Bog

Mountain bike racing has an interesting dichotomy. Mountain bike racing is largely about racing in any and all conditions, rain or shine, mud or dust. There is one small problem however, racing in the mud damages trails and can be a safety hazard for the inexperienced. Both of which are a major concern to all that care about mountain biking. I prefer to race in dry conditions, but I also find some enjoyment in racing in the mud. Never mind the fact that I handle my bike in the mud about as well as I can handle the sight of Bison Basso applying his chamois crème.
So I woke up the morning of the race to the lovely sound of thunder and rain. I groaned as I rose out of bed knowing that I would most likely be racing in the mud. I took a look at the Super Duper Doppler radar and there was an enormous mass of red and yellow floating over Iowa. The northeast edge of the mass was just west of Waverly… We might just get lucky…
Ryan Legg showed up at around 7:30 in the am, we loaded all of his stuff in my car, stopped by Starbucks for a bladder buster of Mississippi mud and hit the road. It rained cats and dogs the whole way and it wasn’t looking good. We got about 5 miles west of the race course and the rain miraculously stopped and the pavement was dry. We arrived at the course and the dirt was still pretty dry too. We were pretty stoked about the conditions even though you could see the weather off to the west.
I did a little bs’n and got registered and began my pre-race ritual of finishing off my box of cereal, hydrating and getting suited up in the Rassy camo. As I was getting ready, the skies began to open. It started off as sprinkles and eventually turned into a steady downpour. Despite the weather, Ryan and I went out or a recon lap. In a race like this, it’s pretty important to check the course out because Carl Buchanan, Jeff Kerkove, Casey Mann and Paul Meyermann love to change things up on us. That’s part of what makes this race so fun! One of the changes included this insane, sandy hill that most of you had probably already heard about by now. The sand was really soft and loose. For every step forward, I felt like I was sliding a half step back. About halfway up I could feel my heart jumping out of my throat.



Playing in a 'sand box' that most kids would envy.


Despite the rain, the course was in pretty good shape, not too peanut buttery, but still slicker than snot in a lot of areas. There was going to be a lot of running up hills. The temps were forecasted to be in the lower 70’s, but no such luck today. I don’t think the temps ever got above the mid 50’s. Ryan didn’t bring any cold weather gear and partway through the pre-ride, he decided to bag it.



Pre-race prep


We lined up for the start and despite my best attempts, I could not string together a sentence without sounding like I was speaking a foreign language of my own creation. Carl gave the command and we were off. We started up the gravel climb with me leading the way. WWJ pipped me for the hole shot into the woods and I entered the woods 2nd wheel. The lead group stayed together as we were all trying to get a read on the conditions.
We hit the first open section and I took the lead from WWJ. I led the way into an uphill, singletrack section and began to pull away. I got to the rock garden section and wasn’t really sure which way to go. I kinda sat there for a few seconds to figure out which way to go, made my choice and continued on. As I approached the rock garden I quickly realized the fastest way through this was to get off and run. The last thing that I wanted to do was slip on some mossy rock and bust my arse or my stead.
As I was going through the rock garden I heard somebody behind me. I couldn’t tell who it was at first, but it ended up being Andrew Carney. Sweet! A new face at the front of the expert field. It’s pretty awesome to see a few guys stepping their game, getting faster. I love and thrive on close competition, there’s something about getting pushed to the limit while threading a mountain bike through a bunch of closely spaced trees while cross-eyed.



Enjoying a short reprieve from the peanut butter.


I ended up leaving Andrew behind and continued to open the gap. At the close of the first lap I remember thinking that the trails were actually in pretty decent shape and was looking forward to a couple more laps. As I started the second lap I quickly realized that all of the traffic behind me, along with the steady downpour had made a total mess of the trails. It had gotten to the point where I either had to walk certain sections or totally ride off-line to get any kind of traction. Most of the trials were like riding in a log flume, the water was starting to pool up in the center of the trails. I began catching and passing sport riders and could tell that some were having some major difficulties with the conditions.



Negotiating the log flume.


It is situations like this that make it difficult in being a race director, do I pull the plug early or let the race continue despite the concern for safety and the welfare of the trails? As I completed the second, I looked at Carl and made the recommendation that we call it a day. He and Kerkove had been discussing the possibility of pulling the plug and I think my recommendation helped with the decision.



Happy to be done, I shore am purdy!


Shortly after that WWJ came rolling in 2nd place, followed by Andrew Carney for 3rd. It was a pretty tough race in some tough conditions. Props go out to all that showed and toughed out the conditions. It’s too bad that the rain couldn’t hold off because this is one of the coolest courses in Iowa. A lot of hard work went into prepping the course.



Wrong Way Jay, 'which way do I go?'


After the race I hosed the bike down, stashed it in the car and proceeded to make an absolute pig of myself with a couple of plates of some pasta dish provided by The Brown Bottle. As always, Carl and his crew were able to round up some great food and so much schwag that after all of the awards, he still had a lot of schwag left over. Nobody went home empty handed.



Poop




Poopy bike.




A whole lotta schwag.


A huge thanks goes out to Carl, Jeff Kerkove, Casey Mann, Paul Meyermann and everybody else that helped put together a sweet race.

Next up is MBCS #3, La Madre de Las Montanas at Sockum Ridge State Park. I won there last year and I’ll be lookin’ for a repeat!

Thanks for reading.

CK

Tete de la Course

The last couple of years I’ve found myself kinda lookin’ forward to Iowa City weekend. For those of you not familiar with Iowa City, it is home to the infamous University of Iowa Squakeyes. It’s a pretty cool college town with a really cool vibe, especially on the weekend of the Iowa City bike races.
My plan was to do the road race and it would be a game time decision for the crit. Shim was driving through DSM from Omahole so he stopped by my pad, I threw all of my junk in his car and we hit the road for Iowa City. Shim is only a couple of years older than I am but his bodily functions are like those of a 70 year old man. We must have stopped 10 maybe 15 times so the guy could take a leak.
We rode into the land of the Amish folk about two hours before the start of the race so we had some time to kill. I walked around and bs’d with a few folks that I hadn’t seen in a while, always a good time! About an hour before the start of the race, word started to spread that Steve Tilford, Bill Stolte and Brian Jensen, three pro’s from Kansas, were wandering around he venue. Yeah, the P/1/2 class was in for a lot of pain and suffering.
The weather was actually pretty good for this time of the year with temps in the 70’s and a slight breeze of about 90 mph coming out the west. We lined up for the start and I took inventory of the field. The main players for the cat 3’s were all present, Nathan Moenck, Matt Landen, Josh Madsen, Tracy Thompson and a few others. We rolled onto the course at a pretty mellow pace and the pace remained mellow for the first half of a lap. So I took this time to chat it up with Tracy, Matt, Nathan and anybody else that felt like doin’ a little bs’n. The first half of the lap was pretty much all tail wind and we were flyin’ along at around 30mph with the HR hovering around 130. We turned the corner heading back to the start / finish area and the head wind hit us like a wall. I kept my nose out of the wind as much as possible while also trying to avoid getting myself into any kind of trouble with other riders getting beat up by the wind.
As we were rolling through a cross wind, somebody near the front of the peloton must have gotten caught out by a strong gust. Everybody behind reacted and I was at the arse end of the ripple effect. My front wheel got into Shim’s back wheel. I almost recovered but ended up hitting the deck. Thankfully I kinda saw it coming and was able to minimize the loss of skin. Two other riders stacked it up behind me and went down also. I made a quick assessment for damage and quickly realized that my bike was still intact. I picked myself up off the ground, remounted my stead and was able to reintegrate with the peloton. A few of my bro’s in the peloton were kind enough to tell the others in the group to sit up until we were able to catch back up. Once I made it back to the peloton, A few people asked if I was OK, pretty cool stuff… one of the many reasons that I love bike racing. I took another look at my bike and myself to see what kind of damage I did. Lost a little skin on my knee and even though I couldn’t see my arse, I could tell that I did a little sliding on it. I didn’t rip my shorts so it didn’t seem like it would be that bad. I also noticed that my fork had a little damage, though it looked like it was only on the surface.
We made it through the first lap and I could feel the aggression of a few others coming on. I was looking forward to the attacks to break the group up a little because things were getting pretty sketchy with the way the wind was blowin’. We turned the corner into the trail wind and all hell started breakin’ loose. I’m not sure who it was but the first of several attacks were uncorked and the end result of the initial attacks was a break away of six. The group consisted of Nathan Moenck, Matt Landen, Tracy Thompson, Josh Madsen, myself and some dude from Indiana. We work well together and the breakaway stuck. As we were flyin’ down the road I made a point to observe the others in attempt to see who had game. Everybody looked pretty strong with the exception of the cat from Indiana. He had a cassette on his bike that looked more like a dinner plate and whenever we hit the tail wind he lagged behind because he ran out of gears.
During the third lap Nathan started to drift towards the back of the group and was looking at his bike like something was wrong. Shortly after that I heard the familiar crack of a tire puncture. Matt and I kind of found ourselves in somewhat of a moral dilemma. Over the last couple of road races, we seemed to have formed an ‘unofficial’ alliance. Matt and I looked at each other and asked, ‘do we wait or go’. Needless to say, the others in the breakaway were more than happy to keep the hammer down as we were down to five and all of us were in the money. Matt and I had no choice but to continue.


