Council Bluff madness

The ICCC Council Bluffs race was the last UFD race of the year. I was looking forward to it initially to get some hot laps in before Burnin'. I got my wish and they chose to run the race in the same direction as Burnin'.

Unfortunately, my legs were still not recovered from the 24-hour 2 weeks before. But we wanted to go to the race no matter what since it would be Casey's last race this year and her last race in the 'Kids' category. We're really looking forward to her racing Junior next year! - but moms pretty nervous. Casey of course did great on a short but very tough course and got 1st place. Unfortunately, she didn't have much competition but it was a 'kids' race.

Karen made the race-time decision to not race due to her legs not being recovered from the 24. So she was there cheering us on.

I chose to race Cat-2/Sport so I'd only have to do 1 lap at a minimum instead of possibly 3 if I did Marathon.

My race started with a sprint down the pavement, do a u-turn, and head back down the road onto the singletrack. Right after the race director yelled 'Go' I knew it wouldn't be a good day for me. I stood up to sprint but the legs just didn't want to respond. They were 2-ton bricks! The majority of the field took off in front of me.

I entered the single-track mid-pack. After about 2 miles, I started to feel my legs coming back. I started passing guys I didn't expect to be passing. I wound up catching up to Steve Freidman from Ballwin Cycles. Steve and I have ridden together in the last few races. He's a very strong single-speeder. So, I knew I was starting to rally. But I couldn't pass him. The legs didn't have it. We hit the long climb to the finish and I just let Steve go. There was no way I was going to take him.

Surprisingly, I wound up finishing 3rd overall and 2nd in the 40-49 category 2 minutes behind Jeff Powell. I was very surprised by my finish. Maybe my legs weren't as bad as I thought?!

The race was a blast though. Thanks to ICCC and Rich Pierce for putting it on!

On Cloud 9 from Dino 24

The 2009 24 Hours of Dino was disappointing for me. I took a hard crash and wound up quitting at about the 9-hour mark. So, the 2010 edition was one of revenge and a mission to prove to myself that I could do it. My goal was to focus on proper nutrition during the race and not sleep. Karen and I used to do many 24-36 hour adventure races without sleeping so I know what it takes to stay awake. But with Adventure Racing you’re mixing it up between biking,
running/trekking, and paddling so it’s not as monotonous as just biking the whole time.

I spent a lot of time before the race talking with Coach Mileski about my race nutrition. We developed a loose plan on how much I’d need to eat for an hour of racing and what specific foods would help me meet those nutrition goals as well as, be tasty and easy to eat.

Karen, Greg Ott, Mitch Johnson, Todd Hecht and I all took off work on Friday to make the 6-hour drive over to Versailles , IN. Our goal was to get there early enough to get our tents/TA setup in a prime spot on the course and do some pre-riding of the course. Mission accomplished! We had fantastic weather on Friday. Our TA was setup right next to the start/finish line and we had time for a pre-ride.

Against my better judgment the boys talked me into riding the entire 12-mile course. I was worried it would zap me too much. But that course is so fun it only made me more excited to start the race.

They were predicting rain Friday night and Saturday and it looked eminent that it was coming. Amazingly, we got some rain Sat AM a couple hours before the start, but the weather was absolutely awesome for the next 2 days of racing!

The race started at noon on Saturday. All racers had to run about 100 yards to their bikes with a wheel or seatpost from their bike. They did this to spread out the racers and try to keep the bottleneck down heading into the trail. The race offered a 6, 12, and 24 hour solo category as well as team categories. As usual, most of us 24-solo racers walked that 100 yards since there’s no need to jack the heart rate up and waste the energy with so many hours ahead.

Unfortunately, I probably walked a little too slow at the start as there were many novice riders in front of me for the first – and only – significant climb at about ½ mile into the course. This created a huge traffic jam at the base of the climb. It was a rocky section and I chose to take the opportunity to get around 6/7 riders by passing on the right in loose rock. Sure enough, I got a flat. Yep, not even 1 mile in and I had a flat already. Very quickly every single racer was past me and I was in dead-last changing my flat! But knowing I still had 23 hours and 55 minutes to race I wasn't too concerned except I was wondering how many flats I was going to get in this race.

