Rassy Blog

The Mullet

2011-11-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

Matias and I beatin' the snot out of each other.

It’s tough to beat the central Iowa cycling scene, especially during the fall months with the biggest mountain bike race in Iowa and the start of cyclocross season. Julie and I had a few weeks between Chequamegon and the Mullet Fall Classic, so we busted out Pat the ti Mongoose and did some cross racing to carry us over until the Mullet.
One of the great things about the Mullet, is that it has a ‘cross race vibe to it. Lot’s of cycling folks hangin’ out, shootin’ the breeze, drinking beer, eating food, heckling, etc. Race directors Bruce Brown and Jed Gammell have taken mountain bike race promoting to a new level and have created a great event to cap off the Iowa mountain bike season with.
We lined up for the start of the race and I was happy to see one of my newest rivals, Matias Perret toein’ the line next to me. We’ve had several memorable battles this season, on the mountain bike and at a few cross races. We push each other pretty hard and it almost always ends up coming down to the wire.
Bruce blew the whistle and we were off like a pack of scalded dogs. I didn’t really want to take the hole shot, but I also didn’t want to get myself far enough back that I ended up behind enough people that I might get stalled out on the first steep climb of the race. The pace at the start was slow enough that the group was closely bunched, so I surged ahead as the trail started to narrow a little. As we hit the first right hand turn, I rolled toward the apex and heard what sounded like a deer darting through the weeds next to me. I took a quick look over and saw Ryan the Cable Guy trying to pass me through the weeds. I was already committed to the inside line and wasn’t in a position to back off without causing mass chaos behind me. I made the comment that it was a pretty ‘optimistic’ move and he backed off before causing a small yard sale.

Ryan the Cable Guy tryin' to put the squeeze on me.

So, I think that I need to clarify what I meant by calling his move an optimistic move based on what I’m hearing from others. I wasn’t being cocky, my thought at that moment was the pass that he was trying to make would have most likely resulted in carnage. I was on the inside line and on a right turn trajectory, if he had persisted with the pass attempt, his momentum could have carried him into a broad side collision with me. He might have been able to pull the pass of cleanly, however at that moment it seemed questionable to me. I’m not an arrogant person, definitely not enough to think that somebody else in the Cat 1 field shouldn’t attempt to pass me at any point in a race, even if he does show up clad in a Larry the Cable Guy race kit. Actually, it probably was more the blinding glare coming off of the pasty white nether region that exists between his normal cycling short line and the bottom of his Larry the Cable Guy shorts that I was more fearful of. Had I come into to contact with that…gives me the willies just thinking about it. Ryan and Rox are good friends of ours and do a stellar job as co-commander in chief(s) of the Psycowpath Series in Nebraska. We enjoy hangin’ with them, however I hope that I never have to see that much of his upper thigh again.
So back to the race… It didn’t take long for the lead group to whittle down to just Matias and myself after a couple of hard efforts when the trail pointed skyward. Over the first two laps the pace was fairly easy. I led both laps and occasionally slowed to a crawl in a few of the open areas, inviting Matias to take the lead. I also hit most of the hills hard, where drafting was at its’ least effective in an effort to wear him down a little.
At the start of lap three, Matias finally took the lead and applied the same basic strategy that I had used on the first two laps. I stuck to his wheel as closely as possible to let him know that I as feeling good and that I wasn’t going anywhere. As we began the fourth and final lap, I knew that I was going to have to do something differently soon. I didn’t want it to come down to a sprint because Matias is a proven winner in that type of situation. So shortly before we hit the first steep climb of the lap, I took over the lead. As soon as we hit the climb, I amped up the effort and hit it even harder after we reached the top. The portion of the course after the hill isn’t all that technical, until you start flying through most of it at 20+ mph. I managed to separate myself from Matias and kept the effort at full gas until I hit the dam. I took a quick look back and didn’t see him.

Julie rippin' it up.

My bro Chad is in full on Chia mode.

Hannah Banana schoolin' the rest of the juniors.

Shrek feels no pain.

I pretty much continued the lap at full throttle hoping to open up as big of a gap as possible and get myself out of sight. Once you loose sight of the guy ahead of you, it pretty much breaks the spirit of your opponent. I held on for the W, and shortly after I finished, Julie rolled across the line for a solid 2nd overall in the women’s race. We did a short cool down ride, packed up the bikes, changed clothes and headed over to the beer garden to celebrate the end of another great mountain biking season. She claims that I threw down six beers, I only counted five, both of which is considerably more than I’ve had in a very long time. Regardless, it wasn’t entirely my fault as I was constantly being provoked by Chia Chad and Jerome. At least half of the 150+ racers stuck around for the post race party of great food, a lot of beer, great conversation and the usual shenanigans that ensue when all of the aforementioned elements are combined. It was the perfect way to cap off another great year of mountain bike racing!

So what’s next? More cross races of course! Neither of us really care about our results, we just want to get a good workout in so that we can justify our consumption of some bad food and good beer.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Chequamegon

2011-09-22T18:13:00.000-07:00

The sketchy rollout out of Hayward.

Over the years, Chequamegon has gradually become one of the focal points of my season. This year I had my training plan set up to have me on peak form for the race. Peaking is commonly referred to as a black art, and it only becomes more so as you get older. It’s a constant battle trying to figure out how much is too much.

This year I think that I came pretty close to hitting it on the head, finishing 9th overall and 1st in my age. My goal for Chequamegon every year is to finish in the top 20 overall and 1st in my age. Either of those results will secure my lottery free entry for the following year. My ‘long shot’ goal is to crack the top ten in the overall. This years edition had a stacked field containing Tour De France veterans Christian Vande Velde, Jason McCartney and Jeff Bradley. Several other contenders include previous champions Brian Matter, Jeff Hall, Doug Swanson and Steve Tilford, along with a lot of professional up and comers like Jack Hinkens, Cole House. Mikey Phillips, TJ Woodruff, Matt Shriver, Mike Anderson, Mike Olheiser, Pat Lemieux and Nathan Guerra, all of whom had a legitimate shot at the W as well. This was probably the deepest field that I’ve ever toed the line with and I had figured that my chances at a top ten we’re less than favorable. However being the most fit that I’ve probably ever been, along with a solid plan and good tactics we’re all key to my best finish thus far.

The rollout on Highway 77 was probably the less stressful of all of the Chequammy’s that I’ve done. I was pretty relaxed the entire way and had worked my way up to around 30th place about midway through Rosie’s Field. By the time we hit the Birkie, I was at the ‘wagging tail’ end of the lead group. People we’re dropping like flies off of the end of the lead group and it was the first of the two times during the race that I had to make a pretty tough decision. Do I put myself into the red to latch onto to the lead group, knowing that there are a couple of Euro pro’s pushing the pace higher than ever, or do I settle into my own pace and hang with the second group on the trail? I chose the latter and after having a few days to think about it, I think that I made the right choice. With a couple of guys like Vande Velde and McCartney driving the pace, the lead group had whittled down to four before they hit the Fire Tower climb and there’s a really good chance that I would have gotten shelled too.

The lead group before everybody got shelled.

The lead group going up the Fire Tower climb, after everybody got shelled. Look's like Vande Velde had some issues with the climb.

My plan regardless of which group I ended up with was to keep my nose out of the wind as much as possible until we hit the Fire Tower climb. And I did just that, conserving energy until the real smack down happened. The second group contained myself, the Eppens, Matais Perret, Alex Vanias, Corey Stelljes, Jeff Hall, Brian Jensen and Scott K.J. It was pretty easy to stick with the plan as Alex, Brian and Jeff all seemed pretty motivated to do the majority of the work. I made a point to keep myself 2nd or 3rd wheel throughout because of the yoyo effect that happens at the tail end of a group, especially on the Birkie rollers.

1995 Chequamegon champ Jeff Hall was kind enough to block the wind for everybody in our group for a good chunk of the race.

By the time we hit the Fire Tower climb, we had lost a few from our group, but had also collected a few of the casualties from the lead group, including Jack Hinkens, Tilford and Cole House. One of the few mistakes that I had made during the race was not getting myself into a better position at the bottom of the Fire Tower climb. I was near the end of our group and about halfway up, I think it was Jensen that had faltered and had to unclip, causing me to stall out. I had to jump off of my bike and run up to the next tier. By the time I had remounted, Jack, Tilford, Cole and one or two others had opened a substantial gap. Once they hit the top of the climb they had a big enough gap that all I could see of them were the plumes of dust coming off of their rear wheels.

This is what ends up happening if you're not close to the front of your group heading up Fire Tower...I hate running.

The Eppenators making their way up Fire Tower.

Padawan Gammell didn't have that great of a day, at least he didn't get cock blocked halfway up Fire Tower like I did.

Tour De France veteran Jeff Bradley kickin' it up Fire Tower.

It's always party time for Hollywood.

When I finally crested the Fire Tower, I dumped it down several gears and dropped the hammer in full on pursuit of the guys that had just dropped me. I caught up to and passed Cole pretty quickly and caught up the rest shortly thereafter. It was down to four of us, myself, Tilford, Jack and maybe Alex. Jack was by far the biggest aggressor of the group, but we all managed to hang on despite his efforts. We came up on one of the larger puddles, Tilford was at the front and opted to ride through it while the rest of us took a ten foot long section of singletrack around it. It was enough of a disadvantage that Tilford had maybe a 3 or 4 bike length advantage on us. The rest of us looked at each other and nobody seemed interested in closing down the small gap. Tilford recognized this almost immediately and gradually started to roll away. It was at this point in the race that I’ve second guessed my tactics for the past few days. I felt like I could have chased Tilford down pretty easily as he only rolled away from us as opposed to an all out attack. Had I chased him down, I’m pretty certain that I would have caught up to him. I had good legs and at that point in the race I was still feeling pretty good. I chose not to because had I chased and caught him, who knows how much I would have had left for the last two rolling miles on the Birkie. Instead, I opted to stay on course with my original plan and conserve as much energy as possible until the last few miles. I know, sometimes you have to get out there and go after it otherwise you will never know for sure. My big goal was to finish inside of the top ten and I chose what appeared to be the safer of my two options at the time. If I find myself in a similar situation in the future, I’ll most likely choose differently.

Jack continued to push the pace in our group and once we hit another gravel road section, I decided to put in a small attack to see what kind of legs everybody else had. I opened up a small gap and held it for a while, but I could tell that I was being marked pretty well. So I let up a little until Jack and Cole caught back on. Cole threw in a small counter move as soon as he rolled by me and I was able to close it up pretty easily. Then all of a sudden the Eppens rolled up out of nowhere and flew by us like we were almost standing still. Everybody reacted and went for their wheel.

As we hit the final miles on the Birkie, Jack accelerated and took advantage of one his many strengths on the final two miles of the Birkie. I went after him with Cole on my wheel. With about a mile to go I was starting to make some progress on Jack and I had also managed to separate myself from Cole. I gave it everything that I had to bring Jack back, but he was too strong on the hills. I rolled across the line 2 seconds short of Jack and 8th place. We ended up about 15 seconds behind Tilford, which furthers my second guessing of not chasing him down. Who knows… I’m extremely happy with the result however and honored to be able to mix it up with the likes of Jack, Tilford, Cole, the Eppens and Lemieux. That’s the kind of stuff that motivates me to work as hard as I do, especially during the long winter months on the trainer.

My homeboy Jack Hinkens heading towards the finish line.

Me trying to catch Jack...

Still tryin' to catch Jack...

Julie had a good race, finishing 50th among the women and 8th in her age group. She fell short of her goal of cracking the 3 hour mark, which I feel is very attainable for her. It’s just a matter of all of the pieces coming together for her, and maybe conjuring up a little more nerve on the Highway 77 rollout. Mom had a pretty good race too, besting last years’ time by about 15 minutes and placing 3rd in her very young age group!

Moving towards the front of the race, despite the tag teaming efforts of McCartney and Vande Velde, Brian Matter took his third consecutive Chequamegon victory, with a little help from Vande Velde’s flat tire shortly after an attack that might have won the race for him. It was great to see Brian stick it to the Euro pro’s and I couldn’t be happier for him. He’s a good guy and a great ambassador for the sport of mountain biking and cyclocross.

What’s next…well, I’m not 100% sure. Either the Minnesota race up in St. Cloud, or maybe some cross racing in Des Moines. Ten hours in the car for a sweet mountain bike race, or 30 minutes in the car to race in small circles around a city park…

Thanks for reading,

CK

Sugar Bottom

2011-08-31T18:27:00.000-07:00

Gooooooooooooo!!!

There are a lot of things that I love about Sugar Bottom. The first time that I ever rode there was probably about 12 years ago, and I was blown away at how cool the place was. Over the years, the trails have seen a lot of use, so much so that a lot of re-routes had to be done. The course also contains a lot of big, exposed roots that beat the crappola out of my old body. Every time I hit a rooty section at speed, I cringe in fear at the thought of my frame, or my body developing cracks from all of the jarring.
The Elite field was of typical Sugar Bottom quality, sans the Eppenator and Kevin McConnell, who both opted for the WORS race up in Green Bay. The race started on the gravel access road and I somehow ended up pulling the field to the top of the hill. Aaron R and Matias P both snaked me going into the singletrack. Shortly after we entered the singletrack, the pace started to slow a little. I was a little gassed from the start, so I was pretty A-OK with that.
Throughout the first lap, the pace in the singletrack slowed even more. And whenever we hit the gravel access road, everybody would sit up and look at each other, probably wondering who was going to take the lead. By the end of lap one, there were still six of us riding together, myself, MOD, Shim, Matias, Aaron and Nate Kollbom.

The 'peloton' at the start of lap 2.

This continued throughout the second lap and I, along with a few others were starting to grow a little weary of the road race like dynamic that was going on. As we hit the gravel access road towards the end of the second lap, I was at the back of the line. I stepped out and hit throttle in an effort to shake things up a bit. Aaron and MOD were on singlespeeds, so I’m pretty sure they fell off almost immediately. I took a look back about halfway down the road and Matias appeared to be closing in on me a little. I hit it even harder to keep the gap between Matias and myself with the hope of minimizing his ability to draft. We hit the singletrack, and I slowed a little to recover from the effort. Matias closed the gap shortly after we hit the singletrack, and it didn’t take long for MOD to catch back either.
At the start of lap three, I led the way up the access road and Matias jumped into the singletrack first and the pace slowed again. MOD and I were getting pretty impatient with the pace and it didn’t take long for MOD to make a pass on me that only MOD could pull off through a pretty tight, technical corner. It was an impressive, clean pass and I had no choice but to give him room. As we rolled through the singletrack, I could see that MOD was setting Matias up for the same move. And sure enough, he pulled the same move on Matias and instantly created a gap between Matias and myself.
It was at this point that I thought the race had been decided. I was stuck behind Matias and MOD was almost out of sight. As Matias and I rolled up an uphill section of twisty singletrack, I made a pass on the inside of a corner. I got by and kept the pace as high as I could in an effort to create a gap. I could tell that Matias was falling off the pace, and I also started to feel a lot better than I had earlier in the race. So I kept the pace high to see if I could pull MOD back.
About midway through the lap, I had finally reeled MOD back in and started thinking about how I could possibly pull this one off. MOD can negotiate his way through the singletrack a lot more quickly and efficiently than I can, so my only hope was to hang onto his wheel and try to drop him on the last section of access road. I knew that his singlespeed wouldn’t be geared to handle the pace on the road. I held his wheel, we hit the road, I dumped it down a few gears and opened her up. About halfway down the road, I was completely out of gears, so I knew without looking back that I had created a pretty good gap.
I kept the pace as high as I could on the road, and managed to avoid T-boning Maria, who appeared to be wandering along the road in an apparent state to delirium fresh off of finishing her race. I motored through the singletrack as quickly as I could, knowing that MOD was most likely closing the gap back down. I hit the last section of grassy field and didn’t let off the pace as I had no idea where MOD was. As I approached the finish, I took a few looks back expecting to see MOD closing in on me with a 200 rpm cadence, but it didn’t happen. I had managed to pull off the W by a close 30 seconds over MOD. Matias came in third, a little over two minutes back.
It was a really hard, but fun race. There was never really a point in the race where I felt like I could pull off the win, with the exception of maybe the final mile or so. MOD and Matias were both very strong competitors, in their own very different styles, that made for a pretty unique, but fun dynamic throughout the race. Lot’s of different tactics going on for sure.

Julie rippin' it up on some of the sweetest singletrack in the Midwest.

My studly wife cleaning cyclocross hill.

What’s next…unfortunately no Mapelag this year. The Hy-Vee triathlon is the same weekend and Julie has to stick around for a few of her clients. So maybe the next WORS race up at Lake Geneva.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Border Battle

2011-08-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

So Julie and I headed to the great white north last weekend and did the Border Battle, a pretty sweet race that pits the WORS series against the Minnesota Series. We drove up Saturday and did a few laps of the course. Whoever does all of the trail work at this place must spend a lot of time diggin’ in the dirt. They made great improvements on what was already a pretty sweet course in years past. Lot’s of new, super fun singletrack! Combine that with mostly damp and tacky conditions and you’re most likely going to have a great day on the bike. After the ride we drove over to my Aunt and Uncle’s in Chanhassen, had a great steak dinner, followed by some Sebastian Joe’s ice cream…man that’s some good stuff. They have a couple of cats that always prove to be very entertaining.
Race day. All of the fast guys from the upper Midwest were there, sans Matter and Schouten who were resting up for the upcoming cross season. Brendan was also out, I heard that he was attending a fund raiser for his nephew, a two year old that has terminal cancer. That is way too young…my heart truly goes out to Brendan and his family as well as our thoughts and prayers.
I got a 2nd row call up among the 75 man Elite field and was very glad for it as I got off to a crappy start again. I missed the mark when attempting to clip in and ended up about mid pack heading up the hill. I followed a few guys on the far right side and made up a little ground on the field and found myself in around 20th going into the woods. My legs felt pretty OK so I settled into a fairly comfortable pace and patiently waited for opportunities to pass in the couple of small passing zones.
I managed to pass one or two peeps in each passing zone and had worked my way up to Sam O and Ray Nelson. I eventually got by Sam, Ray and a few others at the end of lap 1 and hammered it up the hill. As we hit the bottom of the rocky, techie climb, a rock rolled out from underneath my front tire and I went down while going about 3 mph. Sam O got by, I picked myself up and chased after him going up the hill. I caught back up in the next section of singletrack and sat on for some recovery.

That's me getting chased by fellow old racer dude Todd McFadden.

I eventually got back around Sam and noticed Kevin McConnell a short distance up the trail. It took the better part of two laps to reel him in. He was having a good day and riding well. Once I caught up to him, I latched on and followed his wheel throughout the last lap. There were a few instances where I had gotten gapped off a little due to the thick Comp traffic on the last lap, but I managed to close it back up each time. As we hit the final stretch to the finish line, we both dropped the hammer on each other to be the first to the hairpin right before the finish line. I had the inside line and had managed to get a wheel ahead of Kevin going into the turn. I overcooked the corner a little and Kevin took over the inside line. We were both in way too big of a gear for the 25 yard dash to the finish line. I decided to stay in the gear and push it to the line, Kevin tried to downshift and I heard his chain skipping around. I managed to nip him at the line by the width of a tire. It was painful, but I enjoyed every second of it. Kevin’s a great guy to race against regardless of the outcome, always a great time.

Kevin McConnell tearin' up the bridge berm.

The Eppenator rode to another solid top five finish.

I managed to pull of 7th place overall, my best result for the Border Battle, around 4 minutes behind the winner. A little better than I was expecting as I’m at the end of a pretty heavy training block, so I’m pretty happy with it. The Iowa folks had a great showing, with Eppen finishing 5th and Kevin finishing 8th. Kim Eppen won the women’s race and Robin W and Brittany were also in the top ten. It’s great to see the McConnell’s and Eppen’s kickin’ some bootay up north. Julie’s race? I’ll put it in her words, “Well…I didn’t finish last!” She did have a great time and as we all know, that’s the most important thing. It was a great course, so it was tough to not have a good time out there.

Sugarbottom is up this weekend and rumor has it that most of the black sections of the course have been eliminated. That’s too bad because their cutting out a lot of the fun stuff. It should still be a great course for the race. Maybe the part that were most looking forward to is the buffalo chicken burritos from Atlas that were going to devour on the way home from the race!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Swanson V2.0

2011-08-17T19:38:00.001-07:00

It doesn’t get any better than damp and tacky at Swanson Park. Swanson is right up there near the top of my list of favorite places to race when it is damp and tacky. With the usual suspects in the line up, sans Kent (doing the Leadville death march) and Shim (apparently opting for a criterium elsewhere) and the welcome addition of MOD, I was looking forward to another fun race with the fine folks of Nebraska.
So as we were heading into the singletrack, MOD and I were in the lead and took two separate lines into the woods. Neither of us seemed to have a whole lot of interest in taking the lead, so I told MOD to go ahead. My plan (my hope anyway) was to follow MOD into the woods second wheel. He’s super smooth on the dirt, and with Swanson being his home track, I knew that it’d be a lot of fun following his wheel. It’s not always the best strategy, especially when the other guy is riding a singlespeed because it forces you to race and react to his strengths, rather than your own. I think that was partly what led to my demise two weeks ago when Kevin ripped my legs off at Ingawanis.

Sweet shot of the start with MOD and I 'offering' each other the lead.

There were probably four or five of us together throughout lap one, and as predicted, I had a blast following MOD’s wheel throughout the lap. I’m not sure who’s more fun to follow, MOD or Kent. Either way, I ride so much better when I’m following either of them. As we neared the end of lap one, it was MOD, myself, Ryan and Nate. At some point during lap 2, Nate dropped off and Ryan followed.
I continued to follow MOD’s smooth lines throughout laps 2 and 3. Only tailing off when my chain dropped from the big to the small ring. At the end of lap 3, I took the lead with a little reluctance as I was having a great time riding with MOD. After a few corners in the singletrack, I noticed to my surprise that he had fallen off the pace. I kind figured that he would have stuck with me pretty easily in the tight twisty sections. After the race, he’d said that he was probably pushing one tooth too many on his singlespeed. Pushing too big of a gear at Swanson will eventually get the best of you, with all of the tight corners that you have to accelerate out of.
I held on for the W, MOD held his position for 2nd, I think that RF was third and Nate might have been 4th. In the women’s race, Rox had her usual day of domination and checked out with a hole shot among the men’s field. Julie came in second and Katie Bergman brought it home in third. I think the first thing that Julie said to me after the race…’I love my bike’. Music to my ears…

So we’re most likely going to head up to the great white north and do the Minnesota / Wisconsin series collaboration, known as the ‘Border Battle’. It’s a really fun course and the best of the Midwest will be there. I’m looking forward to the pain of a good ‘ole fashioned butt whoopin’.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Camp Ingawanis V2.0

2011-08-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

After probably what was the longest hiatus from racing that I’ve ever had mid summer, I was very ready to get back on the dirt for some racing. Julie and I had a very busy July with the first two weeks spent in Colorado. We spent about half of the time at her brother’s place in Avon and did a lot of sweet road and mountain biking in and around the Vail valley. We also spent a week in Durango for more of some of the best riding that the state has to offer. This year I spent a little more time on the mountain bike than I did the road bike. I think that as I grow a little older, I’m becoming a little less tolerant of highway noise and air pollution, especially when some of the knucklehead diesel pick-up truck drivers give me a drive by dusting of diesel smoke.
The second two weeks of July were spent packing up all of our junk, getting ready for the move from the townhouse / bat cave into a real house. I managed to get rides in almost everyday, however the rides weren’t as substantial as I would have liked. It only got worse during the second week as we were busy moving all of our stuff into the garage of the new house. Between all of the heavy lifting, lack of sleep and extremely hot weather, the quality of my training suffered.
The weekend after our move, we headed up to Camp Ingawanis for the race on the south course. The last time we raced on the south course, the laps were pretty short and not nearly as fun as the north course. I was expecting the same this time around, however when I went out for a recon lap, I was pleasantly surprised. It was very apparent that a lot of work had taken place over the past year. I have to give some props out to Karmen Woelber, as I was told that she is the trail master at Ingawanis. Karmen and the rest of the crew put together a great course that consisted of about 90% of fast, rolling singletrack.
I knew going in the I wasn’t going to be anywhere near 100%, so my plan was to get into the singletrack 2nd wheel behind Kevin McConnell (aka Cross Jesus). We started and Kevin immediately jumped into the lead. Matias Peret and I sparred a little for Kevin’s wheel and my persistence netted me 2nd wheel into the woods.
Kevin created an immediate gap as it took me around a mile to get my high speed singletrack mojo going. It took me about a half of a lap to finally reel Kevin back in and by this time I had gapped off Matias. I sat on Kevin’s wheel and felt pretty relaxed throughout each of the three laps that I was there. About the only time that I felt like I was being pushed was on all of the short power climbs. I was actually surprised at how well things were going until we started lap 4. I started to yo-yo on and off of Kevin’s wheel and the elastic finally broke about mid way through the lap.
I put myself into survival mode form that point until the finish. There were a couple of moments during lap 5 when I felt like I was starting to get a 2nd wind, but it never really came. I was totally blown with nothing left in the tank.
I ended up salvaging a hard earned second place on the day and Kevin took the much deserved win. I felt pretty good about the result given all that had been going on over the past couple of weeks. The course was a lot of fun and well worth the 2+ hour drive. I had a great time riding with Kevin throughout the first three laps. And it was good to see all of the Iowa mountain bike racing peeps.
Julie also had a pretty good day, despite the women having to do the same amount of laps as the men. I finished my race early enough that I was able to give her a water bottle that was half ice and half water at the start of her last lap. It was a pretty hot day, so I scored some ‘good husband points’ for that one.

The next race on the horizon will most likely be at Swanson Park in Omaha. IMBCS #8 was supposed to be at Lake Manawa State Park, however there is no such thing as underwater mountain bike racing, so the venue for IMBCS #8 will actually be in Omaha.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Ponca

2011-06-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we were waffling between heading to Ponca or Afton, all depending on the weather. If Ponca were to get rained out, we were going to head up to Afton on Sunday. We woke up Saturday morning, took a look at the radar, rolled over and went back to sleep thinking that the Ponca race was going to be postponed. There was a big, ugly green, yellow and red mass rolling over western Iowa and Ponca was on the north edge of it all.
A little later we took a look at the FB page and to our surprise, they said the race was on. Sweet! We scrambled to pack up the rest of our crap and took off about 30 minutes later than we would have liked. We hit I-29 north to Sioux City and the folks on the news were not kidding about all of the hardships that the residents along the Missouri River are facing. Lot’s of flooding everywhere, please keep the people along the Missouri in your thoughts and prayers…
The tread at Ponca however, was close to perfect, slightly damp and very grippy. I’m in the midst of my mid season peak, so I was looking to have a really good race. We lined up for the start and I was pretty determined to get a good start with the goal of letting only one cat into the singletrack before me. The USAC official blew the whistle and I slotted myself in behind Kent McNeil, one of my all time favorite wheels to follow. I’ve learned a lot of good lines following Kent’s wheel over the years, he’s among the best of the best. We hit the singletrack with Kent in the lead, followed by myself, Shim and the rest of the field. The pace throughout the first lap was pretty comfortable and about midway through the lap, the lead group was down the Kent, myself and Shim. I found myself chomping at the bit to take over the lead, but I was having fun riding with Kent and Shim, so I contained myself until the start of lap three.
As we rolled through the start / finish area at the end of lap 2, I took the lead and accelerated up the hill to test the legs of Shim and Kent. I took a quick look back and saw that I had opened a small gap. I continued the effort throughout the lap until I felt like I had a comfortable lead. I’d hit it pretty hard throughout lap three, so on laps four and five I backed it off a little and tried to take it all in. I love racing my bike regardless of whether I get 1st or 50th, I love the people and I love sweet singletrack. The trail system at Ponca has some of the most fun singletrack that you will find anywhere. All of the climbs reward you with fast, swoopy descents that are guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.
So in the end, I was fortunate enough to once again take the W. I went into this season thinking that my results would start to fade a little as I’m not getting any younger. However I seem to be getting slightly better with age…I’m cool with that. As most predicted, Kent claimed another USAC Nebraska State Champion title as the first Nebraskan to finish with Shim coming in third. Prior to the race, I thought the state title would be a toss up between Kent and Shim. Kent is always a contender and Shim is having a really good year. I bet it was a fun race to watch.
Julie had a really good race and I knew it before we talked after the race. I can always tell when she’s having fun whenever I pass her. She finished 2nd in the women’s Cat 1 race to Sydney Brown. Ponca is the type of course that favors good fitness and Sydney has a big engine, so Julie has every reason to be happy when she can finish within a few minutes of Sydney on a course like Ponca.

