paul Chainkeeper to make sure this never happens again, because my Salsa guard and thirdeye aren't cutting it.

So after chain drop number one I was able to get it fixed, and get onto Steve Twining's wheel to get a tow across the grass field. We rode together for a minute, then he had his own mechanical issues (course tape in the cassette.) I was in no man's land for another lap, until he worked his butt off and bridged back up. Pretty dang impressive.

We pretty much rode together for the rest of the race.

It was awesome seeing the lines he was taking and all that good stuff. He seemed to gain speed out of turns, which is definitely something I need to work on.

When all was said and done I rolled across the line in eighth place, which I'm absolutely astounded by. I think everything in the cosmos just sort of lined up and I lucked out and rolled into my best finish of the year. Wooo!

And for the obligatory Lake Effect Shoutout. Hot damn everyone did awesome today.

Matt Weeks won (again), Robert did awesome in B's (second behind some pretty serious sandbagger), Shawn Adams, Rudy, Scott Garman on a stomach full of burrito, The Maruts, etc etc etc etc.

Good job to everyone that raced!

States are up next, then the series wraps up in Copley at Boughton Farm.

KSU Cross

2009-11-15T10:31:00.003-05:00

The Lake Effect race at Kent State was something I was looking forward to since it has been announced. With Kent being my former stomping grounds up to this May, I figured it'd be fun to relive some old memories and race my bike all in one marvelous day.

The plan was going well. I showed up on race day, the temperatures were great, very unlike Ohio in November. So after all the warm-up nonsense, we line up and off we go. I ended up getting a good start, and went inside on Dan Quinlan on the first turn. I then realized I was out front. Oh shit!

That didn't last too long, as the ultra fast guy train of Shawn, Ernesto, Gerry, Steevo, and others moved on by. That's cool, as it could be expected. I settled in and was hoping to keep them in sight as long as possible. When I settled into a groove, I was racing with Ross Clark for a bit. We'd go back and forth on certain spots, and it's always awesome to race with him.

So I'm feeling good, getting into the groove, and then the problems start.

First problem: bad tire choice. I thought my Grifo XS file treads would work out well for the course. It was wide open, dry, and fast. They worked in my preride, but what do you know; by the time the A's went, the course got slick in spots, and my tires pretty much felt like I was riding on ice.

Second problem: Dropped chain. After the spiral, there was a curb setup with two options on how to ride it. Option one was to take the line that avoided the curb entirely, a hard left and then a hard right. Option two was to bunnyhop them. Bunnyhop it was. During my second lap, my chain fell off. Piss! There went any gap I had, along with my sights on the top five guys.

Third problem was the one that actually screwed me pretty hard. After the steep second run-up hill, there was a nice descent, with a fast right-hander into the log bunnyhop. I figured I'd take the liberty to cut the line a little bit to the inside, as it'd set me up a little better to get over the log in a smooth and momentum saving fashion.

In cutting the line to the inside, there must have been a rock or root or something lurking in the leaves. I was getting aggro and leaning in pretty hard, so that combined with whatever I hit rolled my front tubular and sent me falling as per usual. It was weird, as I was pretty much mid air, and thinking, "Hmm, why am I falling right now, I didn't do anything wrong." When I got up and went to grab my bike, I noticed the culprit, my front tubular. So off I ran to the pits, and pretty much the entire race passed me in the process.

I got to the pit bike (which I quickly realized was wayyyyyyy undergeared) nice and tired, hopped on, and realized I'd suffer out the last 4 laps in style.

So off I went, hoping to make up some spots, and try not to get lapped as long as possible.

I got into my groove on the singlespeed, and realized how fun it was. I'd get absolutely destroyed on the open grassy sections, but once I was in the woods I was having a blast. My gearing was just right that if I gave it a little oomph, I could make it up the first hill, much to the crowd's delight. Like this:

Mid-race shredding the teetertotter was a good way to pass the time also:

I actually caught up with and passed a few people too. Woop!

When all was said and done, I was half a lap back on the leaders. I rolled in in 24th place, oh well. Good job to everyone that raced, it was pretty dang fun.

Iceman Cometh!

2009-11-08T23:09:00.003-05:00

So after much ado and anticipation, I rolled out of Berea Friday Morning. The destination: Traverse City, Michigan and Iceman Cometh.

So after a mind-numbingly long drive with Mike, Rusty, and Todd, packets were picked up, food and libations consumed, and to sleep we went.

I woke up the next morning at the god-awful hour of 6am, and we quickly got dressed, packed up, and headed to the little town of Kalkaska for the start of the race.

Staging was like nothing I've ever seen before, mountain bikers as far as the eye could see. Pretty awesome.

Lining up, I think I had the worst case of the pre-race jitters I've ever encountered. My right leg kept shaking, and I had no idea what to do to stop it. Oh well.

Off we went. I got the holeshot. It was the most awesome feeling ever being out in the front: seeing hundreds of people cheering and taking pictures and whatnot. I traded pulls with a racer for a bit, and before you know it, we were in the woods.

The trail was a lot like people said it would be. Wide, for the most part flat, and very sandy. All was going well, and I was feeling great, until I bobbled passing a rider and we got tangled up. Sucks, but that's part of racing. I looked up to see two guys take off past me as I tried to get back up and regain my composure.

So the chase was on. The race gave my big ring a pretty solid workout. I kept the hammer down, probably passed 200 people until I finally caught the rider, Ryan Katulic, about ten miles in.

I was excited to have someone to race with, as it helped me keep my pace consistent. We talked a bit, and traded pulls to open up our gap on the rest of the field. I attacked a few times to see how he was holding up, and he countered every time. The race was going to come down to the last 6 miles, where some sandy, short, steep hills came into play.

Ryan was a strong climber, and we were evenly matched on the hills, but finally luck was on my side. I was starting to notice that he was drifting off my wheel now and then. I used this to my advantage and attacked on one of the monster sandy hills. It was a pretty cool scene with people all around cheering, music playing, etc etc. I got bogged down in some deep sand and didn't clear the hill, but I came dang close :-)

After getting of my bike about 3/4s of the way up this hill, I got back on as quick as humanly possible and took off. Big ring doing its thing.

I opened a gap and couldn't see him anymore. Yes! I rode like a man possessed not knowing if he'd catch me or not. I pushed it, but tried to remain upright and not goof up with a crash or anything like that.

I kept it together the last few miles, and was able to roll across the line at 1:50, first place Sport 19-24. Wooooo!

Now the fun starts...

I cross the line, big smile on my face. The second I get of my bike, my stomach pretty much does a backflip. I think to myself, "Man I don't feel hot," and quickly make my way to some privacy.

Boom. Projectile vomit behind a tree. Nobody saw it, which sucks because it was probably hilarious. But I grabbed a banana and some water and felt fine again.

On a non-puke related note, good job to Chip Meek, Jeff Pendlebury, teammates The Spisaks, Rusty Brown, Todd Turner, Brett Davis, Todd Davis, Mike Kline, and anyone else I forgot for ruling it out there on the trail. Everyone rode really well and showed that Ohio is a secret cycling hot bed with rad dudes.

If anyone is into data related geekery, this will suit you well enough. I forgot to start my Garmin until ten miles into the race :-( but until I find some pictures, I'll put up some data. 173 average heart rate. Ouch. Click it to make it bigger.

I Remember Halloween

2009-11-03T18:35:00.005-05:00

First and foremost, a huge thanks goes out to Brett Davis for putting on the races this weekend. It was an absolute blast.

Going to bed Friday night, I was optimistic about conditions being good for Saturday's racing. It was about 60 degrees, and while the threat of rain loomed over us in Northeast Ohio, I had my fingers crossed it was going to blow over.

I was wrong. Waking up Saturday morning and surveying the damage left me looking at some pretty saturated grass and temperatures substantially lower than the night before. Cross weather! Hup hup!

We lined up and all was well. I had a good warmup in, the course was awesome, albeit a bit muddy so I was feeling good. I got an alright start and was working my ass off to not let the really fast guys (Shawn, Ernie, Paul, Matt Weeks, Rudy, Ross, Tony etc...) out of my sight.

All was going well until wham! I overcooked a turn and ate it super bad. My right brifter turned inward about 90 degrees, and messed my brakes up. I didn't know it was fixable, so I goofed around with it for a bit, and lo-and-behold it sorted itself out.

By the time the bike was up and running again, the field was long gone, and I was probably sitting near the back of the pack. Time to do some work and make up some ground. I pretty much kept it pinned for the rest of the race, and tried to get back where I was.

That being said, I raced pretty much the dumbest I possibly could. I was a human yardsale and wiped out a few solid times. Sorry if I scared the crap out of anyone riding behind me.

The struggle was on to make up lots of lost ground. I hurt myself as much as I could to catch up. Here I am turning down a dollar handup, as my vision was getting a bit fuzzy and I couldn't quite make out much besides a blurry shape of a human. Maybe next time.

When I finally got into my groove, I worked my way up to the top ten and was battling it out with Greg Fletcher. We went back and forth for a couple of laps, and it was awesome. I thought I was going to hold him off through the singletrack and up to the finish, but all of the sudden I saw him make his move for the line, and I was too pooped to counter. He took ninth, and I ended up in tenth. Not a bad placing, but hot dang I wish I would have raced cleaner.

