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!