This coming weekend will be a busy one. Zoom Performance is doing their annual training camp for triathletes in Madison on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The WORS Subaru Cup Pro XCT is Saturday and Sunday and the Minnesota series has a XC race on Sunday at Red Wing. As much as I’d love to take part in the Subaru Cup, I’m most likely going to help out the fine folks of Zoom in Madison and maybe do the XC race in Red Wing.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Wausau

2011-06-17T16:40:00.001-07:00

There are a lot of great reasons to sit in the car for 14 hours on a weekend trip to Wisconsin. The beautiful scenery and America’s largest mountain bike racing series are two of them. Julie and I made the long drive up to Wausau to do some racing on one of my all time favorite courses at Nine Mile Forest. There are so many different trails there that the course seems to be different every year, and they always seem to put together a great 50/50 mix of singletrack and forest road.
Close to 80 Pros and Cat 1’s toed the line for the start. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a ‘real pro’ even though my USAC license might say so. The only reason that I maintain a pro license is to get call ups for the WORS and Minnesota races. This time my license netted me a second row call up, which I happily accepted. When the Pro / Cat 1 fields are as large as they are here, a call up is pretty critical if you want to have a good race.
So Don said ‘Gooooooooooo’ and I managed a pretty decent start, sitting comfortably within the top 10 or 15 until we hit the first section of fast, flowy singletrack. We hit the second section of singletrack, I think it was the Ho Chi Minh trail, and gaps started to form all over the place, including between myself and the guy ahead of me. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the race for me. I pretty much had no game in the more technical sections of singletrack that day.
I lost touch with the lead group and settled into the second group. Throughout the first couple of laps, I’d get gapped off in the singletrack and then chase back on when we hit the forest roads.
About midway through the race, our small group consisted of myself, Darrin Braun, some dude in a Culver’s kit, Ben Koenig and a couple of others. We hit a pretty techie section of singletrack and like before, I got gapped off by Ben, Darrin and everybody else that was in front of me. By the time I hit the next forest road, Darrin and Ben were long gone enough that there was no catching back up. I ended up with the Culver’s guy, and sat on hoping to recover a little. WORS courses are always well marked to prevent wrong turns, however there were a few areas on the forest road sections where the course was taped off far enough away from a ‘Y’ in the trail, that one could potentially make a wrong turn. As I was following the Culver’s guy, we we’re flying down a forest road and quickly came up on one of the not so well marked ‘Y’s. He went right and quickly realized that he’d made a wrong turn. The only reason that I didn’t follow was because there was a sign ahead with a red arrow pointing us in the correct direction. After that I never saw him again and found myself in no mans land with nobody to work with on the forest roads.
So over the final lap and a half, I drilled it on the fire roads and tried to recover a little in the singletrack with the hope of keeping whoever was behind me from catching up, and maybe close the gap to the group ahead of me. Near the beginning of the last lap I could see a group of three nearing the top of the steepest climb on the course as I was approaching the bottom. I also happened to see Julie about halfway up, always a pleasant site for me during a race! As I passed her, we exchanged grins and urged each other on.
I tried like crazy to catch the guys ahead of me, but couldn’t get it done. I ended up in 9th, maybe my best result at Nine Mile, but a little short of what I was hoping for. The time gaps were close and I was pretty surprised to see that I was only about 4 ½ minutes behind the race winner, Brian Matter. He ended up winning in a three man sprint against Tristan and Mikey with a bike throw. Yes, it took a bike throw to win a mountain bike race. I bet it was a pretty exciting finish for the spectators.
When I had passed Julie, I could tell that she was having a great time. She finished 18th out of 22 in the women’s Elite race. She never really cares too much about where she finishes and is much more into just having a great time. We did this race two years ago and she was still pretty new to mountain biking. She had mentioned how difficult the Ho Chi Minh trail was for her back then. This year was a different story as she said that was among her most favorite parts of the course. Stuff like that’ll always bring a huge smile to my face. Those of you that have significant others that share your passion for the sport of mountain biking probably know what I’m talking about…
So in the end I was pretty happy with the result. Yeah, I stunk it up in the singletrack, but I had pretty decent legs on the fire roads and that was pretty much what kept me in the top ten. After the race, I did a 20 minute or so cool down ride on a forest road that parallels Nine Mile Forest. I rode along and took in the amazing scenery that the area has to offer and had a moment of appreciation and thankfulness for the great life that I’ve been blessed with.

Next up for us is the Nebraska State Mountain Biking Championship race at Ponca, another one of my favorite race courses. I always look forward to the fast, flowy singletrack goodness that Ponca State Park has to offer!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Mankato

2011-06-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

It’s pretty tough to beat a couple of days on the mountain bike on one of my favorite trails, with my best friend and close to perfect weather. Julie and I headed up to Mankato on Saturday and did a couple of recon laps of the course. Julie wasn’t all that excited about doing the race as the Elite course had a couple of techy sections that she felt were a little beyond her skill level. I did the first lap with her to show her the way, and then did a second lap to get a couple of sections dialed in. I could tell by the way that my legs felt that I might have the wheels for a good race tomorrow.
Julie opted out of doing the race and put herself into partial soigneur mode. No she didn’t give me a pre or post race rub down, nor did she butter my chamiox. However she did a stellar job with the bottle hand up and heckled me into a good finish.
I got off to a pretty good start and felt good enough on the initial uphill to roll into the singletrack sixth or seventh wheel. I comfortably sat on the wheels ahead of me on the flats and as we hit the first techy section small gaps formed as it was slow going on some of the drop sections. Everybody made it through cleanly and I upped the effort to close the gap ahead of me on the next uphill.
We hit the Quick Release and the guy ahead of me took a bad line on the last drop and t-boned a tree. I skidded to a stop and had to track stand until he was able to right himself and continue on. As we started lap 2, I passed him on the uphill and found myself in 4th place. I could see Jesse Rients and Ben Koenig up the trail and it looked like Jesse had opened up a pretty good gap on Ben. It took the better part of the 2nd and maybe the 3rd lap to close in on Ben. I eventually caught up to him and held onto to his wheel hoping to recover a little. On one of the shorter, loose climbs his back tire broke loose and he had to jump off and run. He was nice enough to give me the preferred line and I passed by as he was running his bike.
Jesse was out of sight, and the leader, Brendan Moore, was most likely all ready in cruise control as he gapped the field almost as soon as the race had started. I yo-yo’d between 10 and 20 seconds behind Jesse throughout laps three and four. I could see him up ahead on some of the climbs, but it never seemed like I was gaining any significant ground on him.

One of the many roller coaster style corners on the course.

As I was heading up the climb on the fifth and final lap, somebody told me that Jesse was just up the trail and that there was a guy right behind me. I took a quick look back and saw that Ben was about 5 or 10 seconds back. I remember thinking to myself at that time that I’d have been totally OK with a 4th place on the day. However as I approached the top of the climb, I started feeling a little better and went after Jesse with a little more vigor, knowing that Ben was right behind me.
About ¾ of the way through the lap, I had found myself about five or so seconds behind Jesse as we were heading up the last climb. He had gotten by a group of Comp riders at the right time and looked like he had an open trail to the top. I caught up to the group at about the worst point in the climb, but still managed to get by. Over the last two laps, the lapped traffic was pretty thick and tough to get by. Some got over quickly, while others didn’t. Everybody is out there racing, so sometimes it’s tough to yield the right of way to the guy trying to pass. I say this a lot, I’m generally pretty good about politely alerting lappers of my presence though I probably sound a little impatient at times. That’s kinda how I roll when I’m cross-eyed and frothing at the mouth, and not always in complete control of how I articulate my words. I love that so many folks come out and race, even if it results in crowded courses. I would rather have a crowded race course and a healthy race culture, than an open course and dwindling participation.

Race winner Brendan Moore dishin' out another beatdown.

I ended up finishing about four seconds behind Jesse, good enough for third. I went into the race unsure of what to expect. I knew that my fitness was good, probably a little above where I was towards the end of last season. So it was pretty reasonable to expect a good result today, maybe a top five if I was feelin’ the love. So needless to say, I was pretty stoked with the finish.

We’re thinking about heading up to the WORS dirt circus in Wausau next weekend, provided we get a little cooperation with the weather. The form seems to be pretty good now, so I’m going to make the most of it at some of the bigger races this month.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Snake Alley

2011-06-02T19:05:00.001-07:00

Crossing swords with JJ

My wife makes it look easy.

I typically don’t get too excited over racing on pavement, but there’s something about racing at Snake Alley that gets me all riled up. For whatever reason, I have a pretty decent track record in the 40+ and 30+ categories at the Snake and that record has increased my expectations for the race every year. So, for this year I was really hoping for that elusive double W in the 40+ and 30+ races.
The 40+ race started out on a wet course and I was about as close as one can come to not starting as I’m not a big fan of racing on wet pavement. I took my usual place at the back of the group, alongside Jeff Barnes. We had both gotten off to a slow start and were near the back of the pack at the top of the Snake. I took it easy on the first few descents down the wet backside of the course. Taking risks on the wet corners was not in the equation for me as I have bigger fish to fry later in the season on the mountain bike.
After a few laps, the course started to dry and I was finally able to let it all hang out. By then, however the lead group had pretty much shattered as a couple of guys had taken off and I had no idea who they were. The bottom portion of the course is pretty bumpy and I rediscovered this the hard way as I rolled through one of the ‘nicer’ sections. I was seated, with all of my weight on the saddle, as I hit a bump. I hit it hard enough that it had rotated my saddle towards the back, enough that I probably would have been deflowered by the horn of my saddle if I had left it alone. I shifted forward, bounced on it a few times, hoping to rotate it back with my tail bone and it ended up rotating too far forward. I went back and forth until I got it reasonably close.
Once the saddle issue was fixed, I refocused on getting myself back into the race. I gradually picked off a few guys on each lap and eventually made my way back up to Jeff and a few others. We only had a couple of laps left and it was down to Jeff, myself and maybe one or two others. Jeff opened up a small gap on the 2nd to last lap while going up the Snake. I was blocked by one of the guys in our group, don’t remember who it was. By the time I got around him, Jeff was already halfway down the hill.
I managed to get away from the remainder of the group, Danny Casper and maybe Shim, and did my best to bring back Jeff. He was too strong and managed to stay away. I thought that I had 2nd locked up, however after the race I had heard that Jim Cochran was still off the front, and that Jeff had just gotten by him at the finish. I was maybe 25 yards behind Jeff at the finish, so Cochran must have been right in front of me. Crapola…
For the 30+ race, we had a steady sprinkle throughout that kept the cobbles of the Snake nice and snotty. The pace was fast right from the blow of the whistle, and by the time I hit the top of the Snake on the first lap, the leaders were already out of sight. I was pretty timid on the descent over the first few laps as I didn’t want to lay it down. I couldn’t really make up any ground on the Snake either. Every time I tried to power up the Snake, my back wheel would break loose regardless of where I shifted my weight. It took a few laps, but I finally got into a groove that I was relatively comfortable with. I started picking off riders at a pace of about one per lap, but it wasn’t enough to get myself out of the realm of pack fodder by the end of the race. I’m not sure exactly where I finished, but I still had a great time despite the conditions.
Julie probably had the only dry race of the day. I wasn’t able to watch much of her race as it was sandwiched in between the 40+ and 30+ races. She had a pretty good race and finished in the money for the first time on the pavement. I was pretty stoked for her!
Hopefully next weekend we’ll finally get back on the dirt up in Mankato. I love the course up there, lot’s of climbing, lot’s of techy singletrack, lot’s of fast competition, always a great time!

Thanks for reading,

CK

State Fair Crit

2011-06-01T18:32:00.001-07:00

Doin' a little road ragin' on an old school bike.

With some pretty heavy rain in the morning, Julie and I were up in the air about doing the State Fair Crit. The course was still wet for Julie’s race, so she opted for heckling and beer with some of the other hooligans on top of hooligan hill. The course had dried up for the old man’s race, so I suited up and got a quick warm up in. I rolled to the start line and slotted in near the back o’ the pack. I got off to my usual start and rolled up the hill somewhere near the back.
I finally got my race mojo going after the first lap and picked my way to the front. As we hit hooligan hill, I upped the pace a little with the hope of thinning the lead group out a little. I did it about every other lap and our group eventually shrank down to myself, Shim and Dominic. Shim and Dominic didn’t seem like they were going anywhere, so I upped the pace a little more and noticed that Dominic had fallen off. I found out after the race that he had flatted, too bad because he was riding well. So it was down to Shim and I. I wasn’t real keen on it getting down to a sprint, and I also didn’t want to cook myself for the 1/2 race, so I put in a couple of 80% efforts going up hooligan hill, hoping to shake Shim but he wasn’t going anywhere. So on the last lap, I tried to back off the effort a little for the sprint. I led the entire last lap, and as we hit the last corner I hit it full throttle. Shim still managed to come around me and nipped me at the line. He rode a good, smart race and deserved to win. Me? I led almost the entire race, which I know is not the preferred tactic when racing on pavement. On a course like this, there isn’t as much of a benefit in drafting as there might be in a flatter course anyway, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. I didn’t really care as I was primarily looking for a good, sustained high intensity effort that’ll hopefully make me faster on the dirt.
The 1/2 race was all about hanging onto the lead group for as long as I could. I felt pretty shelled between the previous days workout and the old man’s race earlier in the day, but I did manage to hold on to the main group to the finish. I think a few guys got away from the group and soloed to their respective finishes. Mike Secenbaugh (spelling?) took the W for the Zealous Racing boys, nice to see the race host take home a win from the weekend.
Hopefully next weekend we’ll be back on the dirt in Minnesota on Saturday and Banner Pits on Sunday.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Platte River and Waverly

2011-05-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

Me

My female

You have to figure that at some point, my age is going to catch up with me. Especially when I get the crazy idea of doing two mountain bike races in one weekend. The first race of the weekend was the Psycowpath Series race at Platte River. Last years race was cancelled due to rain, so Julie and I were especially looking forward to this race. The course at Platte River epitomizes mountain biking in the Midwest region, smooth, rolling singletrack, definitely one of the more fun places to race and ride.
As I was warming up, I overheard somebody say Le Mans style start. I’m not a big fan of Le Mans starts, I love to ride my bike, but I don’t care much for running. Whenever I run, my old body threatens to blow something out. So the race started, I got to my bike without any blowouts and took off after the leaders. About 50 yards into the race, I had a snap decision to make, plow into the photographer that was sitting too close to the course, or veer to the right of the photographer with the hope that he doesn’t try to move out of the way. Right before I went around the guy, he saw me coming, started to stand and back up. I slammed into him and went sprawling over my handlebars. I quickly got up, picked up my bike, looked in the direction of the guy and said something to him. I don’t remember what I said as I was a little delirious from the red line effort that typically ensues at the start of a race. Whatever it was that I said, I’m sure that it wasn’t very complimentary. I hope that I didn’t offend whoever it was, and I hope that I didn’t hurt the guy.
So I ended up near the end of the field and found myself in chase mode, which is the exact opposite of what I was hoping for. It was going to take a lot more effort to catch the leaders, then if I were to have started with them. I pretty much killed myself going up the hill, trying to pass as many peeps as I could before we hit the singletrack. I had no idea what place I was in by the time I hit the top of the first climb and I was well into the red zone. So I settled in behind the guy in front of me and tried to recover a little.
I kind of knew who the leaders would be, Kent, Steve, MOD and Shim. As I rolled into some of the open areas of the course, I was able to pass one or two guys each time. At some point during the third lap, I finally caught sight of Kent, Shim and MOD, riding together. I upped the effort a little more and reeled in MOD. Shortly after I caught him, I burped the front tire. I tried to live with it, but it was too soft and I could feel the front wheel starting to wash out in the corners. So I pulled over and gave it a shot of Co2. I remounted and eventually caught back up to MOD before the end of lap three.
I could see Kent and Shim up ahead, and it looked like Shim was starting to put a small gap between he and Kent. By the time I had caught up to Kent, Shim was starting to fade from view. I rode behind Kent, anxiously waiting for the first opportunity to pass. As we were flying down one of the faster parts of the course, I took the ‘inside line’ going into a slow corner and made a pass that I normally wouldn’t have tried. However I wanted to get by as quickly as possible so I could get after Shim.
At some point before the rock garden, I finally caught up to Shim. I sat on his wheel for a short while and started working on a plan to get by and hopefully leave him behind. I passed him in the upper meadow section and he grabbed my wheel. As we were rolling through the roller coaster section of the course, I heard his chain jam and that was pretty much it. I rode away and once I felt secure with the lead, I put it into energy conservation mode with the hope of saving what little energy I had left for tomorrow’s race.
As I was rolling through the rock garden, I took a quick look back and saw Kent closing in on me. I screwed up the short climb out of the rock garden and had to jump off and run. I hit the top, remounted my stead and red lined it all of the way to the finish. I held on for the win and once again had surprised myself as I wasn’t necessarily expecting to after the debacle at the start.
Julie had her first clash with Rox and didn’t fare as well as she’d hoped. Rox has been riding and racing for long time, and she doesn’t get beaten very often, especially in Nebraska. Regardless, Julie had a blast on some of the sweetest singletrack that the Midwest has to offer, and that’s all that really matters!

Day two consisted of racing on more of some of the sweetest singletrack that the Midwest has to offer. Camp Ingawanis is another one of my favorites that I always look forward to. We woke up on Sunday morning, took a look at the radar and it didn’t look good. A large clump of rain clouds were heading east and the southern tip was heading straights towards Ingawanis. We decided to make the trip anyway with the hope of getting one or two laps in before the rain hit. My days if racing in mud bogs ended a couple of years ago, so if the rain hit, the plug was getting pulled.
I got in about a lap and a half before the start, when it started to sprinkle ever so lightly. The race started and everybody seemed to be willing to concede the hole shot to me…until Aaron R snaked me going into the singletrack. Somebody else tried to get around, but I wasn’t having any of it. It ended up being Aaron, myself and Brian Furhmann that had gapped off the rest of the field shortly after the start. As soon as we hit the first descent, followed quickly by a long, fast, flowy section of singletrack, the perma grin found its way to my face despite the pain of the racing effort. When we hit the rock garden, I took a bad line and dumped it. Brian got around me and both he and Aaron took off. I subconsciously took a quick look around to make sure that nobody saw what had happened (my inner pride), jumped back on my back and high tailed it after Aaron and Brian.
As I rolled through the start / finish line, I saw Brian standing on the side of the trail with his spare tube wrapped around one hand, draping off of one of his ears and around his saddle…he must have flatted. I kept the pressure on, hoping to reel in Aaron sooner than later. At some point during lap three, I had almost completely closed the gap, maybe within a couple of seconds. Shortly thereafter I was beginning to feel the effects of the previous days’ efforts. The last lap quickly transitioned into survival mode as my legs had reached their point of expiration. Aaron rode a great race and took home a much deserved win. I held on for second and my former apprentice, Padawan Gammell came in third.
Julie had a pretty good day, she got throttled by Robin Williams, however she did finish ahead of Sally Logan. They have a friendly rivalry going on, fun to watch, especially when Julie finishes ahead of her!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Bone Bender

2011-05-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

They call these races ‘Bone Bender’ for a reason, there were probably more rocks on the course than dirt. For me, the course was the type of course where it would be a lot fun to ride, for the sake of riding. Racing is a different story. I decided to ride the full suspension because I had heard that the course was pretty rocky. Riding on rocks for six hours would not be good for my back, or any other part of my old bag ‘o bones.
The start was a le mans style start up this crazy steep, loose rocky hill. Despite my strong dislike of running, I got off to a pretty good start rolling onto the dirt in 5th or 6th, and in 2nd for the six hour solo category. The guy in 1st was leading the entire field, including the three hour racers. He was obviously a lot more familiar with the course than the rest of us!
Throughout the four laps that I had completed, I was riding at a very comfortable pace, one that I could have easily maintained and even increased as the race progressed. The rocks were giving me a royal pounding, so much so that the fun of racing my bike was slowly dwindling. To add to the situation, my chain would not stay in my big or middle ring. The straw that broke my back happened on a short power climb while in my middle ring. About midway up the climb, the chain skipped and slammed me forward, bashing both of my knees into the stem and handlebars. With my morale totally gone, I decided to pull the plug. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to race a bike that isn’t working properly, especially with the fear that your middle ring won’t hold a chain when you put the power down. I put it into cool down mode and rode back to the start area, put my bike away and headed over to Geoff’s mobile boom box / pit area and had a beer with the Iowa City and Des Moines crew. On a more positive note, the weather was pretty close to perfect for having a beer with a bunch of your cycling buddies.
On another more positive note, Julie was riding impressively and stuck it out for the entire six hours. She seemingly increased her pace with every lap and passed Sally Logan on her last lap to snare a much deserved 3rd place in the six hour solo category. Props to her and Sally for riding non stop over the 6+ hours on such a brutally rocky course. I’m a very fortunate man to have a woman like that for a wife!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Sylvan Island

2011-05-25T18:29:00.001-07:00

This was the first race of the year for a lot of the 40 or so Cat 1’s that lined up for the start and it showed. The start was a complete cluster with about half of the field gunning for the hole shot. A few overly ambitious guys got tangled up next to me and one of them got into the rear end of my bike. It felt like I had gotten pulled backwards so I knew that his bike had snagged something on mine. I was able to continue rolling and ended up 4th wheel going into the woods….until we hit the end of the trail with nowhere to go. Race officials forgot to tape off that section of the course, so we had to roll back to the start line for a re-start. After fiddle-farting around for another 20 minutes, they finally restarted us and once again, there was another wreck that happened next to me. I was able to avoid any contact this time and ended up 4th wheel going into the woods.
As I sat behind the guy in 3rd, I had a front row seat to Brian and another guy slowly riding away from us. We the hit first opportunity to pass on one of the levees and I slipped by 3rd place. Brian had passed the leader and started to gap him off. I tried to overhaul the 2nd place guy but quickly realized that my legs were not feeling the love today. I sat on his wheel throughout the rest of lap 2 and Brian disappeared off into the sunset.

The Eppenator beating the crap outta me.

As we rolled down the start / finish road we were riding into a pretty stiff headwind, so I sat in on the wheel ahead of me with the plan of passing right before we entered the woods again. Aaron R had the same idea and had gotten passed both of us. I grabbed Aaron’s wheel and held his pace throughout lap two. At some point during lap two, my chain had gotten hung up somewhere and I couldn’t turn the cranks. I dumped it down to the small ring and tried again to no avail. I tried again with a little more force and finally broke it loose. In the process I bent my front der and thankfully didn’t break my chain. I was still able to index the big ring so all was good.
At the end of lap two I passed Aaron and hit the singletrack at full speed. I’m still pretty amazed at how much better a 29” wheel can hook up on tight, twisty singletrack. It’s like night and day compared to a 26” wheel. I gradually increased the gap and began to focus on reeling Brian in. The great thing about Sylvan Island is that the course doubles back on itself a lot. So it’s pretty easy to gage gaps based on reference points throughout the course. Throughout the last three laps, I could tell that I was closing in on him by about 5 – 10 seconds a lap, but in the end his lead was too big to overcome. I was very happy with the result as I would have had to have had an extremely good day with Brian having a slightly off day for me to take him down.

Julie loves her new big wheeled bike.

I caught the end of Julie’s race and could tell by her body language that she wasn’t having a good day. She had gotten off to a bad start and just wasn’t feelin’ the love. Racing at Sylvan Island is deceptively tough. Yes, it’s pancake flat, but it’s so tight and twisty along with all of the glass, rocks, etc., that the slightest lapse in focus could have you wrapped around a tree, sitting trail side fixing a flat, or taking a dip in the river. With close to 300 competitors throughout the day, traffic was a little thick at times which added to the already challenging conditions.

My little niece, she loves watching her Uncle Cam race his bike!

Me Mum shreadin' some singletrack

All in all, it was a great day to be a mountain biker! We had great weather, sweet trails and Julie and I were able to spend most of the weekend with my family and good friends. We had a great turnout from central Iowa, and it was great to see a lot of folks decked out in Rassy gear!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Swanson

2011-05-20T19:18:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe how quickly winter flew by this year! Julie and I were fortunate enough to be able to spend three weeks through the Christmas / New Years holidays on the beautiful island of Maui, thanks to some very generous in-laws. And yes, we brought our bikes and rode everyday that we were there. If you ever get the chance to visit Maui, bring or rent a bike because Maui has some of the best road riding. In a lot of ways, the road riding is better than Colorado.

I have a lot of the same sponsors returning to offer their incredibly generous support this year, Rasmussen Bike Shop, the best bike shop on the planet…of course everybody already knows that. Phil Godkin of Orbea Bicycles, the best bikes on the planet, especially the Orca and the Alma 29er! Rob Versteegh of Oakley, Oakley Rob has been an absolute champ when it comes to the local bike racing scene. Compass Chiropractic Care, I’ve been making regular visits to Compass for about nine months now and it has made a big difference in how I feel, especially after a long ride.

So for this year, after a lot of going back and forth, Julie and I decided to give 29” wheels a whirl. Neither of us had much of a chance to ride them before the first race, other than a shake down ride on paved bike paths. So we were both entering into some unknown territory heading into our first race at Swanson. I did a recon lap of the course and the bike and the engine both felt pretty good. I got off to a pretty decent start, fifth wheel going into the woods. I would have liked to have been a little closer to the front, but it probably ended up being for the better as it gave me a chance to get a feel for the bike at a slightly slower pace than what the leaders we were kicking out.

I settled in behind Shim and Steve Jarrett throughout the first lap and could see Kent McNeil and Garret Steinmetz rolling away from us until we could no longer see them. At some point during lap one, I remember thinking to myself that a top five finish would be great as it was the first race of the year, I’m the backyard of McNeil, Steve and Shim, I’m old, new bike, yada yada, yada.

As we hit the field at the end of lap one, I started to feel really comfortable with the bike. I slipped by Shim and Steve and kicked up the pace a little. It felt pretty good, so I kicked it up a little more with the hope of catching up to Kent or Garret before the end of the race. To my surprise, I had managed to reel both of them in by the end of lap 2. I had worked pretty hard to catch up, so I sat on for all of lap three in hopes of a little recovery. At some point during the lap, it felt like my pedal had smacked into a root or something. After that my back brake started making an awful squeal, even when I wasn’t braking. I tried to live with it for a while, until I began to realize that I was really starting to struggle to hold the wheels ahead of me. After getting gapped on one of the many short climbs on the course, I figured that at point I had nothing to loose in stopping to figure out what the deal was. I got off the bike, put some weight on the saddle, popped the rear skewer loose and could feel the back wheel reposition itself. I snapped the skewer back in place, hopped back on the bike and instantly noticed a difference how easily the bike rolled.

I managed to claw my way back up to Kent and Garret by the end of lap three. Shortly after I caught up, they both sat up, looked at me and suggested that I do a little work. I took the lead with a little reluctance as I was still a little tired and still had my tongue hangin’ out of my mouth from the effort of catching back up. I led the way throughout lap four and started to notice that I was opening an occasional small gap towards the end of the lap. I increased the effort a little more and by the end of the lap I had managed to separate myself from them. I kept the effort up throughout the first half of the lap, until I felt that I had a pretty comfortable lead and then eased it up a scosh. I held on to the end and was very surprised to score the W. I was very much expecting a severe beat down from the locals. Kent and Steve hadn’t been riding as much over the winter due to a few priorities in their lives and Shim had logged some pretty decent hours in over the winter. Their local knowledge will almost always trump a reasonably fit out of towner and I really wasn’t expecting to finish ahead of any of them.

The bike. My first assessment of the Alma 29er, the bike felt great! I felt very comfortable with the way that the bike fit me. It weighs in at 21.2 pounds, over two pounds less than my previous bike (full suspension). It scampered up hills with seemingly minimal effort, it cornered like a dream, especially through high speed corners. And even though I bleed Orbea, I opted for the Specialized S-Works Renegade for my tread and they hooked up like I was riding on Velcro on the dusty hard pack terrain. It was the first true ride on the bike, so we’ll see how the next few races go. Though at this point, I find it hard to believe that I’ll think any differently about it.