Everyone's favorite cyclocross up-and-commerRobert Sroka took his first win in the B's. Good job man!

So after that, I put down a couple of PBRs, shot the shit, and then went home to was the bikes and get ready for Kent's halloween. My King Diamond costume received mixed reviews, but I was pretty happy with it.

Day Two!

Waking up Sunday morning, I was in for a treat. It felt like I had been run over by a car. My 8 million falls the other day combined with a lack of sleep and a few too many heavy-metal falsetto screams the night before left my body a mangled wreck.

I put down a few cups of coffee and headed out to the race.

The course had dried out pretty well, and the reversed version eliminated the run-up by the river, which lead to some fast racing.

The start was hectic. We were into the river-side singletrack in about twenty seconds, so people were all over the place trying to get in and avoid the inevitable bottle-neck. I was able to get a good spot going, and actually was able to hang onto the super fast guys for almost a lap. Then big suprise; they left me in the freakin' dust.

After that, I pretty much focused on riding my own race. Trying not to blow up, maintain my position and most importantly, not fall all over the place. To my dismay, I was pretty successful. I was able to somehow fight off Ross Clark, and Rudy, which I thank the Great Pumpkin for such a miracle.

Lake Effect had a great weekend, with a strong presence on the podium in both the A's and B's both days. Good job to everyone that raced!

I ended up with ninth on the day. Hopefully I can take my excitement about this and use it to bust ass at Iceman this weekend.

OMBC Season Finale

2009-10-27T23:27:00.004-04:00

Made the wonderful trek down to Mohican Wilderness for the final race of the 2009 OMBC series.

The detour through Ashland is now cleared up, so I got there with plenty of time to spare. Thank goodness.

Looking on the OMBC site, I was only .28 points ahead of the second place rider, Trek Ohio Valley's Chris Spring. I wasn't anticipating it being that close, so the nerves were running a bit high.

We lined up, and man I got the best start of my life. I don't know what the deal was, but when we got out of the grass and onto the road, I looked back and had like a fifty yard lead. I'm feeling good and have a big smile on my face and what do you know: right before I went to turn into the singletrack, a convoy of like ten motorcyclists were coming in the opposite direction, preventing me from making my left turn.

Not much I could do about that but sort of shrug and laugh. Them's the breaks, and a mountain bike race is nice and long.

Besides that, the ride was pretty darn uneventful. Trail was in perfect shape thanks to Ryan O'Dell cleaning it up the day before.I rode my own race, tried to stay strong on the multiple steep-ass climbs, not mess up too bad on the downhill, and keep it clean through the rocks.

Stayed upright until the last lap, where I planted my front wheel right into a nice big rock. Big slow over the bars fall, hopefully nobody saw it :-)

Finished in first at 1:39, which I'm pumped about. A solid half hour less than my time at the beginning of the season mudfest.

The win set me up with the overall title for OMBC Sport Senior. I'm super grateful for the opportunity I had to race this year, and thanks to everybody who helped me out / encouraged / heckled me along the way. Expert will be a big jump next year, but I'm going to bust my ass this winter and see how it goes.

Brett's Chagrin River Cyclocross this weekend. Last year's was my first race ever, and man it is a blast. Everyone needs to come out; if not for the racing, maybe for the keg and costumes.

Cross My Heart

2009-10-20T00:03:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the late write up, I'm still traumatized by the hurting I laid on my body this past Saturday.

As chronicled elsewhere in the blogosphere, Spin's annual 'Cross My Heart and Hope to Die spectacular was tough.

If it wasn't the baseball feel spiral with the consistency of cement, it was the massive hill runup that was slicker than shit.

Spin ended up calling up the top ten in points, and I was left in the back with the rest of the point-less brutes. Off we went, and quickly the usual suspects (Paul Martin, Matt Weeks, Gerry Pflug, Steevo, etc etc) were long gone. For everyone else, elbows were flying through the thick mud, and we were trying to find our respective grooves to settle in.

My tactics stayed the same pretty much the whole race. It stay consistent in the slop, attack on the pavement, and dear lord try not to blow up on the Mount Everest-esque runup. Suffering was the order of the day.

Click on this excellent picture by photographer extraordinare Robert Sroka and peep the suffering.

THERE IS SOME SORT OF STUFF COMING OUT OF MY NOSE AND I WAS TOO SPENT TO WIPE IT OFF. YIKES!

Ok sickness aside, I got into one hell of a battle with John Ehrlinger. He rode a great race, and we were duking it out til the last lap. He gapped me every lap in the baseball field and on the fence section outside right past the pavillion. Kudos man, you hurt me so much I had to take a nap when I got home, that's how bad it was.

I ended up in 12th place, which I'm pretty okay with. Hopefully next race I can get a better start and have the wherewithal to get my legs nice and warmed up instead of messing around in the parking lot. Lake Effect rooled oncemore, with Matt Weeks and Shawn Adams in the second and third spots, Rudy and Tony in the top ten, Robert in the top ten in the B's, and Julie second in the women's. Good job all.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And now for some non-bike related goodness.

I have sold out to the man and got rid of the old mop for a job interview tomorrow. For those of you who are concerned, the grubstache went too (sorry for subjecting you to it.)

End non-bike related goodness, you may go on with you life.

:-)

UCI Weekend Wrapup / OMBC

2009-10-12T21:01:00.002-04:00

Arriving in Cincy Friday morning. I started the routine of getting ready, warming up, and filling my body with barely inedible stuff that resembles food.

Friday's race was at Devou Park in the lovely Covington, Kentucky.

As predicted, the area took a hard hit of rain, and was pretty dang wet. Seeing the course get progressively worse as the cat 4 field started finishing up, I knew I was in for trouble.

Staging was pretty surreal, and I realized that I had by far the worst position possible... last row. Now I know I need to register as soon as I can.

So off we were in a stacked Men's Cat 2/3 field.

After a surge up the starting road section, I may have been about half way into the 50-person field. We were abruptly dumped into some sloppy peanut butter mud.

It looked like a scene from a war movie, bodies flying left and right, yelling and cursing coming from all sides. I'm not too phased by riding mud, so I was able to pick my lines well enough to stay upright.

That lasted for about 2 minutes, as the mud caused the first of many falls as I washed out. I went to put my foot down to save it, and what do you know... that slid out too. I was promptly ran over by the guy behind me. Sorry dude :-)

Quickly getting up and riding with a crooked seatpost, I knew it wouldn't work out too well for the rest of the race so I had to stop and straighten it out. A few well placed whacks with the fist and I was back in business.

This was plain and simple cross suffering at its finest. My game plan consisted of working as hard as I could to bridge the gap up to the lead group who weren't bottlenecked by the shitstorm that happened in the first few laps. Slowly but surely I ended up working my way up to a respectable seventh place. I'll take it. Hopefully I can snag some pictures of the random areas of suffering and elaborate a bit more on my technique for riding them, which mostly consisted of riding as far as I could, falling then getting up and running the rest of the section.

Great job to Tony Marut teammate extraordinaire who was able to kick some ass and end up with a fourth place finish. mustache extraordinaire Scott was also able to work his way up from a lousy start and finish in the top half.

Phew okay on to Saturday.

Scott and I showed up with maybe an hour to spare in Middletown. The course was fast, excluding the back-to-back sandpits and one quick muddy section. It really suited a guy who was able to put down some power. I am not able to put down too much power, so I had to bury myself deep in the pain cave to be able to hang.

Once again the last row start was pretty terrible, but I was able to work my way up to probably the top 15 or 20 by the first turn. After that it was pretty much keeping myself at the edge of barfing for 45 minutes.

The quote of the weekend goes a little something like this, "You know Johnny wasn't having a good time because he wasn't smiling."

Generally I have a bit of a grin on my face when I ride just because, hell, riding a bike is awesome and I'm having a great time. Not this time, I had my mean face on.

So mean face intact, I busted my butt the entire race. Greg Fletcher and I settled into a groove and rode together from about lap 3 on. That is until he attacked on the uphill start area on the last lap. I saw him go and I just didn't have the juice in my legs to grab onto his wheel. Man he is strong. So after all is said and done I finished up strong a spot or two behind Greg, nice and comfy somewhere in the top ten, mayyyyyyybe close to the top five.

Here's where the fun starts...

One thing I know about racing, is that before you leave it's always a good idea to check the results, just incase things get a little wacky and a protest needs to be filed.

Lo-and-behold, I stuck around until about 5 o'clock and the 2/3 results still weren't posted.

He what do you know, the results still aren't posted online and I learn from Scott that the results got all sorts of fucked up. I was marked as a DNF, and everyone else's results were all screwed up.

I don't really care too much about finishing and placing, and I understand that mistakes happen, but man that's a rough thing to hear. I spent a shit ton of money this weekend on travel and registration, and worked like a dog to do well in my race. Somewhere down the line some wires got short circuited in the officiating and I got marked as a DNF. Bleh... I guess it happens.

On a more positive note, good job to everyone that raced this weekend. Julie, Rudy, Robert (who kicked ass in men's 2/3!), Bill, Scott x 2, Nate x 2, Matt Weeks, Brett Davis, etc etc. Everyone that raced further reiterates that Northeast Ohio is a cycling powerhouse ;-)

So after all that shitstorm occurs, I've got a mountain bike race on Sunday at Mohican State Park. Wooo!