The five man break. Check out Tracy, he looks really fast.



The five of us stayed together to the finish and we were looking at a five man sprint. There were a few attacks over the last 1000 yards and the cat from Indiana got shelled. So now it was down to four for the sprint. At about 200 yards out, Matt jumped. I responded only to have my chain drop from my 53 down to my 39… game over. Matt ended up winning, Tracy came in 2nd followed by Josh for 3rd and I ended up 4th.
Needless to say, I have mixed emotions about the result. Crashing sucks, my fork was cracked so I had to buy a new one. I lost some skin and I had a raspberry the size of a grapefruit on my arse. I lost a sprint that I had decent legs for due to a mechanical issue. That’s all a part of bike racing though and I still love the sport and am very thankful that I can do what I do on a bike. All is good.
I decided to skip the crit as my fork was cracked and didn’t feel the need to risk the loss of more skin. I had a great time hanging with my buds, TJ and tPod, watching some bike racing, eating ice cream, enjoying the weather and bs’n with others. The cycling culture in Iowa contains people from all walks of life and it’s a cool group to hang with whether I’m riding or watching.


The finish. That's me off the back sprinting in my 39, I look really slow.



Next up is another dirty double with the second race of the Psycowpath series on Saturday and IMBCS #2 on Sunday.

Thanks for reading,

CK

IMBCS #1

The 2007 edition of the IMBCS is finally in full swing. The first race of the season was held at Sylvan Island located in the middle of the Mississippi River. I believe the island used to be a munitions plant, or possibly a steel plant as there are ‘ruins’ strewn about the island. Anything from concrete loading docks, broken glass, chunks of structural steel, wood chips, and probably a few bombs (hopefully duds) can be found throughout the island. There were even a few muddy spots, saturated with oil, not water. The EPA would have a field day on this place.
So with this race falling in the middle of a Build period and at the end of a 17 hour training week, I was expecting my legs to be lacking a little. WWJ drove down to Des Moines from Sewer City, I threw all of my stuff into his car and we hit the road for the QC. The plan was to arrive in the QC the night before the race and stay at my Mom’s as she lives about 10 minutes from the race course. We arrived at my Mom’s Saturday evening to homemade lasagna and fresh bread, I made a pig of myself as I always do whenever my Mom cooks.


Me mum, gettin' down with the sickness.



Woke up the next morning and arrived at the course about two hours early, enough time to catch my Mom doing the sport race. This race typically draws enough entrants that they run the beginner, sport and expert races at separate times. It’s so much nicer having the course to ourselves, especially a short 3 mile course like Sylvan Island. The weather was about as close to perfect as one could hope for with temps in the lower 60’s at race time. I suited up in the Rassy camo and did a couple of recon laps to get the course dialed in. The course was set up pretty much the same as last years, with a couple of re-routes to avoid some mud holes and oil slicks.
As expected, Jim Ghys and his posse did a great job in setting up a course that was great for the racers and the spectators. There were several spots where spectators could stand and see racers several times throughout a lap.


Pre-race nerves - some people are chatty, some people pee a lot... me, I like to eat my gloves.



Start time arrived and we lined up for the start. Last years winner, Brian Eppen, was there along with a lot of other fast racers from Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. I didn’t really know what to expect from a lot of the others because most of them were from Illinois, so my plan was to get out of the gate as fast as possible and position myself into the top three heading into the singletrack. The gun went off and we made our way down a gravel road that was about ¼ mile long. I didn’t have the greatest of starts and really had to work hard to get near the front. I ended up third wheel going into the singletrack, Eppen was second and I didn’t know the cat in first. The guy in first was pretty slow and when we hit the first open section, Brian and I passed the guy like he was standing still. Andy Lueck also got by and the three of us checked out.
We swapped the lead throughout the first two or three laps and worked pretty well together. I was surprised that Brian and Andy didn’t try to tag team me because are both Mercy Specialized teammates. Brian took a couple of pulls in the open sections was able to easily open a gap on myself and Andy. I didn’t have the legs to hang onto his wheel so I knew that he was going to be tough to beat today.
On around lap four Brian and Andy started to slowly open a gap on me. I tried like crazy to close it up but my legs had no response, so I more or less settled into my own pace with the hope that it would be enough to reel one or both of them back in. I could see that Brian had started to create a gap between he and Andy so I pushed a little harder to try and close up to Andy. I finally caught up to Andy around lap five, it looked like Brian had beat him down pretty good because his glasses were cock-eyed and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. I managed to gap Andy and started my attempt at closing the gap to Brian.


Tryin' to close the gap to Eppen... negotiating my way through an oil slick.



Throughout the remaining laps I kept hearing people say that I was around 30 seconds back. It doesn’t sound like much, but it seemed like an eternity during the race. I gave it all I had in my attempt to close the gap, but it wasn’t happening. Brian ended up winning by about 30 seconds, I rolled home in 2nd. Andy came in about two minutes back in 3rd.


Race winner Brian Eppen... a beast of a man.




Third place finisher Andy Lueck railin' a corner.



So considering how my legs felt, I feel really good about the result. Brian told me afterwards that I worked him pretty hard, felt good to hear him say that because a few years ago he used to destroy me on the WORS circuit. I gotta give some kudos to Andy, I’m sure that he surprised a few people with his result. He rode a great race and I’m lookin’ forward to some epic battles with him, Eppen, Cully Todd and anybody else in the expert class this season.
It’s lookin’ like my next race will be the Iowa City Road Race and maybe the Old Capital Criterium.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Back On The Horse