I have to give a shout out to the Psycowpath folks, Roxzanne, Ryan and the rest of the posse work their tails off the provide the state of Nebraska with a quality mountain bike racing series. THANK YOU! This race had no less than 200 participants, which made for a pretty crowded course at times. Crowded courses and lot’s of lapped traffic go hand in hand. I’m sure there were a few folks that I had passed, that either didn’t hear me, or thought that I might have sounded a little rude. I never intend to sound rude or impatient, however it’s hard to maintain my alleged ‘stoic’ disposition when I’m cross eyed from a red line effort. It was great to see so many folks out racing their bikes, especially the 20 or so that came from Iowa.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Chequamegon

2010-10-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

Another reason to love the month of September…Chequamegon! The north woods of Wisconsin are pretty amazing at this time of the year, with the fall colors just beginning to make an appearance and all of the pines, northern Wisconsin rivals Colorado in scenery.
Julie and I arrived at the cabin, and shortly after our arrival, Brian Benson busted out the potato cannon as promised and he did not disappoint. I almost felt like I was watching an episode of Beavis and Butthead while Brian and Jim Logan were experimenting with different ways of increasing the distance, velocity, visibility by fire and target practice on John and Kristin while they were on the lake in a canoe.
On Thursday, Julie, my Mom and I went out for an hour long ride over the first part of the course, and it was the wettest that I had ever seen. There was a lot of standing water on the trail that threaded it’s way along the Birkie. As we hit the first little power climb going into Rosie’s, I heard my Mom grinding away at her gears behind us. She quickly realized how deceptive Rosie’s Field can be, with its’ sometimes steep, rolling hills and freshly cut, but still deep grass. We did enough of the course to give her a good idea on what to expect over the course of the race.
Friday, same deal but we did 90 minutes instead and the course was considerably dryer than yesterday, but there were still quite a few large puddles, I knew that the puddles were going to be a lot worse on the middle parts of the course. After the ride, the garage at our cabin looked like the pit area of a World Cup cross race, with everybody doing some last minute clean up and tune ups on all of the bikes. Cool… Bike maintenance was followed by more shenanigans with the potato cannon and mass consumption of lasagna.
Race day. We woke up to mostly blue sky and cool temps in the upper 30’s. After a breakfast of pancakes and eggs, I suited up and rolled out for my warm up. As I hit the road, Jack Hinkens rolled up behind me. We had a nice conversation during our warm up about how his first season on the U23 World Cup mountain bike racing circuit was going. If things continue for him as they are, this guy could easily become one of the top mtb racers in the country, if not the world. Once he gets more base mileage in his legs, he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with.
About 10 minutes before the start, I rolled into the start area and backed myself into a front row position and all of the big dogs from the Midwest racing scene were there, Schouten (whom most picked as the race favorite), Matter (last years winner), Swanson, Anderson, Simonson, Mikey, Peariso, Braun, Marko, Tilford, the Eppenators, among a great many others. Also making an appearance was Utah native Jason Sager.
The cannon went off and I attached myself to Tilfords wheel on the rollout out of Hayward. I stayed on Tilfords wheel for most of the rollout and once we hit Rosie’s, I hit the throttle going up the first short power climb. Within a few pedal strokes, the chain made the dreaded clanking noise as it struggled to engage the teeth on my big ring. The next thing I knew, I was pedaling freely with no power transfer to the chain. I looked down and the chain had dropped to the outside. I dropped the front der to the granny gear and gently pedaled the chain back into position as what seemed like hundreds of racers went whizzing by me like I was standing still. Once the chain was back in place, I opened it up again in attempt to get myself into a decent position as we rolled onto the Birkie. In looking at some of the pictures, what seemed like hundreds of racers ended up only being around 60 – 70-ish.
As we rolled along the Birkie, I managed to pick my way up to what had become the 1st chase group, with the lead group only about 30 seconds up the trail. As we rolled through OO, our group had whittled itself down to seven, including myself, Simonson, Maxwell Anderson, Nate Whitman, Sova, SKJ and Tim Mulrooney. The lead group of 12 was about 60 seconds ahead of us and with Matter launching several attacks on the lead group, there was no chance of us catching them.

The Simonson pain train, followed by yours truly, SKJ, Nate, Sova and Max.

#78 – Mountain Biker… #19 – Roadie maybe?

Padawan Gammell at OO, puttin’ the hurt on all who follow.

Benson carries a smaller version of the potato cannon in his Camelback.

Julie was once again restricted to self preservation mode by her Mom. I think she’d look pretty hot if she had a couple of battle scars from Chequamegon that were visible when wearing her wedding dress.

Shortly after OO, the large man eating puddles began to appear. Some had narrow routes around them, while others gave you no option other than to plow through middle of them. In years past, things never really started to break apart until we hit the Fire Tower climb, however this year the puddles that preceded Fire Tower were the catalyst that began the disintegration. I never had any real issues with the puddles, my drive train made an awful grinding sound whenever I went through some of the puddles, other than that, it worked about as well as one could expect.

Padawan Gammel nearing the top of Fire Tower Hill, makes it look easy. He must have a really good coach…

The Rock, rode to a 1st place finish in the single eye division. The Eppens wanted to insure their dominance in the Iowa category, so they stole one of his contacts before the race.

Big John won the non-mutant division within his age group. Tilford is a mutant and therefore does not count.

As we hit the base of Fire Tower, our group was pretty well strung out with the exception of about five or six of us that were consistently near the front. Simonson took off like a scalded dog, Darrin Braun joined our group out of nowhere and made an attempt to stay with Simonson. Maxwell and I were a little further back, followed by Adam Swank, who had also clawed his way into our group after a not so good start. As we hit the top of Fire Tower, I went by Maxwell and put it into pursuit mode. I closed the gap to Darrin and we worked pretty well together to pull back Simonson after a couple of miles. Maxwell, Adam and Nate eventually closed the gap to us as we hit the final miles of the race.
As we rolled along the final sections of the Birkie, we had caught and passed a few that had blown themselves up with the lead group, Marko, Ryan Krayer (I think we passed him a little earlier, not 100% sure) and maybe one or two others. As we hit the final rollers, Simonson again took off and never looked back. Darrin tried to stay with him, but couldn’t hold his pace. I tried to stay with Darrin and couldn’t match his pace either. I took a quick look back and noticed that I had gapped everybody else off. So I put my head down and steadied my effort to try and reel Darrin back in before we hit the finish. As we hit the top of the last climb and I worked my way back up to Darrin and passed him as we started down the descent to the finish. I lead all of the way down and as we hit the last little power climb he went around me. I tried with everything that I had to keep him behind me, but it wasn’t there.

B Matter = dominance in the 40.

Jake Richards = dominance in the Short and Fat.

PRC chica Maria Von Ruhtenberg, the kid in the background appears to think that biker chicks are hot. I tend to agree with him….especially mine.

My biker chick.

The look of pain says it all, Darin blew by me like I was standing still at the finish.

The Eppenators = dominance on a tandem despite their ever present mechanical issues. Are they going to ditch the tandem for single bikes next year?

My Mom had a great race…rumor has it that she bested Pigs best time.

My lovely wife put in another solid effort that should gain her another preferred start for next year.

Benson told all of us that if we didn’t turn ourselves inside out at the finish, he’d launch a potato at our quads from point blank range. Tom thought he was serious.

I ended up 12th overall and 1st in my age group, just shy of my goal for a top ten. I’m pretty happy with that, considering that I was a little behind where I would have like to have been all season. I missed out on the lead break due to the dropped chain, however I’m not really sure that my result would have been much different had I made it into the lead group. It was a great day for a lot of folks from DSM, John Newell took 2nd in his age group, Sally Logan took 2nd in her age group, Jeff Barnes (Iowa City) was 4th in age, the Eppenators won the tandem division and Julie was 13th in her age despite being in self preservation mode due to our upcoming wedding. The old man of the woods, and I mean this in the most complementary of ways, John Adamson finished an incredible 23rd overall in the short and fat at the young age of 64?! And last but not least, my mom placed 3rd in her age group in the 40. Why did I not refer to my mom as ‘the old woman of the woods’ you ask? Well, she brought me into this world, and even though she is 63, she could just as easily take me out of it. ‘Nuff said.

Next up…I never thought that this day would come, Julie and I are heading out to Colorado to tie the knot. I never thought that I would be this excited to get hitched, but I am. I can’t think of a better person to spend the rest of my life with. I only hope that she can continue to put up with my occasional…maybe sometimes frequent ‘manly tendencies’…

Thanks for reading,

CK

Mapelag SR

2010-09-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

Photos from Skinnyski.com

Mmmmmmm, double fudge brownies.....

One of our favorite racing weekends of the year also marks the last days of summer. Even though we hate to see the end of summer, we have been looking forward to this weekend all year. The 8 hour drive up to Maplelag Resort, near Callaway, MN may be a long drive, but it is well worth it. Maplelag Resort is nestled among the trees in the north woods of Minnesota, with great on-site accommodations, awesome food that is served up family style, the company of a lot of fun, like minded people and one of the best, technical mountain bike race courses in the Midwest, it’s pretty easy to understand why Julie and I look forward to this weekend every year. Jay Richards and his family do a top notch job in putting on a great event.

The weekend started off with a short time trial that took racers anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. The TT course was a nice mix of very fast ski trail along with the tight, twisty singletrack that Maplelag is known for. It’s always a challenge to gage the effort at the beginning of a race like this. I’m so used to races that last 2 hours, that pacing for something like this is probably the biggest challenge. I probably charged out of the gate a little too quickly as I had to soft peddle a little near the end of my effort so that I could shove my throbbing heart back down my throat and have somewhat of a strong finish. I finished the TT about 40 seconds behind the stage winner Jason Sager, which was good enough for 8th place on the stage.
Julie’s TT was a slightly different story… Her warm up more or less set the precedent for the way that her weekend was going to go on the bike. She jumped on her bike to warm up and immediately noticed that something didn’t feel right. After a quick look over the rear end of the bike, I noticed that one of the bolts had completely fallen out of one of the pivots. The bolt was no where to be found, and it was an odd enough bolt that nobody had anything like it. As luck would have it, I had brought along my old Mongoose hard tail with plan of using it for the short track race. With a few minor adjustments, Julie was back in business. She was doing OK during her race until she dropped her chain. She lost a lot of time messing around with her chain and ended up finishing about 4 minutes behind women’s winner Sara Kylander-Johnson.

The short track race was held a few hours later, and like the TT, the men’s elite field was stacked with some of the best pro mountain bikers and roadies in the Midwest…yes, we even had a couple of roadies come up and try their luck on the dirt. I got off to a pretty bad start and almost immediately lost contact with the lead group consisting of Doug Swanson, Brendan Moore, Pat Lemiux, Jason Sager and Adam Bergman. Shortly after the start I found myself sitting with the 4th group of riders and managed to claw my way up to the 2nd group of two, Sam Oftedahl and Scott Kylander-Johnson. Near the end of the last lap, I attacked. SKJ went with me and as he passed by Sam, Sam looked at him and said ‘I’m done’. At three corners to go, SKJ cut to the inside and nudged his way passed me. At two corners to go, my chain dropped from my big ring to my middle ring and that was pretty much the end of that battle. By the time I had gotten my chain sorted out, SKJ was long gone. Sam had given up enough that I was able to finish ahead if him and hold on to 7th place. Julie had another disappointing race and had gotten pulled from the race. To her credit, the elite women were thrown in with the Comp men and the pace was a little more than she could handle.

Doug schooled the roadies and mtn bikers in the STXC.

Sunday brought some more near perfect weather and the cross country race. The same players from yesterday were at the start, plus a few others that opted out of doing the full stage race. I got off to a decent start and as we approached the singletrack, the usual bottleneck had formed. I entered the singletrack along side Hollywood and we somehow got locked together while descending a pretty techy section of trail. How we both managed to keep it upright, I’ll never know, but we did and he eventually conceded the position to me. It was a no harm, no foul situation and it’s a part of mountain bike racing that is actually kind of fun, so it was all good.

Jake racing in his backyard, every year he gets faster. It won't be long until you see him at the top of the podium.

Doug knows how to ride on the dirt, maybe some day I'll be fast enough to ride with him and maybe learn a little something.

A short while later, Jake Richards came flying by me near the end of one of the ski trail sections. As we entered the next section of singletrack, I figured that I would try to stay on his wheel and take advantage of his home course knowledge…with ‘try’ being the operative word. I held his wheel for about 0.25 seconds before he was out of sight. At this point, my HR was still through the roof, so I slowed the pace a little so that I could catch my breath and settle into a comfortable pace.
As the race progressed, I did more passing than getting passed and had a lot of fun duking it out with Kevin Ishaug and Josh Tesch. I eventually got dropped by both of them near the middle of lap 2, and a short while later I passed Josh as he was standing on the side of the trail with what looked to be some sort of mechanical issue. I eventually caught back up to Kevin near the end of lap two and passed him as we rolled through the start/finish area.

Workin' my way through the field, I felt better as the race progressed, must be an old age thing.

As I neared the first section of singletrack, I looked back and Kevin was out of sight. So I put my head down and kept the throttle open. As the lap progressed, he was slowly reeling me in on some of the techy sections. When the trail opened up I was able to create a little more distance between us. As I approached the mid point of the last lap, I could see Jake up the trail. He provided a little more motivation for me and I was able to catch to him. As we rolled onto a section of ski trail, I passed him and told him to grab onto my wheel so that we could work together a little. He grabbed on and held on for a short while before I noticed that he was gone.

Threading my way through one of the many sweet techy sections of the course.

I managed to hold off Jake and Kevin for a hard earned 8th place finish. I was OK with the placing, but a little disappointed that I was almost 10 minutes behind the winner, I got over it pretty quickly though. You can't help but smile after racing on a sweet course like Mapelag.

Julie was under a mandatory self preservation race order from her Mom, with our wedding a couple of weeks away!

Julie had another tough race and ended dropping out after the first lap. With our wedding only being a couple of weeks away, she’s had a lot on her mind. This is the type of course where you need to have your head in the game, otherwise it’s going to be a very long, tough race.

Next up is another one of our favorite weekends, Chequamegon. A race that ranks right up there with Mapelag. We're looking forward to some good times with some good friends, beautiful scenery and all of the hoopla that goes along with a mountain bike race that has over 2,500 racers!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Sugarbottom

2010-09-04T13:46:00.001-07:00

Brian leading the way at the start, his feet are a blur because he's spinning a 250 rpm cadence on his singlespeed.

After a two weekend break from racing, Julie and I were both looking forward to last weekends race at Sugarbottom. Training has been going well and I felt like my fitness was starting to come around, however you never really know for sure until you through it down on the race course.
Julie and I decided to head over to the course on Saturday for a quick preview of what we might expect for Sunday. The course was typical Sugarbottom, lot’s of big, gnarly, exposed roots. Lot’s of chatter bumps in all of the high speed braking areas. It also had a lot of nice re-routes due to all of the flooding that had occurred throughout the summer. It looked to be a classic Sugarbottom race, arguably one of the toughest races in Iowa.
The usual Iowa suspects were present and accounted for on Sunday with a special guest appearance from a recent Tour De France participant Jason McCartney…I think he was on one of Lance’s tour teams, yes? No? Who knows, doesn’t matter, though I was really anxious to see how he’d do on a tough course like Sugarbottom!
The race started and my plan was to sit back a little and not blow my wad getting to the sharp end of the field. I ended up rolling into the woods about 7th wheel, a little further back than I wanted to be. The front group of about 8 pretty much stayed together throughout the first half lap. McCartney and Ryan Nenninger both flatted early. I kind of figured that something would happen to Jason. At the start of the race, he was asking a lot of questions about how to use certain things on his bike. That almost always leads to some sort of mechanical melt down in a race. It’s too bad because it would have been pretty cool to race against another cyclist of his caliber.

Jason looking for a wheel swap from the Radio Shack team car or the Mavic neutral support car.

As lap one progressed, some of the guys ahead of me started to yoyo off of the guy in front. As we hit the first section of road, I passed the guy in front of me and made contact with the tail end of the lead four of Eppen, Aaron R, Keven M and Shim. We rolled through the beginner loop and as we hit the next section of road, Eppen took over the lead from Aaron. I tried to move up to 2nd or 3rd, but got snaked by Shim as we hit the next section of singletrack. Not really sure why he did that because he looked like he was dying a slow death. We rolled into the singletrack and Eppen began to pull away from the group. Shim was struggling to carry speed throughout the singletrack and almost laid his bike down at one point. I finally asked if he’d let me by and by the time I got by, Eppen was long gone and Aaron was up the tail, but still in sight.
I gradually reeled Aaron in with Kevin on my wheel and we rode behind Aaron until the end of lap one. As we climbed to gravel road at the beginning of lap one, Kevin took over 2nd and I grabbed onto his wheel. As we made our way through the first section of singletrack, Aaron gradually fell off of our pace. I followed Kevin’s wheel throughout the first section of singletrack and the beginner loop. As we rolled along the gravel road after the beginner loop, I passed Kevin to do my share of the work in keeping Aaron behind us. By this time Eppen had a 2+ minutes on us and appeared to have the W locked up, barring any kind of mishap.
I upped the effort a little and noticed that Kevin was starting to dangle on some of the climbs. This encouraged me to push a little harder and I eventually was able to create some separation between us. I began to shift my focus on trying to close the gap to Brian, however by the end of lap two, he was already 2 ½ minutes up on me. I did my best to keep the pace high in hopes of closing in on him a little, and also keep Kevin and whoever else behind me.
Eppen ended up staying away took the W, I held on for 2nd, Kevin came in 3rd and Aaron salvaged 4th. I was pretty happy with the result. It’s a pretty tough course that doesn’t necessarily suit my strengths all that well. I also had to contend with a lot of guys that know the course a lot better than I do, so all in all, it was a very good day!

Big John is tall, his verticality probably grabbed enough wind that it took his momentum away on the way up cyclocross hill.

Despite being out on the course for around 3 ½ hours, Julie had a pretty good day too. She said that it was the best that she’d felt on the mountain bike all year! She also had to contend with a very strong field of women, most of which are from the Iowa City area and know the course a lot better than her.

The Mercy Specialized chicks took off like a pack of scalded dogs and left Julie in the dust.

We saw a lot of peeps decked out in various Rassy kits, it was great to see a good showing of the Rassy squad at an ‘away’ race! Great job to all that finished, regardless of your level, Sugarbottom is a very tough course for everyone.

Next up is the long drive to Mapelag Resort in western Minnesota for the Minnesota series stage race. This has quickly become one of our favorite races of the year. The folks at Mapelag know how to put on a great event and take excellent care of all of the participants with great accommodations, great food and a lot of awesome riding!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Border Battle

2010-08-22T18:02:00.000-07:00

Damp and tacky…the best mountain bike racing conditions that one could ask for. That was the condition of the course during Saturday’s recon ride, though rain was forecasted at some point during the overnight hours. I wasn’t too worried about it though as the course in River Falls seems to handle precipitation really well. Julie and I stayed at my Uncles house in the Twin Cities area and sure enough, at some point in the middle of the night, the rumbling of thunder brought us out of a deep slumber.
We showed up at the course to sweltering heat and humidity and almost immediately noticed all of the mud covered bikes from the Citizens race. The Sport racers bikes looked a little better and gave me a little more optimism for our race. I’m not real fond of muddy races, I’ve done plenty of them in the past and find them more of a pain in the arse than anything else. The long drive home with muddy bikes and clothes stowed away in the back of the car makes the car smell like a hog confinement lot by the time we get home.
Once again, WORS ringleader Don Edberg was kind enough to give me a 2nd row call up by virtue of my Pro license. Though I realize that I am far from being a real Pro, having the license definitely has it’s benefits, one of those being call ups at the WORS and Minnesota races where the Elite category routinely has 50 or more starters.
Don said ‘Gooooooooooooo’, and off we went. I got off to a pretty decent start, probably sitting somewhere in the top 20 going up the hill. The first half of the course doesn’t really suit my riding strengths very well, and that happened to be where all of the mud was. There were a couple of small mud bogs in the first open field section, and some of the tight, twisty sections at the beginning were pretty greasy with some snot covered roots to add to the challenge. Another small perk was the first bridge crossing, a narrow bridge spanning a short, man eating gully. The bridge isn’t the real challenge however, it’s the rock placement before the bridge the messes with a lot of people. It’s challenging enough when its dry, however today the rocks had a nice coating of snot on them, which I heard led to a lot of people falling into the deep abyss beneath the bridge. The second half of the course was pretty close to perfect and boasts some of the fastest, flowy singletrack that I’ve ever had the pleasure of rolling my wheels over.
Throughout the race, I got passed by a few and passed a few others. Scott KJ went flying by me somewhere near the beginning of the first lap and left me for the buzzards. When the conditions are technical and muddy, Scott transforms into superman and absolutely flies through all of the tough sections. I wish that I had half of his ability to handle the bike. About midway through the race, I finally began to settle into a good rhythm and had a few really fun battles with Chad Sova, Barry Tingseth, Neil Swanson and a couple of others. Barry led the way through most of the tight, twisty sections. His selection of lines were superb and I had a great time riding behind him and Chad.
On the last lap, we hit the last open section at the top of the hill, I kicked into the big ring and passed Barry and motioned to him to grab onto my wheel in an attempt to do my share of the work. By then we had lost Chad and Neil and we wanted to keep it that way! When I hit the singletrack, I took a quick look back and had lost Barry. So I kept the pressure on to the end of the race and managed to hold him off for….16th overall? I thought that I might have done a little better, however I’m not too surprised as the first half of the course really slowed me down due to the mud. After looking at the final results, I actually feel OK about the result as the field was pretty stacked with a lot of the best racers in the Midwest. So in the end, it was a pretty good day. The mud and heat slowed me down a little, but I still had a great time….I love racing my mountain bike…

My dirty girl makes me purr.

Julie had a pretty rough day, she’s not real crazy about the mud or the heat. She finished her race and rolled up to the car with mud spattered all over her and had that look on her face that asked the question, ‘why in the hell do I do this???’. I know it’s largely because of me, but I also know that she really enjoys it for the most part. I really do have it good…Also, just in case you didn’t know, we’re getting’ hitched in September. Yep, I finally found somebody who’s willing to put up with all of my nonsense…

Thanks for reading,

CK

Seven Oaks

2010-08-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Two weeks in Colorado has come and gone. Got a lot of great rides in and hopefully have things turned around for the remainder of the season… With all of the rain that we had been getting heading into the weekend of the Seven Oaks race, I thought for sure that they were going to have to postpone it. So with that assumption, I headed out for 105 miles of Zone 2 with 45 minutes of race pace intervals in the middle on Saturday on the roads northwest of Ames. Great roads, little to no traffic, and if there is any traffic, every one of them pulled over into the opposite lane and gave me plenty of room. It seems like such a simple thing to do, not sure why some people have difficulty with this courtesy around Des Moines…
So I got back to Julie’s after my ride and gave Mr. race director a call about the status of the race, fully expecting to announce the postponement on the net. The response…’damp and tacky’. I got pretty excited because I love damp and tacky conditions on a race course, until I realized that I had just drained all of my energy stores on my long ride.
So on Sunday morning, as expected, I was feeling very tired and lethargic from the previous days efforts. Definitely didn’t feel the same enthusiasm that I typically do for a race at Seven Oaks. I did a couple of recon laps on the shortened course (due to several washouts from all of the rain) and felt like I had very tired legs.
The race started and, as I had expected, Kevin McConnell took the hole shot. I went pretty hard and could only manage 5th wheel going into the singletrack. As we were approaching the top of the initial climb, Nathan C was off his bike and scrambling to get back in line ahead of me. I put the kabash on that and managed to get by before he re-mounted his steed. Kevin had already began to open a gap and I was fully prepared to let him go. I didn’t really have much of a choice anyway because Ryan Feagan and Mike Sencenbaugh were ahead of me.
I rode with Ryan and Mike for the first lap at a pretty comfortable pace and didn’t really feel like I was pushing myself too hard. As we were completing the first lap, Kevin was only a few seconds ahead of us. My first thought was to get by Ryan and Mike to close the gap. However rather than gas myself in doing so, I decided to let Ryan and Mike do the dirty work. As we hit the singletrack, it was apparent that nobody was going to close the gap. So I settled in for lap 2 behind Ryan and Mike. As we made our way up the climb, Kevin once again increased his gap and gradually did so to the point where he was out of sight. About halfway through the lap, I passed Ryan and Mike and hit the throttle to give my legs a little test at a slightly harder effort. They felt pretty good, so I kept the pressure on in hopes of loosing both of them.
I opened a gap pretty quickly and actually felt like I had more power under the hood than I had originally thought. At the end of lap 2, Kevin had about a 50 second gap on me and thoughts of closing the gap began to enter into my mind. I held the pace over the 3rd lap and felt pretty comfortable throughout the lap. Kevin still had a 50 second gap on me at the end of lap 3 and Mike and Ryan were far enough behind that I could no longer tell where they were. Throughout lap 4, I began to believe that I actually had enough in me that I could close the gap, so I opened the throttle a little more and felt surprisingly good. I was riding well and made very few mistakes throughout the technical course.
At the end of lap 4, I had closed the gap down to 40 seconds which fueled my fire even more. I hit it even harder and in my cross-eyed state thought that this was the last lap. I let it all hang out and could sense that I was rapidly closing the gap. As we approached the end of lap 4, I saw Kevin a short distance up the trail. When I hit the bottom of the hill, Kevin looked like he was well within reach, so I buried myself in hopes of catching him before the finish. He rolled across the finish line about 5 seconds ahead of me, and continued on like he still had another lap to do. I looked at the peeps in the timing tent and they looked at me like I still had another lap to do…crap. I caught up to Kevin and he said that he wasn’t all that jazzed to see me…funny. I asked the obvious question, ‘ do we still have another lap to do?’, he said unfortunately yes.
As we were climbing the hill at the beginning of lap 6, I was dying a slow death from my efforts and Kevin was once again pulling away. He quickly opened up a gap again, to the point where I couldn’t see him anymore. I held my pace until I felt like I was getting my wind back. As I approached the top of the climb, I prepared myself for another 10 minute effort in the red zone, intent on bringing Kevin back. As I approached the end of the lap, I once again saw that I was quickly closing in on Kevin. As we were rolling through the grassy downhill, Kevin overcooked a turn and was rolling through the weeds. I passed him and hit it pretty hard on the remainder of the descent. The last ¼ mile was on an open grassy stretch and I kept the pressure on, thinking that if I hit the last few turns first, the win was as good as mine. To my surprise, Kevin stuck his wheel between me and the inside of a pretty fast corner. It was a pretty ballsy move and he stuck with it and managed to grab the best line as we approached the finish. I gave it all that I had and quickly realized that he had the inside line going into the last corner before the remaining 10’ to the finish. I shut it down realizing that there was no way that I was going to be able to get by him. He ended up getting me by about the width of a wheel. I’m pretty sure that Ron and Troy were not anticipating a sprint finish in a mountain bike race, otherwise they might have re-thought the way that they configured the finish line! Regardless, Kevin rode a smart race and deserved the win, so it all worked out a-ok.
Despite finishing 2nd, I felt like it was probably the best race that I’ve had all year. I felt like I had a lot of power throughout the race, especially when I consider what I had done the day before. Up until this race, I didn’t feel like I had any sustained power. Kevin has had a lot of solid results this year, a couple of top tens in the WORS series to name a few. So I felt really good about finishing with him today.
The next race is going to be a good test for me, the Border Battle in River Falls, WI. The race is a combo race, mixing the WORS and Minnesota series, so most of the big guns in the Midwest will be there.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Mankato

2010-07-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve had some of my best races at Mankato, so I was hoping for a little more of the same this year. Julie and I were about 90 minutes into the drive to Mankato the day before the race, when my phone rang. Jesse had called to tell me that the course was closed for pre-riding due to extensive damage from all of the rain. So we drove to Shakopee, dropped our stuff off at Jesse’s and went out for a spin. Later that night, the heavens opened up and dumped about 1 ½” of rain onto an already saturated race course.
We arrived at the course the next day and saw some of the Cat 3 bikes after their race. Most of them had a nice, thick coating of peanut butter all over them. The Cat 2 race was going on and their bikes didn’t look a whole lot better. It did look like the course conditions were improving a little, so I decided to buck up and do the race.
There were only about 35 starters in the Elite field, and like the last Minnesota race, I got off to a really good start and was rolling about 5th most of the way up the initial climb. About halfway through the first lap, I could feel that feeling coming on like I was going to spend the remainder of the race dying a very slow death. I got passed by 4 or 5 others and it got to the point where I intentionally slowed and waved three of them by me. Most of my dying had occurred when going uphill, I felt pretty good on the flats and could hold pace with just about anybody. I even contemplated dropping out, however despite the climbing issues, I was still enjoying most of the course. There probably 4 or 5 places that were really muddy, bad enough that it pretty much coated the bike with sandy mud. Otherwise, the course was damp, very grippy and a lot of fun. Much to my surprise, I salvaged a 10th overall. I thought for sure that I was going to be a lot further back. Jesse had a pretty stellar day and took the win over Brendan by about 10 seconds. Yeah, Brendan raced the Subaru Cup the day before and Jesse didn’t. Put an asterisk by his name if you want, but a win is a win. He’s riding really well this year and it was only a matter of time before he bagged a win.
So you might be asking why I opted to do this race, rather than the Subaru Cup over in Wisconsin… There are a couple of reasons, first, for a reason that I’m still trying to sort out, my form on the mountain bike is considerably less than it had been over the past couple of years. I don’t really feel like I’m worthy to race as a Pro locally, much less amongst national caliber Pros. Second, I would have ended up starting near the back of the field. I’m racing so poorly this year that I probably would have gotten lapped and pulled within a couple of laps. I really hated missing the Subaru Cup, I really love the course and they do such a phenomenal job with the WORS series. Mankato is a lot closer and we ended up spending a lot less money racing in Mankato.
It’s going to be a few weeks before I race again. I’m doing the Marathon Nationals in Breck this weekend, however I’ve decided to do it as a training ride so that I can focus more on getting my fitness turned around and back to where it should be while we’re out in Colorado. If you’re some jack wagon of a thug thinking about breaking into my house while I’m gone…think again dude. I have a bad ass, football coach neighbor who is home 24/7 that’s going to keep an eye on my pad. If you try something stupid, he will grab you, twist you into a pretzel and then deposit you in his curbside garbage can on trash day, shortly thereafter you will get a nice tour of Des Moines in the back a Metro Waste Authority tour bus.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Ponca

2010-06-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

Ponca is a pretty tough course, if you don't believe me, ask Jed.