I roll down in typical last minute fashion and get to the line about 5 minutes before the gun with no warm up and stressed because of my last-minuteness. That's something I may need to work on.

Off we went. I lucked out and was able to win the race with a time of 2:18, in spite of myself. I raced pretty stupidly dropping my bottles a couple of times, a few dumb crashes, and somehow had the mechanical problem of my wheel coming loose a few times and my piece of shit multitool (Serfas Zipper; never buy one) imploding in my bag. My legs also felt pretty much like blocks of wood the entire time, and they never really got too loose. Oh well.

Congrats to Steve Twining, who was able to beat the seemingly unbeatable Dave Walker in a sprint finish for first. Hell yes Steve!

Phew that's about it. I've got to stay busy even as the weather gets crappier to stay up with cross and get ready for Iceman.

UCI Cincy Weekend

2009-10-09T07:15:00.002-04:00

Heading down now.

Seems to be a wet one, which is pretty much my style.

I'll be racing 2/3 Friday and Saturday. Either driving home Saturday to race the OMBC on Sunday, or staying in Cincy if the mood strikes me.

Woooooo!

Cap City and Leroy

2009-10-06T00:26:00.003-04:00

Two cross races this weekend:

Saturday was the first Cap City Cross race of the year. It was held at the Alum Creek beach, right where they started the OMBC race earlier in the year.

I got down there with perhaps an hour to spare. After warming up, and all that good stuff, we lined up for a Lemans-style start. Mixed feelings about that, as I think that starts are one of my stronger suits, but Lemans was pretty damn fun. Fun's the name of the game so I took off like Usain Bolt.

Running isn't quite my thing, I wound my chicken legs through the labrynth of bikes, and I was off, probably in tenth place. I worked my way up for about a half a lap, and by the time we got to the off-camber grass stuff I was in first.

Pretty much immediately after the grass stuff, Rudy caught up with me, as the Masters started at the same time as us. We worked together the rest of the race and finshed first in Masters and U35 respectively. It was a treat riding with someone as good as he is, as following his lines and pacing and whatnot really was beneficial for my inexperienced self.

Lake Effect had a great precense at the race. Along with Rudy and I; Julie finished third in the Women's race, Robert rode well, and Matt Weeks won the A's.

After motoring on home. I fell asleep with my stuff all wet and my bike muddy. Crap! When I woke up at 10pm, I realized I had a ton of work to do, as I was racing the next day. Midnight bike washing time!

I rose nice and early to get my arse out to Painesville for the Chagrin River Cycling-organized Leroy race.

Got there, said hellos to everyone, prerode the course, warmed up, did the usual stuff. There was a huge turnout and thinking about it, the mix of people is really what I love about cross. From national champs to first-time racers, everyone there was crazy enough to race out in the mud instead of sitting at home watching football. Awesome.

The A race was calling my name, so I finally grew a set and signed up for it.

I wasn't paying attention to the start and was late to line up as per usual. Time management is something I need to work on.

Off we went. I ended up getting a halfway decent start, and was near the front of the pack for a little bit. Right when we got to the section before the singletrack it was sort of like everyone in the race decided to go, "Ok that was fun, time to actually go fast now." Poof, they were gone.

From then on it was pretty much me just trying to stay upright and ride my own race. The course was awesome, and I felt it was right up my alley. Singletrack is my sorta thing :-)

Staying upright for the mostpart, I found myself battling with Cameron from RGF and Ray Huang. They both rode a hell of a race, and it was cool to see how the race evolved with our respective strengths and weaknesses.

I'd gain some time in the singletrack and the muddy stuff and any power sections they would do their thing.

When all was said and done I was able to get my second (or third, or fourth...) wind during the last lap. I attacked and was able to hold Ray and Cameron off. I rode across the line having no idea where I ended up, turns out it was ninth place. Hot damn I'm happy about that. Must have been my lucky day.

Once again Lake Effect had a good showing, Matt Weeks and Shawn Adams doing what they do as per usual, Rudy turning in a fifth place finish, Robert in the B race, Julie in the Women's, our juniors, etc etc. Kudos to anyone who raced through the mud and had the tenacity to keep going.

Good Weekend

2009-09-27T21:05:00.003-04:00

Two races for myself this weekend.

First, on Saturday we had the Stark Velo cross race. It was held at the Kent State Stark campus, and dang did the course rule. It was really wide open, long, with more fun off camber steep stuff than you can shake a stick at.

Rain seemed to be looming overhead all day, but luckily by the start of the B race, was nowhere to be found. That lasted for all of about 1 lap, and we were soon stuck in some sort of moonsoon type thing.

I ended up getting the holeshot and the legs were feeling good. I opened a gap on the second place dude of about 20 seconds and was feeling pretty good. Lo and behold all good things must come to an end. Someone in a Stark Velo kit rolled onto the course and called out, "This is the last lap guys, we're callin it!"

Well hot damn I better speed up.

I ended up finishing in first. It was my first 'cross win, and I'm absolutely thrilled, but it sucks it had to come in a 25 minute race. A lot can happen in 20 minutes for sure. Mother nature is a fickle mistress I do suppose. Big ups to Robert for finishing 5th too, he's been on fire lately.

Today was the OMBC race at West Branch. I got my start riding at WB, so it holds a pretty fond place in my heart. Rumors were that the rain that hit us at Stark didn't really affect WB much.

So off we were. I was first into the double track and ended up fighting off second place all the way into the singletrack. Lucky for me I had the home field advantage and was able to open up a gap on the Rock Gorge trail. It was pretty much smooth sailin' from there, as I tried to keep my pace up and make sure that I didn't make any dumb mistakes...

But we are talking about me here, so dumb mistakes were made. When totally gassed on the second lap, they included: falling on a bridge, crashing probably three times on roots, taking turns to hot and sliding out, etc etc.

Nonetheless the mistakes weren't too catastrophic and I was able to take first. Hopefully I can put some MTB snaps on here when they surface on the tubes.

Not a bad way to spend a weekend off...

CFR!!!

2009-09-22T22:27:00.003-04:00

I saw this shirt on Richard Sachs' Flickr.It pretty much summarizes my current feelings in life.

Wendy Park was a couple o' weeks back. It was pretty awesome to see a lot of old faces from last year and a ton of new ones. I ended up getting a good start and avoided the bad bottlenecking the 70-person-deep B field seemed to suffer from. Ended up in second place. Pretty pumped about that. Kudos to Robert for kickin' ass in his first B race.

Also on the agenda was the Regan Park TT. Ended up getting shelled in the Expert class again. I've got some work to do for next year. That being said, I wanted to finish in less than 45 minutes. I had Brett starting after me, so it kept the fear in me to stay fast and not get caught.

I pushed it a bit too much, and ended up crashing in some loose stuff. That combined with a few other stupid mistakes and falls had me sit up about half way through and pretty much give up the fight when it came to riding at something that resembled race-pace. Brett went on to finish strong. Good job man!

So I ended up at 46:55. Oh well. Hopefully it worked as good training for more cross goodness and the end of the MTB season.

Besides that, I've been heading out to Tuesday 'Cross practice at Regan park. It's nice to have Shawn and Cameron kick my ass for an hour or two. Anyone who's remotely interested should come out and get some.

Cross Bike

2009-09-11T13:25:00.003-04:00

All the cool kids are doing it, so I figured I'd get in on the action. This is what I'll be racing this year. Look for a rolled tubular at the first race, as I don't have much faith in my glue job.

Labor Day

2009-09-07T20:22:00.002-04:00

Cruised down to Mohican State Park with Brent to enjoy my first day off in a while. 24 miles of slightly rainy singletrack ain't bad.

Wrapping up the MTB season soon, with 12 hours of Mohican, the OMBC stuff, and maybe Iceman.

And to say I'm excited about cross is an understatement. Tire gluing commences this week. The question is... do I build up a set of tubs for my pit bike? I definitely don't need them, and I've been pissing money away at an amazing rate, but building wheels and all that nonsense is pretty fun. Though impulse buying i've got a set of Grifos for the main wheels, and a set of Tufos that don't have a home. Hmmmm.

Yup. That's it. Fun stuff. Currently putting Aus Rotten onto my 14 year-old-brother's ipod. How awesome.

Losing End of a Photo Finish

2009-08-24T19:17:00.002-04:00

When rolling through the parking lot of Ceasar's Creek this Sunday, I asked a local how the trails were.

"Well, if you're from Cleveland, a lot of the guys from the area don't like it too much," he replied.

Well hot damn his idea of a good trail and mine were completely different. As I had a pretty dang good time. The trail was rooty at parts, but generally was pretty wide and swoopy. Some steep punchy climbs followed by short downhills rounded out the rest of the 9 mile loop.

There was nowhere to hide, and I quickly realized that my heart was going to beating through my chest for the whole two hours of the race.

I was feeling good. Was aboard the new 2010 Giant 29er I decided to pick up. Riding with a suspension fork and gears is much different. Not better, just different. Not going to lie, around the end of the second lap, I was loving the ability to sit down and spin :-)

After getting the holeshot, I quickly was able to get a gap on the field, and as per usual, got into my groove all by my lonesome. My legs felt good, I was riding clean, all was well...