Training for the 2007 season started around the first of the year. I was looking forward to all the trainer rides about as much as I look forward to seeing Chris Maharry in his semi-transparent pink cycling shorts. Winter is finally over and at the end of each trainer workout over the last two weeks would end with the overly optimistic thought that it would be my last trainer ride for the season. Well, as anybody that lives in the Midwest knows, the weather has been total crap here. Unseasonably cold temps, lot’s of rain and even snow. I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth with Netflix over the winter. Watched a lot of movies during all of the two and three trainer marathons. It would have been nearly impossible for me to log all of the indoor hours without having something halfway entertaining to watch on the tube. Also did a lot of trainer rides in tPods basement. I can still picture the look of disgust on tPod’s face during our workouts. I sweat buckets when I ride the trainer and he’d always make me put about 20 towels on the floor around me to keep my funk off of his floor.
My first race of the season ended up being the Altoona Road Race. Lane Anderson and his All Nine Yards posse do a great job and putting together a full weekend of road raging with the road race on Sunday and the criterium at the fair grounds on Sunday. The morning of the race started with wet pavement and temps in the 50’s. By race time the temps climb up into the 60’s. The air was very heavy with moisture and the roads were still wet.
My plans for road raging this season are pretty much the same as last season, use the road for training without too much concern about my results. The only exception to that would be Snake Alley, I’d love to improve on my 2nd place finish in the 3’s from last season. After Snake Alley I’ll upgrade to a 2 and maybe to the Muscatine crit. For all roadie stuff I’m planning to wear last seasons kit from JJ Bailey’s team, used to be called Midwest Speed Merchants / Triton Homes, now called Team Zoom Performance. Zoom Performance is a group of endurance coaches, JJ Bailey, Jenny Weber and Matt Zepeda, all very good friends of mine and hands down, the best coaches in the area.
So the race started like any other road race, at a pretty mellow pace. Throughout the first lap there only seemed to be one person interested in aggression, Matt Landen from Omaha. About midway through the lap, we hit an uphill section going into a head wind. Ross Schuchart unleashed an attack going up the hill. I was at the back of the pack, asleep at the wheel of course. I jumped and put myself into the red zone in an attempt to bridge. After a few minutes I caught up to a group of 6 other riders and tried to sit in as much as possible to recharge my batteries.
About ¾ of the way through the first lap, we caught and passed to P/1/2 group that started about five minutes ahead of us. A couple of cats in our group flatted, one never make it back while another managed to bridge back up to us somewhere during lap 2 or 3. On lap 3, Matt Landen uncorked an attack going uphill with a strong tailwind at our backs. Once again, I was at the back of the group daydreaming about eating a tub of Haagen Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond ice cream. When I came to, I once put myself into the red zone to bridge. Only one other cat, Nathan Moenck went with the attack. I raced a couple of times against Nathan and Matt on the dirt and both are pretty strong riders. They both looked back to assess the damage and saw that I was no man’s land trying to bridge up to them. They realized that three people had a better chance of staying away rather than two and sat up for me. I bridged up and had to sit on for a few miles to regain full consciousness and get my eyes uncrossed. I could tell that they weren’t too pleased about it, so I told ‘em they could fight it out for first and second and I would be more than happy to settle for third and that I needed a little time to catch my breath. We worked well together for the remainder of the race. Nathan as clearly the strongest of the three of us and did quite a bit more work than Nathan and I, so the finishing order was pretty much established long before the finish. The last climb was about two miles from the finish and Nathan rode away from Matt and I like an angry motorist. The guy is freakishly strong and is going to do some damage in the P/1/2 class when he gets his upgrade. Matt and I rode in for 2nd and 3rd, respectively.
Despite the wet roads and rain, I enjoyed the race. It was a great workout which was my main objective for the day. Matt and Nathan made for a couple of great break away companions, we had a few good chats throughout and did a lot of suffering, all in all, good stuff. My total race time was a little over three hours. My average HR for the race was about 162, a nice Zone 3 tempo workout. Pretty close to ideal for this time of the season.
My next race was the season opener for the Nebraska state mountain biking series (Psycowpath) on April 7. I am the defending series champion and one of my goals for the season is to defend that title. It’s going to be even tougher this season because of few of the top dogs from Omaha are riding really strong already. Three of them, Shim, Steve Jarrett and Kent McNeill went down to the first NMBS (formerly NORBA National) in Phoenix, AZ the weekend before to see where they stood at the national level. Kent is a semi pro and won one of the semi pro races and was well positioned to take the stage race overall when, during the cross country race, he ripped out the side wall of his tire… game over. Shim won the overall for his age group in the expert class and Steve ended up 2nd overall for his age group in the expert class. So going into the weekend, I knew that all three are on good form. I was looking forward to some stiff competition!
The weather forecast for the weekend was dry, but freakin’ cold with temps forecasted to be in the lower 30’s for highs. I got into Omaha the night before and stayed at Shim’s place. We went out for some vittles on Friday night, went back to his pad and chilled with a movie and a glass of Port wine. I’ve never had Port wine before, if you like drinking syrup, this stuff is for you. I think he was trying to sabotage my race by trying to clog up my system with his kids cough syrup.
Woke the next morning to temps in the teens, yeehaw! Let’s go racin’! We polished off a pot of coffee, some poached eggs and my usual box of Mueslix, packed all of our stuff and headed for Tranquility Park in the middle of Omaha. Arrived at the race venue, said hi to few folks I hadn’t seen since last fall, registered and suited up in the Rassy camo. Did a recon lap and then re-rode a few of the more technical sections to get them dialed in.
We lined for the start and the gun went off. I took the lead going into the singletrack with Kent on my wheel, followed by Ryan Legg, a roadie from Des Moines, Shim and Aaron Grady, a newcomer to the expert field. I lead the first lap, stupid me, I didn’t really want to be there because the wind was absolutely crazy and I knew that I was blocking the wind for everybody else in the headwind sections, bonehead… As we started the climb on the 2nd lap, Kent passed me and began to pull away. I tried to stay with him but I didn’t have the legs to hang on so I let him go.
I rolled into the singletrack and could hear somebody catching up to me. I took a quick look back and it was Ryan Legg. I thought to myself, ‘what the hell is a roadie doing catching up to me on this part of the course?’. Ryan was having a great race, unfortunately he had a mechanical issue shortly after he caught me and had to drop out of the race. It’s too bad because I think that he would have given me, and possibly Kent, a good race. If he does more races on the dirt, he could be one to look out for.
As the race progressed, the gap between myself and Kent continued to increase. I just didn’t have the legs to catch him. I kept an eye on things behind me and did what I could to hang on to 2nd place. On lap 4 of 5, I could see that Steve Jarrett was starting to close in on me so I tried to push a little harder to keep him at bay. Kent ended up winning the race with a time of 1:29:46. I held on for 2nd a little over three minutes back. Steve Jarrett came in 3rd about 30 seconds behind me, Aaron Grady came in 4th another 45 seconds back. Shim came in at 1:38:44 to claim the last step on the podium.
Kent was riding like a man possessed and is going to be really tough to beat this season. I’m really looking forward to mixing it up with him and the rest of the posse from across the river this season. As for my result, I am actually very happy with it. My average HR for the race was 165, when I’m feeling good it’s usually in the upper 170’s. I simply didn’t have good legs that day. Whenever I tried to kick it into a higher gear, I just didn’t have it. I never felt like I was stressing my cardio throughout the race. This is actually a good indicator, I’ve been doing a lot of long rides and my legs were pretty tired from all of the overload training. To have as good of a result as I did under these circumstances gives me a good indication for better things to come. When I start to approach my peak periods throughout the month of June, I should be flying, we’ll see how it goes.
So the season has officially started and I’m looking forward to another season of good times with a lot of good friends. It should be a good season, training has gone extremely well thus far and my motivation is high.
I’d like to thank of couple of my sponsors for once again offering their very generous support this season, Rasmussen Bike Shop, the best around, Oakley eyewear, the best in the biz and a new sponsor for 2007, Recover-Ease. Recover-Ease is a recovery supplement that actually works! If I happen to forget to take some after a hard workout, I can definitely feel it in my legs.

Next up is the season opener for the IMBCS, the Sylvan Island Stampede. Info and a race flyer can be found at: www.qcforcorg. This is one of the biggest races in Iowa and features a great course. Last season I finished a close 2nd to Brian Eppen. I’m looking forward to mixing it up with Eppen and all of the other fast cats that’ll be showing up. Should be a great time!

Thanks for reading.

CK

Where Is The Man??

Has anyone seen the Cam'ster?? Rumor has it that he's gone into soft porn:)

Peace

Photos from the Dirty Du

Taking the 'W' in the relay competition. That's what I look like when I'm outta shape and in the hurt bag.


























Going around a corner, not sure what part of the SC this is. Take a look at how clean the tread is. Ryan and his crew did a great job in cleaning all of the dead fall off the trail. Took a lot of corners at speeds that I didn't think were possible at the SC.
























Yeah, the Dirty Du was a great time with a lot of good friends that I hadn't ridden with in a while. Definitely looking forward to the 2nd annual!