With the exception of the time lost on the first lap due to the flat, I was turning 1 hour 10 min laps on laps 1 - 5. I'd then take a 15 minute break inbetween each lap to refill my bottle and grab some food. I rode lap 6 with Mitch. That was a blast but I think we both pushed ourselves a bit like guys do. So when he wanted to go out on 6 together again, I told him to go on and I had to do my own race.

That 1:10 pace w/15-20 min breaks continued through the day and into the night. I was remaining consistent. About midnight Mitch stopped to eat some pasta being served by the race director. Greg and Todd were done with their 12 hour races and they both did awesome! Greg got 3rd and Todd got 10th. Karen was still turning her steady laps and I'd only seen her once since the race started. With Mitch stopping to eat I put quite a bit of time into him. But I knew he'd be charging back on me very soon.

I was really testing my lights and pushing them to their limits as far as burn time. It bit me at about 6:30am EST when both my lights were about to die and it was still pretty dark out. I had to run the lights on low just to have light. Towards the end of this lap (#14) I saw a set of lights behind me. I knew it had to be Mitch closing in. That dude is way too strong to let me hang in front of him. So I busted my butt to finish the lap and get back out on lap #15. By this time it was light enough that I didn't need lights.

Lap 15 felt great. I really couldn't believe how good I was still feeling. I'd taken a short 30 minute nap at about 3:00am but that was it. Lap 15 was another 1:10 minute lap. When I came into the finish from lap 15 it was about 8:00am. I saw Mitch standing there at the finish on his bike looking fresh. I wondered if he somehow passed me? Did he get a long nap in and was now going to turn the screws to catch me? Was he going to make us race all the way to noon? Fortunately, he told me he was done. All the guys behind him weren't going to catch him and he thought I was riding too well for him to catch me. As I looked at the times/laps of the guy ahead of me he was too far ahead. He had 2 laps on me, so there was no way I was going to catch him with only 4 hours left. So, I called it quits too and was absolutely blown away by what I'd just done. Not only did I just finish 2nd place in this 24-hour race but I'd done it by beating Mitch - Consider this my retirement from racing because I'll never do that again!!! ;-) Mitch has taught me a lot about racing endurance moutnain bike events and without his advice I could not finished a lot of the long races I've done in the last year.

This 24-hour race I really owe to Coach Mileski. He helped me prepare for this race all season and spent a lot of time with me making sure I was ready!

Karen also did great. She won 1st place in the womens solo category.

There were also a bunch of other St. Lous folks there loving this trail. Here's a cool pic of us all after the race. Missing from the photo is Zach Brace (1st) and Brian Roggeven (6th) who both did the 12-hour.

We all survived the race. We made it through the night without rain and everyone had a blast.
The course in Versailles is absolutely fantastic!! It's one of the most fun trails I've ever been on! All racers must put this race on their race calendar for 2011!

Tall Oak Challenge 6-hour

I look forward to this race every year. It's a really fun course, great environment, and very nice park. Team Red Wheel knows how to put on a great race!

For those of you that were there, you know how great the weather was. It was fantastic! There were even times where it was a little 'chilly'. Yeah, I said 'chilly'!

My goal for this race was to just get a good 6-hours of riding in. With the DINO 24-hour just 7 days away, coach said to keep it under 90% effort. Last year I got in 9 laps and finished 11th so I was pretty happy with that and would have loved to improve on that, but not this year.

The race started with a neutral roll-out, gun-shot, and sprint into the singletrack - for most folks. I chose to sit back in the back and not push myself too much right out of the gate. I spent the first lap riding and chatting it up with Rob Ballou and Stephanie McCreary. But I think I was annoying them by talking so much so I went and did my own thing.