Three-fourths through the last lap, I heard someone's disc brakes squealing, and lo and behold, the second place guy showed up outta nowhere. I probably had a thirty second gap on him, but he was charging hard, so I kept up the pace to make sure he didn't catch me.

So all was well, and hitting the last climb out of the singletrack onto the road section, I attacked, hoping to gap him and ride to the win all by my lonesome.

This dude had other plans. After my attack on the last climb, I got onto the road and did my best time trialist impression. Aero tuck and all. I was able to hold about a 100-yard gap on him until the finish line was in sight. Quickly the gap dwindled to 50, then 20, then holy shit this dude is on my wheel.

As we made the left hand turn, diving to the finish line, he got me by a wheel. Shit.

Good race to whoever that was, you left me deep in the pain cave.

Quick Wilderness 101 Recap

2009-08-02T19:05:00.003-04:00

This is the abridged version. As some pictures trickle in, I'll do a more detailed write-up.

Decided after the good time at Mohican that I wanted to do a hundred-miler. Wilderness 101 it was.

Man it was hard. Rigid fork was difficult proposition for the day, and as a result, my body got a workout after some 2 mile long descents at 20 miles-an-hour.

First half of the course was fast with a lot of road climbs and double track. After about 50 miles shit hit the fan. The trail was a lot more technical than this Ohio boy was used to. It was a trip trying to ride some of this stuff being as tired as I was.

When all was said and done I ended up 20th in Singlespeed, 77th Overall, at 9 hours 26 minutes. I'll take that.

I think I'm going to do Shenandoah in a month, who's in?

Well That Was Something Else

2009-07-14T13:50:00.002-04:00

Not much going on here in blog land.

Too much work and training for Wilderness 101.

That being said, OMBC race just outside of Zanesville at the S&S Trails this past Sunday.

I showed up with time to spare, got dressed, and started to preride the course. It was awesome, super SS friendly with a few short steep climbs, a few longer grinders, and some screaming descents.

So feeling good, I take off the Lemans style start, which was pretty fun. I head into the singletrack with two guys in front of me, but no sweat, I'll reel 'em in on the climbs.

Well shit, on a descent, I was a little too amped up and wash out on a root. So much for getting in a groove and getting my heart rate down to a normal level. I scramble back on my bike and try to catch up with the first place dude.

So after finally catching him, I attack on a climb to try to open up a gap. All is well, and damn it's hot. I should drink some water.

I reach down to put my bottle back after a little sip, and what do you know; here comes a ton of technical stuff. I hit a root and go OTB. Great timing on my part.

I get up to see my handlebar not looking too hot... Shit. Thanks to Bob Myers for the snap.

So I hopped back on my bike and figured that since I was on my first lap, I could make it back to the line, grab another bike and finish up the race, if not, DNF was in my future.

Lo and behold, I got on my bike, and I had about a hand's worth of space on the bar between the stem and the bent part. Fuck it, I was going to give it a go.

The rest of the race was a torturous experience. Long gone was the leverage for climbing, so I found some sort of groove for some weird seated one armed climbing. The descents sucked, as I just had my rear brake and not as much control.

That being said, sure beats work :-)

Ended up still riding reasonably strong and ended up in Second Place Sport Senior. On to training for Wilderness, August 1st, and hopefully some cool snaps of some of the cool gravel roads I've been happening across.

Wayne Ultra Warm Up

2009-06-21T19:27:00.002-04:00

The Wayne Ultra is this upcoming Sunday the 28th, and I haven't been really on the ball when it comes to training lately. So me and Camba all stars Mike, Rusty, and Brian decided to hit some hills in the Valley today.

60miler Hills
Find more Bike Rides in Peninsula, Ohio

When all was said and done, finished at around 3 hours with an 18 mph hour average. Goofing around playing King of the Mountain and sprinting for city limits signs was pretty awesome. Mike Fletcher is seriously some sort of freak-of-nature he-man in the hills. I couldn't even keep up with him at any point throughout the ride. Watch out all Vet Pros!

Good ride, has me pumped for the trip down to Marietta.

Vultures Knob Pukefest

2009-06-15T22:06:00.003-04:00

Raced at the Knob this past weekend. Super fun as usual, course was in good shape, but some drizzle during the race led to some slick rocks that claimed my hip right by the over-under bridge.

I was picking through the tricky stuff right before the turn onto the bridge. Rody from Groovy Cycleworks and some other onlookers were yelling at me to stay loose, and loose I got. Front wheel slid out, hip check right on a rock. I think I've got a hematoma or something gross and purple going on. Nonetheless, lucked out on the day and ended up first in Sport Senior at somewhere around 1:26.

Legs felt great, my stupid mistakes were kept to a minimum, and the new 32x18 gear ratio was feelin' oh-so-good. Turned in some hot laps with Roger The scary part is that my lap times would have still put me in dead last in expert. I've still got a ton of work to put in. Yikes!

Good job to the dynamic duo ofRobert and Julie. Three podiums back to North Royalton ain't half bad.

So here comes the puke part.

This race was the first annual Wootown Singlespeed somethin-or-other Race.

The race had us doing three laps around the kiddie course and doing various nasty things throughout. Lap two entailed a cup of pepperocinis and monster energy drink. I ended up having burning hiccups for the next three hours. On that note, I'm outta here.

Mohican 100K Sorta

2009-06-01T10:45:00.003-04:00

Welp, the big day came sooner than expected, and before I knew it, I was scrambling out of work on Friday night to get down to Mohican asap.

I took off with my support crew / photographer / girlfriend, and she and I pulled into the Mohican State Park resort about an hour and a half later. Damn it was awesome there. Really beautiful scenery and bonus points for the building kind of reminding me of the Shining. I got to bed early while the special lady watched The Onion Movie.

In what seemed like no time at all, the phone was ringing. Five AM wake up call. Yuck.

So we rolled out of the hotel and I stressed my self out about getting lost en route to the race. Eventually I found where I was going with time (fifteen minutes) to spare...

Getting to the line was an amazing site, a few hundred people on bikes sitting in Loudonville town square. I was able to catch up with a few buddies of mine and bullshit for a minute, and before we knew it, we were off.

After bombing through downtown Loudonville, we started climbing up a hill to get us to the singletrack. There I learned the complexity of riding in that big of a group of people. A lot of people were keeping there legs fresh and spinning a low gear up the hill. I had to thread the needle about a million times weaving in and out of people. So after that we got into the singletrack, and it all was good from there.

The race was awesome. Conditions were perfect, the course was challenging but fun, my bike and body seemed to be holding up well. I stuck to the strategy of busting ass on climbs to gain time, keeping steady on flats, and trying not to kill myself in the downhills.

Everything was going great until...

A group of people I was with, and myself took a wrong turn right before the Gas Line hike-a-bike.

Granted we did not realize this until we covered an additional 10 miles GOING THE WRONG WAY. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

So after coming to the realization we were ass-backwards lost. We eventually put our thinking caps on and found where we turned off. Piss. We finally hit aid station two, which was supposed to be at 24 miles. My computer was reading 34. Hmm.

The second half of the course was awesome as well. It seems like they ran out of singletrack and decided to say, "All right since you don't have any more off road stuff to ride, we're going to make you climb every steep ass hill we can find in the area." And climb we did.

When all was said and done, I ended up with 72 miles in 6 hours and 53 minutes. Thirteenth place 100K SS. I still broke my goal of sub-seven hours, but I think I could have knocked almost an hour off of my time if I wouldn't have taken the ten mile detour and que sheet read-a-thon. Oh well.

Besides that bummer, this ride was one of the most fun things I've ever done. I am totally jazzed on the whole idea of this kind of stuff, and next in my sights is a 100 miler. I'm thinking Wilderness in August and Shenandoah in September.

Good job to everyone who raced: Brian, Paul, Brett, Ernesto, Brent, etc etc etc.

DFL at the Knob!

2009-05-25T14:07:00.006-04:00

I've been doing pretty well in sport this year, so I figured I'd give an expert race a shot just to see what that was all about. Fuck!

(thanks to Robert for the photo)

Things you shouldn't do in an expert race (for those considering it):

1) Fall 50 seconds into the race. My front wheel went into a bit of a rut and my nerves got the best of me and I went down. Sorry to all the soupcan guys who probably were scared shitless of my sketchy ass. I got up and back rolling on my bike, and everyone was gone.

2) Get clotheslined by a tree. I cut a line a little too tight on a switchback up by the pine trees, ducked under a tree... it picked me off my bike by my camelback and left me in a heap on the ground. What are the odds of that?

This race really gave me even more respect for how fast the experts are, those dudes are on some next level shit. I've got a lot of work to do before I can get out of the DFL position.

On the bright side: it was awesome catching up with Brett, seeing how well the Northeast Ohio contingent (Robert , Julie, Solon guys, and Darren) did, and getting my ass in gear for Mohican this weekend.

Run to the Hills

2009-05-20T15:19:00.002-04:00

The Mohican 100k is in a week, and I've been so damn busy with work and moving that I haven't been working on climbing enough. I'm screwed. Here's to hoping for a sub-seven hour time.