The Dirty Du

Just when I thought that my season might finally be over with, they had to go and announce one more race. And of all places, in another place that I consider to be my backyard, the Science Center Trails. A lot of people can claim the Science Center as their backyard as it is smack in the middle of Des Moines. There has been a lot of talk over the years about how it would be great if somebody could somehow put on a race at the Science Center. The one major problem with putting on a race at the Science Center has always been that there was never a really good way to get across the three different railroad track crossings needed to create some sort of a complete loop without doubling back on the same trail… until recently.
The hard working folks that call themselves CITA (Central Iowa Trail Association) created a connector trail a few weeks ago that re-routed the trail coming off the Rollercoaster in such a way that we now cross over the ‘first’ railroad crossing on the bike path. This gave riders a ‘legal’ way to cross over the railroad tracks, thus enabling CITA to legally organize a race over at least a portion of the Science Center trails. The result was the creation of the 1st Annual Des Moines Dirty Duathlon. In a nut shell, the race consisted of racers starting at Greenwood Park, heading south on the Rollercoaster and across the bike path for two loops on the hillside. After two laps of the hillside we were sent onto Chad and Scott’s connector, across the bridge to the transition area. The run consisted of a 4.5 mile loop through Denman’s and back to the transition area. The last leg was on the bike going backwards on Chad and Scott’s connector to the hillside. We did one more loop on the hillside and then to the south side of the Roller Coaster. We headed north up the Roller Coaster and finished back in Greenwood Park.
I hate running… and yes, I dislike lemans starts. I do them when I have to and I am fast at them because I was a pretty fast runner back in the day. A few weeks ago, I decided to give running a shot, to try and do a little cross training over the winter. I consulted one my buddies, soon to be superstar professional triathlete JJ Bailey on how to get into running without screwin’ anything up. His advice was to start out on the treadmill at a very short distance, at a very slow pace. So I did, two miles at an 8 minute per mile pace. Back in the day I used to cut a mile in the lower 4:30 range, so yeah, an 8 minute mile seemed to be slow enough. Things felt OK during the run, a few aches and pains here and there, pretty much chalked it up to old age and not having run like this for about 20 years. Now that I think about it, the last time that I ran was the 1989 edition of the Honolulu Marathon. Yeah, I did a marathon and I did it off of doing 2 mile runs, three days a week for training. Stupid? Oh yeah, I was walking real funny like for the better part of a week. I made the mistake of sitting down in the park as soon as I finished, couldn’t get my sorry arse up off the ground. I had to crawl about 1/8 of a mile to a chain link fence and pull myself up off the ground. Glad I did it, but I’ll never do it again.
So I did another 2 mile run and picked up the pace a little, still had the aches and pains. My ankle was a little sore afterwards, I chose to ignore it. Ran again, this time for 3 miles. Ankle was again sore, sore enough that I was limping around for 2 days. Took a week off and tried again, didn’t even make it a mile this time and I pulled a calf muscle. Shortly after that run I had this short flash of brilliance… maybe I shouldn’t be running. So I decided to quit.
So here I am, less than a week from the Dirty Du, got a pulled calf muscle so I can’t run. I never intended on doing the running portion, but it was going to be a very serious problem when it came to the lemans start that was the rumored start format. I gave race director, Ryan Hanser, a call and he confirmed that it was going to be a lemans start. I explained my situation to him and he said to show up ready to race. He and the crew would figure out some way for me to compete fairly without having to run.
I gave a good friend of mine, Jenny Weber, a call to see if she would be interested in doing the run portion for me. She was all for it so it was game on for one last time in 2006! Jenny is easily one of the fastest female runners in the state so I knew that we had a pretty good shot at taking the team competition, even against the all male teams. I’d only been on my bike 4 or 5 times in the 3 weeks prior to this, but I figured that I had enough residual fitness from the season that I’d be OK.
So I get to the race venue and find tPod getting suited up for the solo competition. He’s been pretty keyed up for this race since it was announced and he was my pick to take the overall for the solo category. I did some more bs’n with a bunch of other’s while trying to get my rig set up and myself suited up for a recon ride. Next thing I know, it’s about 20 minutes until race time and I’m not even suited up yet… so much for a recon and a good warm-up. I threw on the Rassy camo and did a quick ride through the start section and took a couple of trips down the Rollercoaster the get he HR amped up. Rumor has it that I had smoke rollin’ out of my nostrils as I was toolin’ around the start area waiting for the start.
Ryan’s solution for my start, was to randomly draw another racers number. When that racer entered the start area after the lemans start I could go. So the race started, I still hadn’t been told a number so Ryan stood next to me and waited until a few racers mounted their steeds and rolled out of the start area. Once a few rolled out, he told me to go. I took off and quickly got into the lead going up the climb. I opened up a pretty good gap almost immediately and continued to push.
I hit the hyperdrive at the top of the Rollercoaster and quickly realized that I was flyin’ through there much faster than I ever had before. Scared the crap out of myself a few times with a couple of close calls with a few trees while going mach 4. Man that was fun!
I exited the Rollercoaster with a pretty good lead and decided to keep the pressure on throughout the hillside loops. CITA had gone through and cleaned all of the leaves, branches and acorns off the trail, so the tread on the hillside was the best that I had ever seen. I was hitting all of my lines well, felt like I was riding one of those imperial speeder bikes through the forest of Endor in Star Wars. I hit the paved trail, started my 2nd loop on the hillside and started running into lapped traffic. A lot of them weren’t really sure what to do when I came up to them so I told them to pull off the trail. It wasn’t much of a problem, I would rather have new people show up, even if it means that I have to slow down every once in a while. I tore threw the 2nd loop just as quickly as I did the 1st and hit Chad and Scott’s connector with hyperdrive still goin’.
I rolled into the transition area and passed the torch to Jenny with about a 1:25 lead on the next rider. Jenny ran through the woods with the efficiency of a deer, she was flyin’. At about the midpoint of the run, she still had about 45 seconds on 2nd place, Mark Hollander, who had teamed up with the mighty Pete Bison Basso. By the end of the run, Jenny came into the transition with that same 45 second gap… perfect.
I took off knowing that I probably wouldn’t have to put myself into the hurt locker to maintain the lead… yeah, this is bike racing, I don’t always know how to back the throttles off. I pretty much continued where I had left off, the hyperdrive propulsion system still goin’ full bore. I hit the hillside once again and could feel the lactic acid in my legs coming to a full boil. My hyperdrive can be somewhat recalcitrant when I’m in the red zone, so I figured that I better back ‘er off a little before I wrap myself around a tree. I hit the south side of the Rollercoaster knowing that I had an insurmountable lead, barring no mishaps. I still kept the pace fast because that’s the only way that the Rollercoaster should be ridden, forward or backward. I hammered up the final steep climb and rolled across the finish line in 1:21:42 just over 2 minutes ahead of the mighty Bison. Kyle Sedore and his runner, Brian Appleby came across in 3rd about another 3 minutes back. My bro tPod came through in 4th, 1st in the solo category with a time of 1:27:09… tough guy. Jane Riessen was the 1st female soloist. Great job to all that I mentioned along with all of the other finishers.
A huge thanks goes out to Ryan Hanser, Dave (Super Mario) Mable, and Brian Palmer for putting on top quality, fun event. Everybody that took part had a great time. I also want to thank Jenny Weber for doing the run, we made a great team and if scheduling permits, we’ll be back next year to defend. And yes, I will do whatever I can to ensure that I can do the lemans start. I’m sure there were a few that thought my start was unfair. I had the fastest bike splits for both bike segments. The first segment I was nearly 90 seconds quicker then the 2nd fastest person. The second segment I had the fastest split by nearly a minute. So I don’t think it would have really mattered whether I had done the lemans start or not… really. So quit yer winen’!

So that’s a wrap for the 2006 season. Stay tuned to the Rassy blog throughout the winter because I’ll be doing random posts here and there. I’ve taken on a couple more coaching clients and feel pretty good about taking on a couple more without spreading myself too thin. So if you’re interested in some mountain bike specific coaching, whether it be a year round coach or just a private lesson, let me know. I’ve received a lot of interest so let me know ASAP otherwise you’ll most likely miss out!

Thanks for reading,

Cosmo

Overdue Race Report(s)

Yep, as most of you know, I am still alive, just a little lazy when it comes to keeping my race journal current. I’ve been kinda busy with keeping my focus on my training, training my young Padawan to become a Jedi Master on the mountain bike, working, along with a few of life’s other necessities. So I’m going to attempt to give a recap on my last few races starting with the 24 of Seven Oaks up to my last race of the season, the Sycamore TT aka, Sterling’s Dirt Circus.