Like most races, with each lap I got to know the course better and better knowing where to push and where to let it coast to be as efficient as possible. I averaged about 41 minute laps with a 10-15 minute rest between laps. Jason Pryor and I kept leap-frogging each other. At one point, we both commented that we're often in this no-mans land during a race. Not fast enough to run with the leaders but not back-of-the-pack either. Just sitting in the middle of the race by ourselves.

As Jason and I started lap 8, we made a pack to ride a 2-lap pace to get us to 8 laps for the day and not stop before we had 8 laps. We hung together for those last two laps, had a good time, and ended the day with a good effort. I'm not going to lie, the race hurt and I'm still a little sore today. So, even at 90% there's quite a bit of pain involved!

(sorry, no cool pics for this post either!)

Cape Crankfest

I hadn't done the Cape race on the new course yet, so I was determined to make it down there for this years event. Karen chose to go to the Single Speed Championships in Jeff City, so Casey and I headed down to Cape to get our race on.

It was hot, hot, hot out there!

After a short pre-ride I now understood why people called this course "tight" and "twisty" - wow! I've never been on such a course, much less raced on it. To me, it's one of those that when you're just riding at a casual pace it doesn't seem too hard. But when riding at a race pace, it's a killer! You're always either turning or climbing - very demanding.

I made sure I got Casey ready to go before my race started. Her race started 90 minutes after mine so I was nervous she'd miss the announcement and her start. But, the girl pulled it off and raced very well bringing home 1st place and some hardware. I can't wait for her to race JR next year.

My race went pretty well. I was sitting in 4th/5th place for the majority of the race. On lap 7 I was in 4th and couldn't resist the beach party w/pool in the middle of the course so I pulled over to take the plunge. This was a little refreshing, but the brown warm water wasn't as nice as I'd hoped. It also caused me to start cramping up. The guy behind me passed me and apparently dropped the hammer. Good for him, he saw the opportunity and took it. I saw glimpses of him the next few laps. I even passed him while he was in transition on the 2nd last lap, but then my chain dropped between my cassette and wheel and it took me a few minutes to get it back out. So he went back by me. But once I got back on the bike I finished strong and was glad to be done after 10 laps.

I finished 5th overall on the day. That guy that passed me while fixing my chain got 3rd. So, makes you wonder? But he was looking strong, maybe too strong for me to hold off?!

Rapture In Misery 2010

The 2010 Rapture In Misery came and went very differently than it did in 2009 for Karen and I both. In 2009 we were training hard for the event, didn’t know what to expect not having done it before but wanted to do well. So when Mother Nature brought the downpour, both Karen and I stayed consistent and fought through it when others bailed. Thanks to that persistence we both wound up on the podium. For the 2010 event we both had it as an “A” race for ourselves but for many reasons our training wasn’t where we wanted it to be and we’d had our family vacation the week before race week.

But we both had so much fun in 2009 that there was no way we were going to miss it this year. We drove out late Fri night and stayed in Chillicothe about 25 minutes from race HQ. There were bad storms Fri night all around the area, but word from HQ was that they were spared. We got up Sat AM and got to HQ with plenty of time to setup our pit area. Thanks to Mitch and Greg for bringing our canopy down early on Friday and getting it setup for us. That really helped!

The race started at noon with a short run of about 100 yards to our bikes. As with most starts for long races like this I chose to sit back and let the team guys and rookies sprint it out. As usual, this strategy puts me entering the singletrack with a large pack of people and thus pretty slow. But it’s a long race and there’s no need to unnecessarily jack up the heart rate so early.

I knew I was probably going to hard in the first two laps especially in the 100 degree heat and I paid for it big time on lap 3. I started to feeling sick to my stomach and chills. Even though I’d drank my entire camelback and 2+ water bottles. Towards the end of lap 3 I knew my race was over already. I chose to sit out for 90 minutes, get some food and try to cool down. I put ice on the back of my neck and sat in the shade while I tried to eat. This really seemed to help.