What do you know; I'm still busy. As a last ditch effort I tried to sneak in a quick hour of hills today around the house on my fixed gear. 850ish feet in 15 miles = shittiest hour of my life due to the vegan tacos still fresh in my stomach. Ew.

First on bat was the marvelous Cady Rd. which I hit twice.

First half:

Still going:

Less steep and bumpy Edgerton:

Here's a map if anyone's got an hour of their life they never want back.
Leg Warm Up
Find more Bike Rides in North Royalton, Ohio

Off to Camba group ride at Regan park with my two favorite bloggers, Robert and Andrew.

Wilds

2009-05-18T12:42:00.002-04:00

Raced at the Wilds on Sunday, and about mid-race, I had an epiphany. I wasn't having too much fun. Not to say that it wasn't great seeing my friends, or that the race wasn't organized extremely well. It was just one of those rides where you aren't feeling it.

The course was extremely fast and rooty, this combined with a good deal of mud, led to a not very singlespeed or rigid friendly course. I would have enjoyed it if I was taking my time and picking through the roots, but blasting through them at race pace led to my body being beat to hell.

That being said, the legs felt good, despite the rest of my body taking a beating. The sport race was fast. I got the holeshot and was out in front for maybe 3 miles then another singlespeed rider from Pittsburgh shoots past me on a climb. Woah!

It was pretty sweet to see another dude on a singlespeed getting wild in my class. So the chase was on. We rode together for it a bit and shot the shit. I attacked on an uphill and held on for the rest of the race. Good riding though, kept me on my toes the whole time.

I ended up with a time of 1:21 and first in Sport Senior. Woop. I think I'm sort of sandbagging hard, so I've got to figure out if I'm going to finish my season out in sport, or give up all my points and go up to the Singlespeed class or Expert. Soon to come post discussing my options and encouraging anonymous shit talk.

Once again, Northeast Ohio was representing in full force. Dynamic duo of Robert and Julie both scored wins in their respective classes, and my main dude Mike Fletcher continued doing pretty damn good, winning Sport Masters again. Andrew was not so fortunate, as his legs turned to goo mid-race and then a mechanical on top of that had him carrying his bike across the finish line. Can't win 'em all, I suppose.

Regan or Westbranch on Wednesday... who's interested?

Stylin' At OECR

2009-05-12T23:39:00.002-04:00

With the Mohican 100k less than three weeks away. I realized it was time to get my ass in gear. Andrew and I planned to go to Mohican State Park today. Everything was going according to plan until...

I finish loading my stuff into Andrew's car. What am I forgetting; oh great, my shoes. They're in North Royalton at my parents' house, a mere 45 minutes away from us in Kent, and completely the wrong way from Mohican.

So, after a quick change in plans, Andrew and I were off to my parents' house and then the OECR trail in Cuyahoga Heights.

The trail was fun. Reminded me of Quail Hollow with a slightly higher chance of death. Because of the non-technical nature of the trail, what better opportunity to dick around. And dick around I did.

Check out this radditute in full-size by clicking on it:

Pretty sick eh?!

But as far as riding, the conditions led to some pretty fast laps of the 2.5 or so mile course. Andrew and I took some warm ups and decided that hitting some laps at a slightly elevated pace would be the ticket. We were off, and as our luck had it, this didn't last too long as he had a mechanical and an unfortunate run in with a tree.

I too had a bit of a losing run in with a tree. A bit less knuckle skin, a scraped shoulder, and a bruised ego later, we were back at the car.

18 miles on the day, not too bad for my day off. Click the photo to be taken to my flickr stream of the rest of the days pictures.

Phew

2009-05-11T16:22:00.002-04:00

Finished the 12 hill thing.

Rode it with my Camba nice-guys Mike and Rusty. Ride was pretty straight forward, aside from getting lost about a billion times and a bit of a chilly start.

What was supposed to be about 85 miles turned out to be a cool 100, that's how lost we're talking. I've got a hunch we did more than the 6100 feet of climbing too. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger I do suppose.

I think I want to do it at least one more time before Mohican, both because it was fun, and man I need some work in the hills.

Sunday 12 Hill Challenge

2009-05-08T20:43:00.002-04:00

We're meeting at 9am sharp at the Lock 29 trailhead (behind Century Cycles and The Winking Lizard)

80 miles with 6100 feet of climbing. Who's in?

CVNP Death Ride

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Mount Wood Mud Extravaganza

2009-05-04T13:05:00.005-04:00

On the agenda for the weekend was OMBC race three, at Mount Wood, right on the West Virginia / Ohio border.

Andrew and I take off bright and early, and when we get down there, it's cold and rainy. Sweet. Luckily I brought some mud tires that were a bit more aggressive than the Small Block 8's I normally run. I rushed to throw them on and get dressed. By the time all that is taken care of, oh shit it's time to race.

Let me just say that starting a race with no warm up at all is rough on the legs. With that out of the way, we were off. I absolutely loved the beginning of the course, some gravel double track that was pretty dang hilly. I ended up getting the holeshot and lo and behold, Darren and Mike from CAMBA were up there with me. After some hill action, we were all looking pretty good in the front.

I had no legs the whole race, and had to push myself to keep the tempo up, no fun. I think it was the lack of breakfast, warm up, and sleep. Let it be known, if you want to feel good in a race, do the exact opposite that I do.

The trail was awesome. Some good technical descents, really good flow at times, and more hills than this Ohio boy is used to. All was going well, until Darren trashed his rear derailleur. Bummer.

So after that, it was Mike, myself, and one other guy off the front. Maybe about half way through the race, we came up to some more double track, and a hefty climb at that. If there's any time for me to make a move, this was it. I asked Mike if he wanted to come with, and he was happy to oblige.

After killing myself up the climb with Mike, we were all by our lonesome. Then things started to get interesting.

No clue why, but my pads on my front BB7 went kaput. They were hitting the rotor, but just weren't grabbing. And after that hill came some pretty wild technical descents.

Technical descents on a full rigid with only a back brake. No bueno.

Luckily I was able to not kill myself, although I was mighty close at times. For the rest of the race Mike and I were putting ourselves through some mutual suffering. When all was said and done, I ended up first in Sport Senior, with a total time of 1:52:38, and a 3:17 gap over second place. Mike won Sport Vet, Andrew won Novice.

Northeast Ohio was looking strong. I'm looking forward to the Wilds in two weeks and then the Knob to avenge my flat tire.

There were about a zillion people with cameras and stuff, so I'm sure the pictures will show up soon and I'll toss 'em up here.

Livin' the Dream

2009-04-24T21:36:00.002-04:00

Not too much wild going on lately.

Working at Century Cycles in Medina is proving to be pretty cool, as everyone that work there rules, and what do you know, working at a bike shop is a good time.

So here's how the week schedule has been looking:

Monday- Class 9:15AM to 8:15PM, homework and design work down in Kent

Tuesday- Freebee day, try to ride some, catch up on homework / sleep / design work

Wednesday- Class 9:15AM to 8:15PM, get home from class, ride from Kent to Royalton; about 35 miles. Get in by 11PM hopefully. Fall into a Coma.

Thursday- Work 10AM-8PM. Ride to work in Medina from Royalton, 20 miles each way.

Friday- Work 10AM-8PM. Ride to and from, 20 miles each way.

Saturday and Sunday is pretty much alternating as far as racing and working. The good news is that I'm done with school and out of Kent in may. Hopefully this doesn't kill me first.

I am definately getting miles, granted they're junk miles, but better than none.

Pictures of the commute to come. Century Night ride Saturday, maybe Covered Bridge race Sunday, maybe MSP. Maybe both. Woo I'm busy.

My Lucky Day

2009-04-19T13:31:00.003-04:00

OMBC Race yesterday at Vulture's Knob. It was my first time at the Knob, and man it was a cool atmosphere. The warm weather brought out a good chunk of like-minded dudes and dudettes, so the starting line was packed.

I think I need to be more competitive or mean or something, as most people pushed in front of me for position on the line, leaving me struggling to pick through people and get to the front of the pack. After busting my ass for a majority of the first lap, I worked my way to the front and was keeping the pace up trying to increase my gap.

All was well... or so I thought

Maybe a half mile before the start of my second lap I got a flat. Shit!

Trying to fix it in the field with my CO2 cartridge and tube, I ended up breaking off the valve stem on my backup tube. Double shit! It was really discouraging to see the entire field passing me, along with novice racers, the women, etc etc, pretty much everyone on the course going by.

So, super dejectedly I ended up picking up my bike and carrying it to the line, planning on telling them that I flatted out and to mark me as DNF. As I got back to the line, someone ended up running up to me and asking what was wrong. What do you know, they had a support tent. I wish I would have realized that before I blew like fifteen minutes fucking around on my back tire and leisurely walking back to the line. Once again, big big thank you to Rody of Groovy Cycleworks and whoever the dude was at the Jamis tent. Lifesavers.

They made quick work of my flat, and I was off again. Finished my first lap in like five minutes after that and was on to lap two. The rest of the race I went as hard as I could, mostly for personal satisfaction, as I figured that the rest of the race was long gone. About half way through my second lap, lo and behold, I started catching people. After picking a good chunk of people off, I ended up in fifth place.