Controversy at the 24 / 7

The weather forecast for Labor Day weekend was pretty much par for the course for the 2006 season, rain and more frikin’ rain. Heavy in most places, so I made a point to pack a bunch of gear anticipating doing a lot of laps in good ole’ Iowa peanut butter mud. The Rassy A-team for this year’s edition of the 24 / 7 was hand picked by yours truly and consisted of myself, tPod, Jedi and Jason Alread. My bro Squirrel was in the mix but opted to do it drunk and solo… damn freak. My number one priority with the A-team was to ensure that I put Rassy’s / Orbea / Oakley on the top step of the podium.
I arrived at Seven Oaks about an hour before the start and wandered around the pit area to size up the competition. I made a few stops here and there to chat with a few of my bro’s from out of town, Jeff Kerkove, Buchanondale, Frankenbike, MWBC/Team 14 among many others. Despite the crappy weather forecast there was still a pretty good turnout, but the numbers were still a little down from last year.
After much heated debate, Jedi was more or less forced into being our man for the first lap. I hate running so I was out of the question. Our plan was to take the lead from the start and never look back. The race started, Jedi eventually got himself into the lead and that was pretty much all she wrote. The race as far as our team goes was pretty uneventful. I think after about two hours, we had a lap on the entire field and it kept growing. We were able to shut the pace down by about 10:30am knowing that we had a four lap lead on the 2nd place team… Saweet! I think that I had the fastest lap times of everybody, a small goal of mine.
Fortunately, my recollection of cheaters in mountain bike racing are far and few between. This years soloist edition of the 24 had the Iowa marathon man, Jeff Kerkove, mixing it up with only one week of recovery since his previous 24 hour solo effort. Jeff started off at a pretty good pace and appeared to be feeling pretty good. Once the night hours set in, somebody told me that some cat had a one lap lead on Jeff, and that he was also leading all of the teams! Ummm, yeah, I’m thinkin’ to myself that something isn’t quite right here. Unfortunately, most of the conversations throughout the night and the remainder of the morning, were centered around our alleged cheater. As the race continued I found myself trying like crazy to change the subject whenever somebody started talking about it. It kinda took some of the fun out of the event.
By the end of the race, race officials felt confident that they had enough evidence against the guy to disqualify him. It was pretty strange, the guy didn’t offer much of a protest, if any at all. He was even present during the awards ceremony, kind of sittin’ there like nothing ever happened… very strange. I’m pretty sure that the cat was short cutting the course somewhere, his lap times were impossibly fast for a soloist, especially his night laps. What I’m unsure of is whether he made a conscious effort to cut the course, or if it was accidental. I guess there’s no way that we’ll ever find out for sure. I would like to see the guy show up to a few other races, to give himself a chance to prove that he is as fast as he appeared to be. He was extended an invitation to do just that. But, here it is, over two months later and nobody has seen him at any races. I’m thinkin’ he’s not that fast.
On a higher note, Frankenbike (Dennis Grelk) was the deserved beneficiary of the disqualification, winning the 500 bones for taking the overall. Nice job bro.

Psycowpath #5 – Series Finale

Going into this weekends series finale, I was sittin’ pretty for taking the series overall. All I needed to do was finish ahead of WWJ and Sam I Am and the series overall was mine. Swanson Park and I have a pretty rough history. I always have fun racing there, but it’s pretty much in the middle of Omaha and gives the locals a huge home course advantage. Kinda like how we’d have a huge advantage at the Science Center if we were to ever have a race there.
Omaha had some light rain the night before the race and by morning, the course conditions were very close to perfect, nice and tacky. The usual favorites were there, MIB (Kent McNeil), Shim, the Deal (Steve Jarrett), JP (Jesse Peterson), MG (Matt Gersib), Darin Schlake. I think just about all of those cats are previous race winners in the Psycowpath series. So yeah, I knew it was going to be a tough day.
I busted out the Orbea Oiz as my weapon of choice fitted with my favorite Midwest hardpack tread, the WTB Nanoraptors. My plan for the race was to let the local knowledge (just one of’em) lead into the singletrack, follow his wheel, learn the lines and eventually take over and scurry off for the win. I had two goals for this race, lock up the series championship and win the race.
The race started and I lead the parade lap around the field. I backed it off a little so that someone else would take over the lead into the singeltrack. Cyclocross stud, Sir Anthony Wilhelm took over the lead and MIB squeezed in ahead of me. I was actually OK with this because Wilhelm is notorious for taking like a scalded dog at the start of cross country races. He’s a cyclocross man so he’s kinda trained himself for insane, cross-eyed efforts for about an hour. MIB is probably the best person to follow through Swanson Park, he knows the place better than anybody else and is most likely the fastest cat on the course. As the lap progressed, the insane pace continued. I had no idea what my heart rate was and never had much of a chance to look, we were going so insanely fast that any lapse of concentration would have most likely led to an off course excursion into the wilderness.
Throughout the first lap, Wilhelm continued to build on his lead. I think his lead topped out at around 30 – 45 seconds, he was never far enough ahead that we couldn’t see where he was. I continued to sit on MIB’s wheel, learning the lines and gaining confidence. MIB and I had a pretty good gap on 4th place by the end of the first lap. At the end of the second lap (of five), one of the spectators told us that the gap to Wilhelm was down to about 30 seconds. We were approaching an hour into the race and so I figured it was go time. I passed Kent in the open field section of the course and told him to grab my wheel. My thought was that I would lead during the open sections and he would lead in the technical sections. As I approached the singletrack, I slowed a little to let MIB take over. I looked back and noticed that I had a pretty good gap on him so I punched it. About midway through the 3rd lap I had closed the gap to Wilhelm. I rode his wheel for the remainder of the lap, MIB wasn’t able to close it up to us.
We hit the start/finish area at the end of the third lap and I took ever the lead from Wilhelm and led the way into the singletrack. Throughout the third lap we started running into some of the slower sport riders. I didn’t have too much trouble getting by anybody, but I think that the lapped traffic made it difficult for Wilhelm to hang onto my wheel. I’d gap him a few times and he’d pull me back in. Eventually I was able to snap the elastic and get away from him. By this time I had the course dialed in. I was railin’ the corners, taking clean, fast lines and making little to no mistakes. Things were clicking for me. As the race progressed my lead continued to grow and I ended up winning with a time of 2:04:50. MIB got by Wilhelm and finished in second with a time of 2:07:32. Wilhelm held on for 3rd with a time of 2:08:45.
I would definitely count this as one of my biggest wins. MIB is a semi-pro and is definitely one of the fastest mountain bikers in the Midwest. I had probably the most fun that I’ve ever had on a mountain bike while I was riding his wheel during this race. What a ride, kinda like riding on a roller coaster! He had mentioned after the race that he thought he had turned his fastest laps ever during the race… pretty cool. Throughout the race it seemed as though I had more people yelling for me than the locals. It was pretty sweet. A huge thanks goes out the Folks From Lincoln crew, aka the tifosi, headed up by my bro CVO. It was a huge help for the morale. It’s been a long time since I’ve suffered like that in a mountain bike race. My average HR for the race was 181 for over 2 hours, freaky stuff I tell ya. Having the tifosi behind me throughout the race while I’ve got myself in the hurt bag is a huge boost for the morale, I can’t thank ‘em enough!
So this was a great way to consolidate the Psycowpath series overall. A few years ago I would have never dreamt of being a contender for the series overall and now I have it. It’s been an incredible season so far and I’m looking forward to riding the wave of success to the end of the 2006 season.

IMBCS #8 – Another Muddy Race at Seven Oaks

What a season! I don’t remember ever having to deal with this much rain. At the same time, I’m having my best season ever. Go figure. It had rained a ton the night before the race and postponement was not an option. Kyle Sedore, Ron DeGeest and the rest of the Singletrack Promotions crew scrambled and put together what they thought would be a rain friendly course. I didn’t bother with a recon lap, didn’t want to get my stead all clogged up with peanut butter before the race.
The overall morale at the start was pretty low, nobody was all that jazzed about racing in the mud at Seven Oaks. The race started and I took off into the lead. The initial climb up the hill was the muddiest section on the course and it was rideable every lap. About midway through the first lap, my front brake started rubbing on my rim. I couldn’t fix it on the fly so I stopped to fix it. As I was working on the bike, Sedore passed me, kicked me in the arse as he passed and took the lead. I finally fixed my brake, hopped back on my bike and started my pursuit. A short while later, Sedore was off his bike fixing something that broke. I took the lead back, spat on him as I went by and held on pretty easily for my second win in the same weekend. Saweet!
As for the course, they did a great job with the rain reroute. The course was 100% rideable and a lot of fun, I had a great time! It was slippery in some sections and I saw a few riders go down in a heap, but overall, I think everybody had a great time.