Ponca…another one of my favorite courses. With all of the rain that the Midwest had been receiving, it was pretty amazing that the race even happened. God was kind enough to provide all of us with near perfect trail conditions as the dirt was damp and very grippy. Lot’s of Iowa peeps made the trip across the river to experience some of the sweet singletrack that the state of Nebraska has to offer, Jed, Maria, Keely, Nate C, Jesse and Katie B to name a few. It was great to finally see a lot of folks from Iowa there. It’d be great to see more Iowa folks head to Nebraska and vice versa.
So the usual Nebraska suspects lined up for the start sans Kent and Steve, I ended up with a pretty lousy start sitting near the back of the pack. As we were approaching the singletrack, I saw MOD roll to the side of the trail with his chain dangling from his drive train. I was really looking forward to dukin’ it out with him, so I was pretty bummed for him. I ended up going into the woods in 8th on Jed’s wheel. It was actually OK with that because we were all in a pretty tight line throughout the beginning of lap 1 (of 5). Jed found some creative ways to get past a couple of dudes that had over-extended themselves at the start. I sat back and patiently waited for chances to pass in the tight, twisty singletrack. Throughout the course of lap 1, I managed to claw my way up to 2nd behind Kevin. I did pretty well in selecting the right places to pass, never pushing myself into the red zone.
As we approached the steep climb leading up to the road crossing, I passed Kevin at a location that would be difficult for anybody else to get by him. I accelerated up the climb with the intent on opening a gap. As I crossed the road at the top of the climb, I could tell that nobody else had gotten around Kevin and that I had established a pretty decent gap. I kept the pressure on throughout lap 2 and took an occasional glance back when the course doubled back on itself and saw nobody….perfect.
I backed it off a tad on laps 3 and 4, keeping one eye on the trail ahead and one eye on the trail behind. As I started lap 5, I turned up the heat again to ensure that nobody (MOD in particular) caught me. MOD has enough bike savvy that he can fix things quicker than the average joe, especially a dropped chain. Nobody ended up catching me, though I think that it would have been a different story if MOD could have kept his chain on his bike. It also would have been a different story if Kent had been there. He instead, opted to spend the weekend down in Arizona chasing forest fires on his bike. Despite dropping his chain three times, MOD managed to salvage a much deserved 2nd and Jesse P continued his good season with 3rd.
Julie had some good competition in the Cat 1 race with Keely Shannon of the PRC Divas making the trip from Des Moines. I was really looking forward to the outcome as they seem to be pretty evenly matched. As I was beginning lap 4, I saw Julie up the trail. I always find myself experiencing the same dichotomy whenever I pass Julie in a race, one hand it would be good not to see her because that would mean that she was having a better than usual race. On the other hand, I love coming up behind her and watching her get her rage on, it makes me smile. Thankfully it wasn’t during a tricky part of the course as it is always a bit of a distraction when passing her during a race….purrrrrrr. Seeing Julie before Keely could only mean one of two things, either Keely is ahead of her, or Keely had dropped out. About a half lap later, I caught and passed Keely. I thought about knocking her into the weeds to kinda help Julie out a little, however the sportsman in me took over and I opted to pass her with kindness. Keely ended up taking down Julie for the win with Julie finishing in 2nd a few minutes back. It’s going to be a lot of fun watching the two of them duke it out over the rest of the season!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Afton

2010-06-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

We saw the family truckster on the way up...we knew it was going to be a good weekend after that.

BS'n with Doug and Eric O.

The start of the 70+ strong elite field. Brendan's thinkin', "is that all you guys got for me?"

Afton…one of my favorite race courses. You’re either going up or down at Afton, and when you’re going down, it’s usually fast and can be pretty technical at times, so there’s not much opportunity for recovery. No less than 73 elite men toed the line at the start. I had, by my standards, a great start sitting 4th wheel after the initial climb and ended up 5th wheel going into the woods. It was at about that time that I realized I was going to have an average day. During the first few miles, whenever the trail opened up I got passed by one or two others. This continued for a short while until I finally recovered a little and was able to settle into a somewhat comfortable rhythm. At that point I was riding somewhere at the bottom end of the top ten.
During the 2nd and 3rd laps, I could see Eric Oftedahl and Garrett Kuzzy duking it out behind me on some of the portions of the course that doubled back on itself. I think at this point I was sitting around 8th or 9th maybe. So my goal at the time was to keep both of them behind me. As we progressed through laps 2 and 3, I was beginning to suffer on a couple of the steeper climbs, especially Shady Lane. In the past it had always been pretty easy to middle ring the climb, but for whatever reason, it was a struggle this time around. I persisted with the middle ring, turning a slower than normal cadence. In hindsight, probably not the best thing as pushing a lower cadence tends to sap the strength out of my legs.
During lap 3, I began to succumb to my suffering, Eric and Garrett were closing in on me. Garrett eventually caught up to me and settled in on my wheel. At the time, I had no idea who he was, I had never seen nor heard of him. So I had no knowledge of any potential weaknesses to exploit. As we rode along, Eric looked like he was beginning to fade, and Garrett was showing no signs of tiring. About halfway through lap 3, Garrett went around me and left me for the buzzards. I had no response for him and all that I could do was watch him ride away from me like I was standing still.
For the rest of lap 3, I was pretty much in survival mode. The heat was starting to get to me a little and my legs felt like crap when the trail turned skyward. At the beginning of lap 4, I noticed some heavy clouds starting to roll in and the temperature had dropped about 10° over the course of about 5 minutes. I felt this sudden burst of energy, it felt like all of the fatigue in my legs had been flushed…sweet! I increased the effort with the hope of catching and passing somebody, which I did. Unfortunately it was Sam O, standing on the side of the trail fixing a flat. It’s too bad as he was having a pretty stellar race. I think that he was sitting in a pretty solid 2nd place at the time that he flatted. I felt pretty bad for him, but that’s an unfortunate part of racing sometimes. His flat provided even more motivation for me, I didn’t want to get caught and re-passed by him.

Cresting one of the many climbs on the course with an angry pair of legs.

During the latter part of lap 4, the lapped traffic from the Comp race was getting pretty thick and it was staring to sprinkle a little. I ended up in 7th overall, about 90 seconds behind Garrett and about 40 seconds ahead of Sam O. After realizing the quality of the field, I was pretty content with the result. There were a lot of fast guys, Brendan as always, Doug, Jesse, McBurney had a great race. Tad Elliott, I think he is a U23 national cross and mountain bike champion. I talked to Eric O after the race and he told me that Garrett was on the 2008 Olympic Nordic Ski team. So yeah, there were a lot of big engines in the field.

Julie cresting one of the many climbs on the course…she had very angry legs too. She really did have a good time, she just didn’t know it at the time.

Julie’s race….another story. This was her first big race as a Cat 1 and I can only imagine the intimidation as she lined up with the other elite women, which included national caliber pro Jenna Rinehart. Afton is one of the most difficult race courses in the Midwest. The severity of the climbs and the sometimes technical nature of the trails can be challenging for just about all of us. The Minnesota series implemented a new rule this year, that all lapped riders would be pulled from the race. During the latter part of her race, she got lapped by Jenna and as Jenna passed, Julie told Jenna that she had never been happier about being lapped. Jenna had a big enough lead that she slowed and introduced herself to Julie and chatted it up for a few seconds. It’s things like that and racing mostly in the local scene, that makes Jenna a great ambassador for the women’s side of mountain bike racing in the Midwest. Jenna has the potential to make a career out of mountain bike racing, but instead chooses to keep it local and primarily race the Minnesota series. Good stuff.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Snake Alley

2010-06-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

Far and above my favorite race on pavement.

Snake Alley was pretty much a same race different year type of deal. For the 3rd year in a row, I won the 40+ race and finished 2nd in the 30+ race. The start list for both races get tougher and tougher each year. The 40+ race had over 30 competitors and contained several with a proven track record, Paul Deninger, Jeff Barnes, Dan Casper, Babe the Blue Ox (formerly known as Shrek), Jim Cochran and Dale Sedgwick to name a few.
The race started and I was able to quickly find my way to the front group, which had whittled itself down to about 15 racers with 6 laps to go. This seemed like a little more than usual, and for whatever reason, I felt the need to amp it up a little. So I punched it going up the Snake with 6 laps to go and found myself with a pretty good gap at the top. A lapse in judgment encouraged me to keep the pressure on with the idea of going solo to the end.
As I was making my way up the Snake on the last lap, I looked down the switchbacks when I hit the top and noticed Cochran was quickly closing down the gap. One of the keys to making a gap stick on the Snake is to continue the hard effort beyond the top of the Snake when most others are cooked. So as I rolled over the top, I dropped it into the big ring and hammered it down to the first corner. I coasted through the three 90’s and drilled it on the flats. As I approached the finish line, I took a quick look back and just barely held off a quick charging Cochran for my 3rd 40+ win in three years. I made it really hard on myself by attacking so soon, and it almost cost me the race.

The look on my face says it all...it hurts really bad when you try to solo the last six laps of the race.

The 30+ field was probably the most stacked that I had ever seen, with Dewey Dickey as the clear favorite, former Tilfordette Shadd Smith, Ian Stanford, Barnes, Cochran, Casper and professional triathlete TJ Tollakson. I got off to a pretty crappy start and was in last place rolling up the Snake on lap 1. I kept my cool and gradually picked my way through the field and had noticed that a lead group had formed after a couple of laps, and I wasn’t a part of it.
Over the next few laps, I hit it pretty hard up the Snake, coasted on the downhill and maintained a decent tempo on the flats. By lap 6 I had the lead group within my reach and finally completed the bridge going up the Snake. I settled in near the back of the group, with the intent on sitting in for a couple of laps to recover, observe and determine who the contenders were going to be. With four laps to go, Dan Casper took a flyer off the front as we passed the start/finish line. Nobody seemed interested in responding, myself included. It was pretty hot out, and I thought that it was a little too early…a little lesson that I thought that I had learned earlier in the day. There were a lot of cats in the field with a lot of top level experience, enough that I figured the group would eventually bring Casper back.
With two laps to go, Casper had a pretty big lead and nobody seemed at all interested in working to bring him back. So as we hit the Snake, I knocked the rear end down a few cogs and accelerated to the top. I had a pretty good gap at the top and continued the effort down the backside with the intent of trying to reel in Casper and also nail down 2nd place at the very least. I was closing down the gap to Casper over the duration of the last two laps and increasing the gap between myself and the chasers. I came up a little short and had a front row seat to Caspers victory celebration, but managed to hold off the chase group for my 3rd 30+ runner up finish in as many years. As I was congratulating Casper on his much deserved victory, he told me that he took a page out of my book from the 40+ race and thanked me for the lesson. I thought that was a pretty cool compliment.
Julie is steadily improving on the road side of things and finished a very respectable 13th out of a field of over 30 in the Cat 4 race. She’s acquired my unfortunate habit of lousy starts and was pretty much DFL going up the Snake on lap one. She made steady progress throughout and would most likely have finished further up the order if the race would have been longer. She’ll get there…

Thanks for reading,

CK

Banner Pits

2010-06-13T05:22:00.000-07:00

Despite riding like a rookie, I still enjoyed the day.

I was really looking forward to racing at Banner again this year. The folks of CITA built a sweet little network of very technical trails that make for some pretty tough racing conditions. And to make things even more difficult, the temperature soared into the upper 80’s!
The race started and my goal was to take the hole shot into the woods, however Ryan Nenninger also appeared to have the same idea. I didn’t have any interest in blowin’ my wad at the start of the race, so I let him have it. At the first point where the course split of for beginners, the race organizers forgot to remove the tape blocking off the Cat 1 course. Confusion ensued, and Ryan slowed to roll through the tape. The wire holding the tape in place looked like it had wrapped itself around his drive train and he had to stop. I went by and took over the lead with Nate on my wheel.
Shortly after I took the lead, I heard the sounds of a bike/tree altercation behind me. It sounded like Nate had gotten bested in his clash with a tree. It was way too early to go solo, but for whatever reason, I took off hoping to create a gap and keep it for the duration. I was able to maintain a small gap on Kevin McConnell over the first two laps, despite having one of those days where I was riding with two left hands. I had a really hard time getting my head into the game…not a good course if you’re lacking focus. I took a lot of bad lines, I felt like my front tire was washing out in a lot of the corners, etc.
On lap three, my haphazard handling got the best of me. As I approached a plank bridge that went over a log, my front tire missed the plank and T-boned the log. I went sailing over the bars, quickly picked myself back up and was able to continue on…until I realized that my shifting at the rear end was all over the place. I tried the barrel adjuster with no success, and shortly after that, my chain wedged itself between the cassette and the spokes. I stopped and it took an eternity to pull the chain out. When I finally got the chain rerouted, I hopped back on the bike and the shifting was still screwed up. Rather than risk screwing my drive train up further, I decided to pull the plug. When I got back to the car, a short examination of the rear end revealed that I had a bent rear der hanger. Definitely game over and a rare DNF for the day. Julie had suffered almost the same fate, no crash, however she had gotten her chain so wadded up behind the cassette, that I had to break the chain and pull the cassette off the get it out. So what did we do to commemorate the day? We drank some beer, of the New Glarus Belgian Red variety, with my brother and his wife, who were in town from Florida that night.

Julie on one of the many bikes that she got to demo after wadding up her chain in the rear end of her bike.

The race wasn’t a total loss however. As I was doing a course recon before the race, the beginners were in the middle of their race. I came up on Wendy Herrick as she was slowly picking her way through the techy trails. We came up on one of the trickier, steep descents and she stopped at the top and looked like she was getting ready to dismount and walk it. I rolled up beside her and offered some instruction on how to negotiate the trail. I jumped on my bike and demonstrated what I had told her and then waited at the bottom for her. She thought about it for a couple of seconds, backed up a little and then took the plunge. As soon as she hit the bottom, she let out a scream of excitement as she rolled to stop. The look on her face was of pure excitement and I could tell that she was a little overwhelmed from the rush of adrenaline that she has just experienced. After being thanked several times, I continued on my course recon. I had a really hard time containing the grin that I had on my face for the remainder of the ride. That experience alone made up for the lack of success during the race. Moments like that are why I love hosting the women’s mountain biking clinic every year. It is so much fun watching others experience various aspects of mountain biking for the first time!

Thanks for reading,

CK

State Fair Crit

2010-06-10T18:35:00.000-07:00

Blockin' the wind for Dewie with 3 laps to go

With nothing going on the dirt within a 3 hour radius this weekend, we decided to keep it local and get some Snake Alley practice in at the Iowa State Fairgrounds crit. After doing several recon laps, I can see why people might liken this course to Snake Alley, with one exception, there are no flats on this course, either up or down.
I needed a good training weekend, so Julie and I went our separate ways the day before and did a 4 hour endurance ride. I felt really good throughout the ride and kinda thought that I would have a pretty good couple of races on Sunday. I planned to do the 40+ race, see how it goes, then decide on the P/1/2 race afterwards.
We lined up for the 40+ race to a pretty stacked field for a bunch of old guys, Dewey Dickey, Kung Lou, Paul Deninger and Babe (formerly known as Shrek) to name a few. I got off to my usual crappy start due to my inability to get clipped in before slotting myself into DFL. I quickly caught up to the lead group by the time we hit the top of the climb. A few laps later the lead group had whittled itself down to myself, Dewey, Babe, Paul, Lou…there may have been a few others. There were a few attacks going up the hill, however it was a half-hearted attack by Dewey that shattered the remainder of the group. I managed to stay with him and when we hit the top of the hill, I took a quick look back and saw that we were alone. I took the lead and kept the pressure on going down the hill.

Dewey didn’t appear to have any interest in sharing the workload, so I broke the wind over the next couple of laps, waiting for the inevitable attack from Dewey going up the hill. The attack never occurred and as we hit the top of the hill, I pretty much had myself ready to turn myself inside out to keep Dewey behind me. We hit the bottom of the hill, rounded the 180, and found the perfect gear to accelerate up the small climb to the finish. I never really considered myself to be much of a sprinter, but I managed to outkick Dewey for the win. It was great to finally beat Dewey after having gotten my arse handed to me by him over the last 10 or so years, however I also realize that he was most likely saving himself for the P/1/2 race.
I felt good enough after the race that I decided to sign up for the P/1/2 race. I think that I might have acted a little too quickly in my decision as my brain was still operating off of little to no blood flow from the previous race. This realization came at the bottom of the climb on lap 1 of the P/1/2 race. Randy Reichardt and a few others thought it would be a great idea to amp it up on lap 1. Once again my inability to get my feet situated into the pedals had me rolling up the hill in last place.
By the time that I gotten myself out of the chaos of the rear end, a lead group of six had formed and appeared to be long gone. It was at about lap 3 that everybody in my group appeared to be self destructing as they were dropping like flies when going up the hill. The 2nd group contained myself, Brian West and a few others. I could see the lead group ahead of us and the gap wasn’t growing, so I figured that we still had a small chance of catching up. Once again, I found myself doing the bulk of the work at the front and about midway through the race, the lead group was about ¼ of the way up the hill when we were at the bottom. They appeared to be going at a fairly slow rate, so I put in pretty hard dig and started to close the gap at a pretty rapid rate. As I was closing in, Dewey took a look back and appeared to notice me catching up. He took off up the hill right as I had caught up and that was the end of the battle for the top spot on the podium.
I settled into the back of the chase group, consisting of Randy, Bryan Moritz, Jared Osterloh, Clark Priebe and Chad Bishop. I did little to no work as I had already worked myself over pretty good in bridging the gap from the 2nd group to the lead group. I was actually feeling pretty good as long as the effort didn’t exceed my Zone 3. Whenever the effort forced me into Zone 4, my legs protested the effort by threatening to detach themselves and club me over the head.
Over the last couple of laps, the attacks up the hill began. I didn’t have the legs to keep up, but I was able to bring myself back on the descent. On the final lap, Jared put in a pretty fierce attack up the hill and once again, I was unable to respond with the group. I caught back up to Chad Bishop, but the effort to catch him pretty much drained me of any sprint for the finish. I ended up in 7th and was pretty content with the result at the end of a hard weekend of training.

Julie looks really good on a bike...purrrrrrr.

Takin' the high speed 180 like a mountain biker.

Julie wasn’t quite as fortunate in her race as she was still suffering from the effects of the previous days ride. She’s also still trying to get the road bike racing thing figured out, especially when going downhill on certain courses like the State Fair course. She put in a very respectable effort, finishing 7 out of 11 in a race that combined all of the women into one category. When she finished her race, she told me that her legs were pretty po’d at me. They got over it pretty quickly as we treated ourselves to dinner and beer (for Julie) at the Court Avenue Brewey with Maria Von Ruuuuutenberg, Lisa V, Jeremy and a few others.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Ingawanis

2010-06-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

I always look forward to the annual trip to Waverly for the IMBCS race at Camp Ingawanis. Rob Walters and his posse always do a nice job with the course, schwag and post race food. I especially look forward to it when they do the race on the north loop. Lot’s of climbing, a sweet, techy rock garden and a lot of smokin’ fast descents. Today was especially cool because it was Mother’s Day and my Mom made the trip up from the QC to do the race.
After a recon lap, we lined up for the start and I took off with intent of being first into the woods. We hit the singletrack with me leading the way. The lead group eventually whittled down to myself, Kevin McConnell, Scott Gall and I think Brian Fuhrmann might have been there for a short while too. During lap 1 we eventually shook Brian and it was the three of us riding together for the first two laps.
After lap 1, Scott took over going up the gravel climb and we rolled into the woods on lap 3 with Kevin on my wheel. Throughout lap 3, I could tell that Scott was beginning to run out of gas, especially on the climbs. So about midway through lap 3, I went by Scott and put in a slight acceleration with the hope of at least loosing Scott. Kevin also got by Scott and tried to close the gap down to me, but seemed to be struggling.
I kept the pressure on with one eye on the trail and the other on Kevin. It’s a good course for Kevin because he’s a good technical rider. So I focused on putting hammer down on the fast open sections and being smooth through the techy stuff. I managed to hold off Kevin for the my first win of the season. Kevin rode a great race and brought home a much deserved 2nd. Brian Fuhrmann kept it together enough to get by a rapidly fading Scott Gall for 3rd.
Julie had ‘one of those days’. She was pretty pumped because the women’s Cat 1 field had 6 racers…that’s right, I said six! It wasn’t that long ago when we were lucky to have one woman toe the line in the expert / Cat 1 field. Julie and I are both totally stoked at the growth of women participation in mountain bike racing. So back to ‘one of those days’. Julie and I were doing a course recon and I was riding a little ahead of her to show her the ins and outs of the course. We were cruising through the rock garden and I was far enough ahead of her that I couldn’t see her when I looked back. I cleared the garden and shortly thereafter I heard a loud ‘crack’. My ‘female might be in trouble’ radar was in full alert mode, despite there being several other folks riding in front of and behind us. I doubled back and found her standing next to her bike, doubled over. She said that she had t-boned a tree and was taking inventory of any possible bodily damage. Once we determined that all was good, we continued on.
That more or less set the tone for the rest of her day as she hit the deck again during the race. She somehow managed to cross up her front wheel and flatted. She had forgotten to bring Co2 with her and ended up walking. Jim Logan eventually rolled up to her and offered his Co2, however the bead wasn’t set and the tire wouldn’t hold air. Jim, being the great guy that he is, offered Julie his front wheel. He was having a not so good day too, and was pretty insistent that she take it. She tried to decline, however Jim was having none of it. He pretty much took her wheel and put his on her bike and told her to get lost. That’s one of the many reasons that I love this sport. You won’t find a better group of people to hang out with. Oh, and Linda, if you’re reading this, mountain bike racing is still a very safe sport! If and when we crash, we usually land on very soft dirt and weeds and rarely end up with any broken body parts. I wouldn’t let your daughter participate if I thought that she was in any kind of danger. Nor would I allow my Mom to partake in the fun.
Speaking of my Mom, she had her usual ear to ear grin on her face the entire time she was riding. Watch her ride and that pretty says it all as far as how much fun riding a mountain bike can be.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Swanson

2010-06-02T18:53:00.000-07:00

Swanson is one of my favorite courses in the Psycowpath series. I like it even more when rain falls a couple of days prior to the event and dampens the course a little, making it tacky and fast. The usual suspects were toeing the line and when the whistle blew, Kent McNeill took off like a scalded dog. Shim managed to wedge himself between Kent and myself during the open field start loop. I came pretty close to blowing my wad in getting by Shim before we hit the woods, and by then Kent had already opened up a gap on us. I closed the gap down, only to have it re-open a few seconds later. And that was all she wrote for the battle for the win.
Within a half a lap, Kent was out of sight and had the rest of us more or less resigned to racing for the 2nd step on the podium. The first couple of laps were spent shadow boxing with Shim and MOD, until Shim clipped his pedal on tree. The tree knock him off his bike, Shim and his bike were sprawled across the trail. Being on Shim’s wheel, I had a quick decision to make. Ride over the top of Shim, or track stand it until he was able to get himself cleared. I opted for the latter because I like him and didn’t want to leave a tread mark up the side of his head. I eventually got around the wreckage and shortly after that MOD went by me.
I stayed on MOD’s wheel for a while, and after that ‘while’ was over I began to dangle until the elastic finally broke. For whatever reason, I just didn’t have it in me over the first half of the race. I found myself being very tentative through some of the more technical sections. It was one of those days I guess. MOD rode off into the sunset and left myself, Shim and Kev to battle for the table scraps.
So for the 3rd time, my plans for the race had to be revised. Throughout lap 3, I began to feel better physically and technically and figured that I would try to shell my companions through the start / finish area at the beginning of lap 4 if I were to have any chance of reeling MOD back in. We rolled through the start / finish area and I punched it. I heard a lot of chaos behind me, I didn’t realize it at the time, but Shim and Kev were both trying to get bottle hand ups. I kept the pressure on and opened a gap as we entered the woods. The gap continued to grow throughout lap 4, however I found myself being more concerned about the gap between MOD and myself.
I had finally found my groove and thought for sure that I was closing in on MOD. I kept the pressure on throughout lap 4 and 5, however MOD was riding really well and I never did see him.
I ended up finishing 3rd with Kent taking the W, and MOD finishing in a well deserved 2nd. Right now, Kent is in a league of his own and MOD is also going to be really tough to beat this year. I’m looking forward to taking another shot at both of them…I love the competition…
I was pretty happy to salvage a 3rd place on the day, considering how things were going over the first half of the race. I was off my game, but somehow managed to pull it together a little more over the last half. That I was able to turn things around like that made me pretty happy. My last two laps were my fastest of the race, to the tune of about 60 seconds, and they were on par with Kent’s lap times. I’m cool with that.
Julie had another great race, posting a win in the Cat 1 race. Yeah, she was the only Cat 1 registered, however they started her with the Cat 2 women. She rode away from the Cat 2 field and posted faster lap times than all of them. She is riding on some pretty good form right now and she’s handling the bike much better than I did when I was a year into mountain bike racing. If you’re a dude, and you get chicked by Julie, don’t feel bad about it ‘cause she’s tearin’ it up right now.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Bone Bender

2010-05-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

After having spent all of last week nursing my wounded calf muscle, I wasn’t sure as to whether I’d be doing the race up until the morning of the race. Julie and I went out for am easy ride Saturday afternoon and everything seemed to feel OK. I did a few very short, hard efforts to see how it felt and I didn’t notice any discomfort. However a 30 second effort is a far cry from a 6 hour effort, preceded by a le mans start.
The next morning we drove to the course, Julie and I did a short recon of the first part of the course and everything felt great, so I decided to sign up for the 6 hour with the intent of dropping out if I didn’t like the way my leg felt. We lined up for the start and I took it really easy on the run for fear of blowing my calf out again. I ran slowly enough that I didn’t feel a thing and finally got to my bike and ended up at about mid pack of 200+ racers.
I encountered the usual traffic jams going into the singletrack when stuck in mid pack. I was OK with that though as it forced me to take it easy in the beginning. The traffic was such that I ended up having to dismount a couple of times at a big log crossing and one of the rocky drops, due to others having to dismount. I had a couple of cats behind me that were annoyingly talkative in their efforts to get by me. I had kinda forgotten how people get when they get stuck in traffic, anxiously trying to get by in areas where there is no place to pass. I’m never sure where they think they’re going to go because if they get by me, they’re gonna get stuck behind the guy in front of me.
I finally cleared myself of the traffic jams near the end of lap 1 and was finally able to settle into a good enduro pace. I had no idea what place I was in throughout the race, however I was feeling good enough that I felt the urge to increase the effort to make up ground on the leaders. My better judgment kept my aggression in check and I maintained a comfortable pace as I didn’t want to exert more effort than my bad wheel could handle. Once clear of traffic, the course became a lot more fun to ride with plenty of techy stuff such as logs and bike component/man eating rock gardens.
Here’s a short list of interesting things that I saw throughout the race. I passed Squirrel at some point and noticed that he was riding a fully rigid bike, my lower back hurt a little worse as I passed him. The next time that I passed Squirrel, he was hangin’ loose underneath the Rassy tent with a cold beer in hand. I saw two dudes riding their bikes with on crank arm in place, and the other either in hand, or dangling from the bottom of his shoe. Lebeda and his son doing a father/son duo in the six hour race. I passed his son and started thinking about how cool it would be do something like that with your son. They’re both going to cherish the memories from this event for the rest of their lives. Passing Maria Von Ruhtenberg a few times and noticing a little more blood trickling down her leg with each pass. She’s taking her lumps this year, however she’s progressing nicely and is making a strong case for earning the title as the all time best in mental fortitude. She finished the 6 hour race and I’m very proud of her for sticking it out. Julie had a great race and ended up finishing 2nd overall on the 3 hour race, behind Nebraska mountain biking studette Roxeanne Feagan. When I talked to her after the race, she expressed regret in settling for the 3 hour race because she felt like she still had a lot left in the tank. So to make up for it, she decided to sign up for the Firecracker 50 in Breckenridge, CO. We also talked her brother into signing up. I think that she’s going to chick her brother, despite the Firecracker being held in his ‘back yard’.
I ended up finishing 5th overall, within a few minutes of 2nd through 4th. The guy that won was something like 30 minutes ahead of 2nd place. I’ve never heard of the guy, however I’m guessing that he must know the place like the back of his hand to get that kind of a gap on everybody else. I was pretty content with the result, crap, I was pretty happy that I was able to even ride after what I had gone through last week!
The following weekend, Julie and I made the trek to Iowa City to do some road ragin’. Not much to report other than my discovery that as you get older, you have to pee a lot more often. I must have peed like 6 times prior to the start of the race! Ten minutes into the race, I had to pee again, so much so that I was seeing yellow. It was very distracting and made it difficult to keep my head in the game. Finally, after 4 ½ laps of doing the anti-pee dance on my bike, I finally caved in and stopped to pee on the side of the road. The neutral support vehicle slowed thinking that I had a flat. He slowed long enough to see the golden shower flowing into the ditch, and then hit the gas and took off. I wasn’t able to catch back up to the group, so I decided to bail with a lap to go. I was pretty anxious to hit the road and see my niece on her 3rd birthday anyway!