All things considered, I'm pretty happy with it, and I think I'm going to sink some money into a Stan's tubeless conversion to prevent this from happening anymore! For the sake of comparison: my first lap with the flat was 1 hour 7 minutes, and my second was 41 minutes. Pretty nuts.

I've got a decent amount of snaps on my Flickr, so click this picture to check them out.

Weekend Shred

2009-04-14T21:25:00.003-04:00

I've been riding a ton lately, but the camera is out of service. So makes for some uninteresting bloggin'.

The good thing is, I've been out pretty much every opportunity I can get.

This weekend was spend in the Valley a good bit, first experience with Oak Hill. Fucksake.

Went on a 32 miler with my main homeboy Andrew today. The weather was a bit nicer than I would have thought and we took a tour de Portage County. Here's a map:

Portage County Loop
Find more Bike Rides in Kent, Ohio

It was nice, tried to keep the tempo up, and worked on climbing sitting down. Granted Portage is flat as a pancake, but was on my fixed, so hopefully it'll be the same principle as on my SS mtb. We'll see.

The next couple of months are going to be awesome for me. I just got a job at Century Cycles in Medina, so I'll be making the commute from Kent a few times a week and crashing at my parents' place in North Royalton the other times. So my saddle time is going to be at an all time high. Hopefully I can work in some intervals or something sweet to keep me in shape.

I'm out of Kent in May, so now begins the search for somewhere new to live. Hopefully somewhere a bit nicer than my current spot.

Registering for the Mohican 100 tonight, OMBC race at the Knob this weekend, and maybe Covered Bridge race on Sunday if I'm feeling spry.

Staying busy is sweet.

Slowwwwww

2009-04-08T22:13:00.001-04:00

This snow and shitty weather has really killed my motivation. No real riding excluding commutes, roller sessions, and putting around on the touring bike.

Big weekend planned though. Get ready.

Mohican Wilderness Race Report

2009-03-29T23:52:00.005-04:00

After busting my ass all winter, it was time to see how things would turn out. The first OMBC race of the season at Mohican Wilderness.

The weather was less than cooperative, and the minute we pulled up to the course there was a nice torrential downpour to keep things interesting. Ran into Ross during registration, nice to see him. So after getting my neat number plate I took a quick warm up spin down the street, and before you knew it was 1pm and I was at the line.

The sport class turn out was all right for the weather conditions. Starting off the first lap I was feeling really good, legs felt strong, stomach wasn't too tumultuous, and I was staying relatively dry.

All was going well and boom I'm staring at the first big climb of the day. Since I'm on the singlespeed I had pretty much no choice but to grin and bare it, so I started mashing up the hill. Once I got into the tree line, I got a bit balled up behind some other racers, so I had to start hiking up the trail. This would be a common theme throughout the race. After a brief hike, I was back on in the saddle and climbing away.

It was interesting trying to figure out my climbing technique today, as if I stood and got my weight too forward my back wheel would pretty much uselessly spin. So I had to stay seated most of the time and put the Jones Bars to good use. Sucked.

As I got to the top of the climb, I was out in the front with one other guy, Chris (I think that was his name) from Coshocton. Then the trouble started.

I'm a pretty big propoenet of wool, so I was wearing a Swobo wool jersey and an Endura wool longsleeve over that. Worked fine on the flats and downhills, but shit it was terrible on the climbs. I was seriously overheating in the mid-section, and it got to the point where I faced two options.

a) Keel over dead from some sort of heat-induced affliction
b) Stop and take off my longsleeve

No one likes to die, so longsleeve came off. That being said, I was pretty spent after these climbs, so it wasn't as graceful as one would think. I was a big panting, sweaty mess trying to paw at my longsleeve and take it off, searching for any bit of manual dexterity left in my body,

So wardrobe malfunction aside, this is where the ride report gets boring. Stopping to take my jersey off gave me a bit of a time hit, and the guy I was following was long gone. I figured if I could keep my pace somewhat stable, focusing on gaining time in the uphills while trying not to die on the downhills I'd be all right. Here is my trying to do that. Maybe not succeeding.

I was all by my lonesome until about mid-way through my second lap. And then like an oasis in the desert, I see other people. Sweet!

Met up with a nice Camba dude whose name escapes me, and it was good to have someone to talk to and to pace. After shooting the shit with him for a while I decided I had a race to win, so I picked up the pace a little and tried to catch up with Chris, who dropped me like an hour ago. I wasn't too optimistic about that.

After suffering for a bit, what do you, I see him up the hill! Right by the men and women's split in the course. It really gave me a boost to know that I could at least see the guy again. I keep the tempo steady to catch up without burning myself out. I finally caught up with him and we started hiking up hill. Not super glorious I know, but it was nearing the end of our second lap and the course was getting unridable in spots. So after hiking up this monster uphill, I held on and hoped that I could keep up with him in the downhill that followed. I kept on his tail up to the double track logging road, and I figured if there was a time to make a move this is it. So I mustered what strength I had left, passed him and really gave all I had left on the climb out of the logging road. It was history from there. Just finished up at a consistent pace and tried to not take myself out getting to the finish line, which was maybe a half mile away.

So I ended up in first place in the senior sport class. Must have been my lucky day or perhaps a broken clock is right twice a day, right?!

Here's the aftermath, ignore my goofy ass blink. Muddy.

It was a good day for Northeast Ohio too. Rudy and Julie Sroka finished first in their respective classes (vet and women's sport), my buddy Andrew Miller won senior novice, Steve Twinning got second in expert, Ross Clark got 5th. I think. Good job to all.

I have to give a big thanks to my mom, uncle, sister, and my friends for coming out to root me on. It made my day to hear them screaming for me when I was suffering. I gave them their money's worth when I slid out in a pretty dramatic fashion right in front of them.

But yeah, good day.

Double Down

2009-03-24T20:15:00.004-04:00

Good day today. My apologies for no pictures, but I was too busy killing myself to take some snaps.

I started off going to Quail Hollow to put in some laps. The legs felt great today, 4 laps in a hair over an hour, so about 16 miles total. I face planted once pretty dramatically trying to bunnyhop over a downed tree. My first few laps it worked well, but I was so pooched that I tagged my back wheel and whammo to the face. Glad the ground was nice and soft and my face is nice and hard, as the damage was minimal.

Ran back to the house super quick to get ready for the Summit freewheeler ride down at the Botzum trailhead. I think I'm a little too scatterbrained, and as a result I have a serious problem with being on time for anything.

After getting food, airing up the tires on the Waterford, and changing shoes and socks, it was 5pm. Shit. So I hop on the Waterford and hauled ass down into the valley.

I made it as far as Akron-Peninsula and Bolanz by the ride start time of 5:45. Luckliy Andrew is a bit more prompt than me, and I gave him a call and he told me that they were headed up towards me. So after ten minutes of sitting around I met up with the Freewheelers, and we were headed up Truxell. It turns out the way they were taking me was back towards Kent, so I peeled off midway to head home. 36 miles on the roadie. Big ups to whoever was in the green SUV and honked and gave me a wave on Graham. The headwind sucked towards the end of my ride and that gave me a little boost.

So safe to say I'm spent. I'm sitting here listening to Bongripper (yes, they do have the coolest name of any doom metal band ever) pretty much being crushed by how heavy they are, half falling asleep.

Thinking about either going to Quail again tomorrow or maybe riding up to the parents' house in NR. Weather is looking pretty shit and my Cross Check is in pieces, so maybe not. I've also got some new parts coming in for the Salsa, so all of you out there in blog-land can peep them tomorrow.

Spring Break Cruisin'

2009-03-23T19:37:00.004-04:00

My grand plan today was to wake up ass-early, ride out to Quail Hollow, put in some laps, and ride back home.

Well, spring break happened. I slept in until 2 o'clock. Whoops. I guess it's a perk of someone who just lost their job and doesn't have shit else to do.

So with day light dwindling, I figured some riding was better than none. So I suited up and decided to take the Salsa for a spin to make sure everything was in order for the OMBC race at Mohican Wilderness this weekend.

One thing I quickly realized is that a single speed mountain bike's gearing is less than optimal for riding on the roads. I was pushing 32-19 and felt like a hamster on a wheel. All that work and nothing to show for it. So after cruising speed was established on flat at a glacial 15 miles an hour. I forged ahead.

After a quick spin around the block to loosen up the old hams, I figured I should try to hit as many hills as I could find, being that Mohican Wilderness it chock full of them.

See, the problem with this thought is: Portage County is pretty much farm land. There are no hills. Here's a snap of Meloy Rd, from the top. Something's wrong when this was the biggest climb of the day for me.

After conquering that grueling climb, I pedaled on. The weather was right on the verge of being cold. My body could not make up its mind whether I was sweaty or freezing. It sucked. I'd climb a hill and start to feel myself working up a sweat, but quickly on the ascent I'd be caught with a cold breeze and feel like I was going to free to death.

Onward I cruised. Up Howe Rd, over to Meloy, North on Powdermill, where I snapped this picture of my shadowy doppleganger.

After Powdermill I swung back by Brady Lake for my daily dose of nice scenery. I need to perfect the excellent take a picture of yourself while you ride move, because man I look pissed off here.