Iowa Games – IMBCS #10

It had been a few years since I had raced at Peterson Pits, so I was pretty excited to have the chance to tear it up there. I’ve always had a lot of success at the Pit, won everytime I raced there but once. Now retired domestic roadie pro, John Lieswyn, handed me my only loss by a few seconds a couple of years ago.
Race director Pat Alvord has always done an outstanding job at putting together a great course at the Pit, and he came through again this year. He made great use of the fast open sections as well as a lot of the singletrack. A lot of people say that Peterson Pits is not at all technical, I say that it is technical in a different way. The course is so fast in some sections that the mere speed creates its’ own technical challenges, very fun challenges at that.
As I was out warming up with the Bison, I found myself slowly getting into my pre-race zone. While we were rolling down the road, the Eppen’s were rolling into the parking lot. I thought to myself, saweet! As most of you know, Brian Eppen is most likely the fastest mountain biker in the state and he’s also become my favorite opponent. We’ve had some pretty amazing, epic battles this season, easily some my most memorable and enjoyable moments in bike racing. As I was going out for a second recon lap, Brian was also heading out for a recon lap. So we did some bs’n and caught each other up on our seasons thus far.
Wasn’t really to sure what to expect for attendance because this was a reschedule from the original July date. In the end there ended up being close to 60 peeps in all. Nice turnout for a rescheduled race. As we were lining up for the start, I counted about 13 or 14 experts total, pretty good number for an Iowa race.
Since the race started on a gravel road, my plan was to try and control the pace going into the singletrack and let Eppen lead the way. I wanted to get a read on how well he would be riding and how fit he was. This course is pretty much all about fitness and a little less about bike handling. As we approached the singletrack, I let up a little to try and encourage Eppen into taking the lead. He did and I also noticed somebody else trying to stick their nose between myself and Eppen. I picked up the pace a little bit and nudged my way onto Eppen’s wheel. We rode well together through the first section of singletrack and I think that we still had a couple of riders pretty close behind us. I let Eppen lead a little longer and finally decided it was time to pick up the pace a little, to try and shell whoever it was that was behind us.
I passed Brian and picked up the pace a little. We managed to shell the last few stragglers and we gradually pulled away. Throughout the first couple of laps, Brian and I traded the lead and were working well together. I spent a lot of time throughout the course, trying to figure where the best place would be to make my move, to try and get away. At this point, my plan was to try and break away with about a half lap to go. On the third lap (of five), we were flyin’ through one of the fast flowing, fun sections of singletrack. I punched it a little to see what kind of shape Brain was in. I noticed a small gap forming so I kept the pressure on. The gap went from pretty small to pretty big in a really short period of time. I was very surprised at how quickly the gap increased. Turns out he was having some issues with air pressure in his front tire… That’s mountain bike racing for ya and we’ve all been there.
I ended up winning the race with a time of 1:25:48, Brian held onto 2nd with a time of 1:31:41. My young Padawan, Jedi, came in 3rd with a time of 1:32:34. After talking with Brian after the race, he had mentioned that even if he wouldn’t have had issues with air pressure, I would have had him anyway. That’s part of why I enjoy racing against the guy so much, he’s a great sport and a ton of fun to race with.

IMBCS #9, Sterling’s Dirt Circus (Sycamore TT)

I’ve won this race the last two seasons so I suppose that means that Sycamore is kind of my territory and I need to do whatever I can to defend my turf. Gotta make sure that Rassy’s is on the top step of the podium ya know. For those of you who are wondering, who the hell is Sterling? Sterling is a bro of mine that is the manager at Rasmussen Bike Shop. He’s one of the reasons that I enjoy going into Rassy’s so much, the dude is always happy to see you… great guy!
This was a reschedule because the original date was rained out. And, like every year prior to this one, a lot of people were saying a lot of negative things about the state of the Sycamore Trails. It’s the same deal every year, yeah, the trails are always pretty beat up. But every year, Chris Maharry does a stellar job in setting up a great course. Unfortunately, there was a lot of construction going on in the area and as a result, quite a few of the trails have been bulldozed over to make way for all of the new houses. Urban sprawl… gotta love it. This might actually be a good thing however. With all of the new houses, etc. it might help keep a lot of the ATV’s, vagrants, etc. off of the trails. It could actually help improve the state of the trails. I guess we’ll see.
So it rained a little before the race and when I got there, I could see some mud on the tires of some of the cats that had gone out for a recon lap. I’d pretty much already decided on the tire of choice for the race due to the loose nature of the sandy soil along the river. The IRC Serac’s have a pretty aggressive tread pattern and hook up really well in loose soil. After about an hour, the trails dried up considerably and were a little damp, perfect for railin’ the corners. Because the tread was a little damp, the tires performed a lot better than I had anticipated during my recon of the course.
I ended up about mid pack in the starting order, not a big deal because passing is never usually a problem at this race. My time came and I was off. I could tell right at the start that I was going to have a great day. My legs possessed the punch that I feel when I’m fully recovered from all of the overload. My choice of lines throughout the race were pretty much spot on and I didn’t really make any significant mistakes. I passed a lot more people than I remember passing in the previous two editions so I knew that I was flyin’.
I ended up winning the race for the third straight year with a time of 22:12, a great way to end the mountain biking season! Local mountain biking legend Chris Maharry came in 2nd, about 1:39 back. You could just about throw a blanket over the next four, Petey the Bison Basso (3rd), Chia Chad Vandelune (4th) and Kyle Sedore (5th) and WWJay Chesterman (6th), all around 2 minutes back. Great job fellas’!
A lot of people criticize the course at Sycamore, saying that it’s not technical enough. I couldn’t disagree more, if you’re on a leisurely ride, yeah, it’s not all that technical. When you’re flyin’ through there at race pace… totally different story. I had a lot of near misses with a few of the trees and I actually clipped a couple of trees with my forearm. Left a little skin behind. It’s all good though, the adrenaline was kickin’ and I didn’t really feel a thing until the endorphins backed down long after the race was over. So yeah, I always look forward to racing the Sycamore TT.

So the mountain biking season is pretty much over. Time to put the road bike away until March and do nothing but ride on the dirt at whatever pace I feel like doin’. It’ll be a nice change of pace. I’m also looking forward to a lot of pizza, burgers, fries, wine, ice cream and whatever other toxins that might sound good at any given moment.

I’m thinking about doing the Des Moines Dirty Du in November so I’ll probably do a short write up about that and maybe a season summary.

Until then,

Thanks for reading,

Cosmo

Back On Track

Yeah, I’m a little late with this one, been busy workin’, ridin’ eatin’, sleepin, also made a trip down to Arkansas for my Grandmother’s funeral. What a drag man, she was a really cool lady. She’d been fightin’ the good fight against Alzheimer’s disease for the past five years or so and it finally got the best of her. It was a sad day indeed… she’ll be missed by a lot of people.
So let’s see, I did a race a couple of weeks ago, in Ft. Dodge, IMBCS #7. The course was dry as a bone and I was feeling pretty good, coming off a rest week. So I arrived at the course, it was like 90,000 degrees out, freakin’ hot! I got signed up and did a little bs’n before I went out for a couple of recon laps. Loomis Park is a pretty short course, something like 1.9 miles per lap. I did three or four recon laps and got the course dialed in pretty good. Rode the Orbea and it felt really good to finally ride it again.
We lined up for the start and the gun went off. Nathan Cline with a C took off like a scalded dog and I jumped on his wheel. I kinda wanted to lead going into to the singletrack, so just before we hit it, I jumped into the lead. I pretty much dropped the hammer for the first couple of laps (I think we did 11 total). Nathan stayed with me for a couple of laps and he eventually fell off the pace. Guess he said he had some tire issues.
Once I had a pretty good lead established, I backed off the pace a little and just tried to maintain the lead.
With about three or four laps to go, I took a swig of water and went to put my bottle back in the cage. I got it back in but the damn thing nearly fell out of the bottom side of the cage. I had one hand off the handle bar trying to put my bottle back in place, when wam! I hit a big ole’ bump in this open grassy park section and my faithful(?) stead bucked me over the bars, right in front of a bunch of people. I picked myself off the ground, jumped back on the bike and continued on for the win. I ended up winning by about 5 ½ minutes over Frankenbike, who was followed closely by Nathan. Nice job fellas.
After the race, I took a quick gander at my stead and noticed that I put a small dent in the top tube and I also have a slight bend in my rear brake lever. Oh well, crap happens. She still works just fine, so it’s all good.
So here is a couple of quick product reviews. The Specialized Rib Cage water bottle cage… Piece of crap, do not buy this unless you want to crash like I did. Recover-Ease. This is good stuff. You’ve probably read about this stuff on Kerkove’s blog. He gives this stuff a lot of hype and it deserves every bit of it. I started taking Recover-Ease a few months ago and have noticed a very significant difference in how quickly I recover from ride to the next. Definitely one of the best supplements that I’ve ever taken.
Lastly, after several conversations with the Iowa Games MTB race commissioner, Pat Alvord, we’re happy to announce that the Iowa Games MTB race has been rescheduled for Saturday, October 7. And for all of you IMBCS junkies, this will also be an IMBCS points race. So we will still have ten races in the series, despite Sugarbottom being cancelled.
Oh yeah, one more thing, I did the All Nine Yards Omnium race last night at Waterworks park. Got one hell of a workout in. I really hope they do these races again next season. Had a great time hangin’ out with all of the roadies. I think Bisonova has turned to the dark side. He’s doin’ pretty good with this roadie stuff… freakin’ traitor!
So I think my next race is on August 19 over in Omahole. The Psycowpath series season finale/state championship at Swanson Park. I think that I can finish anywhere in the top five or so and I’ll win the series… Saweet! One big goal down, two to go. Those being winning the IMBCS and also takin’ the win at the last Psycowpath marathon at Indian Cave State Park on September 23.
So I guess that’s about it for now. Thanks for reading,