Two more reports down, three more to go before I get caught up. Three weekends ago I did the Psycowpath race at Swanson, two weeks ago-ish I did the IMBCS race at Camp Ingawanis. Last weekend I did a couple of roadie races at the state fair grounds. Reports coming soon-ish.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Sylvan Island

2010-05-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

Unlike last years race through mud and oil slicks, this years edition of the Stampede served up some close to perfect weather and dry conditions. As we were lining up for the start of the race, I did my usual scan of all of the cats near the front and noticed the Eppenator, 2007 Chequamegon champ Jesse Lalonde, Aaron Robnett and Padawan Gammell. There may have been a few others that I didn’t recognize, however the field was strong enough with who I did recognize.
So the race started and Eppen grabbed the hole shot. I was sitting 2nd wheel going into the woods, which is exactly where I wanted to be. I was feeling really good, riding well and had no trouble hanging onto to Eppen’s wheel as we negotiated the serpentine trails of Sylvan Island….until my handlebar clipped a tree. The ends of my handlebars are always pretty beat up from grazing trees through tight singletrack, however the graze is never enough to knock me off course. I must have had some bad karma owed to me, because this time was a little different. I was knocked askew enough to hit something else, whatever it was, it was big enough that I got bucked over the bars. By the time I had realized what had happened, I was lying on my side in the weeds with my bike spooning me from behind.

Maria is yellin' at me because I crashed.

I jumped up and straightened my handlebars, all the while getting passed by what seemed to be the entire field of 50-ish racers. It only ended up being 10 or 15. I ‘took’ my place in line and regained my rhythm pretty quickly. It took about a half a lap before I could finally pass some of the slower traffic ahead of me. At the first open section, I was finally able to get by all that had passed me, with the exception of Lalonde. By that time, Jesse and Brian were long gone.
I tried pretty hard to reel them back in over the course of 5 laps and in looking at the lap times, I was within a few seconds of their lap times, but never faster. By the end of lap 5, the effects of my altercation with Mother Nature were starting to catch up with me. My lower back was killing me and when you have no lower back, you have very little leverage with which to transfer the power to the pedals. My lap times dropped dramatically over lap 6 and 7, however I managed to salvage a 3rd place in the end.

My Mom is in her happy place.

Brian is hairy, kinda looks like he should be in a Geico commercial.

Julie had a pretty stellar race, and ended up 4th overall in a stacked field of 25 women that included the other half of the Eppenator, Robin Williams, Brittany McConnell and a few others. We’ve been exchanging coaching services, strength training for me and cycling for her. She’s been working her tail off this winter and spring and it’s starting to show through her results. I’m pretty anxious to see how the rest of the season goes for her!

Julie is in her happy place too.

Julie's killin' it and scoring some style points in the rocks.

If it hadn't been for a flat tire, Padawan Gammell might have crushed me.

I was pretty happy with the result. Despite the mishap, I rode pretty well and felt pretty good until by back checked out on me. I didn’t realize the extent of the bodily damage until a day or two after the race. A bruised tail bone, which was most likely the reason for the excessive back fatigue. A deep bruise behind my upper calf muscle, which had me walking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame for a few days and forced a three day hiatus from the bike. My calf got the point where it seemed to be getting worse rather than better, so on Thursday I made a phone call to my buddy Dave Freesman of Rock Valley Physical Therapy and was able to get in the next morning. The short version of the story, I walked into Rock Valley Friday morning dragging my left leg behind me. After running some electricity through my calf and an ultrasound treatment, I was walking normally and riding relatively pain free by Friday night. I owe a huge thanks to Dave for taking care of me so quickly, not to mention his expertise in the field of physical therapy. He’s an accomplished athlete and has an intimate understanding of sports related physical therapy.

So I’m a little behind on the race reports, life’s been a little on the busy side lately. I ended up doing the Bone Bender 6 hour down in Missouri the following weekend, some road ragin’ in Iowa City the next weekend, and the Psycowpath race at Swanson last weekend…no crashes, no bashin’ into trees and no spooning with my bike in the weeds…so far so good.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Game On

2010-04-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

The 2010 season has officially begun and after a pretty rough winter, everything is drying out a lot quicker than expected. I started training for this season back around January 1 and whenever I start a new season, I usually make a few minor tweaks to the training plan from the previous season. On a local level, I had a great season last year, winning the Iowa and Nebraska mountain bike series, however I fell short on the regional level at some of the bigger races. I rarely had the snap in my legs that I had in previous years. So for this year, I decided that it was time for something a little more substantial than ‘a few minor tweaks’ to the training regime.
New for this year…training with power and coaching. It had been a few years since I’d had any kind of threshold testing, so I hit up Zoom Performance for a couple of Vo2 tests to get my training zones dialed in. It turns out that my training zones had decreased over the past few years, which would explain why I never really felt like I had fresh legs last year. What would normally have been Zone 2 training for me was actually more Zone 3 than I had thought.
Power. I’m pretty old school in most of my approaches to training, and felt like I knew my body well enough to get by with training by heart rate. I got a pretty smokin’ deal on a Cyclops Powerbeam trainer and have been pretty amazed with how much easier it is to train indoors with power. I always knew that power was the gold standard in gauging training effort, however you have no idea until you actually use it as a training tool.
Coaching. Living in Des Moines, endurance athletes have a lot of great resources at their disposal, one of which is the coaching services of Zoom Performance. I spent a lot of the off season in the weight room and continue to pump some iron once a week, and plan to continue throughout the rest of the season. I’ve been working with Zoom coach Julie Vardaman in the weight room, who happens to know her stuff when it comes to strength and conditioning. Because she is also a cycling and running coach, her combined knowledge has proven invaluable and I’m very confident that this will be a very positive change for me.
As far as cycling goes, I’m still self coached, however I talk a lot with Zoom coach JJ Bailey about training. Being an age group world champion in the Olympic distance triathlon in 2009, his knowledge of elite level training makes for the perfect sounding board to discuss training with. He’s also the ‘master of ceremonies’ for my Vo2 testing, he’s superb at getting me to turn myself inside out as the test approaches a very, very painful ending.
Sponsors. Like last year, I’m back on board with Rasmussen Bike Shop, everybody knows that Rassy’s is the best shop in Iowa. Greg and the gang continue to go above and beyond any expectations that a racer has the right to expect. I cannot say enough about the support that I get from Rassy’s. I’m also back with Orbea and Oakley, the two best products of their kind. I am once again humbled at the amount of support that I get from Orbea and Oakley. I can only hope that they get as much value from me as I do them!
Racing. My first race of the season was last weekend, the season opener of Nebraska’s Psycowpath series at Jewell Park. The race was a short time trial on a new, technical course that I had never seen before. Julie and I arrived early enough to get a couple of laps in and we both had ear to ear grins on our faces during our pre ride. The trails at Jewell Park are my new favorites in Nebraska. Very tight and twisty with a lot of power climbs and very fast, swooping descents. I felt like I was riding a roller coaster over the entire lap!
Going into the race, I knew that a good finish was going to be difficult. A short 17 minute race on a pretty technical course provided a significant backyard advantage to the locals and those that have their engines tuned to that of a Ferrari. With my diesel engine being tuned more for a two hour effort, I figured that a top five finish would be a good day, given the conditions that I was facing.
In the end I avoided becoming a permanent part of the landscape, kept it rubber side down and came up about 30 seconds short of race winner and main Nebraska rival Kent McNeil. I achieved my primary goal of a top five finish by finishing in 5th, behind Kent, Steve Jarrett, Jesse Peterson and Mark Savery. When I think back on the race, I find myself thinking about how much fun I had riding on some of the sweetest singletrack that I’ve ever ridden, where I typically might find myself thinking about a tactical error in race strategy or training whenever I get beat. As much as I enjoyed this race, I’m looking forward to the longer races that my old body is much better suited for.
My average heart rate for the TT was 173, considerably higher than my LT HR of 168. If you know what all of that means, you’ll understand the kind of pain that I was for in 17 minutes. There were several instances where I felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out of my head. Usually when I subject myself to that kind of effort, the main thought going through my head is how I cannot wait for the pain to end and how eternal 17 minutes can seem. However, as I approached the finish I remember thinking to myself ‘wow, I can’t believe it’s over already’. I can attribute that to the fun factor. Did I happen to mention how much fun the trail was?
Julie had a stellar first race as a Category 1, winning with a very respectable time of 23:46. When we rode the course together, I was pretty amazed at how far she’d come since this time last year. She has come a long way and I couldn’t be more proud of her!

Next up is IMBCS #1 at Sylvan Island....which happened yesterday, and I took a flyer over my handlebars. If you'd like to know more, check back in a few days and I'll tell you all about it.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Shebonkan

2009-10-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

Gooooooooooooo!

I honestly cannot remember the last time that I bonked. My pre-race food consumption has always been a little on the side of excess to ensure that the bonk doesn’t make an appearance. So why did I only consume 1/3 of a box of cereal and a sandwich prior to last Sunday’s race when I would normally consume an entire box of cereal, maybe an egg or two along with a sandwich if it is a late afternoon race? My only explanation would be the proverbial brain fart.
Julie and I arrived in Milwaukee and stayed with our good friends, Tyrine. We drove up to Sheboygan on Saturday to do a course recon, and as they do every year, the Fat Kats did a great job in putting together an outstanding race course. The course had a nice 50/50-ish mix of singletrack and open sections, the type of course that can suit just about any racers strengths. As we were getting ready to ride, the misty, light rain that was falling had turned into light snow flurries while the temps seemingly plummeted to below freezing. During the ride, the clouds cleared away to reveal warm sunshine that raised the temps up into the 40’s.
Race day greeted us with lot’s of sunshine, however when I stepped outside to load up the car, it felt like it was January. Apparently Mother Nature decided to completely bypass the fall and head straight into winter! Throughout the morning, I had to keep reminding myself that at least it wasn’t raining/snowing on us.
Julie’s race was at 11:30 and 29 hearty souls toed the line for the Category 2 women’s race. Julie got off to her usual mid to rear pack start and managed to pick her way through the field throughout the race. I was only able to see the first lap of her race because I had to get ready for my race. By the finish, she managed to work her way up to 6th overall, good enough for 4th in her age group. I am extremely proud of how well her season went. In looking at all of her results from the bigger races in Minnesota and Wisconsin, she’s made steady progress throughout the season, especially in terms of bike handling. With another winter of base fitness building rides on El Diablo in the TMC Trucking house of pain / sweat shop, I am very confident that she will be even faster next year!

Julie has her angry racin' face on.

Picking her way through the Equalizer carnage.

Rippin' it up in the corners...just like I taught her.

My race had the usual fast cats that take part in the WORS series, including Chequamegon bridesmaid, Cole House. Don said ‘Goooooooooooooo’ and the 36 strong Men’s Elite field shot up the road. I had a decent start and rolled into the singletrack somewhere in the top 15 or so. Once the course opened up, I tried to open it up and quickly realized that, even though I felt fully recovered, I didn’t have the power that I had at this time last year. Last year I had gotten off to about the same start and was able to pick my way through the field to a 5th place overall finish. I knew early on that I didn’t have that kind of finish in me, so I made the best of what I had.
As lap one progressed, I found myself in a pretty good battle with Ryan Krayer and a few others. At one point Ryan asked to get by while we were going through a section of singletrack and with me being in race mode, I was not so willing to oblige. I kicked up the effort to prevent the pass and he mildly expressed his displeasure. He eventually got by when the trail opened up and I managed to stick with him throughout lap one. As we began lap two, I passed him back and apologized as I went by. He replied by saying it was no big deal and that it was a racing thing. So it was all good. Ryan and I have had a lot of great battles throughout the past few years, and I’ve always enjoyed racing against him and I look forward to more of it in the future. Cat’s like Ryan are one of the many reasons that I enjoy racing in the great white north…

Ray Nelson putting me in the pain cave.

As lap two and three progressed, I had no real issues other than the lack of horsepower. I had managed to pass a few others and had caught up to Ray Nelson. Ray and I rode together for most of lap two and three and we eventually figured out that he was quicker in the singletrack, while I was quicker in the faster open sections. So we worked together a little with the intent of trying the catch the guy ahead of us and not get caught from behind. During lap four, I had managed to open up a gap on Ray and I kept the pressure on to make it stick.
As I approached the end of lap four, I began to feel the effort taking its toll on me. Ray eventually caught back up to me and passed. It was all that I could do to hang on once he got by. As I rolled through the start finish area, I could feel the early stages of the bonk working its way into my body. Shortly thereafter, I was in full on bonk mode. I felt really cold, hungry and completely out of gas. On one of the easier short climbs after the water crossing, I had slipped on a root that I normally would have gotten over with ease, and stalled out. I dismounted and quickly discovered the extent of my bonk as I couldn’t move past a slow walk up the hill. I tried to run, however my legs had no response. It was like that throughout the remainder of lap five and as I approached the Equalizer near the end of the lap, I knew that I was going to be in serious trouble. I dismounted at the bottom and was barely able to simply walk my bike up the hill. As I approached the top of the hill, Ron Stawicki went flying by me like I was standing still. I finally made it to the top and managed to limp my way to the finish line.

The Equalizer before the bonk.

The Equalizer after the bonk. The Ronsta passed me like I was goin' backwards.

I am still amazed that I was only passed by two peeps during my lap five meltdown and even more surprised that I was able to salvage an 11th place overall finish. It was by far the hardest that I’ve ever bonked, though I could probably count the amount of times that I’ve bonked on one hand, maybe even on three or four fingers. I am also pretty amazed at how debilitating a full on bonk can be. To get myself to the point where I can just barely walk up a hill….
Cole House rode away from the stacked field to take the win and a large cardboard check for $800. Tristan Schouten held on for 2nd and my bro Mikey Phillips brought home 3rd. Back when I first got into mountain bike racing, Cole’s family was one of the first families that I had met and we quickly became good friends. I have a lot of great memories with them, especially when I could actually finish ahead of Cole. I knew that would be short lived because as a preteen, he had a burning desire to make a career out of cycling and now it appears that he is well on his way.

Tristan and Mikey beating the crap out of each other on the Equalizer.

So I had a pretty mediocre end to the season, especially at the bigger races. Going into this season, I knew that it was going to be extremely difficult to top last season. I’ve managed to improve my results every season over the last four or five years, so a lack of improvement was bound to happen one of these years. It was still a good season and I did have some results that I’m really happy with. I’m even happy with most of the lesser results. Twelve years ago, when I zip tied a number to my mountain bike for the first time, I never envisioned that I would have taken this as far as I have. So with that in mind, I had a pretty awesome year.

So what’s next? Beer, pizza, burgers, french fries…I’m pretty much gonna be on the Mike Phillips diet for a couple of months…sans cigars. Maybe it’ll make me as fast as he is. The Dirty Du is on October 24 and my annual women’s mountain biking clinic is on October 25. I might throw in a cross race here and there. So even though my season is over, we’re still going to be as busy as ever, places to go, people to see…

Thanks for reading,

CK

Cross Dressing with Pat

2009-10-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

Taking my turn on Pat.

Cyclocross weather came to Iowa early this year, forcing the ICORR folks to postpone IMBCS #11 to the weekend of October 11. So that opened last weekend up to two different options for Julie and I. Option 1 – drive 3 ½ hours to Platteville, WI for the Blockhouse mountain bike race. Option 2 – drive one hour to Pella for a cyclocross race. I was on the fence until the night before and the weather ultimately made the decision for us. We didn’t really feel like spending seven hours in the car, going to a race that was going to be cold, wet and muddy. So we opted for the hour long drive to Pella, for a race that would be cold, with the only real wetness coming from the sweat produced by an hour long, cross-eyed, tongue hangin’ outta yer mouth, LT effort that only cyclocross can produce.
Doing an hour long cross race is also probably better for me the weekend before my last ‘A’ race of the season. It’ll be a lot easier for my old body to fully recover from an hour long cross race than a 2+ hour long mountain bike race. I do try to stay away from cross racing prior to the end of the mountain bike racing season, mainly because I am very prone to injury when it comes to running, even if it is just a short stumble over a couple of barriers. However, it’s tough to beat the quality of the hour long workout that I end up getting from a cross race. So when I do a cross race, I err on the side of caution to mitigate any chance of having some kind of a blowout when crashing through the barriers.
When we arrived at the course, I had a lot of people telling me how I would have a huge advantage due to the technical nature of the course. I never expect to win a cross race on a mountain bike. I’ve not done enough cross racing to be able to quantify how much of a disadvantage one has on a mountain bike. I can however, tell you that a mountain bike is inferior to a cross bike as a cross bike is the overwhelming weapon of choice for anybody who races cross. So, my goal for the day was primarily to get a good, high intensity workout in. What better way to accomplish that then to chase tPod, JJ and whoever else around in a city park?
Julie raced first and lined up with all of the other women. She doesn’t handle the cold very well, so I was pretty surprised at her enthusiasm for toeing the line. The chica’s took off and after a few laps, Julie had managed to spread a nice coating of mud all over the ‘goose. She ended up having a good race and ended up 2nd in the Cat 4 class. After her race, she handed off the ‘goose which probably had about 10 extra pounds of mud all over it. I’m actually considering a name change for the ‘goose. When it comes to racing cross, Julie and I both race on the ‘goose, so maybe the name ‘Pat’ might be a more appropriate moniker?

Julie puttin' the power down.

Julie running Pat through the sand. Check out Kurt B in the background, kinda looks creepy sitting on a swing with a bottle of booze. He looks like he's thinking about asking Julie if she wants some candy.

Chia Chad thinks he's a mountain biker because he's riding through the sand.

I got in a pretty good warm up despite the cold temps and lined up for the start. The race started and tPod took off like a shot out of a cannon, followed by JJ and myself. At some point during the first lap, Gummy jumped in front of me and eventually allowed a gap to open up between myself and JJ while tPod rode off into the sunset. I eventually re-passed Gummy and closed the gap to JJ. As the race progressed, JJ was able to open a gap on both of the barrier sections, and I was able to gradually close it back up between the sets of barriers. My lack of competence in running the barriers eventually got the best of me. JJ was able to gradually open up enough of a gap that was too much for me to overcome. I felt like a total pud on the barrier sections, it felt like I was going in more of a vertical direction then horizontal. Towards the latter half of the race, the wheels of my bike were banging into the barrier. I was kinda surprised that it didn’t yank the bike out of my hands. I did run the barriers this year better than I did last year as documented on You Tube.

Sweet form.

Racing in small circles around a city park, thinking about singletrack.

About midway through the race, Nate Kullborn had managed to reel me in and sat on my wheel for a lap or two. As we made our way through the sand, I kinda backed off on the effort a little to force him ahead of me. I sat on his wheel for a lap and as we hit the blacktop, he motioned for me to take over. I passed him and as we were going through the sand at the end of the lap, I could here him having somewhat of a physical meltdown and that was the last the I saw of him.
In the end, tPod ran away with the W, JJ came in 2nd and I followed in 3rd place, very satisfied with another great workout and no injuries. My average HR for the race was 177, by far the highest average HR for a race this season. I finally feel like I am getting myself into a decent state of recovery, just in time for the last race of the season.

So with Sugarbottom being rescheduled for this weekend, I am once again faced with another tough decision. Sugarbottom or Sheboygan? I have the IMBCS points title wrapped up, so missing Sugarbottom would be of no consequence to me. So Sheboygan it is. The WORS race Sheboygan has been a key ‘A’ race for me all along, right up there with Chequamegon, so I doubt that I would have opted out of Sheboygan regardless. Last year I had one of my best races ever, finishing 5th overall in a field stacked with some of the best mountain bike racers in the Midwest. I’d be pretty happy if I could equal that, or maybe even top it. I am also really looking forward to drinking a few beers afterwards in lieu of my usual R4 smoothie….

Thanks for reading,

CK

Manawa

2009-09-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

Kent and Shim tag teamin' me.

This years edition of Lake Manawa Mayhem marks the end of the 2009 Psycowpath season as well as the penultimate race for the 2009 IMBCS. I’m not 100% on this, but I think a decent finish will pretty much lock up both the Psycowpath and IMBCS series overall, good enough for another season of free entry fees for both series in 2010…a great way to reward all of the division winners in each series.
Lake Manawa is the type of course where it is less about fitness and a little more about bike handling. With a total of 121 feet of climbing (according to my trusty Polar 725) and only a handful of short, fast, open sections for passing, the only form of natural selection was how well you could handle your bike through the many serpentine sections of tight singletrack. With the previous days rain making the course conditions about as close to perfect as they could be for optimal traction, it made bike handling a little less of an issue. It was the type of ‘close to perfect’ conditions such that my bike had no dust or mud on it when I had finished.
At last years race, it was pretty much a follow the leader race. It seemed that whenever somebody got dropped from the train, it was most likely because they either had a mechanical issue or they wrapped their bike around one of the many man eating trees that the trail weaved its’ way through. This year was no different and as the gun went off, holeshot Limpach took the lead, followed closely by Kent, Shim and myself. Shortly after Kevin took the lead, he had minor bike handling issue that knocked him off line and narrowly missed taking out the lead train. Kent and Shim got by and he nearly took me out again when he shot back in line in front of me. The mishap enabled Kent and Shim to open a small gap on Kevin and myself. As the lap progressed, the gap gradually increased and I had to patiently wait until the next passing opportunity to get by Kevin.
We finally hit the next open section and I went by Kevin. At Manawa, a small gap is pretty difficult to close down because you can only go so fast through the tight, technical sections. It took the remainder of the lap to close the gap. I took an occasional look back and saw that I was pulling away from the rest of the field and it looked like it was going to come down to Kent, myself and Shim.
We started lap two and I was pretty content to let Kent and Shim, who happen to be teammates, lead the way. I sat on while they swapped the lead, however I knew that I was going to have to assert myself pretty soon. The longer I waited, the more difficult it would be pass Kent or Shim. As we neared the end of lap two, I made a few attempts to get into the lead, however Kent had other ideas. I could tell that he was keeping on eye on what was going on behind him and whenever I hit the throttle he was very quick to respond and made it close to impossible for me to get by.
As we began lap three, I was finally able to get by Kent. The only problem was that I had to work so hard to get by, that I was temporarily out of gas and had a hard time maintaining enough effort to keep myself ahead of him. He passed me back shortly after I got by and I began to realize that it was going to take some creativity to get by and make it stick. As we rolled through the singletrack, I kept looking for short stretches of openness that might allow a small chance of making a pass.
About halfway through lap three, Shim had indicated that he thought he was going flat. Shortly thereafter, I heard the sound of knobbies grinding against a rim…game over. With Shim out of the picture it was shaping up to become another one of those epic battles between Kent and myself that we’ve had so many of over the past few years. Most of my favorite and most memorable racing experiences have been against Kent. I love all of the many tight battles that we’ve had and always find myself looking forward to racing in Nebraska in anticipation this very situation.
As lap three and four progressed, I continued my search for ‘small sections of openness’ and I also tried to pass on a few of the open sections again, all to no avail. As we approached the end of ‘lap four’, Kent put in a monster effort to keep me behind him and I was content to remain behind him with the idea of balking passes throughout the remainder of the race, enough to make him stand up and exert himself in an attempt to keep me behind. My hope was that this would wear him down a little and make it easier for me to make a pass…and make it stick.
As we crossed the finish line at the end of ‘lap four’, Kent sat up and motioned to high five me. I was kind of perplexed by this, however being the high five kind of person that I am, I returned the high five. He then said ‘nice race’ and I thought to myself, and told him that we had one more lap to do. He said ‘no, I’m pretty sure that we did four laps’ and I again thought to myself that we had only done three. I rode over to the officials table to get the official count and as I rode towards the table, some dude in the crowd said, ‘you guys still have another lap’. I spun around and headed back onto the course, hoping that Kent wasn’t long gone.
I continued on in pursuit mode and couldn’t see anybody ahead of me. There were a few sections where the course doubled back on itself and I couldn’t see him anywhere. At that point, I began to think that maybe he was behind me because he couldn’t have gotten that far ahead of me. I looked behind me and saw nobody, so I backed off the effort and waited for him. The last thing that I wanted was to win the race with an asterisk. I would rather risk him being ahead of me while I waited, then win the race under these circumstances.
I kept noodling along at a medium pace, not really sure where he was and as I crossed the road, there were no road crossing marshals. That should have been my first strong clue that something was amiss. Despite my uncertainty, I continued on and as I neared the end of the lap, I saw a dude riding the trail ahead of me with two kids riding in front of him. As soon as I caught up, I quickly realized that it as Kent riding with his kids! We had a pretty entertaining chat about my oversight and about the race. We did, in fact do four laps. Even though I thought we still had a lap to go when we officially finished, I seriously doubt that I would have been able to get by Kent. He rode a smart race, he was incredibly strong when he needed to be and he was very attentive to what I was doing behind him. I tried everything to get by him and couldn’t get it done. The funny thing is, this happened to me at this race two years ago with Shim. I blame it on my age. Despite finishing in 2nd, this ranks right up there with the rest of my favorites. It’s tough to beat close, clean competition!
So with a 2nd place finish, I’m pretty sure that I locked up the series title for both the IMBCS and Psycowpath. There are a lot of good folks to thank and more appropiate thank you’s will come in a later post. For now, the short list…God, Julie, my family, the folks at Rassy’s, Phil Godkin with Orbea/Garneau/Probar/Sock Guy/Gu (I’m probably missing a few other products) and Rob Versteegh with Oakley. Each of these friends provided some means of support that made this crazy road that I’m traveling possible. Simply put, they are all the best of the best! Julie also rode a pretty solid race and locked up the Psycowpath series womens Category 2 title.

Next up is the season finale for the IMBCS at Sugarbottom. It seems appropriate that Sugarbottom be the final race of the series, as it is the oldest of all of the IMBCS races. Last year, after many years of trying, I was finally able to bag the win…thanks to Brian Eppen making a rare mistake that slowed him down a little. Despite that, I happily accepted the win as that’s a part of mountain bike racing. I’ve made errors in the past that had cost me race wins, so it works both ways!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Chequamegon

2009-09-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

Photos courtesy of Skinnyski

Fire Tower Hill...pictures do it no justice.

Another Chequamegon has come and gone. For the last couple of years, I’ve really tried to make this race one of my key races for the year. I’ve really grown to love the event even though it’s not your typical mountain bike race. There are a lot of things to love about the event, the beautiful north woods of Wisconsin, 2,500 mountain bikers from all over the nation, a lakeside cabin and some of my good mountain biking buddies from Des Moines among many other places.
My goal was to better my 10th overall finish from last year, and even though I was pretty adamant that a lesser finish would not be a disappointment, I was a little disappointed with my finish this year. I actually began to feel the disappointment setting in shortly after I hit the transition from Rosie’s Field to the first section of the Birkie. Yep, five miles into the 40 mile race, I knew that it was going to be a struggle.
Back to the start. I rolled up to the start line about 5 minutes before the cannon sounded and slotted myself next to my bro Mikey Phillips. My first major goal of the day was to make the lead break, and the best way to do that is to stay on the wheel of somebody that is always in it. After the cannon went off, Mikey and I were rolling along next to one of the lead ATV’s. There was a tandem next to us with a couple of dudes. The guy in front was pretty chatty with everybody else, which is OK if you can do it and ride in a straight line. This guy could not hold a straight line to save his life. Mikey and I looked at each other with same expression on our faces, just waiting for the tandem to cause the first pile up of the day.