Bikin' on by the lake I was home free. I turned in about 15 miles in little over an hour. The Salsa felt good, and I'm really excited to see how this weekend fares at Mohican Wilderness.

Tomorrow is the Summit Freewheeler's group ride. So hopefully having a group of people to ride with lights a spark under my arse to ramp up the training a bit.

Good Weather = Off Road

2009-03-18T00:37:00.002-04:00

So in celebration of the great weather today, 67 degrees!!!! Andrew and I decided to go to Mohican Wilderness. Get a change of scenery and ride what some claim to be the best singletrack in Ohio.

So after stopping at a gas station to get some snacks, time warp two hours, and we're at Mohican by 1pm.

It's something else down there. It's strange to think that the geography and culture an hour fifteen from my house is quite different. I realized it would be neat to live down there for maybe a month before I got sick of nothing to do.

We quickly found a place to park, suited up, and hit the trail.

Holy shit it was hilly. Seriously. My Salsa is overgeared, and it failed to cross my mind until I hit some of these climbs. I stood no chance. The second I got home I started pricing out 32t Salsa chainrings, credit card grasped between my trembling fingers.

Here I am struggling up an old logging road, which crisscross the single track and serve as a connector to many of the sections. All I can say is that anyone planning on racing the OMBC race here is in for a treat.

Here's Andrew, reaping the benefit of gears:

So after these wild climbs come some pretty fast downhills. I really enjoyed screaming down them and railing some berms. It should be awesome to hit them race speed and hold on for dear life.

The one problem we faced on this ride was our inability to find the trail. The typical situation went a little something like this: cruising along all is well, and we'd be faced with a treacherous climb, being the naive guys we are, we would huff and puff and struggle up to the top of these climbs. When we got to the crest of the hill, we'd look around and there'd be nowhere to go. So back down the hill it took us fifteen minutes to climb. And what do you know, there's the singletrack! And it's not at the top of a HUGE HILL. So safe to say, wasn't the fast riding here today, but man it was fun. After finally getting our bearings we found out the last portion of the trail has super good flow. Here I am navigating a little step down between 2 trees.

We quickly cruised through it back to the trailhead. Along the way, Andrew's stem stripped, which cut our day short. Sucked, but so it goes...

Bike Polo?!?!?!

2009-03-15T23:32:00.003-04:00

I saw a few fliers posted up around campus the last couple of weeks about a bike polo game. I didn't know who was putting it on, so I was a bit skeptical.

That being said, I headed to check it out today. I browsed the parts bin for stuff to throw on my long-dissassembled monocog, and came up with this:

Color me wrong, it was super super fun. I guess organizing the game was some sort of class project for some Park Management majors or something. Long confusing story that I wasn't paying attention to.

We're doing weekly polo now in Kent to coincide with Professor's Pub Tuesday bike nights. So if anyone is interested in playing some polo and going to get $1 PBRs after, drop me a line. Goldsprints may happen soon. We'll see if I can figure out the logistics of it.

Riding to See the Parents

2009-03-15T00:08:00.002-04:00

I figured mom and dad probably missed me, so I cruised up to their house from Kent. It was the first time I've taken the Waterford out this year. Super smooth!

Here's the route. 70 miles, 2100 feet of climing. Not badddd.

Mom Dukes out and back
Find more Bike Rides in Kent, Ohio

Adulthood

2009-03-13T12:14:00.002-04:00

Nothing too much going on in the bikin' front lately. I have been going for a run when I don't have the time to ride. I think I really like it, and i've been working out muscles I didn't even know existed. I've also been really watching what I eat and dropping weight. Pretty close to my goal weight of 150 lbs.

Why no bikin' you ask?

"Well, adulthood." I would say. I'm graduating school in May and here's and abbreviated list of what I need to do by then:

1) Find a job. Know anyone looking for a video editor / motion graphics designer :-)
2) In order to find a job, I need to have my demo reel site up and running, so I've been putting a lot of work into that. Look for it soon.
3) In order to make myself more marketable, I'm learning Cinema 4d. It ain't easy.
4) After finding a job, find a place to live. My lease in Kent is up in June, and then hopefully I'll be heading back to the Cleveland area.
5) Stay strong in all my classes. I'd like to finish out my last semester on the Dean's List. For personal satisfaction and to keep my cumulative GPA high for the possibility of grad school if all else goes to shit.

Dang.

Jeez it's warm

2009-03-07T18:44:00.003-05:00

I wake up this morning to my alarm going off at 8am, and a strange booming sound...

What could it be besides thunder. So after assessing the weather situation. I went back to sleep.

At the luxurious hour of 12:30PM I roll over, open up my curtians, and lo and behold, it's nice outside! I start a pot of coffee brewing and check my weather widget. 72 freakin' degrees. Wow.

So I figure some saddle time on the Salsa would be nice, so I have my two cups of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal, and I'm off.

Since pretty much all all off-road options are off limits for a while, I figured I'd hop on the closest thing to a trail. The Portage Hike and Bike : ). Beggars can't be choosers, and some spots are a little less maintained than others, so at least it's a little bumpy, right?

So I end up doing an out and back starting on the MUP that runs on Kent State Campus. Here's my Salsa in it's native environment. Click it to go big, dude:

The nice MUP, right on Kent Campus. Not too long but good for a run or a romantic walk with the lady.

And here's the Portage Hike and Bike:

The Portage Hike and Bike ends in Ravenna, and sorry to all that live there, but my humble opinion is that it's the most depressing place on earth. Here's a snap of me next to an animal rendering plant that runs next to the MUP. Not pictured is the silo that says ANIMAL FAT on it, nor the smell that was pretty harsh to my weak vegan stomach. Poor animals :-(

So after a bit of an out and back, I realized that the Kent MUP is done! I don't know if anyone reads this from the greater Kent area, but man it's nice. Super smooth and realllly really wide. You can hop on it immediately south of the Crain Street bridge. Parking is available at the old diner on the corner of Crain and 43.

So all-in all not a bad day, all things considered. I'm absolutely thrilled for spring and summer to be here.

•18.8 miles
•1:28 saddle time

Ride and Smile

2009-03-06T02:13:00.004-05:00

The Salsa is done!

So as a result of finishing it up I'm broke.

Here are some future changes / additions / tweaks.

In the for sure category:
• Higher volume tires. Either Maxxis Ignitors or Schwable Racing Ralphs. Mayyyyybe Stans tubeless.
• Longer Stem, hopefully a Thomson

In the maybe some day in the future / pissing away my tax return / financial irresponsibility category
• On One Mary bars or Groovy Cycles Luv Handles. I'd really like to get the Groovy's as it's a local company and Rody seems like a cool dude, but a wait to get a set and the substantially higher price is discouraging.
• A new rear wheel, probably a DT Swiss 240 disc hub laced to a Mavic TM719d.
• Last but not least, who doesn't love a Thomson post.

None the less, I'm pumped to ride this thing. First race is the OMBC Mohican Wilderness at the end of this month.

NAHBS is about to start

2009-02-27T13:28:00.005-05:00

As someone who has much bigger hopes than his wallet allows, I'm super thrilled to see what NAHBS has to offer this year. Here are a couple of bikes that have surfaced already that I'm in awe of.

Local Cleveland builder Cicli Polito build a Jack Taylor inspired pathracer. This is so nice. I think if I ever get a custom frame It'll be from him.

Utilitarian is good, therefore ANT Bikes is good.

And of course I'm drooling over 29ers, here's one from Ellis Cycles. It actually looks similar to how my Salsa is going to look when finished, so it gets bonus points.

Anyone have anything they're looking forward to / any good photos to share? Post them up in the comments!

Race Decisions

2009-02-24T23:28:00.002-05:00

Got in a 20ish miler with Andrew today. It continues my quest for winter base miles just to get myself in shape.

Speaking of, I've been watching the diet lately a bit moreso than usual. I'm trying to get my weight a bit down before the season really starts. As someone who loves food, this is killing me. Oh well.

So here comes the first real dilemma of the year, conflicting race schedule:

Should I do the OMBC race at Mohician Wilderness on March 29th

or

Barry Roubaix, a really fun looking gravel road race in the Grand Rapids Michigan area.

Decisions, decisions.

Found someone to ride with!

2009-02-17T22:12:00.006-05:00

The Camba site is one of my daily visits to learn about the goings-on in the Northeast Ohio mountain bike scene.

Why am I telling you this, you ask? Well through the site, I ended up getting in touch with Andrew who lives like five miles away from me. Small world. He posted up on his blog that he was riding around the valley, and heck, I love riding around the valley. So after a few emails back in forth, it was set.

We took off today at about 1pm from his place in Tallmadge. Cruised on to Munroe Falls, and picked up the Hike and Bike at Galt Park. Here I am lookin' swauve at Route 8. Click on the photo to be taken to Andrew's blog and read his ride report too!

We ended up taking the hike and bike to Barlow road, and heading West past Akron-Peninsula Rd. We then bombed down Truxell into the valley. Fun as usual.

So when you're in the valley, what do you do? Climb some hills!

Here's Andrew going up Boston Mills Rd.

So after my arse made it up alive, we hung a right on Olde 8 and headed south towards 303. Right on 303, and what do you know, another fun descent.

After a fun descent comes a not-so-fun climb. Truxell served that purpose and got us back home free to Kent.

