Cross!

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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

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

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...

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

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

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

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.