I chose to suit up again and go back out. I did lap 4 and felt good. Then half-way through lap 5 it all came crashing down again with the same sick feelings. So I sat back down and called it a day. But it was all good as I was still having a good time. Jim Davis was done with his race. The Segal boys (Grothoff and Hoffmeier) were coming and going doing their tag-team. Plus, I was helping Karen, Mitch, and Greg whenever necessary.

To my surprise Karen wound up pulling out of her race a little later. That girl never quits! But the heat and our overall lack of preparation played a role for her demise too.

The cool thing was that STL folks were again dominating the 12-hour podium: Zadenek, Busken, Mitch, Greg, Adam, and Wendy all stood on the podium either in their age group or overall. In the 12-hour team category the Segal boys brought home 3rd place. Plus Christine Ford won the womens 6-hour. Great job to all of these folks!!

If you’ve never done RIM, make sure you put it on your calendar for 2011. Doug Long and the Heartland crew put on a great race and it’s an awesome venue with great amenities for a race like this.

Dirt Crits / Short Track

The Thursday night dirt crits have been a blast this year! The turnout has been outstanding and the racing supreme! For me personally, it's been an pain-fest racing in the 'A' race. Last week I blew myself up pretty badly on the first few laps and paid the penalty late in the race where I lost at least 7/8 positions.

To get pumped up for this weeks racing below is video of the Pro short track race from the USA Cycling National Championships last week in CO.


Visit beta.cyclingdirt.org for more Videos

See everyone out there on Thu. Let's hope these storms give us some good racing!

Dirt Crits kick-off!

It's July and most of you know what that means - Dirt Crit Thursdays!!

Dirt Crit #1 was last night and what an event it was! The turnout was spectacular and the weather was better than anything we usually see here in STL in July.


Lone Wolf Coffee, Alpine Shop, Polk Audio, and O'Fallon Brewery were sponsors of the event and they did not disappoint.

I chose to hop on the 'Pain Train' for the event and race in the 'A' class with the Experts. This meant 40+ minutes at maximum heart rate. I knew it'd be humbling and my only goals were to not get lapped and not get last. However, if either of those happened I was not going to be surprised!


The race started with a crash 40 yards from the start. After getting through the pile-up relatively safe, I found myself in the second pack for the first lap and a half. Then on the second lap there was another pile-up after the creek crossing. I manged to get around that but the group in front had put a gap on me. There was noone in front of me and noone right behind me to work with. I rode the next 4-5 laps doing a solo time-trial. Not fun!! I kept praying for someone to catch me so I could grab a wheel and draft for awhile. It's amazing how much easier drafting came make the dirt crits! I finally caught Matt Grothoff, but he was admittedly spent and fading. That dude is awesome... giving up his single-speed to ride a 30lb hardtail w/gears and was still up towards the front of half the race!


A couple laps later, a guy from the Bike Surgeon team came by me. He was flying and I was unable to hold his wheel. Then Paul Krewet came by and he was obviously not giving it 100% because I was able to grab his wheel. That dude is strong so I was just honored to be sitting on his wheel!



I sat on Paul's wheel for a couple laps including the last lap. As we neared the finish on the last lap I mustered up some energy that I recovered from drafting off Paul to pass him. It was everything I had to do it. I actually had to cut him off a little bit and did apologize after the race, but he was cool with it.


So I wound up 18th out of 33 in my first Expert race and was very pleased with that. I need to avoid the crashes and solo efforts next time and maybe I can improve.









Karen raced the 'B' race and did awesome considering she'd been up since 4am. Worked a 12-hour day and rushed to make the starting line! I love that woman!

Casey raced the 'C' race and gave it 100%. She even did an extra lap for training - although she didn't know it at the time! :)

Season in full-swing

I've been pretty lazy with the blog the last month or so, but that's only because we've been busy racing, training, and enjoying the Summer with Casey.

But here's a recap for you readers out there (mom!):

Lumberjack 100 -

Karen, Mitch, Dwayne, and myself signed up months ago for the Lumberjack 100. So we all piled in the monster SUV and made the trip together. This race is part of a national 100-mile race series (NUE). We were hoping to do more of the races within the series, but schedule and travel time doesn't allow it.