Uphill

Downhill

All in all it was pretty neat to find someone to ride with it my area. Hopefully I keep up the mileage and soon to come are the hill repeats. Oh my...

Stats!
• 56.26 miles in 3:43

Homework..

2009-02-15T20:03:00.004-05:00

Over run with homework lately. This school thing stinks. I keep telling myself that I'm done in May, and quite frankly it's the only thing that's keeping me going.

But nonetheless, check out my work in progress, oh three people who read this blog. Thanks by the way :-)

Watching a set of cranks on ebay right now, bb7s in the mail, dreaming of a light wheelset, American Classic perhaps?

Click to make bigger:

And the real question is, 1x9 or Singlespeed???

Lake to Lake

2009-02-10T17:19:00.003-05:00

The schedule at work got revamped, so I get Tuesdays off now. Greatest thing to ever happen to me.

I guess we can thank global warming, because it is 54 degrees here in Ohio as I right this. Up yours Al Gore.

Today was as good as any to shake the cobwebs off and get out on the old steed. Because of the sheer amount of homework I've got, I needed to make it sort of quick, so I gave myself two hours.

Poking around mapmyride, I found the Pedal with Pete route. It seemed pretty good and combined some roads I'm on a lot with some I'm not too familiar with, so why not give it a shot.

So Cross Check underneath me, I was off.

Leaving the house, cruising up Hudson Rd, I swung a left on Johnson Rd.

Since it's farm land, the lack of trees made the headwind a real treat.

So going on, I'm feeling actually pretty fresh in the legs today, and the weather helped immensely. Not trying to sound too excited, but I had to take off my long sleeve wool jersey and ride in my short sleeve underneath. Unreal.

Crusin along good. Newcomer, Cook, Stow Rd, etc etc, and then the route led me to some wild side streets I'm not too familiar with.

They were smooth, wide open, traffic free, and most importantly downhill. No complaints.

So after actually finding out where I was, I was dumped off at a familiar site. Graham Rd and Silver Lake.

Silver Lake is where the bourgeois in the greater Kent area live, I'm pretty sure. The houses are niceeeeeeeeeeeeee. Here are a couple 'o snaps, including one of my handsome mug.

Maybe one day my college education will pay off, and I'll have a big house. Heh, yeah right.

After cruisin through Silver Lake, I was feeling particularly spry, and I figured I'd give the beloved MUP path a look-see and see what was up. No business there. Tons of snow on it.

I decided to man up and ride up 59 from Silver Lake. I figured the traffic would keep me sharp in the reflexes.

So taking 59 to 91 and hanging a right on Graham again, I was headed back toward Kent. When I got there I decided I was feeling good so off to Brady Lake.

I cruised down Lake Street, hung a right, and did a loop around the lake. It was downright scenic, beautiful some might say. Too bad my dumb ass left the camera in the saddle bag. Whoops.

So after my second lake sighting of the day, I hung a right on Merril, which is always nice and smooth and fast. Worked my way back to Lake Rockwell Rd, Ravenna Rd, Hudson Rd. Home free.

I'm going to be sad to see this weather go. Here's to spring.

• 34.5
• 1:58
• 17.4 mph average

Lazy Days

2009-02-10T11:54:00.003-05:00

Riding has been pushed to the back burner time and time again recently because of my hectic school schedule.

Sucks so bad.

I was able to ride out to Brecksville Reservation on Friday, for a nice 45 mile out and back. Here's a snap from the ride:

I'm going out today to finally enjoy this good weather before it's gone.

Super Bowl Century (Sorta)

2009-02-02T13:01:00.002-05:00

So in my search through local cycling blogs, I saw that Brett Davis posted up details for a ride he was planning on super bowl Sunday. I emailed him and he said it was cool to tag along.

Hmm, a ride in such bad weather? Sign me up, anything to escape the rollers. Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to do it on my fixed Cross Check. Not saying I regret it, but I'm sitting here at work today feeling like I got run over by a truck. Watch out CAT 5's, Sport MTBers, and aspiring cyclocrossers, I'm getting crazy base miles!!!!

So after leaving Kent at 6:45am, which is pretty terrible for a non-morning person such as myself, I was en route to the east side of Cleveland and Brett's house. Upon arriving, I introduced myself to Brett, Ross, and Steve, who may I add, are all really good guys and a blast to ride (and snack) with.

The nitty gritty details of the route we went are up on Brett's blog, so check it out. Since I'm very confused by the east side, I'll give you an abridged version:

Upon leaving Brett's house we made it up to Cleveland, and headed west. Riding along the lake and into Lakewood and Rocky River, we were treated to a spectacular view and some stiff headwinds. After making it to Rocky River, we started heading south into the metroparks. Through Berea, Strongsville, my hometown of North Royalton, we were about half way through the ride. Going into Brecksville Reservation, I was treated to some fun no footed downhills, weeeeeeeee!

After bombing into Brecksville reservation, my legs started feeling the burn a bit. Seeing my computer at about 75 miles had my spirit a bit down too. I kept thinking I was going to keel over dead. The climb up Riverview road was... um, interesting. Whatever juice I had in my legs was long gone after that. So after cruising for a bit more, we were left at the Durham creek climb, which was taxing both mentally and physically. Looking down at your speed when you're climing and seeing 6MPH staring you back into the face is one good way to let you know you've got nothing left.

After that last killer climb, we were home free. My spirits were a bit lifted and I fought hard to catch up with Brett, Ross, and Steve, who are all way too strong and kept me working my ass off the entire time. So we finished off at 95 miles, and I'll grab the rest of the stats off my computer when I get home. Good ride guys.

Snowwwwww Day

2009-01-28T11:12:00.003-05:00

After a ton of snow overnight, I woke up with high hopes. After rolling out of bed at 7:45 this morning, I saw an email from KSU. My eyes got wide with excitement. My heart raced as my eyes began to scan through the letters on the screen: "Due to inclement weather:..."

Those are the 4 sweetest words I've ever laid eyes on. In an excited rush, I continued to read: "* Ashtabula Campus has canceled morning classes (through noon). Staff report.

* Geauga Campus and Twinsburg Center have canceled morning classes (through noon). Staff report.

* Tuscarawas Campus has canceled classes all day. Staff report. "

YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME KENT STATE UNIVERSITY. You close all the regional campuses and keep the main campus open. What have I done to deserve this punishment?

So grudgingly, I suited up and got everything ready for the commute in. I realized that I had two options.

a) Take side streets in. They'd be unplowed, but I'd significantly lower my chances of being hit by a driver that lost control.

b) Take a main road in. They'd be in much better shape than side streets, but my ass getting ran over significantly increases.

I chose option A. Bad choice.

It'd It normally takes ten minutes to ride into work. It took me 45 minutes today. The roads were so bad that I ended up pushing my bike most of the way. On the plus side it got my heart rate going pretty immediately.

So after making it to campus alive, albeit a bit sweaty and out of breath. I get to my first class at 9:30, only 15 minutes late. Half way through class, someone gets a campus advisory text message. Classes are cancelled effective 11am. Great. All that work for nothing.

So after class, I bundled back up, turned on the Planet Bike Superflash, (which I fully reccomend for anyone and everyone, by the way) and continued the trek home.

I decided to take the main roads, in hopes that it was less treacherous than the side streets. I took 59 to S. Water, and while they were better than the side streets, they weren't too great by any means. Thank goodness everyone gave me enough space, because I figured I'd slide out and get run over or something shitty like that.

I think I want to win the lottery, so I can buy studded tires, and a Pugsley. That'd rule.

So after reading all this stuff, you get rewarded with some bonus content, a snow bike check.

It's a old-ass GT MTB, with the freehub welded to make it a fixed gear, built up with parts I found in the depths of my basement and Eddy's dumpster. Nothing notable about it, besides the super comfy Brooks. Grand total cost, probably $50.

And here's one of me looking thrilled to be outside. Note the Ski goggles and the Marc Jacobs combat boots, worth approximately ten times the bike. High fashion matters when you're riding a dumpster bike to class, heh.

So time to do some productive stuff today. Continue overhauling my Long Haul Trucker, and put 45 minutes in on the rollers.

Winter's Wrath

2009-01-25T22:08:00.004-05:00

Not too much going on today, spent some quality time with the girlfriend. Got some really good Thai food at Thai Gourmet, right across the street from Eddy's Bike Shop.I was about to stop in to see if there was anything I wanted to pick up for the rides, but I realized with my recent $230(!!!) electric bill I probably should hold off. Plus I'm more of a Century Cycles kinda guy anyway.

So lack of motivation aside, I spent a half hour on the rollers today just to keep the legs loose. I put a longer stem on my Cross Check and I think I like it, 0 degree rise and 110mm in length. So time to get a more permanent replacement.

The last item on the agenda for the day was putting my Long Haul Trucker on the repair stand for some long overdue maintenance, as the pictures show. This, folks, is what happens if you don't hose down your bike after 2 weeks of an Ohio winter commute. Yikes!

It sucks to see probably my favorite bike out of the whole stable get beat to shit by winter, but the good thing is after a bit of wax and Phil's lube, it should be back in business.

Time to get some sleep, as I've got class from 9:15am to 8:30pm tomorrow with no breaks. Oh joy.