1700 mountain bikers en masse.

As we rolled out of town, the ATV’s took off and I found myself on Jeff Halls wheel. A good place to be, so I did everything that I could to hold it, including shoving a few elbows into a few cats that tried to butt in. As we hit the rise in the road on the approach to Rosie’s, all kinds of hell started to break loose as all kinds of people started to crowd towards the front. I made it into Rosie’s without too much trouble and rode as hard as my legs would allow.
As we approached the Birkie, I could see the lead group starting to form and it was actually within reach…if I’d had good legs. However it became apparent that I had brought the wrong pair of legs with me this year. I tried to go, but my legs said no…no way, not today. I settled into a pace and tried to get myself a little recovered from the effort through Rosie’s Field. I could tell that I had a long line of others behind me as we wound our way through the first section of the Birkie. As we hit a long, super fast downhill, I saw Doug Swanson running across the trail with his bike. I went off line to miss him and as soon I went by him, I heard the metallic sound of bikes clashing behind me. As I started rolling up the next hill, I took a quick look back and saw nobody.
I continued on, pushing the effort thinking that maybe I could bridge my way up to somebody ahead of me. A short while later I took another look back and saw Jesse Lalonde closing in on me. Sweet! My chances of bridging up to the lead group took a huge turn for the better. We rode together for a couple of miles and swapped a few pulls. He asked me if I was good on the flats and I told him that my legs weren’t good for anything today. As we hit the next hill, he swung out from behind me and carried is momentum up the hill and left me for the buzzards. There is a reason that he does so well on singlespeed and I saw one of the many reasons firsthand…momentum.
So I rode alone in no man’s land, with Jesse disappearing into the distance ahead of me, and nobody in sight behind me. I buried my head and did my best to keep the effort going, hoping that I could catch somebody ahead of me rather than be caught from behind. After about five miles of no man’s land, the latter happened as I glanced back to see a long line of what turned out to be about 40 riders bridging up to me. I backed off the effort and about a mile later I was passed by the first guy in line. I quickly jumped on his wheel with intent of staying at the sharp end of the group.

Despite minimal training, Kent Carlson tore it up, placing 6th in the singlespeed class and 83rd overall.

The Eppenators, before they broke a chain and bent a chain ring.

Not having the greatest of days but making the best of it.

Despite the crappy legs, I found it pretty easy to hang near the front of the group. However whenever I took a pull, I was quickly reminded that my good legs were on vacation. So I kept myself in the top five of the group and tried to save myself as much as possible for the climb up Fire Tower Hill. As we approached Fire Tower, I kept hearing the grinding noise of knobby against knobby. One more reason to keep myself near the front of the group. Shortly thereafter, I heard the sound of a skewer rattling into some spokes. It never ceases to amaze me, I can almost understand things like that at the start. However when we’re single file this far into the race, there’s no reason to continually get into somebody’s wheel, and even less of a reason to plow your skewer into the spokes of the wheel ahead of you.
So we hit Fire Tower and I was sitting probably 5th wheel. I locked out both ends of the bike and motored up in my middle ring as hard as my legs would allow. I hit the top without incident, took a quick look back and to my surprise saw nobody near me. So hit the throttle and quickly closed the gap on the group of five ahead of me.
Our group consisted of myself, Michael Simonson, Adam Swank, Ted Hanes, Kelly Magelky and possibly Joe Brzuchanski. We worked together fairly well until we hit the last few miles of the Birkie, which consists of a lot of steep rollers that usually do a pretty good job of breaking up small groups like ours. I had nothing on the short hills and found myself constantly having to bury myself to bridge back up to the group.

I actually felt OK going up Fire Tower.

On the last couple of hills, I gradually lost contact with our group. As we descended onto the finish at Telemark, I closed back up, however it was too late to do anything. I came pretty close to passing Ted, however he saw me coming and held me off.
I ended up finishing 19th overall, good enough for a reserved entry into next years race and 2nd in my age group. Dewey Dickey once again got the best of me and took first place in our age group by a crushing 6+ minute margin. Brian Matter crushed the course record by over 5 minutes and furthered my argument that he is the fastest guy in the Midwest right now. Cole House and Steve Tilford rounded out the top three overall. I did manage to beat my fastest time with a time of 2:10:35, however things like that are pretty meaningless in a mountain bike race as course conditions cause a lot of variance in how fast you can go.

Brian Matter outkicking Cole for the W.

The Eppenators after they broke their chain and bent a chain ring.

Deep in the bowels of the pain cave...

Julie had a pretty epic race, finishing one place behind her goals of a top 50 overall and a top ten in her age group, good for 51st overall and 11th in her age. If she hadn’t hit the deck at mile ten, she would have easily achieved all three of her goals, including a sub three hour finish time. When I caught up to her right after she finished, she had dried up blood running down her arm and a dirt covered face. Despite the blood and dirt, I could still see the smile through all of the dirt and a wonderful smile it was! It was that kind of smile you see when somebody just had a lot fun on their mountain bike.
I could go on and on with other stories about the weekend, and a great weekend it was. In the end, I’m happy with my finish. I can’t complain about a top 20 overall and placing in my age group in a race this big. Julie and I thoroughly enjoyed the company of our cabin mates, Jim and Sally Logan, Ken and Kristin Sherman, Lang Wightman, Brian (Potato Cannon) Benson and John Newell. Good peeps!

Next up is the final race of the Psycowpath series and race #10 of the IMBCS at Lake Manawa State Park in Council Bluffs. The tight, twisty nature of the course lends itself to only a few passing opportunities. Kent McNeill beat me by the width of a tire last year, so I’m hoping that I can return the favor this time around.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Science Center / Branched Oak

2009-09-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

Photos courtesy of Angy Snoop

What was supposed to have been a dirty double, turned into something a little more demanding. The Psycowpath race at Branched Oak was rained out on Saturday and rescheduled to the following Sunday. So Julie and I had a decision to make, do we make the trip to Nebraska and skip the IMBCS races, or vice versa? We both needed the points for both series, so we mulled it over for a while and finally figured out that we could do the morning TT at the Science Center, provided we were able to be the first two starters. If we could get on the road by 10, we could make it to Branched Oak by 1, with an hour to spare for the 2 o’clock start of the Psycowpath race…Game on brutha!
So the day started off with the TT, which used the Hillside and Rollercoaster trails of the Science Center. As I was getting ready for my start, the race director, Ryan Hanser, threw a couple of curve balls in my direction. They were running the course backwards and we were doing two laps. I was expecting a short 15-ish minute effort, which turned into a 35-ish minute effort. I had myself dialed into doing a lap in what is traditionally the ‘right’ direction whenever we race on the Hillside. I also wanted to try and pace myself so that I could have as much in the tank as possible for the afternoon pain fest.
I was given the go ahead and I took off like I stole somethin’. I hit the trails and felt like I was riding well and within myself. With nobody in front of me, I was able to focus on the trail and nothing else. I completed my first lap and as I rolled through, Padawan Gammel was sitting at the start line getting to roll out. As I was cruising through the Hillside, I kept hearing something a short distance behind me. I couldn’t tell who it was, but I suspected it was the young Padawan attempting to bridge up to his Jedi Master teacher. This forced me to go a little harder than I wanted because I couldn’t allow my pupil to overtake me.

Julie using her skisszzllss that she learned at my women's mtb clinic.

I think that I had a Dio tune goin' through my head when this picture was taken...got that look on my face.

Throughout the 2nd lap, I encountered some slower traffic, however it was never really an issue. As I exited the Hillside and rolled towards the Rollercoaster, I could tell that the Padawan had slowed a little. I backed off on the throttle a scosh, and rolled to the finish. Julie and I had to take off as soon as we finished, so I’m not 100% sure of the results yet, however I heard that I nipped Jed by a scant 5 seconds. He accused me of sandbagging, however it wasn’t nearly as much as he thought. I worked pretty hard, harder than I wanted to. The Padawan’s form is coming along nicely this year and he’s riding stronger than I’ve ever seen. It’s really too bad that he got snubbed for Chequamegon this year because I think that he’d tear it up. I’m pretty sure that Julie had a good race too, though neither of us have any idea how she did. I knew that she’d have a good race, she rode everything the day before without much trouble. There are a few sections that can be pretty tricky and she handled them like a champ.

Padawan Gammell...close but no cigar.

Seabiscuit got drunk after his race and decided to give out Mad Dog handups at the creek crossing.

We loaded our crapage back into the car and high tailed it to Nebraska. As the drive progressed, we could both feel the post race rigor mortise setting into our legs. I had no idea what to expect once we arrived at Branched Oak.
We made it with an hour to spare, got ourselves registered and suited up for a recon lap. The course was pretty straight forward with no real technical sections to worry about. There were several sections that were very bumpy, bumpy enough that I feared I it might knock a few of my fillings loose.
The race started and JP took the hole shot, followed closely by Kent and myself. Whenever we hit a hill, JP would punch it and it eventually wore on everybody but myself, Kent, Darin Schlake and John Rokke. As we began lap two, Darin took over the lead, followed by JP, Kent, myself and Rokke. I was pretty content to sit in as I didn’t have to work that hard and I still wasn’t really sure which pair of legs came with me to Nebraska, the same pair that I used this morning, or the other pair that usually sends me to the hurt locker.
As we approached the end of lap three, the inevitable happened, Kent took over the lead and immediately upped the pace. Small gaps began to form between Darin and JP while I was still sitting in 4th. At the first opportunity, I passed both of them and latched onto Kent’s wheel. We gradually gapped ourselves from the three locals and it was shaping up to be another epic battle between myself and Kent.
Kent led throughout lap 4 and I was surprisingly able to hang onto his wheel without too much trouble. As we rolled through the feed zone, Kent slowed to take another bottle from his soigner, I think that’s why he brought his kids along. At the end of the race, I thought that I saw his son giving him a post race massage like the European professional cyclists get, while his daughter was loading up the car for the trip back to Omaha. Maybe I need to get myself a couple of kids…While Kent took his hand up, I rolled by and took over the lead.
I actually felt pretty good and thought I was maintaining pretty close to the same pace that we had done the previous lap. As the lap progressed, I could tell that I was creating a little separation between us every once in a while. So I decided to up the pace a little to see if I could gap him off and make it stick. Over the latter half of lap 5 the gap increased and I started to feel pretty good about how things were shaking out. There were a couple of spots on the course where it doubled back on itself where, for a short while, I was able to see him and track my progress. When I could no longer see him, I put into cruise control and kept my good eye on what was going on behind me.
As I began the final lap, my legs decided that it was getting close to Miller time. Despite my legs rebellion, I kept the pressure on and survived to take the win. Shortly after I rolled across the line, I quickly began to realize the extent of my fatigue. My body felt like I had gotten run over by a train. The bumpiness of the course took its toll on me, my arms were just as trashed as my legs…a full body beat down. Even though it wasn’t a very technical course, it was still a pretty physically demanding course and I enjoy courses like that.
Julie also survived the day, when Kent and I rolled passed her during the race, I felt her pain as she was riding the ‘goose. A 1998 ti frame with a vintage 2000 Rock Shox fork. I remember back when I used to race on that bike. On a course like this, I used to get the crud knocked out of me, it felt like I was riding a fully rigid bike with solid rubber tires. She was not a happy camper when she finished her race. However she did manage to lock up the Cat 2 women’s points for the series, so that made the visit to the pain cave worth it for her.

Next up is a big one, Chequamegon. Hopefully I can get myself recovered enough to top my effort from last year. Two races in one day was probably not the most ideal thing to do the weekend before one of my ‘A’ races. However it had to be done in order to defend my series titles for Iowa and Nebraska. That’s my crazy lifestyle and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Mapelag SR

2009-09-10T18:16:00.000-07:00

Photos courtesy of Skinnyski and Julie.

As a ‘professional’ mountain bike racer wannabe, most people would not believe that DSM is actually a great place to live. We have access to some of the best mountain bike racing in the nation. Just about every surrounding state has a mountain bike racing series and we’ve been able to race somewhere every weekend, all within a days drive.
So last weekend, Julie and I packed up the Jeep and made the long drive up to Mapelag Resort in the western part of Minnesota. The stage race was the 9th installment of the MNSCS and it has a pretty solid reputation as a racer favorite. After 9 hours of sitting in the car, we had finally arrived at the resort. We drove straight to the main lodge where dinner was being served. We were both pretty strung out from the long drive, however we were quickly revived upon entering the enormous dining area. Every table was full of mountain bike racers, stuffing their faces with some of the best home cooking that I’ve ever had. This was pretty much the norm over the entire weekend with breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also should mention the 5 or 6 bottomless cookie bars available to all of the folks staying at the resort, homemade of course.
After dinner, we registered and headed over to our cabin. The cabin consisted of about 6 rooms, all connected by one central room complete with a refrigerator, comfy couches and an impressive collection of National Geographic magazines, some of which probably predate the existence of man. When we were kids, my brother and I used to get a charge out of looking through National Geographic and seeing the aborigine women with their big ‘ole boobs hangin’ out. Yeah, we were a couple of weird kids…all kids are kinda weird though, so whatever.
We unloaded all of our junk and settled into the common area for some good conversation with our cabin mates, the Hinkens family, TJ Woodruff, his dad (Woody) and Doug Swanson. All good peeps that have given me many a beat down. It was nice to finally get to know some of the folks from the great white north.
Saturday morning kicked things off with a short, 3-ish mile time trial. As I was warming up, it quickly became clear that my legs were still pretty cooked from the previous weeks workouts. This has pretty much been the norm for the season however, I race almost every weekend and I have to train through most of the races if I want to be in peak form towards the end of the season.
I started my TT and my legs instantly rejected the violent effort that I was asking of them. I persisted and they eventually came around. My goal for the race was to put in as little effort as possible while still keeping myself in contention for a strong finish in the overall general classification. Much to my surprise, my time was good enough for 4th place on the day, about 20 seconds behind winner Brendan Moore, TJ Woodruff and Doug Swanson. The TT course consisted on mostly open cross country ski trail sections connected by 3 or 4 sections of singletrack. My bike handling was a little off, so I knew that the singletrack would slow me down a little. It’s pretty easy to get off line during a short, anaerobic effort like a TT. So I took it a little easy in the techy sections of singletrack, knowing that any mishap would cost me a lot more than slowing it down a little.

Cruising down one of the ski trails with some pretty unhappy legs!

Julie bringing home a nice finish in the TT.

Next up was the short track criterium and my goal was once again to maintain a solid position in the GC and not get dropped from the lead group. I got a front row call up and we took off like a pack of scalded dogs. I tried to get myself settled in to a position near the sharp end of the field. As the race progressed, a front group of 13 formed. I was dangling around 6th or 7th about midway through the race. A short while later, the group eventually whittled itself down to 7. We hit the 20 minute mark and had 2 laps left. There were a few attacks, however nothing really stuck. On the last lap, Doug Swanson took a flier and managed to create a little separation between himself and the group. Doug ended up winning, followed by TJ, Brendan and myself.

TJ asserting himself while leading the train of pain about midway through the STXC.

Riding in the shadow of Minnesota mtb legend Hollywood Henderson.

Doug Swanson taking his turn at the front. I decided to skip all of my turns at the front.

Julie chasing down the lead in the STXC.

Julie ripping it up through a corner on the STXC course.

Julie took the sprint for the 'W' in the STXC.

So at the end of the day, I had a pretty solid hold on 4th in the GC with a little over a minute cushion on 5th. Julie also had a great day and was sitting in 2nd in the women’s Cat 2 race. She finished 2nd in the TT and won the women’s STXC race. She had gotten off to a pretty decent start and picked off racers throughout the race until the penultimate lap when she finally took the lead. I was pretty beside myself in excitement for her.
Sunday was the traditional cross country race on a course that I would liken to a slightly flatter version of the Seven Oaks course. Only maybe a little more technical with several lakeside drops, some small but tricky rock gardens and a lot of roots. I knew that it was going to be a pretty rough race, so I softened the tires and the suspension to minimize the battering of my body.
I got off to a pretty good start and settled into the top ten with the hopes of a top ten finish on a course that I typically would not do very well on. Throughout the first lap, I worked my way up to 7th and as I approached Suicide Hill, I could see Doug Swanson about halfway up, kinda weaving back and forth like a drunken sow. He was having one of those days that I thankfully rarely have. As I passed, I asked if he was OK, and he offered some encouragement to keep on keepin’ on. Later on in the lap, I saw Eric O and Jack Hinkens up the trail.

Waiting....

Cruisin' down one of the many lakeside drops.

I eventually caught up to them and we rode together in 4th, 5th and 6th for the majority of lap 2 and 3. We worked well together throughout and as we hit a steep, barely rideable climb chock full of loose gravel, I stalled out and they didn’t. I had to hike-a-bike to the top while Eric and Jack rode off into the sunset. They opened a pretty good gap on me, however I could still see them. I buried myself in an attempt to bring them back. In doing so, I found myself getting a little sloppy through some of the techy sections of trail. This continued until I wrapped my handlebars around a small tree. I wasn’t going that fast and was able to keep myself upright, however it stalled me out and took away all of my impetus.

Jack, Eric O and I shadow boxing up Suicide Hill.

Jack showing me the lines through the lakeside drop section.

Jack is still in front of me here, you just can't see him.

I rode by myself throughout the last lap and as the lap progressed, I could see that I was slowly closing in on Eric O. Instant motivation set in and I pushed myself pretty hard to reel him back in. I could tell that I wasn’t making any progress in the singletrack, however I was quickly closing the gap on the ski trails. We hit the last kilometer of the race and it was all ski trail, so I put my head down and pushed the pedals as hard as my legs would allow. I eventually caught him with about 400 meters to go, sat in for a couple of pedal strokes and then passed him right before the finish to snag 5th overall. For a course that doesn’t necessarily suit my strengths, I was extremely happy with my finish. TJ won the race, followed closely by Brendan Moore. Sam O came in 3rd a couple of minutes back, followed by Jack.
My finish today dropped me down one spot to 5th place in the GC. TJ took the overall, followed by Brendan, Sam O and Jack. Jack rode a great race and was lightning quick in the singletrack. When he, Eric and I were riding together, he sometimes had me bouncing off of the trees like a pinball while trying to stay on his wheel in the singletrack. He, along with Jake Richards are two guys that will be the men to beat if they stick with it. They’re both still in their late teens and are producing some impressive results in the men’s elite fields.

Jake using his home course knowledge to bring it home in 8th place.

Julie had another great race, despite one of her cleats coming loose early in the race. She pulled off a 4th in the XC race and managed to hang onto the 3rd overall in the women’s Cat 2 GC. I was able to watch most of her race and she rode the lakeside drops like a pro. The drops are techy enough, that a lot of people either dismounted and ran down, or tried to ride them and ended up in a pile of dust at the bottom.

Julie knows what she's doing.

Lake Ahquabi point man Bruce Brown made the trip from DSM.

Negotiating her way through the lakeside drops.

If you want to learn to ride steep drops like Julie, attend our women's mtb clinic this fall and she'll teach you all that you need to know.

What can I say about this event? It was one of the best races that I’ve ever done and has become one of my favorites. Jay Richards, his family and the staff at Mapelag put together a great event. Jay has an enthusiasm for the sport that is very apparent in so many ways and the entire weekend at Mapelag made that even more apparent. The atmosphere, the hospitality, the race courses, the beautiful landscape surrounding the venue were all unmatched. Thumbs up baby!

Next up is another dirty double, with the Psycowpath race at Branched Oak on Saturday, followed by the Des Moines Dirty Time Trial weekend on Sunday. Not exactly what I need the weekend before one of my ‘A’ races at Chequamegon, however it is what it is and I’ll make the best of it.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Lake Maskenthine

2009-09-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

Not really sure who took all of the pix...

Word on the street was that I had my angry face on...I'm never angry on my bike, even if I get spit on or when someone threatens to beat me up.

This past weekend was a big weekend in Central Iowa for bike racing with the All Nine Yards diva’s hosting the Big Creek Road Race on Saturday and my homie’s at Rassy’s hosting the East Village Criterium. With all of the rain that we had throughout the fall, some postponements were bound to happen on planet dirt and the Maskenthine Classic was one of the casualties. With the rain date rescheduled for last weekend, I unfortunately had to miss out on all of the road raging in DSM. I hate missing out on weekends like this, lot’s of good peeps, lot’s of bikes, etc. However my passion lies on the dirt and if there’s a mountain bike race within a 1,023 mile radius, I’m gonna opt for the dirt.
At the last Psycowpath race, Kevin Limpach was the most successful survivor in the battle of attrition in the extreme heat at Tranquility and he put the hurt on me. I felt a slight sense of obligation to return the favor at Lake Maskenthine.
The usual suspects, sans Kent McNeil were all present and accounted for at the start. I didn’t really feel like leading the way into the woods this time, however when the race started, I found myself leading the way to the top of the gravel climb heading into the singletrack. I know, I know, at the bigger races, my starts almost always suck. And one of the best ways to get better at them, is to practice by going like a bat out of hell at the start of the smaller races. Maybe someday I’ll remember that at the smaller races…
Anyway, just before we hit the singletrack, Kev snaked me going into the woods and I rolled in 2nd wheel. Nate Woodman followed and the three of us were able to establish a small gap on the rest of the field during the early stages of the first lap. I settled in on Kev’s wheel with Nate in tow and we rode in this order throughout the first two laps. At some point during the first lap, Kev got off line and came close to layin’ it down. He pulled off a good save and thankfully, I wasn’t right on his wheel when it happened. A short while later he dug a pedal and almost bought it again. At that point I decided that it was probably a pretty good idea to give him a little cushion so that I didn’t get myself caught up in a yard sale. We all have days like that, where you feel like you’re riding with two left hands. Thankfully they are far and few between for me!

Monkeywrench pointman Nate and I. If you're ever in Lincoln, stop by his shop and buy a new bike.

Shimanonek wants a PRC t-shirt.

My bro JP just wants a beer.

During the 2nd lap, he dug another pedal and at that point, I decided that it was getting close to go time for me. We started lap three and as we hit a short uphill section, there was a small window of opportunity for me to get by. I took it and was able to establish a gap pretty quickly. I kept the pressure on throughout the lap and settled into a pretty good pace. I held the pace throughout laps four and five and was successful in reciprocating the beat down that Kevin gave me a couple of weeks ago. Kevin barely held on to 2nd by one second over Darin Schlake after Darin put in a impressive effort from a mid pack start to bring home 3rd. Shim finished up in 4th and Jesse Peterson rounded out the top five.
Julie raced in the Category 2 Women’s Open class and continued her impressive debut season with another 1st place finish. She is doing so well this season that I’m going to promote her from trainee to expert advisor when I hold my 3rd annual women’s only mtb clinic again this fall (Sunday, October 25). It’ll be nice to have a woman’s perspective at the clinic from now on. With her newly acquired off road skizzllizlzz as well as her experience as a professional coach, she’ll be a great addition to my ‘staff’!
A couple of interesting things to note for this race. I’ve been experimenting with various tire pressures, daring myself to go with a lower tire pressure. I just started using tubeless tires last year and I’m still trying to get a good handle on them. I usually have to go by the squeeze method because I don’t really trust the accuracy of my floor pump. I think that I ran pretty close to 23 pounds this time around. That seemed like a pretty good number as I seemed to hook up a little better in most of the corners without burping the bead. I also dropped the pressure in Julie’s tires a little, probably down to around 27, which is well below anything that I would have run when I used tubed tires for fear of the dreaded pinch flat. However, knowing her riding style pretty well, I felt pretty safe in dropping her pressure down a little. She said that it felt a little spongy in some areas, however she felt a little better when cornering. I think the sponginess was probably more to do with some of the loamy tread being pretty soft and spongy in a lot of areas.

So this coming weekend is the annual 24 Hours of Iowa race at Seven Oaks. I always feel myself getting pulled in several different directions on Labor Day weekend, with several different big races to choose from throughout the Midwest. I’ve always opted for the 24 because it’s a great time on some awesome trails and it’s always a well run event. This year was no different and we’ve made the tough decision to bypass the 24 and try something different. I’ve always wanted to do the Dakota 50 and the MNSCS race up at Mapelag Resort. With Chequamegon happening just two weeks after this weekend, a 50 mile mountain bike race is too close and I don’t think that I’ll recover in time for a race that I’ve historically had a difficult time getting myself fully recovered for. So MNSCS it is. I’ve heard nothing but good things about the MNSCS race, Julie and I are pretty stoked to check it out.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Seven Oaks

2009-08-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

Somebody had tacos for lunch even though it’s not taco Tuesday.

We’ve had some pretty strange weather throughout the week leading up to last weekend. I’d look out of the window of my office and see a beautiful, mostly sunny sky. Fifteen minutes later I would hear a torrential downpour beating down on the metal roof of our building. I’d look out the window, see partially blue sky with rain beating against my window. I could feel a slight bit of frustration building within me as it looked like all of the rain would dampen everybody’s enthusiasm for racing at Seven Oaks. It’s no secret that racing in the mud at Seven Oaks isn’t a whole lot of fun, unless you enjoy riding your bike through peanut butter.
Julie and I decided to check the course out the day before the race and it was more or less what I had expected as the Boone area didn’t receive as much rain as Des Moines. The first lap had quite a few greasy spots and a couple of mud puddles to ride through. Seven Oaks is arguably the most technical mountain bike trail in Iowa, so I rode the first lap with Julie to show her the lines. She bailed after one lap and I went out for a second lap at close to race pace. The trail had dried considerably and most of the grease had turned to damp and tacky. After that, I knew the course would be close to perfect for the race.
We woke up the next day to a beautiful, cloudless day and race time temps were in the upper 70’s. We lined up for the start, Ron said go and I took the lead going into the singletrack with Padawan Gammell firmly attached to my wheel. I had no idea what the order was behind the young Padawan. Normally, I would use the Force to figure that out, however I needed to devote all of my attention to the tread. Any lapse in focus will most likely result in a tuck ‘n roll down a steep hill or doing the tango with a tree. I’ve done both here before and it’s not as fun as it sounds.
After about a half a lap, I could tell that Jed was beginning to sag a little, so I kept the pressure on until I could no longer see him where the course doubled back on itself. After that I settled into my own comfortable pace and was able to clip off all three laps at pretty close to the same 35+ minute per lap pace. After shaking Jed, the remainder of the race was pretty uneventful. I started picking up lapped traffic from the Cat 2 race about midway through my second lap and had no trouble getting by as they all made plenty of room for me. I passed Julie on one of the many tricky switchbacks and it looked as though she was leading the Category 2 women’s race.

I rode my bike over a large piece of stick.

Kevin jumped his bike over a large piece of stick.

I ended up with another win, followed by Padawan Gammell, who’s having a pretty good season despite minimal racing. Kevin McConnell brought home third, followed closely by Aaron Robinett. Ben Shockey rounded out the top five. Julie also had another stellar race brining home the win in the women’s Category 2 race. On a course where there are an endless amount of good opportunities to hit the deck, she only kissed the dirt once. Thankfully there was little to no damage to her or the Goose.
Things came together nicely for this race and there are a few folks that need to be recognized for stepping up big time to make it another successful event. Ron DeGeest is pretty much a one man wrecking crew for Singletrack Promotions this year. With a little help from a few friends, he was able to get a lot of the trail at Seven Oaks into race ready condition. The trails at Seven Oaks require more work than most other places, so a big thank you to Singletrack Promotions. WWJ (Jay Chesterman) supplied several cases of Chippewa Springs Water, Jason’s Deli provided several free gift cards and Greg Rasmussen of Rasmussen Bike Shop provided most of the awards that were given away. All of these generous folks that support our great sport of mountain bike racing are very deserving of your patronage, so please show all of them your appreciation by giving them your business. And lastly, to all 68 of the people that came out and had a great time on their mountain bikes! I think this might have been the best turn out for a cross country race at Seven Oaks!

Kevin and Aaron were gangin' up on me after the race and threatened to break my knees if I ever beat them again.