This race was 'awesome'. It was a pro event all the way and the trail was fantastic! The trail was supposed to be 'flat', and to some that may be the case - if you're from Colorado! But Mitch's garmin had 6000+ feet of climbing. There were no long steep climbs at all but there were many short 40-50 yard grunt climbs and long false flats that really wore on you.

There were about 8 folks from Missouri that made the 9-hour drive up to MI for this race. The great news is that all of us finished.

There are several things I'd do differently next year for this race.

1. We left Thu night so we could chill on Fri, pre-ride a little and relax. I liked this, but next time we won't drive until 2am Fri. This just caused us to sleep in on Fri and still put us there at 4:30pm. If we'd have left Fri @ 7am we'd have arrived at the same time!

2. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! I got so caught up in the race I didn't drink much the first few hours. This caused me to get dehydrated and really slowed me down for a few hours. Once I realized my issue and began slamming fluids I rallied to finish strong.

3. Don't try to drive straight home after the race. We finally got home about 5:30am Sunday, so Karen and I slept most of the day.

Dwayne and Mitch posted killer times - 8:15 and 8:20 respectively. I finished in 9:40 and Karen finished in 11:40. Awesome for our first 100-miler. Full results

This race was a real mental challenge as well as physical. The format was 3 31-mile loops. So after the first lap I told myself I was a one-third of the way done! Then after the second lap I told myself "1 more lap"! Sure, it was another 31 miles, but the fact that it was my "last" lap helped mentally.

Here's Mitch's race report

Brommelsiek Challenge -

The Ghisallo team did their part in giving back to the racing community by putting on this race. Mitch and Greg of course get all the credit, they were the organizers and put on an awesome event. Brommelsiek park is a truly amazing park. St. Charles Count Parks have done a great job on this park: pavillions with electric, many restrooms w/running water, nice parking, playgrounds, etc.

I helped by doing the marathon scoring and Karen helped with the Cat 2 scoring.

The weather was HOT and the racers were suffering so it felt good to rest the legs after the Lumberjack the previous weekend and sit under the pavillion while the rest of the racing community battled the elements!

Casey raced the kids 10-13 category and took home 2nd place. JD Peiffer took home 3rd nipping at Casey's heels

Thanks again to Mitch, Greg, St. Louis County Parks, and all the other sponsors for putting on a great race!

Middlefork non-race and formal

Team Seagal lived up to their reputation again this past weekend and put on a stellar event. Their first-annual Middlefork non-race would be the first such voyage on the famous trail for Karen and I.

Knowing the superior attitutude of the Team Seagal crew Karen and I had to arrive and non-race in style. Especially since were to have our middlefork cherry popped. The below picture doesn't incriminate Karen very much but it does give my enemies something to chew on... good thing I never plan on running for office !

The event and the trail were a blast! What a fun trail it is, but it's definitely demanding. A lot of climbing, but nothing too steep. Just long and steady.

Mitch came down with us and as a tribute of his own chose to pay homage to all the rain we've had of late:

But of course given the audience it wasn't empty for long!!!

Needless to say the heat was rediculous! I wound up stripping down the top part of my skinsuit within 3 miles of starting - yes this did make me a little nervous given the backwoods nature of the race! Mitch definitely felt the effects of the heat afterwards - I've never seen him so quiet. But as usual he raced strong and rallied soon after.

Karen was her usual strong self and pushed hard the whole way through taking home some prized hardware from the trip:

Go here for a much more enjoyable recapping of the event

Another Spring missing races

Last year it was my brutal crash 5 miles into the Ouachita challenge that left me with a separated shoulder and the need to miss a few races.

This year it's a little more my fault - not enough saddle time prior to taking on the Syllamo 24. I was very happy with the race and how I did. I manged to push myself and cross the finish line healthy - or so I thought. Turns out I caused some nerve damage in my left foot that left me with numbness and tingling in my left two toes. I couldn't really feel them for a few days. I stayed off the bike and tried to run one day but only ran in circles! :) Ok, little bit of a lie there!

