Best Ride Home

Had a great ride home. It was peaceful, serene, anything you would want in a ride home. It was right at sunset and there was all kinds of wildlife stirring. It was totally relaxing. Awesomely huge salad for dinner, followed by dessert. Now just lounging around. Tomorrow the same. Followed by racing on Sunday.

ScoCoPa Chase Race Report

Raceday came this past Sunday. Two weeks previous of hard work and only two days on the mountain bike. I hadn't preridden the course, but from reports, I knew it was tight and twisty. I left tire selection to my heavy but trusted Rampage front and newly mounted and new favorite Racing Ralph Snakeskin. I pre-rode everything and felt pretty good, but never end up doing well with a pre-ride on raceday.

Plans for the day were to take the holeshot seeing how at Banner Lakes it had a huge outcome in the results. I had a "bad" day that day anyways (felt great, just didn't have it type day.) I got in a decent pre-ride, but knew that the legs probably didn't have a top spot effort in them. At the start there were a lot of unfamiliar faces. About 5 of them were from the Peoria area Guinness team. I could tell that they were going to be my main competition.

The start chute was about a 250-300 meter section of grass that was board flat. I kind of wrote off my chance for the holeshot. At the start the official asked if the distance was ok and there was a lot of mumbles mostly in the direction of us only doing 4. Myself being an idiot said we should keep it at 5 since it was an expert level race. Bad idea.

I definitely surprised myself and held off the rest of the field pushing a measly 36-19. From the pre-ride I knew things were loose in the first 1/4 of the course so I rode kind of conservatively. I couldn't hold the pace of Aaron McCombs and let him by probably around 2 miles into the lap. Shortly there after his team mate was tailing me and I just didn't have it and let him by as well. I just couldn't keep the pace as high as them through some of the technical stuff. Those guys were just plain shredding.

Anyways I held decently steady for the first three laps which was a terrible idea. I knew I'd have to back the pace off and it was getting warmer all the time it seemed like. Finally at the end of lap 3 I took my second bottle. I had a stupid fumble that lap and had a minor bobble (ok yeah I crashed trying to Gu in a way too short double track section) and lost some time. At the end of every lap was a super technical section. This would hold to be the descisive section to keep me in my place.

Anyways I held onto third overall from a hard charging guy on another SuperflySS. He rolled a tire no less than 20 feet down the trail after I let him roll through. I held him off all of lap 5. He caught me going into the last section on lap 5 but I had been saving my energy most of lap 5 and laid it down. He looped out again due to the pace/time/distance combo and came in a strong 4th.

I had higher hopes for the weekend, but the base I have going into the final stretch of the season is good. I took the overall lead in the IMBCS Expert series this weekend which I had no hopes of ever achieving. Cam won't let me hold onto that one for long, but I'll take it while it lasts. Not bad for my first season racing expert.

I also want to thank the QCFORC guys and gals for putting on an awesome race. They seriously do the best job out of anyone in the whole IMBCS series. I love going to their races. Plus they build and maintain ripping awesome trails and do wonders for trail advocacy in the Quad Cities area.

Holeshot.

Beginning of the End.

Tomorrow begins the next 5 weeks of mayhem. 4-5 Expert level races in the next 6 weeks. One of the weekends might be a double header with State Road Champs and Waverly MTB race. I'm feeling really good and have gotten in a lot of saddle time in recently. I can't say enough about how much better I feel this season. It is mostly in part due to the people around me. I have a loving family, an awesome job, and an amazing group of friends around me. They have pushed me all season more than they realize to bring me to the level I have achieved.

If you asked me a year ago if I would be able to compete in an almost full season of expert level of mtb racing I would have laughed at you. I tried my first expert level distance in the end of September. At the end of the season I became a little mentally obsessed with doing some 100 mile NUE races. I got a wild hair to go down to Arkansas to try my hand at an 80 miler, but one of the toughest single day races around. I figured if I could survive that, I could survive anything. It helped push me through the beginning of the season as well as my compatriot in pain, Adam.

Things have changed more than I could have ever imagined in the past 6 months. What will the rest of the next two months bring. 6 weekends of racing, potentially including SSWC09, GnomeFest 7, and all sorts of other craziness. This stretch is going to be the most intense stretch I've faced. Nothing huge, just lots of mountain biking.

End of the Beginning.

Hard Work

Things have been crazy at the shop leading up to RAGBRAI. I am ready for it to be over so I can focus a little more on riding. That being said I have been fitting quite a bit in. I have two early morning sessions at Sugar in before this weekends race. Got a good road ride in on Sunday. I have to thank the Sunday morning crew for picking up numbers and making the ride more and more fun.

I don't know what else to say. Feeling good. Broke my temp tooth. Eating a big bowl of eggs, corned beef hash, and toast. I like carbon by the way. The SS is still amazing. I'm not giving it up for a nothing.

Dentist.

State Crit

Things went well at Gold Pointe State crit. Took a preem on lap 4 or 5, stayed upright when someone flaked out and went down in front of me, did some work on the front to pull back a solo break. Followed by having an intelligent rider immediately attack right off the front and and stay solo. One racer went down two turns to go and blew out a tire which made most of the field hesitate. Nate and I ended up sprinting it out in a drag race. I got him by about half a wheel. Felt good in my first Cat4 crit. Now I just need to do some work and a couple more.

My hipitis is flaring a little as well. I'm going to maybe just hang out today and do some stretching and core work. Maybe head out for a light spin on the road bike. No big ringin'.

Crit.

Well since I haven't raced for about 2 months now, I'm diving in. I have a new road bike, no reason that shouldn't make me faster. NOT! But I'm going to try my hand at my first Cat4 crit anyways. Cedar Rapids here I come.

Rain Sucks.

Dude screw all this rain. Time to get some restructuring done. I want/need to ride my mtbike sometime. And get in a good road ride or two. Tomorrow hopefully Adam and I can get in some gravel miles. Boring 4th.