Cosmo

A few photos from Durango

Chowin' down on some strawberries after an epic mountain bike ride at Telegraph























Coffee run at 6am, yeah it's Starbucks, but my sister works there and they take good care of her so it's all good.























Worfing down a sandwich at Bread, the best bakery ever.























My delirious look after an epic mountain bike ride.























My Dad ran into some dude on Dry Fork who was hangin' out with some lamas. The dude said that he was up in the mountains camping with them for a few days... No further details are necessary, thank you.























My Dad's varmint, Jake, back at the ranch in Texas. He's mostly border collie and he's cool as a cucumber.























A view of the inside of our cabin.























Gudy's Rest, a nice spot for a break along the Colorado Trail.























Me layin' the wood to my old man.























The outside of our cabin.

T-Bonen' Trees

I'm back in Dead Moines, tryin' to get back into the groove. I feel like I'm living in the Amazon. Went for a ride at the SC today and it was pretty tropical, felt like I was riding my bike under water. In Denmans, a lot of the corners were pretty greasy. I greased off of one corner and t-boned a tree. Somehow, I managed to hurdle off of my bike and come to a running stop with my bike layin' on the ground. Would have been a cool video, I felt like I looked cool when it happened.
T-boned another tree going through the rhythm section going about mach 4. Stopped me dead in my tracks and somehow managed to keep it rubber side down. Would have been a pretty funny video also. Came out of the woods without a single dry spot on me. Damn hot and muggy. It's gonna be even worse this weekend at the Ft. Dodge race, 98 and humid, I guess the heat index is supposed to be something like 149 degrees? Oh well, lookin' forward to racin' again, it might even be dry this time!

See y'all this weekend,

Cosmo

Durango - Days 6 - 11

Cam Kirkpatrick

Day 6 – Sunday, July 16

Woke up in the morning, the wrist was still a little sore so I decided to do another road ride, same as yesterday. Legs felt really good and finished the ride a little quicker than I did yesterday. HR monitor is still on vacation so I have no idea what my efforts were, other than hard when going uphill, a little less hard on the flats and as easy as possible on the descents. So some redneck that was totin’ a trailer full of four wheelers passed me as I was going up the backside of Coal Bank Pass. I passed by the summit and headed back down the front side. A little ways down I caught back up to Billy Bob haulin’ the four wheelers. The road was somewhat ‘surpentine’, so I decided not to pass. On one of the straights I caught a little bit of a draft off of Billy Bob. I took a look at my speedometer and it said I was going 57+ mph, saweet! It was a pretty cool rush, but I figured I better back it off before the dude brake checked me. Didn’t want to end up on his trailer with his redneck vehicles.
Got back to the cabin and a buddy of mine, Shim, from Omaha was throwin’ down a few cold ones with my old man. I hit the showers then we went out for some grub. I watched Shim and my Dad drink more beer. I told Shim that he was going to be payin’ more than cash for all the beer he drank the next day…

Day 7 – Monday, July 17

Woke up, got out of bed and discovered that my wrist felt like it was back to normal. Saweet! My Dad decided to drive up to the Hermosa Creek trailhead while Shim and I went out to do some dirt lovin’ ourselves. After throwin’ down some grub and coffee, we headed up to the Dry Fork trailhead, about three miles from our cabin. We took Dry Fork up to the Colorado trail and rode down into town. I was leading as I knew the trial pretty well. On the way down some of the descents, I ran through some cow crap and kicked it up all over Shim. Surprisingly enough, cow crap brown went well with his red and yellow kit.
We rolled through town over to the Telegraph trails and pretty much did the same loop that I did the other day. Shim called the ride ‘Kirkpatrick’s Durango death march’. We did lot’s of climbing and most of the trail was out in the open so we were backing in the sun. Shim’s computer said it got up to 102. All you cats in Iowa aren’t the only ones suffering like dogs in the heat. Though I gotta say, the weather here is so much better than there, dry, nice and cool at night, pretty near perfect for camping.

Day 8 – Tuesday, July 18

My Dad took off for Texas yesterday and another buddy, Mike McGrath, showed up from Colorado Springs. Today we decided to do the grand daddy of Durango mountain bike rides, the Kennebec Pass loop. In the past, it’s taken me about 5 ½ hours to do the loop, so we headed out early to avoid the afternoon thunderstorms that usually start brewin’ around high noon.
We hot the road at about 8:30. The first part of the ride is all uphill, going west on highway 160. We hit a side road that heads north out of Hesperus. It’s a flat asphalt road that went on for about 30 minutes. That road eventually turned to gravel and also turned uphill. From that point it was 2 solid hours of climbing on gravel and very rough, very steep, technical jeep roads. There were a lot of spots where I had to dump it into my granny gear.
After about 3 hours of climbing, we finally arrived at Kennebec Pass. Kennebec Pass is notorious for its’ breathtaking 360° views of the mountains of southwest Colorado. Words cannot describe it. After marveling at the views, we hit the trail for 28 miles of sweet Colorado singletrack, mostly downhill. I felt fantastic the entire ride, legs felt good, wrist felt good, and most importantly, my back and my arse felt pretty good. This was the first trip that I’d brought a full suspension bike to Colorado and I will never ride a hard tail here again. It’s like night and day.
So after about 6 hours in the saddle, we arrived back at the cabin. I felt pretty good and wanted to continue my ride down the Colorado trail into town. I had two pinch flats over the last couple of hours and had already bummed a tube off of Mike. Shim flatted also, so we were out of tubes so I figured I’d better head back with Shim and Mike. Didn’t want to flat in the middle of nowhere and reward myself with a long, beautiful walk home.
The last segment of singletrack to the cabin is Dry Fork. As I had mentioned earlier, there is a lot of cow dung on the trail, which means there are a lot of cows runnin’ around in this neck of the woods. So were flyin’ down the Dry Fork, I round a fast corner, and there sits a bunch of cows hangin’ in the sunshine, BS’n with each other, or whatever it is that cows do when they hang out. One of them started buckin’ like a bronco and went after Shim, damn near T-boned him. I’m guessing it was a heifer because she goin’ after Shim like a cow in heat.

Day 9 – Wednesday, July 19

Shim and Mike were pretty cooked from yesterdays ride, especially the upper body region. So we decided to head out for a road ride and that meant only one thing, to Silverton and back. Again, we got a pretty early start in hopes of avoiding the afternoon t-storms. After about a 20 minute warm-up, I turned up the throttle to base/tempo effort. After about an hour of flats, we hit the first series of climbs that led up to Durango Mountain Resort (DMR, formerly known as Purgatory, home of the first MTB world championships in 1990, won by Ned). Most of the climbs at this point average around 5-6% and were enough to knock me into my 25 in order to maintain a decent cadence. I could here Mike behind me panting like a steam engine, he was working pretty hard. Shim was working pretty hard to, I think he only had a 23 and he was kinda payin’ for it. Shim was going throw some cramps and dropped off in an attempt to alleviate them. Mike stuck with me until just before DMR. He pulled off to get water and I thought he was planning to turn around at this point so I kept motorin’.
Again, I felt really good and was pushin’ my 25 up a lot of Coal Bank Pass, which varies between 6 and 8%. I was making good time and rolled into Silverton about 5 minutes faster than I ever have before. On the way back, I saw a semi truck that was pulling a flat bed trailer laying in the ditch on the outside of a switchback corner. Dumbass overcooked the corner and rolled his rig.
As I was riding back, the clouds were once again gathering for a little pow-wow. I made it back to DMR and sure enough, the skies opened up a can of whoop ass on me. I rode in pretty heavy rain for about 20 minutes and the eventually hit dry pavement again. I made it back to the cabin, Shim and Mike were hangin’ at the pool, shootin’ the shite with some geriatrics from Texas. I made it back in about 5 hours and 45 minutes, my fastest time by about 5, saweet!