Long story short, Dr said to stay off it. So, I sat out at Bone Bender - although I really didn't plan on this anyway due to the 24 being just 1 week prior. I sat out Tour de Tick 2 weeks after the 24, but helped Karen and Casey get their race on. Then most depressing of them all I sat out Syllamo's Revenge. I chose to stay home for the weekend while Karen travelled with Lo. I did manage to get in 64 easy road miles at the Tour de Stooges on Sat out on the IL farm roads. I love this ride! It's my hometown. It's a very well run event and a great lunch afterwards!

The good news is the foot felt pretty good during the 64. I pushed it on and off throughout the ride and only experience limited tingling - yes in my toes.

So, hoping that Greensfelder next week will be 'game on'!

24 Hours of Syllamo

(took me a few weeks to get this one posted - was waiting for pics but realized we didn't take any!!)

We knew it was pretty early in the season for such an event, but Karen and I headed down to Syllamo for the 24-hours of Syllamo race a couple of weeks ago.
My goal given this early season race was to simply stay healthy and ride it out as long as I felt comfortable doing so. Comfortable being a relative term of course because how could 24-hours on a bike seat be anything remotely close to ‘comfortable’!!!

Karen and I took off work on Friday to drive down to Arkansas and get our camp setup for the race. The weather was awesome on Friday and remained so all weekend long. We stopped in Rolla for what seemed like 2 hours to hit Wal-mart, Walgreens, and eventually Arbys for some grub. I think the Rolla visit alone cost $100!! Did we really need all that food?!?! – no, as usual we came home with most of it. But anyway, we eventually made it into AR and to the park where race HQ was. It was beautiful down there. Definitely rugged with plenty of opportunities to get some climbing in!

Race HQ was empty. We weren’t exactly sure where the race activities and our gear were supposed to go. But we did see the camp of Team Trailmonster/Segal so we threw our tent up next to theirs to claim a good spot. After scoping out the rest of the park we headed to the nearest watering-hole and had dinner to take in a good pre-race fatten-ing!

Even though we setup the tent, it was just a precaution. Our plan was to sleep in the back of the Yukon on a queen-size inflatable mattress. I had already tested this out at home prior to our trip and it worked perfectly!! And it worked as planned. We both got a great nights sleep!

The race started at high-noon on Saturday with a pretty small field: 5 solo men, 2 solo women (Karen and Wendy Davis), and about 3-4 teams. We were kind of hoping the race would get canceled but we’re glad it didn’t. As all races at Syllamo go, the gun went off and we headed for the infamous 1.1 mile climb up the gravel road. Yes, we’d have to do this on each lap! Half way up the hill on the first lap I went by Bob Jenkins as he was pulling over to fix his flat. Then almost to the top of the hill, I heard that dreaded sound myself – yep, I had a puncture in my rear tire. I got the stans sealant to seal up the puncture for about a mile then it blew open again. I decided to just throw a tube in it and got back on my way.

Each lap turned out to be 11 miles long. There was a 4-mile section where you literally ride the whole section without hitting your brakes more than a couple of times. Awesome!!!! Then the last 2 miles were a downhill delight!

Karen had an immediate battle going with Wendy Davis. The two single-speeding Chiquita’s were passing each other from lap-to-lap settling into their 24-hour paces. I too quickly settled into my 24-hour pace not caring about the random team racers blowing by me for their 60 minutes of racing in-between hours of resting.

With the exception of the flat on lap one, laps one and two went by pretty quickly. Lap 3 was going smoothly as well until.. yep, another flat! This time it was a torn sidewall that also tore the new tube I just threw in. With no boot on me, I used a zip lock baggy and hoped it would get me through the remaining downill section of the loop. Fortunately, I made it back to race hq and had a spare tire to put on and started more loops.