Next up is the rain date for the Psycowpath race at Maskenthine. Kevin Limpach did a number on me at the last Psycowpath race, so I’ll be looking for a little redemption this time around!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Border Battle

2009-08-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

Photos courtesy of Jay Richards and Julie

Mountain bike racing in the Midwest simply doesn’t get any better than WORS or MNSCS races. Both series do a top notch job of creating a fun, electric atmosphere at all of their races. What could possibly be better? How about combining both series into one race! That’s what the Border Battle is all about. You get the best of both series, especially when it comes to the competition. Even though I routinely get my butt kicked by the top dogs in both series, I love coming up.
Julie and I headed up Saturday morning to get a good recon in of the course and were greeted with close to perfect course conditions. Last year the course was very dry and dusty, which made for some pretty slippery corners. This year, even though it had been dry, recent rain had made all of the shaded areas very fast. After our recon we hit the grocery store for some grub. Last year, we’ve kinda gotten ourselves into a bad habit of making sure that we eat some ice cream the night before a race…who am I kidding, we eat ice cream every night. We like the pricey stuff, Haagen Dazs baby! There was slim pickens’ at the local Econofoods, so we had to settle for some Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked.
We stayed at the same cabin with Tyrine and the Scanley’s as last year, and after a nice dinner, I gave Ty a good butt kickin’ in a game of cribbage. While we were playing, it started to rain and it continued on and off throughout the night. We woke up the next morning and I could hear cars driving by on wet pavement. We had no idea what to expect with course conditions, however WORS and MNSCS run rain or shine, so it was go time regardless of the weather or course conditions. As the morning progressed, the skies began to clear and it ended up being a beautiful day for bike racing!
We headed over to the course and watched some of the Cat 3 race and noticed that there was little to no mud on any of the bikes or racers. The only exception was a few dirt skid marks up and down several of the racers bodies from hitting the deck.
Julie’s race was scheduled two hours before mine, so I was able to watch the first part of her race before I had to get ready for mine. She got off to her usual slow start and hit the bottom of the first climb in dead last. By the time she got to the top, she was sitting about mid pack of the 24 strong women’s Category 2 field. After she passed, I rolled over to another section of the course near the end of the lap and she was still sitting in about 12th place overall. She looked like she was riding really well, she looked strong, however I was surprised not to see her higher up in the order. She ended up in 10th overall, good enough for 2nd in her age. I thought that she might have finished a little higher, however she was happy with her result and said she had a great time. So it was all good and as always, I am very proud of well she’s been doing this year!

If you attend my all women’s mtb clinic this fall, you too will learn to fly around corners just like Julie.

Julie got to stand on a box. Check out her shirt, she’s giving the Dirty Du some love.

My race was pretty stacked with the best that the Midwest has to offer and I was very fortunate to get a 2nd row call up in the 70 strong Elite men’s field. I got off to my usual slow start and ended up in around 30th going up the initial climb. By the time I hit the top of the climb, I felt like I was completely gassed. I made a pretty quick recovery and began my pursuit towards the sharp end of the field. I was able to get by several riders after we hit the top of the climb and settled into a good pace as we hit the first section of singletrack. There were a few places where the pace slowed to a crawl due to the usual bottlenecking that takes place at the beginning of big races. Maybe someday I’ll get off to a good start and I’ll be able to avoid the bottlenecks. I’m old and start slowly, so I guess that’s how its’ gonna be for me until I decide to better prepare myself, if that ever happens!

The Don of WORS was kind enough to give me a 2nd row call up. I suck at starts and need all of the help that I can get.

Gooooooooooooo!!!!

The train of pain flying up the climb at the start of the race. I’m in there somewhere, suffering like an animal.

Check me out, I think that I was still in my happy place despite the severe pain.

I kept passing other competitors throughout the race and I could tell that I was riding pretty well through all of the techie sections. The dirt, for the most part was damp, tacky and very fast. The course was better than yesterday in some places, and a little worse in others. However there was little to no mud. When we hit the open sections, I hit the throttle and was almost always able to pick off at least one rider. When we hit the tight sections where there were no opportunities to pass, I’d settle in on the wheel in front of me and try to recover so that I could open the throttle again in the next open section.

TJ dishin’ out a little pain early in the race.

Towards the end of the race, the lapped traffic from the Comp class and the Elite women was pretty heavy and I had some difficulties in getting by some, however that’s the way that it goes on a course like this. When there was room, I was able to get by without getting held up too much. This happens at almost every WORS and MNSCS race, and those that get passed know what’s going on and do their best to make room, so it’s all good.

Mike Phillips is finding his form quickly after recovering from a knee blowout last spring.

Flying through one of the many fast corners, check out the tread...damp and tacky = mtb goodness.

Cruising down a sweet bridge.

A couple of dirty old men. 40+ fast guy Jeff Melcher and I giving each other a good ole’ fashioned beat down.

To my surprise, I managed to pull off an 8th place overall finish. If you’d have told me during my warm up that I would crack the top ten today, I would have laughed at you. My legs felt like crap during my warm up and it was all that I could do to get my HR over 160. My average HR for the race was 170, which was also a big surprise based on how my warm up went. I had just finished two pretty heavy build weeks of training and my legs were heavy from the efforts. At the same race last year, it was the same deal, tired legs which resulted in 15th overall, about 8:30 behind the winner. Today I was only 4:30 behind the winner, so I might be able to take that as a sign that I might be a little faster this year.

Race winner Marko Lalonde made the switch from the Dark Side riding a geared bike.

Despite having a good race, I didn’t get to stand on a box this time.

Marko Lalonde continued his stellar season with another win over a strong field, followed closely by TJ Woodruff. Mikey Phillips is continuing his recovery from and early season injury and making some great progress as he finished in 3rd, followed by Brendan Moore with Jesse Lalonde rounding out the top five. Full results can be found here.
While we were standing on the podium, some dude called me the ninja racer. I suppose it was because I kinda snuck up on him in the singletrack, then passed him in one of the open sections. Maybe it was also because of the all black Rassy kit and the mostly black Orbea Oiz. Whatever the reason, several of us got a good laugh out of it…

Next up is the 8th race of the IMBCS at Seven Oaks Ski Area near Boone, IA. Race director Ron DeGeest of Singletrack Promotions is pretty much a one man band and doing it all himself this year. Reports from last weekend are that the trails are in great shape and good to go for this weekend. I’m hoping for a good turn out as Ron has been working his butt off to put together a great event for this weekend!

Thanks for reading,

CK

The Tranquility / Ahquabi Double

2009-08-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

Day one,

Fifty pounds of pasta in a five pound bowl… that’s how I would describe the trails at Tranquility Park in Omaha. Actually, a better description might fifty pounds of pasta in a five pound bowl fresh out of the oven. As Julie and I were driving to the course, a bank thermometerin Omaha had indicated that it was 100 degrees out. I’ve raced in hot weather before, but never this hot.
My legs were a little sore all day yesterday from another hard week of training, so I didn’t really know what to expect from them today. The other unknown was how my body would respond to the searing heat. The race started and the field seemed to more or less concede the hole shot to me as I didn’t really have to work that hard to take it. I lead the way into the woods and it seemed like I was going to do OK with the heat.

Leading the train on spaghetti hill.

Fresh out of the oven! It's so hot that everybodies skin is red.

About midway through the first lap I dropped my chain. As I was struggling to get it back on, Kevin shot by me and gained an immediate gap. I finally got my chain back on and began my pursuit. I finally reeled him back in shortly after the beginning of the second lap and once we hit the myriad of switchbacks he was able to reestablish a gap on me. We hit the open field on a hill and as I began to close the gap my body began to reject the effort. The heat was starting to catch up to me and as a result, I had no significant power when going uphill.
We hit some of the shaded sections of the course and I began to feel a little better. However whenever we hit the sunny sections, my body began to balk at any significant efforts. Throughout the second lap and the beginning of the third lap I kept persisting with effort in an attempt to pull Kevin back, however my body would have none of it. Sometime during the beginning of lap three, I finally began to realize that it wasn’t gonna happen today. So I put myself in survival mode and did what I could to finish and hang onto 2nd overall.
Kevin ended up finishing pretty strong and earned his first, much deserved Psycowpath win. He did his homework in course recon and had little to no trouble with the heat and that’s pretty much what it took to pull off the W. I managed to hold on for 2nd, followed by Jim Winklepeck, Jesse Peterson and Mark Savery. Just finishing was a significant accomplishment today as only 10 of the 17 that started the Pro / Cat 1 race finished.
Julie had another great race and managed to bring home the W in the women’s Cat 2 race. She said that she was able to back the pace off a little once she took the lead in order to save herself a little for tomorrow’s race.

Julie had no trouble with the heat or the spaghetti.

The 'goose was a fast bike for me...and she's a fast bike for Julie.

Day two,

The weather was much better for racing today with temps ranging anywhere from around 80 at the start, to around 90 at the finish. There were even a few moments when there were light sprinkles during the race.
The course at Lake Ahquabi State Park has been likened to the course for the Chequamegon 40, with it being mostly fast, flowing double track. I love racing there because it is very fast for a mountain bike race and makes for excellent Chequamegon preparation.
The race started and I was again given the hole shot. We hit the first climb and about halfway up, Kent Carlson pulled up next to me. I wasn’t really keen on giving up the lead, mostly because he was on a singlespeed and I knew that once we hit the flats, I’d get by him. He was about a wheel ahead of me at the top when he took a wrong turn. He pre-rode the course so he should have known where to go. I think that he’d gotten himself so cross-eyed that he kind of lost his mind at the top of the climb.

Cruisin' into the woods...I love hangin' out in the woods.

For the first half of a lap, I knew that Aaron was on my wheel, however I had no idea what was going on behind him. Shortly after that, I couldn’t hear anybody behind me. I took a look back and my suspicions were confirmed. I had already gapped the field and we still had 4 ½ laps to go. I kept the pressure on as I had no interest in giving anybody a free ride on this draft friendly course.
The remainder of the race was without incident and I managed to grab another win. Padawan Gammell and Aaron ended up duking it out to the bitter end and on the final climb, they managed to crash each other. Aaron managed to gather himself a little more quickly than Jed and took the ‘sprint’ for 2nd with Jed bringing home 3rd. Nate Kullborn brought home 4th and Kent made a nice recovery from his off course excursion to round out the top 5.
Bruce Brown and the MOB crew did another fine job in creating another great IMBCS race. This one is quickly becoming one of my favorites as it is close to home and suits a lot of my strengths really well.
Julie capped off another great weekend with another Cat 2 overall win. I am really anxious to see how she does in the Chequamegon 40, maybe a sub 3 hour race? We’ll find out in a little over a month!

Julie loves hangin' out in the woods too.

Next up is the race coined as the ‘Border Battle’. It’s a joint venture between the WORS and MNSCS series. I got my butt handed to me last year, mostly due to tired legs. I guess I’m kind of expecting the same thing this year as I’m in the middle of a pretty heavy build period. In races up north, the competition is so tight, that I can be a little off my game and I could loose 10 - 15 positions because of it. It’s all good though, if anything, it’ll be a great workout and a lot of fun!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Camp Ingawanis

2009-08-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

After nearly a month off from racing, it was time to blow the cobwebs off of the race bike. I really had no idea what to expect from my legs, though I wasn’t really all that concerned about it. I was pretty excited to get back into race mode and all of my other concerns fell to the wayside.
I drove up to Ames to hang out with Julie for the weekend and we got some good rides in and around town on Friday and Saturday before the race. Sunday morning, we loaded up the Jeep and made the 2 hour drive up to Camp Ingawanis. I had talked to the race director, Rob Walters, earlier in the week and he had indicated that they had temporarily lost access to the northern section of trails due to some logging operation that was going on. This got me a little concerned about the course, as the majority of the trails were on the northern part of the property. They did manage to squeeze about 4 ½ miles of trail out of the southern section and when I did my recon lap, my concerns about the coursed quickly disappeared. They put together a pretty sweet course that made the 2 hour drive well worth it.
We lined up for the start and I bagged the holeshot, though I kinda sensed that the remainder of the Pro / Cat 1 field kinda conceded the holeshot to me. I didn’t get clipped in right away and had gotten off to a mediocre start. I should have gotten blown away at the start, however that didn’t happen.
I lead the way into the singletrack and knew that I would have a long train of riders behind me for a while. The nature of the trails were such that there were little to no sections that provided that ‘natural selection’ element that I always look for as a means of creating a gap between myself and the competition.
About midway through lap 1 I had managed to gap everybody less one person. That one person was glued to my wheel and I could tell by the way that he was riding that he was going to turn himself inside out to stay there. I had no idea who it was over the first couple of laps, however it didn’t really matter. I could only go so fast through the tight, twisty sections. So my only other option was to drill it on the open sections and short power climbs in hopes of wearing him down. All of the fast, open sections were short enough that by the time I had gotten myself unwound, it was already time to slow down so that I didn’t overcook the tight corner at the end. All of the climbs were also short enough, that by the time I got my momentum working for me, the trail would begin to level out.
It was probably around the beginning of lap three that I finally figured out that it was Aaron Robinett who was shadowing me. It was also at that same time that I found myself wondering if I was ever going to be able to shake him. I stuck to the plan and continued pushing the pace whenever possible. It wasn’t until we got part way into lap 3 that I sensed he was beginning to tire a little. Even though I couldn’t see, I could tell that there were moments when a small gap would open up between us. For a while, he would close it back up, however about midway through lap 3 the elastic had finally reached its’ breaking point. I kept the pressure on hoping that the gap would stick.
I kept the screws nice and tight throughout the last lap and a half and managed to hold him off by around 30 seconds. Kevin McConnell, Sean Noonan and Trevor Rockwell rounded out the top five. Aaron rode a great race and clearly had a plan of sticking with me, either waiting for me to tire or make a mistake. I rode a pretty good race too, good enough that Aaron’s plan didn’t quite work out this time. However, I don’t think that it will be long before he turns the table on me. I had a great time racing against him, and when he does get the best of me, I’ll be the first to congratulate him. I love good competition and would rather have a closely contested race rather than a blowout.
Julie also had a great race and took her first overall win in the Category 2 class. If she keeps it up, it won’t be long before she’s bangin’ bar ends with Robin Williams and Kim Eppen! Right now she’s riding my old Mongoose hardtail and she’s getting the snot knocked out of her on most of the bumpy sections of trail. Next year she’ll be on a full suspension and she’s only going to get faster!

Next up is another dirty double weekend. On Saturday we’ll be heading to Omaha for next installment of the Psycowpath series. It’s supposed to be 100 degrees with 25 mph winds with 45 mph gusts….my kind of race! On Sunday we’ll be at Lake Ahquabi State Park for IMBCS #7.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Another epic on pavement

2009-07-17T20:14:00.000-07:00

If you’ve ever driven along I-70 between Frisco and Grand Junction, you’ve probably noticed a bike path that parallels the interstate. I’ve always been kind curious about the path and thought that it’d be kinda cool to check it out. So today, Andy and I hit the path towards Vail. Andy had to turn around after about 45 minutes because he had to catch a plane to Iowa. He’ll be working like a dog all of next week wrenching bikes for the Rassy camp at RAGBRAI. I continued on the bike path to Vail, and in the process, had a few close calls with other riders on the path. It seems to be really popular with slow moving retired folk. It also contained a few people that seemed to enjoy nipping the apex of some of the blind corners at high speeds on the wrong side of the path, despite warnings from signs. I actually felt safer on the highway! I rode through Vail and then hit highway 24 for Leadville. Highway 24 took me over two mountain passes, Battle Mountain Pass and Tennessee Pass. I noticed a set of railroad tracks that ran along the highway. At one time, they were supposed to be the highest mainline mountain pass tracks in the nation. My computer told me that the last train to use the tracks was back in 1997.

A sweet bridge on the south side of Battle Mountain Pass with train tracks running below.

I continued on to Leadville and then headed north on Highway 91 back towards Copper Mountain. Highway 91 took me by several mining operations, most of which are defunct, and one in particular, Climax Mine that is temporarily out of operation due to the low value of the mineral being mined. They mine something up there called molybdenum, an alloy that is used in the production of very hard steel. If you live downstream, I wouldn’t drink the water.
After passing over Fremont Pass, the real fun began. Part of Highway 91 is so steep, that my coasting speed got up 55 mph. It was a pretty windy day and the wind was pushing me from one side of the shoulder to the other. I’m really glad that I didn’t crash as it probably would have hurt worse than my crash in Durango.
At the end of the day, I logged about 108 miles and around 6,600 feet of vertical. All in all, a pretty sweet ride!

Fremont Pass and Climax Mine off to the right.

This sign means that you're fixin' to haul some serious booty.

Summit County Epic

2009-07-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

Andy and I hit the local greasy spoon for some vittles and black gold to fuel up for one of those types of rides where we had no real plan other than riding all day and exploring. We started out on the West Aqueduct Trail, a trail that he actually did some trail work on as part of his job with Keystone. We connected onto the Red Trail and eventually hit the Colorado Trail. While on the Colorado, we hit a smooth section of trail that contained several screamin’ fast downhills coupled together with switchbacks. It was definitely one of my most fun, memorable moments on a mountain bike. I think that I have another new favorite section of trail! We dropped down into Breckenridge and Andy started talking about Daylight Donuts. I rarely eat donuts, however I love a good donut. As luck would have it, we rolled by the donut shop at about the same time as our midday break. We stopped, I bought a donut, I ate it and I enjoyed it.

Mmmmmm...donuts.

Part two consisted of the long trek up Boreas Pass Road, which was also a part of the Firecracker race course. We hit a few sections of singletrack that went along side the road until we hit the Bakers Tank Trailhead. We took the BT to Bakers Tank and discovered that we could either go up on what appeared to be a trail, ride back down Boreas Pass Road, or turn around. We decided on the ‘trail’ that went up and a short while later, we decided to turn around as we saw no evidence that it was actually a mountain bike trail. We headed back on Bakers Tank until we hit the Iowa Mill. The trail at Iowa Mill either went straight up, or straight down. We could see that trail heading up lead to a jeep road that appeared to go to the top of Mt. Baldy. The natural choice was to go up.
I kept riding upwards until the road got so steep, that it was virtually unrideable without tipping over backwards on my bike. My HR monitor told me that I was suckin’ wind, and that I was at about 12,200 feet in elevation. It was creepy and pretty amazing, very desolate, no trees and had some spectacular views of the Breckenridge Ski Resort and the surrounding mountains. Andy was somewhere below me, so I figured that I’d better head back down before we found ourselves on different trails.

Some crazy lookin' mining ruins above the tree line.

A sweet view of Breck from above the tree line.

Flyin' down the mountain back into the trees. Glad that I didn't crash there.

We reconnected part of the way down and eventually reconnected onto the Firecracker race course on the appropriately named Pinball Alley Trail. A tight, twisty section of singletrack that threads its’ way through unforgiving pine trees. We eventually hit Sally Barber road and took the screamin’ fast descent down to a section of trail called the B-Line. Squirrel would call this place heaven. I’ve never seen a larger collection of elevated bridges, all over the place. They were all nicely crafted and looked like a lot of fun. Andy took the high road on some, whereas I took the low road and stuck to the dirt as I was still a little psyched out from my intimate moment with the dirt in Durango.
We reconnected with the last section of the Firecracker course that went down into Breck. We took the bike path north and hit a little ditty that went around Lake Dillon before we decided to call it a day. We were out for a total of around 8 hours and covered something like 40 miles of singletrack. I’d call that a great day in the office…

401

2009-07-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

So I had a major decision to make last night. My Dad met up with Julie and I last week and we were able to stay in his RV / tour bus. This thing is huge, plenty of room for all three of us and his varmint. He skipped town today and Julie flew back to DSM last Saturday. So I had to choose between staying in Durango by myself, or maybe drive up to Silverthorne and hang with Andy. I didn’t really feel like hangin’ out by myself and I hadn’t seen Andy in quite a while. We were long overdue for a beat down ride, so I hooked up with him in Crested Butte with the goal of riding the legendary 401 trail.
I made it to CB shortly after 11 and Andy rolled up on his bike about five minutes after I got there. There were a lot of heavy looking clouds hanging around and as we pondered the weather a lightning bolt flashed near the top of Mt. Crested Butte. Shortly thereafter, were heard the sound of thunder echoing off of the surrounding mountains…pretty cool, unless you’re looking to get a ride in. We sat around and shot the shyte for about an hour and finally decided to drive up to the trailhead. We made it up to the trailhead, got out of our cars, looked up to the heavens and saw that God was smiling upon us with several patches of blue sky within the clouds.
We unloaded the bikes, suited up and made our way up to the upper trailhead at Schofield Pass. No sooner did we start our ride and Andy decided that he wanted to cross swords with me. I heard Phil Ligget say that during the TDF coverage when Lance was talking to another rider during the race. I thought it was funny and thought I’d give it a try on the Rassy Blog, however I don’t think it worked out as well. Anyway, he was warm, I was cold. He went forward and it seemed as though I was going backwards…punk kids. About halfway up to Schofield Pass, I finally felt as though I was ready for a little more effort and returned the favor by applying my own brand of heat.
We made it to the upper trailhead and continued our quest for mountain biking bliss. We still had to do quite a bit more climbing, however it was all on singletrack, so it was all good. When the trail pointed downward, the big smile on my face became even bigger as we rocketed down the trail. I can see why the 401 gets so much press. If you like fast, flowy, serpentine singletrack that threads its’ way through Aspen groves, high altitude meadows full of beautiful, handle bar high flowers complete with spectacular views from top to bottom, this trail has your name all over it. The only problem with the trail…the entire loop only took us 90 minutes…way too short!

This is what the big dawgs look like when they win a big UCI race. Yep, I'm a poser.

This is what the big dawgs look like when they don't win a big UCI race.

Durango – Day 5

2009-07-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

Animas City Mountain.

Decided to hit the dirt today and rode up Junction Creek Road to the Colorado Trailhead. Put in some good efforts because it is mostly uphill all of the way to a part of the trail that the locals call ‘High Point’. My guess is that it is a popular turn around point for most, even though the Colorado continues all of way to Denver. I rode up to Hoffheins, took Hoffheins to Dry Fork, then back up to the Colorado. Took the Colorado up to Highpoint, took a breather, ate a Probar and decided to continue up the trail. I could tell that there had been a lot of rain as the foliage was such that it became difficult to see the trail. I was still smarting in some areas from my wipeout, so I decided to turn around and head back into town.
Once back in town, I decided to swing by the Animas City Mountain for a lap. One lap up and around Animas nets about 1,600 feet of climbing and some pretty amazing views of Durango to the south, and the Animas River valley to the north. I got yelled at by some old people dawdling along the trail near the top. I gave warning twice and even rolled up to them at a walking pace. They finally noticed me and I apparently scared the crap out of them. The lady told me that I needed to say ‘bike back’, or something along those lines. I said that I did…twice and then told her that she needed pull her head out of her arse and pay better attention to her surroundings. I could have been a mean, hungry, big ole’ black bear for cryin’ out loud…I really didn’t say that. Instead, I rode thru and politely told them that I did say something.

The Animas River Valley to the north.

D-Town to the south.

It's kinda like eating ice cream, I'm always happy when I am eating ice cream or riding singletrack.

Durango – Day 4

2009-07-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

The road up to Lemon Reservoir.

I left from the campground and rode through Durango with the intent of doing a big loop that included stops by Lemon and Vallecito Reservoirs. Then I headed south to Bayfield. I took highway 160 back towards Durango, which I will never do again, too much traffic and little to no shoulder. I took 160 until I hit highway 172. I rode on that until I hit the Ute Indian Reservation, where I had planned to turn around and head back. I rode into the parking lot of some casino, ate a little food, drank a little water and had this huge urge to relieve myself…so I did. Hope nobody saw me watering the grass. I ended up with right at 100 miles for the day and around 5,000 feet of vertical. Another great day of riding in the books!

The road up to Vallecito Reservoir.

The road around Vallecito crosses over the Pine River. I saw some dude fly fishing up stream. I watched him pull a boot out of the river.

Durango – Day 3

2009-07-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

Decided to do an easy ride with Julie today. We left D-town on our bikes and took 160 up to the Dry Fork trailhead. We took Dry Fork up to the Colorado Trail and then took the Colorado down into Durango for a nice three hour ride. The ride contained some of the sweetest singletrack that I’ve ever laid tracks on. Words cannot do it justice, so if you’d like a better description than what is here, you’re gonna have to come out and experience it yourself. I cannot believe how quickly Julie is picking up this whole mountain biking thing. She successfully rode through some very technical, uphill and downhill rock gardens that I wouldn’t have done if I’d only been riding for a year. She will most likely be taking on a more active role in my annual women’s mountain biking clinic this fall!

You can tell from Julie's smile that she loves buff singletrack just as much as I do.

This little varment wandered over to the cliff at Gudy's Rest while Julie and I were hanging out. I think he was scoping out the trail below (in background), he was probably trying to figure out what lines he was going to take once he got down there.

I think that's the cow that tried to hump Shim a few years ago.

Love the Aspen groves.

Durango – Day 2

2009-07-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

Decided to let my body heal a little and hit the road for a hundy. I rode west to Mesa Verde, paid the $8 admission into the park and did another 16 or so miles until I hit the highest point on the road. I stopped for about 10, ate some Pop Tarts, enjoyed the view of the mesa’s off in the distance, then turned around for the ride home. The park was a nice break from the heavy traffic on highway 160, it kinda felt like I was in de-tox from all of the diesel fumes that I had inhaled on 160. I ended up with about 5 hours of ride time and just over 7,000 feet of net verticality on the day.

Mesa Verde is a pretty cool national park. I think the Pueblo Indians decided to split in search of new digs in the 1200's. Good ole' Teddy Roosevelt decided to establish the land as a national park in an effort to preserve what was left of the ruins.

There has to be some sweet singletrack down there somewhere...

This is where I ate my Pop Tarts.

Durango – Day 1 – Crash and Burn.

2009-07-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

Sweet trail maps at almost every intersection.

Julie and I rode over to the Telegraph Trails. I wanted to get a good, hard workout in and because the Telegraph Trails have trail maps at almost every intersection, I figured that it would be a great place for Julie to ride on her own while I go out and beat myself to a pulp. I told her that if she needed to stop to take a load off, to make sure that she stopped in an open space and not to converse with any strange snakes, especially if they have a rattle.
So, I rode the Telegraph Trail to the top and started ripping it up down the descent on Crites Connect. I’ve ridden the trail probably 30 times before and was familiar enough with it that I felt comfortable letting it all hang out. As I was rounding a fast corner, I saw a very large rock sitting in the middle of the trail that I’d never seen before. As soon as I saw the rock, I knew that I was screwed. I tried to go around it, however my front tire clipped it enough that it sent me flying OTB. The next thing I know, I’m sliding down the trail head first on my back. I had a Camelback on and I remember waiting for it to burst from my body bouncing on and off of it while I was sliding down the trail. When I finally stopped, I kinda laid there and waited for the cloud of dust to settle. I moved my arms and legs, nothing seemed to be broken, so I got up, picked my bike up and gave it a once over. Everything seemed to be fine. From what I could tell, I only had a few small cuts on my legs and some scrapes on my elbows and shoulders. I dusted myself off and motored on.
About an hour into the ride, I noticed that my front wheel was a little out of whack, though it wasn’t enough to prevent me from continuing on. I rode for another hour or so and headed back to the car where Julie was waiting for me. I got off the bike and almost fell over. I didn’t really realize just how beat up I was.

If it wasn't for the Camelback, my back would look like raw hamburger...stop looking at my underwear.

Technical, rocky uphill.

Technical, rocky downhill.

The Anasazi Descent in the distance. If you crash there, it's not going to feel very good.

Durango goodness. It would suck to crash here too.

When I replay the incident in my head, I really can’t believe just how lucky I was. As fast as I was going, I should have broken something on my body. The bike actually came through it all pretty good too. A partially taco’d front wheel and a cracked stem. I had another wheelset with me and I found a stem at a local bike shop for $40. Two hours later she was as good as new!

Avon

2009-07-10T15:58:00.000-07:00

I’ve been not so good with the daily posts, lot’s of stuff going on since we got here. We stayed at Julie’s brothers’ house in Avon until Tuesday. The day after the Firecracker, Julie and I rode to the farmers market in Vail. What a zoo! Elbow to elbow people, lot’s of food stands, trinket stands with the usual tourist junk. We grabbed a bite to eat at a restaurant away from all of the chaos of the market, then headed back to the ranch. Good ride, beautiful scenery and some good quality time with my female!

Sweet view from Steve's pad. He and his wife were kind enough to put us up and put up with us for a few days.