Just before 9pm after it had just gotten totally dark, I hit my head on a tree hanging over the trail that I missed on all previous laps. It hurt like hell, but I kept going. At the end of that lap I had a headache the size of Texas ! About 10pm Karen happened to be in the TA at the same time as me and she gave me a Tylenol – w/caffeine. W/o really thinking about it I also did a 5-hour energy. Note: how many times have you heard don’t try new things during a race?!?! From 11pm to 1am I was lit up like a Christmas tree! My legs were steam engines that no hill would deny! I was on fire from all that caffeine! Then 2am hit and I fell from that high real quickly! I was sick to my stomach and shaking. I tried to eat but that wasn’t working either. I knew I had to lie down a bit so I crawled into the tent – mistake! 5+ hours later I woke up!! It was daylight. Crap!! I felt better, but I slept through half the race. Not sure what I was expecting?!

So, I jumped back on the bike and knocked out two more laps before stopping about 11am. That gave me 16 hours of racing. Not too bad for April! I wound up 2nd place in the solo mens category.

Karen and Wendy were the race within the race – aside from the teams battling it out too. Those two were trading laps back and forth while each of them took their breaks. Karen battled some stomach issues too at one point but got back on the bike to keep going. Karen wound up winning 1st with 11 laps and Wendy did 10 laps.

What a great way to spend a weekend in April!

Results are now posted: http://www.syllamo.org/24hours/2010Results.pdf

Pure Excitement!

Well friends, I'm excited that my postcard was received by Team Segal HQ and my entry is in for the next Non-race!

Having never ridden the Middlefork trail before, I can't wait for this glorious event. Looks like the spots are filling up fast, so if you're postcard isn't in the mail yet I'll only ask what the heck you're waiting for?!

The wife and I are in hoping to see many of you as well!

MTB Season has begun

Yep, the mtb racing season has begun. Unfortunately, the family and I weren't there. With the bikes in the garage all cleaned, lubed, and ready to race, this race wasn't for them. It was going to be muddy. If/when it rains has much as it has, there's going to be mud! If by chance it's not muddy on the first lap, just wait until all the racers do a lap or two and then it for sure will be.

Sorry we couldn't make it out Mark Grumke! I totally respect the amount of work that goes into putting on a race and hate to not support them. But we made the decision to save the bikes on the first race of the year and spent some good family time around the house on a nasty rainy Sunday.

On Saturday Karen and I did go out to the GORC workday at Castlewood. They're putting in an awesome re-route on the Cedar Bluff (Blue ribbon) trail. The GORC guys really know what they're doing and we should all be thankful for the hard work that they do! It's only my second time attending a workday, but if you've never helped out on a workday please do so. They can use the help and you'll be happy that you did.



The new section actually reminds me a little of Greensfelder and Chubb. There's plenty of rocks and rock faces to keep your attention.

They say they'll finish the section on their next Castlewood workday in April.

2010 Racing Tunes

So, I've been loading up the iPod lately with what will most likely be my favorite racing tunes through 2010. I used to not like racing with an iPod at all, but after trying it I'm hooked.
I keep the volume low enough to still be able to hear my tires on the trail as well as carry on a conversation with a nearby rider.

But anyway, here's some of the bands that will be getting me through the upcoming long races in 2010:

For your listening pleasure:









So, now you'll know if I see you out there I'm not ignoring you I'm just rockin!

Had to get out!

Though the skies looked gloomy and 32 degrees felt more like 20 with the wind chill I had to get off the training and get some miles on the bike outside.

Karen, Keeven, Stitz, and myself went out to Lost Valley to get some miles in on the gravel and katy. We didn't even think about trying the trails, they've got to be a mess! Hopefully, noone is even trying the trails with these thawing temps beign thrown down.

We got in a good ride. Did the Hamburg, some of the gravel double-track through LV, and some Katy before hitting Busch Wildlife. The sun actually broke through around 10:30 and things started to really get soft so we called it and headed back to the cars before 11. It was a great way to get in 3 hours of riding on an ugly Sunday morning!