The next day Julie’s brother, Steve and I headed out for a couple of sweet mountain bike rides. We started off by doing part of a loop called the ‘A-10’ loop that threads its’ way through Beaver Creek. At some point we left the A-10 loop onto a trail that pointed skyward. Steve had mentioned that part of the trail had a lengthy hike-a-bike section. Whenever somebody mentions that, my enthusiasm perks up and I take it as a challenge. So we hit the bottom of the hike-a-bike and I took off determined to clean it. I made it about 20 feet before I began to quickly realize that riding up was not going to be an option. Hike-a-bike sections can kinda suck at times, however as Blood, Sweat and Tears used to sing, ‘What Goes Up, Must Come Down’! The descent was pretty sweet. I took the lead and continued downward and lost myself in mountain biking bliss.
A lot of the tread was pretty greasy, which made for some sketchy sections. Some parts of the trail were difficult to see with some of the vegetation covering parts of the trail. Whenever I encounter sections like this, I usually assume that the trail is clear and I just blow through it. While doing this, I sometimes think about how it would suck if there were to be a root or rock waiting to grab a hold of my front tire. As this thought was passing through the void between my ears, something reached out and grabbed my front tire. Next thing I know, I’m lying in the weeds. I took a look back up the trail and sure enough, there was a wet root, glistening in the sunlight tucked underneath some vegetation. No harm done thankfully, no lost skin, the bike was still intact. I picked myself up and continued on with the same level of reckless abandon. We finished the ride, loaded the bikes up and headed down the highway to Eagle for some more singletrack goodness. We did a 90 minute loop on trails that were very similar to the Telegraph Trails in Durango. The first half of the ride was all uphill. The second half of the ride was some of the best downhill trail that I’ve ever ridden. Very fast, swooping trails with a lot of opportunities to catch some good air.
Steve and Tina had scored four dukes to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra playing at the Vail Amphitheater. They were doing a tribute to the music of John Williams. They played the Star Wars theme song and it was very cool, kinda like being at the movie. There were a lot of older people there, yes, older than me and it smelled a lot like old lady perfume everywhere. Other than that, it was a pretty sweet show.
The next day, I dusted off the road bike and hit the road with the intention of riding to Frisco on what is mostly bike path. As I was rolling through Avon, I found myself following another cyclist on the road. We passed under I-70 and I saw a sign that said 36 miles to Leadville. I realized that I had missed my turn, however the road had a nice shoulder, so I continued on. Highway 24 to Leadville rolled over two mountain passes, Tennessee Pass and another, can’t remember the name. Leadville sits at a thin 10,400 feet, however the altitude didn’t really seem to bother me much. Once I hit Leadville, I stopped at a gas station, drank some water, ate some Fig Newtons and bs’d with another cyclist from Dallas. After about 10 minutes, I turned around and headed back. Sweet ride! After the ride, Julie and I loaded the Jeep up and hit the road for Durango.

Firecracker Five-O

2009-07-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

Downtown Breckenridge before the start of the race...lot's of peeps hangin' out enjoying the vibe.

As I was finishing the Firecracker 50 last year, I told myself several times that I would not put myself through that again. However after a few days, I began to contemplate the idea for 2009. A couple of weeks ago I lost my mind and went ahead and pre-registered for the race again this year. Julie and I packed up the Jeep and hit the road for Co. bright and early Friday morning, to the tune of about 4am. We made it to her brothers house in Avon about 11 ½ hours later. We unloaded the bikes and went for a nice easy spin around the neighborhood to shake the cobwebs out of our legs.
The next morning we hit a sweet greasy spoon in Vail for some pancakes, ham, eggs, fried potatoes and some black gold. We made it to Breckenridge with 2 hours to spare. The skies were clear and it was looking to be another beautiful day in Colorado!
Last year I went out too hard and kinda blew my wad during the second lap. This year I was pretty determined not to do the same thing. The race started and there were about 40 cats in my age group. We rolled up the paved climb and as we approached the first section of singletrack, our group was down to eight. I’m pretty sure that I made the same bone headed mistake that I made last year by going out a little too hard. My HR spent a lot of time in the lower 170’s and as this was going on, I knew that I could never average that high of an HR over 50 miles, at over 9,500 feet no less. It’s one of those situations where, with all of the results that I’ve had, I’ve always been one of the top 40+ riders in the Midwest, so why not everywhere else? The problem with that theory is that mountain bike racing in Colorado is very different from the buttery smooth trails that we have in the Midwest, not to mention we flatlanders feel like we’re breathing through a coffee stir stick. When I finished the race last year, I felt like I had been run over by a very large truck. During the second lap of the race this year, I began to quickly recall that sensation.

The start of the crusty old man's race.

My second lap this year was around 13 minutes slower than last year…bone headed mistake confirmed. This year my last lap meltdown was worse than last year as my finishing time was about 3 minutes slower than last year. My only consolation for this year was that I never had to dismount, I rode everything. Last year I had to walk up the steeper portion of the Little French Gulch climb.

Coming down the mountain, suffering like an animal and so ready to be done. Not sure who the dude is in the foreground, kinda looks like q*bert.

Finally finished, I think at that point in time, I had no idea who or where I was.

I ended up finishing 7th in my age group, and judging by the finishing times, my age group was kinda stacked this year. I’m OK with the result for the most part, I am after all a flatlander from Iowa. And despite all of the pain and suffering, I did have a good time and I cannot rule out doing it again next year. The course boasts some of the sweetest singletrack that I have ever laid tracks on. I’m pretty sure that behind my pained expressions, there was a smile on my face…somewhere!
I was surprised at how many familiar faces that I ran into, Jeff Kerkove (no surprise), WORS regular Ryan Krayer, Ryan Feagan, Rox, Larry Kitner, another guy that I should know from Lincoln, I think I saw a dude in a MOB kit (Dave Krenz maybe?), there were probably a few others that slip my mind. I was still a little cross eyed for a while after the race. Julie also told me that I needed to score a free beer because racers got their beer in a free pint glass. I figured that I would get it and give it to her…that didn’t happen. As the beer guy handed over my beer, I saw Jeremiah Bishop drinking a beer. I was still feeling a little weak from the days effort and I rationalized that if he could drink a beer and be a top level pro, why not me? I drank it, it was really good and it gave me a nice, mellow buzz. The kind where you’re still sober, but it has a knack for hindering some of your mental faculties. Mine just happened to be my memory.

The plan for tomorrow is a nice easy ride to the farmers market in Vail with Julie. Should be a pretty sweet ride because any ride in Colorado is a sweet ride, even if you get caught in the rain!

Thanks for reading,

CK

MNSCS - Mt. Kato

2009-07-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

Photos courtey of Dana Schoppe and Jay Richards

After crashing out of the WORS race last weekend, I was looking for a little redemption this weekend. I’ve been racing my mountain bike for around 11 years now and after all of that time, an experience like I had last weekend still seemed to have a small effect on my psyche. I drove up to Mankato the day before the race to get a good recon ride in and when I arrived at the venue, I noticed a few people that had just finished riding. I couldn’t help but notice some mud packed on their tires, one guy even said that the ride went a lot worse for him than he had expected. I took a look around and noticed mostly dry pavement, with the exception of where some water was running off of the roof of the lodge. Apparently it had just rained earlier that morning and there were a few sections of trail that were still pretty slimy. I thought about scrapping the ride and hitting the paved bike path for a ride instead. However that thought was short lived as I drove up here today to ride on the dirt, even if it meant riding through some mud. The trail ended up being mostly damp with a few greasy spots. After the ride I knew the course would dry quickly enough that conditions would be close to ideal for tomorrows’ race.

Flesh eating roots.

Mt. Kato singletrack goodness.

Ridin' this stuff will put a smile on anybody's face.

On race day, I arrived with plenty of time to take my time getting ready and also get a good warm up in. We lined up for the start with all of the usual suspects for a MNSCS race, with 10 Pros and around 40 Cat 1’s ready to do some ragin’. Again, I was determined to get a better than usual start ended up in the second row behind Brendan Moore. He’s got the hole shot thing dialed in and if you’re stuck in the 2nd row, it’s a good wheel to follow. I got off to a pretty good start and as we started up the hill, I was somewhere in the top ten.

BS'n with Minnesota top dog Brendan Moore. I can't beat him on the bike, so I tried engaging in psycological warfare to get an edge. It didn't work.

Sweet atmosphere at the start of the Pro / Cat 1 race.

50+ Pro / Cat 1 racers gettin' all kinds of crazy at the start.

The Pro / Cat 1 death march snaking its' way up the hill.

Eventual men's race winner Jason Sager.

As we hit the top of the climb I ended up going into the woods in around 7th, behind a train of three riders. I settled in with the hope of getting myself a little recovery time from the massive effort from the start. After a short while, I felt recovered enough to begin my quest closer to the sharp end of the field. I worked my way past the three cats that were directly in front of me and as I was progressing, I caught an occasional glimpse of Jesse Reints up the trail. I put my head down and turned the screws as tightly as I could without blowing myself up. It took the better part of two laps to finally reel Jesse in and throughout the effort, I could see a couple of others a short distance behind me. Just the way I like it, close racing in front of and behind me!

Fellow Iowegion Shockstar had a stellar race finishing 17th overall.

As we were negotiating our way through a section of trail called The Maze, I asked Jesse if we were sitting 2 / 3. He said that we were 3 /4, so I asked who was in front of us. He said the Brendan was in 2nd and Sager was leading…. Sager! What the H is he doing here! Jesse apologized and said that he brought him. For those that don’t know, Jason Sager is a regular at all of the National Series races and has been known to post some pretty stout results. That’s one of the fun things about MNSCS and WORS races, you never know who’s going to show up.
My intention was to stay on Jesse’s wheel long enough to recover from the monster effort that it took to reel him in, however after a lap of following his wheel, my tongue was still hangin’ out of my mouth and my heart was still trying to jump out of my throat. At this point, the lapped traffic from the Comp field was pretty thick and I had to really bury myself at times to stay on Jesse’s wheel when passing through the lappers. For whatever reason, it was a little more difficult than normal to get through some of the lapped traffic. It was probably just more bad timing than usual with hitting traffic during some of the tighter sections of trail. However I’m not 100% on that theory as I wasn’t seeing very clearly at the time.

Chillin' in the shade.

Jesse is brandishing his manly chest. He forgot to wear his VW hubcap necklace.

About midway through the last lap, we were going up a pretty steep climb and Jesse began to inch away from me. I tried to close it back up and my legs wanted none of it. I backed it off a little until I hit the top of the climb and took a few seconds to recover. I hit the throttle again once the trail flattened out. By then Jesse was out of sight for the most part. I pretty much buried myself in an attempt to bring him back and also keep Sam O from reeling me in. On some sections of the course, I could tell that he wasn’t far behind me. I kept the pressure on until the end and came up about 6 seconds short of bringing Jesse back.
I ended up 4th on the day 6 seconds behind Jesse. Sager won and had just over 4 minutes on me at the finish. Brendan’s 3 race win streak came to an end and ended up in 2nd. My goal for the day was to equal or better last years 2nd place finish, however I still consider today a big success. Any time that I can bag a top 5 finish in a MNSCS or WORS race, well I have to be happy with that. I had a great time duking it out with Jesse, he rode a great race and he deserved a good finish. I remember back when I first started racing in the expert class in WORS and MNSCS races, he was always a regular in the top ten. So it’s great to see him finally find his form again. This result was also the shot in the arm that I needed after last weekends debacle, so even though I probably never lost track, I definitely feel like I’m back on track.

Next up is my annual 2 week training camp in good ole’ Colorado. Julie and I will be heading to Breckenridge for the marathon National Championships on the 4th. We’ll spend a couple of days at her brothers place in Vail, and then off to Durango for the remainder. I’ll probably head up to Sol Vista for the cross country nationals, however I doubt that I’ll race because I’ll be pretty cooked after a couple of 30 hour training weeks. I’ll try to do daily posts while I’m out there, so if you’re interested, stay tuned!

Thanks for reading,

CK

WORS Cup....sort of....

2009-06-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

With Lake Maskenthine getting postponed….for the 2nd time this year, I had a rare weekend off from racing two weekends ago. It was kinda nice to stay home for the weekend. This past weekend…sometimes the best lessons learned are from the mistakes that we make. Last year, I had one of my best races ever at the WORS Cup. This year I pegged the WORS Cup as one of my ‘A’ races and I really felt like I was ready. My warm up consisted of a lap of the course, my legs felt fresh and I felt like I had all of the technical sections of the course dialed in. I got a 2nd row call up and had gotten off to one of my better starts, sitting somewhere near the top ten rolling into the singletrack.

Just before the start of the men’s Elite race, Don does a great job in creating a great atmosphere at all of the WORS races. It doesn’t get any better than this!

The 60+ strong Pro/Cat 1 field getting themselves all cross-eyed at the start.

Sitting at around 10th and feelin’ pretty good about things.

We hit the first techy section, which was a little muddy, but nothing major. I took a bad line and got re-routed into a tree. I was going pretty slow at the time, but it was enough to force me to unclip in one of the worst places. I lost several positions and had to put forth a lot of effort to regain the ground that I had lost. Because I was well rested, my heart rate was a lot higher than what I was used to. As most experienced mountain bike racers know, when you approach the red zone, the bike handling skills tend to go out the window. I was steadily making up some ground when we hit another technical section. I had ridden through the section several times and never really had any problems with it. Not this time as I t-boned a stump in the middle of the trail and ended up rolling over my handlebars. As I was re-mounting my stead, I noticed that my handlebars were miss-aligned. I tried like a madman to straighten them out, but they wouldn’t budge. Game over.
I rode down to the bottom of the hill and back to my car. While riding, I found myself trying to figure out what my emotions were and what to make out of the situation. I grabbed a wrench out of my toolbox, straightened my handlebars and hit the road for a long ride to get things sorted out. That turned out to be a great idea. I’ve driven a ton of miles throughout the state of Wisconsin, but I’ve never ridden a bike on the roads. It ended up being one of my most enjoyable rides on pavement with rolling hills, a variety of trees as far as the eye could see and the smell of pine. During the ride, I was able to sort out what went wrong with the race. It basically came down to getting myself into the red to early in the game, as a result, my bike handling went down the crapper. Lesson learned. The only casualty of the incident was a slightly bent brake rotor. It could have been a lot worse, so for that, I am very thankful. I also have to mention that Julie’s support throughout the mishap was pretty amazing. She is like minded enough to understand what a person goes through when things go in fuego for an ‘A’ race.
I made it back to the car with plenty of time to spare to help Julie get ready for her race. She was pretty nervous and had indicated that her legs felt like Jello brand gelatin. I did my best to give her assurance that it was the pre race jitters doing their thing. My advice to her was pretty simple, don’t make the same bone headed mistake that I made. Keep yourself in check at the start and chip away at the competition when things get settled down. Iowa City Cat 1, who will be a Pro soon, Robin Williams was there and gave Julie some much needed advice from another woman about riding through some of the technical sections. That ended up being a huge help for Julie and bolstered her confidence when it came time to throw it down.

Making preparations to unleash her fury on the women’s field shortly after the start.

Julie is really good at going around uphill corners.

Threading her way through one of the many sweet sections of singletrack.

Julie was rippin’ through the singletrack like a scalded dog.

Julie taking the corner like it’s bermed.

Julie ended up racing a very smart race, starting near the back of the 18 woman field. With all of the extra energy that I had from ‘not racing’, I ran all over the course, taking pictures and yelling encouragement. She rode through most of the technical sections exactly as Robin had advised and kept it rubber side down the entire race. She gradually worked her way through the field and pulled out a 5th place overall and 3rd in her age group. Starting near the back of the group most likely cost her one or two positions, however she is still very new to the mountain bike racing scene. With more racing will come more confidence, and confidence is what starts in races like this are all about. She’ll get there. I am extremely proud of and excited for her!

Julies’ diesel engine powered her to a strong finish.

Julie earned a shiny medallion and the highly coveted honor of standing on a WORS podium box.

Next up is another ‘A’ race up in Mankato, MN. I had a really good race last year with a 2nd overall, my best finish in an MNSCS race. My goal is to equal last years result, or maybe even improve it by one position…

Thanks for reading,

CK

WORS Dirt Circus - Wausau

2009-06-10T18:25:00.000-07:00

Photos courtesy of Tyrine

Gooooooooooooooooooo!

I didn’t make the decision on Ida Grove or Wausau until Thursday night and Wausau won. My form has been really good the past couple of years…the best that its’ ever been in my 11 years of mountain bike racing. Because I am the ringleader for the Iowa Mountain Bike Championship Series (IMBCS), I do feel a sense of obligation and desire to be at every IMBCS race. However, I also feel a very strong need to hit some big regional races to put myself to the test to see how I stack up against the best that the Midwest has to offer. Sea Biscuit has been involved with the IMBCS for as long as I have, so he went to Ida Grove as the IMBCS rep while Julie and I made the 7 hour trek to Wausau.
We drove up on Saturday with the intent of doing a recon lap or two of the course, however the weather had other ideas. I left Des Moines at 6 in the am and it was raining…it rained the entire way up to Wausau. The course at Nine Mile Forest can typically handle a lot of rain and for the most part, the course actually gets better when it rains before a race. We arrived in Wausau that afternoon and not only was it raining, the temperature was a balmy 43º! We checked into the hotel and then went over to the course to register and ponder the idea of riding.
We arrived at Nine Mile at about the same time as Tyrine, so we caught up on life and had a nice group discussion as to whether we felt like suiting up for a recon ride in the icy rain. Race headquarters was located in a nice shelter and tucked away in one of the corners was a fireplace. I took a look at Julie and instantly knew that her course recon was going to consist of reading the WORS racer handbook in front of the fireplace. The Superfly half of Tyrine and I decided to buck up and get a lap in. So I put almost all of the warm clothing that I had on and headed out for a lap. Once I got rolling, it really wasn’t all that bad, the course was in great shape and I had little to no mud on my bike when I finished the lap.
At some point through the night, the rain had stopped and morning broke with cloudy skies and mostly dry pavement outside. I took a look out the window and smiled knowing that course conditions were going to be great considering the swirling toilet bowl like showers that the state of Wisconsin had received the day before. We arrived at the course with a couple of hours to spare before Julies race in the Category 2 (Sport) class. No less then 30+ women lined up for the sport race. Julie had expressed a lot of enthusiasm for racing in Wisconsin and Minnesota because of the number of women that toe the line….music to my ears!
I didn’t get to see any of her race because my race followed hers and I needed to my act together and get a good warm up in. She ended up finishing 13th overall and 6th in her age group. They had to do the same lap that the Elite class did and there were some pretty technical sections, including the notorious Ho Chi Minh trail which is littered with a lot of sharp, tricky, meat grinding rocks just waiting to devour unsuspecting mountain bikers. I was told by several peeps that no less than 27 cats in the Elite field had flatted at some point from the jagged stones of the Ho Chi Minh at last years race. If that weren’t enough, almost all of the singletrack contained plenty of wet, snotty roots that are more than happy to re-route you into the neighboring weeds or the tree from which the root feeds. Julie only had to dismount a couple of times on the Ho Chi Minh, which made me quite proud considering that she’s still a rookie of sorts.

The calm before the storm. I’m in there next to Eppen, I told him that I was going to crush him. He laughed at me. I was wrong.

The WORS series is big enough that Pro’s are categorized separately from the Category 1 age groupers. So all Pro’s and series points leaders get call ups, which for me is much needed considering how lousy my starts are in big races. I got a 2nd row call up in the 50+ Elite field, Don said ‘Gooooooooooooo’ and we were off. It took me a few tries, but I finally got clipped in and found myself mid pack once again. Thankfully the course threaded it’s way through a lot of wide open cross country ski trail before dumping us into the first section of singletrack. I was able to work my way through the field until I latched onto a group of seven. By that time, the lead group was long gone and so were my chances of catching up. It was all that I could do to hang onto the group that I was with, especially when the trail turned upwards. My legs felt like a couple of wet noodles and I knew that today was going to be one of those days where I was going to be suffering like a wounded animal…and suffer I did!

Paul Ellis leading the train of pain.

Threadin’ our way through the awesome pines of the northwoods.

Nine Mile singletrack...just add water.

The group of seven consisted of myself, Ted Hanes, Paul Ellis, MacIej Nowak, an out of shape, recovering from knee tendonitis Mike Phillips and a couple of others. Paul and Ted did the lion’s share of the work during the first three laps and I pretty much killed myself to hold 2nd or 3rd wheel in the group throughout. During one of the more tricky, rooted sections of lap three, Ted hit the deck while leading and Paul and I were able to get through the wreckage without too much trouble. My first thought was to hit the gas and separate Paul and myself from the rest of the group. Paul seemed to have the same idea and on one of the hills, was able to separate himself from the group. I was sitting 2nd wheel when he got away and as soon as the trail flattened out a little, I dumped it down a few cogs and managed to reel him back in. I looked back and saw nobody.

One of the few times that you will ever see me in front of Mikey. He yelled at me for going to slow in the singletrack. I should have thrown my water bottle at him.

As Paul and I exited a section of singletrack, I told him that we had a good gap and to punch it. We maintained the gap for about a half of a lap before Ted and MacIej had bridged back up to us. Throughout lap 3, I heard a few spectators indicate that we were in positions 8, 9, 10 and 11. So the thought of salvaging a top ten, always a goal in a WORS race, was looking pretty good.
Throughout the 4th and final lap, the four of us stayed together and I started showing myself at the front of our group with a few half-hearted attempts at creating some separation. My attempts were unsuccessful and thought of having to sprint it out at the finish was quickly becoming a reality. We hit the final stretch with Paul in the lead. I was glued to his wheel and Ted was on my wheel. I heard Paul ratchet it down a few gears and the sprint was on. Ted went around me and I gave it all that I had. Ted ended up taking the sprint for 8th, Paul was less than a second back in 9th and I salvaged 10th. MacIej must have sat up because he was a further 10 seconds back.
The race at the front was a pretty good one as Brian Matter took another win from the brothers Lalonde, followed by Marko and Jesse in 2nd and 3rd. Brian Eppen brought home 4th and Bender rounded out the top five. The story of the day for the state of Iowa… Kim Eppen crushed the women’s field to the tune of just over 9 minutes and the icing on the cake was Robin Williams finishing just ahead of pro Kyia Anderson for an Iowa 1-2 sweep.

The brothers Lalonde tag teaming Brain Matter… only it didn’t work out this time around as Brian took the W.

The Adventure 212 duo of Chris Peariso and Mike Bender giving each other a beat down.

If Robin were to tuck her pig tails inside of her jersey, the reduction in drag would have been worth at least 5 minutes.

The Eppenator-ette deconstructing the women’s field.

Looking back on the weekend, I am pretty happy to have managed a top ten on a day when I wasn’t feelin’ the love. All that you can do when that happens is put your head down and persist with the effort. Next week I begin my taper into my first of two peak periods of the season, so the flat leg syndrome should gradually be replaced with the fresh leg syndrome.

Next up is the 4th installment of the Nebraska Psycowpath series up in the middle of nowhere Lake Maskenthine. I don’t really enjoy the 3 hour drive to get there, but they have a pretty fun course and I love racing on a different course every weekend, so it’s well worth the drive for me.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Lewis and Clark / Summerset

2009-06-05T17:41:00.000-07:00

Photos courtesy of a bunch of different cats.

Brutha Squirrel and I early in the Summerset race.

Man…what a weekend! Two mountain bike races on two awesome courses... The weekend started off with a solo trip to Council-tucky for the Psycowpath race at Lewis and Clark Monument. Julie has a running group that she was coaching / training for the Dam To Dam running race, so she ended up staying in Des Moines to do the run. Running….the only time that I ever run is if I’m being chased by the law. Thankfully I have enough sense to keep my nose clean enough to avoid any run-ins with the law.
It had been a couple of years since I last raced at L&C. Last year it was cancelled due to some issues with a part of the course routing through some private property. As always, the Psycowpath folks did a great job in dealing with a difficult situation and came up with a good solution with a little re-routing of the old course. I did a quick recon lap and was quite happy to discover that the dirt was pretty close to perfect for mountain bike racing!
The usual suspects lined up at the start less a few folks from Lincoln. Jesse lost his mind a got married on the day of a mountain bike race, so Jesse and Woodman remained in Lincoln and were probably three sheets to the wind by the time we were racing. The race started on a long, uphill gravel road and Holeshot Limpach took the lead. I grabbed his wheel and let him tow me up the hill. By the time we hit the top he had pretty much blown his wad. So I took control of the race and as I passed him I could see that he had ridden himself cross-eyed through his sunglasses. I ended up leading the way into the singletrack followed closely by Kent McNeill and Steve Jarrett.
I didn’t really want the lead quite yet as my plan was to follow Kent or Steve for a lap…I can always ride technical singletrack a little more quickly when I follow them because they’re really good at finding all of the good, fast lines through everything. The three of us stayed together for most of the first lap until we hit the infamous climb dubbed ‘Neverest’. Neverest is long and steep enough that it will reduce most cats to their granny gear. As we approached the climb, I locked both ends of the bike out and hit it pretty hard to see how Kent and Steve would react. I was able to open up a small gap by the time we hit the top. It was enough of a gap that I needed to make a pretty quick decision as to whether I wanted to try and stay away, or back it off and save it for later knowing that I had another race in Iowa the next day.

Leading the way pushin' Mach 4 down Neverest.

I put in a half hearted effort to maintain the gap going down the hill and the gap stuck. I think that Kent might have taken a wrong turn back at the top of the hill, so that gained me a few more seconds. I decided to keep the pressure on knowing the Kent and Steve would be a little quicker than I was through the singletrack. As the lap progressed I could tell that Kent was closing in on me a little, however I still had a pretty good gap when I hit Neverest on the second lap. I hit Neverest pretty hard again, knowing that it was the locale of my biggest advantage. It was pretty much the same deal for laps three and four and by the end of lap four, I could no longer see Kent or Steve. So I backed off on the effort a little to try and save myself for the next days race. I ended up bringin’ home the bacon with about a minute advantage over Kent. Steve brought home 3rd another couple of minutes back followed by Holeshot Limpach with Shim rounding out the top five.
It was another great day of racing with some good peeps. Rox and her posse did a great job, as always, with the race, so a big thank you to them for all of their hard work!

Sunday, Summerset State Park….what can I say about that place to give it justice? If you did the race or have ridden the course, you’d know what I’m talking about. The folks with CITA worked their butts for four years building all of the trails from scratch, only to have some of them wiped away last year with flooding. The best way to describe the trails…if you’ve ever ridden the Telegraph Trails in Durango, that’s pretty much the first half of the course without the lung bursting climbs. The second half of the course was all very fast, big ring trail and pavement. It was one of the more diverse courses that I’ve raced on with a nice mix of everything that makes for a great race course.

Squirrel took the holeshot and celebrated by hopping over a log.

In the days leading up to the race, my bro Squirrel had expressed a very strong desire to lead the way into the singletrack. I was thinking about the holeshot for myself, however I knew that he wouldn’t hold me up because of the technical nature of the first half lap of the course. So that’s how the start shook out, Squirrel lead the way into the woods with me on his wheel. We stayed together and separated ourselves from everybody else pretty quickly and as soon as we hit the first opportunity for passing, I took over the lead and never looked back.
I found myself handling the really technical sections well and didn’t have any mishaps despite the mistakes that typically come on a course like this at race pace.

Kinda reminds me of Durango, CO.

Buff singletrack.

I started hitting lapped traffic during the 2nd of five laps and never really experienced any difficulties in getting by anybody. At some point during lap three, I had caught up to Julie on one of the more technical sections and much to my pleasure, rode her wheel for a short while. She rode the stuff like a seasoned veteran and negotiated Fuller’s drop like she had done it a thousand times before.
I was fortunate enough to take my second win of the weekend despite tired legs from the previous days abuse of 3,500 feet of climbing at Lewis and Clark. Squirrel’s technical prowess netted him a hard earned 2nd place finish followed by singlespeeder Josh Shively, who made the trip from LaCrosse, WI.

Yep, we have mountains in Iowa. If you look closely, you can see Julie at the top.

My studly female kickin’ it on the drop.

If you put a wheel wrong here you’ll be takin’ a bath.

Julie keeping it rubber side down on one of the many off camber sections.

Click here for a pretty sweet video that Piggy made.

CITA did a great job in creating a great race course as well as a fun atmosphere around the start finish area. It was pretty obvious that, despite all of the crashes evident from all of the scrapes and dirty skid marks on a lot of the participants, everybody had a great time before, during and after the race.

Next up….I’m on the fence with either IMBCS #4 at Ida Grove or the WORS race up in Wausau. I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback on the Ida Grove course. Race Director Jesse Bergman indicated that it has the type of soil that it could handle some rain up until the start and still be in good shape for racing. On the other hand, Wausau has always been one of my favorite WORS race courses and it’s been a few years since I’ve been there. It’s probably gonna be a game time decision.

Thanks for reading,

CK