Day 10 – Thursday, July 20

Mike had to hit the road at sunrise, work was callin’. Work sucks. Always getting’ in the way of fun. Shim and I decided to take it ‘easy’ today. So we headed up Dry Fork as easy as possible and then rode over to Durango Mountain Park, also known as ‘Test Tracks’. It wasn’t much of an easy ride, lot’s of climbing in the granny gear, but also lot’s of fun. Rode some pretty crazy stuff, that had my knees knockin’ the first time I rode it a couple of years ago. Didn’t seem as bad this time. Flatted again, rolled over a piece of glass. Kinda pissed me off because tubes are freakin’ expensive here.
After the ride we rolled over to Bread, ate one of the best sandwiches ever. Bought two loaves of bread and ate those also. Didn’t have much of an appetite at supper time, so we went to the local sushi house and had a light supper, followed by more bread, some ice cream, some chocolate chink cookies and a couple of glasses of wine… I think I also ate a peach and some grapes in there somewhere. Yep, I’m a pig.

Day 11 – Friday, July 21, 2006

Can’t believe my vaca is almost over. I figured that two weeks would take a long time… no such luck. Shim’s plan was to hit the dirt for a few hours then hit the road. So we decided to head up Dry Fork again, then head north on the Colorado rather than south into town. This would take us on the same route that we rode when we did the Kennebec loop a couple of days ago. Once again, my legs felt incredible so I rode a pretty hard pace going up the long climb of Dry Fork / Colorado. About 90 minutes into the ride Shim turned around and headed back. I was sorry to see him go, had a great time ridin’ with him. My original plan was to head back with him and then ride into town and do the Log Chutes trails. I was feelin’ good and I was jones’n for another high altitude ride up to Kennebec, so I kept motorin’ north towards Kennebec Pass.
As the ride progressed, the climbs became tougher, to the point where I had to hike-a-bike a few of them. My heart was thumpin’ so hard that I thought it was going to jump out of my throat. I managed to keep it down and eventually arrived at Kennebec Pass in after about 4 hours of climbing. I took a little side trip near the top to this old mining shack that was perched on an outcrop at about 11,000 feet. Ran into some old dude and his wife that were hiking and BS’d with them for a while. I was enjoying the conversation and the view, but the clouds were gatherin’ and I was getting eaten alive by these mutant flies. These things were enormous, looked like flying roaches. They were taking chunks out of my legs so I bid farewell to the old dude and the amazing view and headed back the way that I came.
Ended up getting about 6 hours in today, another epic ride. This will be my last night in Durango. I’ve been coming here for about 6 or 7 years and it gets more crowded every year. The downtown area has a lot of really history with the buildings and all, but it is slowly becoming overwhelmed by a lot of new construction coupled with tourists choking up the streets and sidewalks. Despite the growth and crowds, I still love this town and already can’t wait to come back again next year. It’s pretty easy to escape the masses when I hop on the bike. It’s pretty cool that I can sit here in this coffee shop in the middle of town amongst all of the chaos of tourism, and know that I can achieve total seclusion in a matter of minutes on the bike. I love my bikes.
Not sure what I’m going to do for my last ride of the year in Colorado . I’m sure that I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

Cosmo

Durango Day 4 & 5

So after three days, long days of riding pretty hard I was due to take it kinda easy. I hadn’t ridden with the old man yet, so we headed out around 10 and went for an easy ride, easy for me, not so easy for him. We hit the bike path that runs through town, about took out a few tourists… no, I’m not a tourist here. This is a training camp so that makes me exempt from the tourist classification. Stopped by the best bakery anywhere, Bread, through down a sandwich and BS’d a little. Hit the road again and watched my Dad slowly slip into bonk mode. Got back to the cabin and fed the old man some Endurox via a catheter. He was all good after a nap and a few beers. Went into town, ate some of the best sushi I ever had, maybe better than Taki. Thought about going somewhere to watch le Tour, but it was supposed to be a flat stage so we opted to head to the cabin instead.
Today I did a little… a lot of road ragin’ again. Rode up to Silverton and back, same deal as Tuesday, only this time I did it 30 minutes quicker than a few days ago. Probably had a little to do with acclimation to the altitude and my body getting used to long hard hours again, been a few weeks since I’ve done a lot of long rides. I made a water stop about 70 miles into the ride at the same gas station that I stopped at when it rained and hailed, passed by the ice cream cooler and got myself hungry for some ice cream. So I thought that I’d commemorate the occasion by treating myself to this ice cream / big ass cookie sandwich lookin’ thing. Damn good it was. Felt great throughout the entire ride, like I had no chain.
So I was sitting down after the ride today, throwin’ down some Endurox and strawberries, when all of a sudden my right wrist started to kinda hurt. I thought to myself, WTF is this all about? It did nothing but get worse. I couldn’t figure out what the hell had happened to it. Didn’t fall on it, didn’t smack it on the bed post, didn’t hit the old man, nothing. It just started hurtin’ for no reason. Piece of crap, probably gonna screw up my plans for another epic day on the dirt tomorrow.
Enough for now,

Thanks for reading,

Cosmo

Durango - Day 2 & 3

Cam Kirkpatrick

So yesterday, what did I do, yeah, I hit the dirt for about 4 ½ hours. Rolled out of the campground with the old man up a 4 mile gravel road to the Dry Fork trail head. Once we hit the trail head, I said adios to the old man and settled into a good base pace of about 145 or so. Took the Dry Fork trail up to the Colorado trail, took the Colorado trail into Durango. Rode over to the Telegraph trails and did a big loop over there. Saweet singletrack! Didn’t see any rattlesnakes this time, was hopin’ to show ‘em my new (sort of) Diamondback rig that I was ragin’ on. I think they’d probably dig it. About 45 minutes of the ride was on pavement / gravel with remainder of the ride on some of the sweetest singletrack ever created. At first the legs felt pretty cooked from the day before, but once I hit the dirt all was good. They respond well when they know they get to tear it up on some sweet ‘ole Durango singeltrack.
Today was another epic, spent a little over 6 ½ hours in the saddle, on the dirt. Took off from the cabin, up the 4 mile gravel road and, again, settled into a good mid 140’s pace. Took the Hoffeins Connector trail to the Colorado trail, rode into Durango, Rode the blacktop up to Hermosa Creek Trail. Rode to the end of Hermosa Creek and headed back to town. Lot’s ‘o climbing today, I’m guessing pretty near 10,000 feet or so. Legs were feelin’ good today too. So I got about 3 ½ to 4 hours of some sweet singletrack in. I love passing all of tourists near the beginning of trail heads. I know that we are supposed to yield to hikers and all that crap, but it’s so fun scarin’ the crap out of ‘em when I go flyin’ by at mach 1 with rocks and dust flyin’ everywhere.
So when the riding for the day is done, the old man and I head into town, score some grub and begin our quest for some place that has an idiot box with OLN so we can keep up on le Tour. Not much goin’ on until today. Love watching all of the carnage on the big mountain stages, kinda reminds of what I do to Nooner in a mountain bike race. I shouldn’t give Nooner too much crap ‘cause someday he’s gonna start kicking my arse on a regular basis. That’s OK though, I’m getting’ kind of old so I can use the ‘I’m an old man’ excuse when it happens.

OK, I guess I’m done for now. Sorry about not having any pictures to show. I’m too cheap to buy a camera, too busy buyin’ bike stuff. If you really want to see some pictures, do the Google thing on any of the trails / rides that I mention. I can pretty much guarantee that they’ll be better than any pic I can take.

Thanks for reading,

Cosmo

Durango - Day 1

Cam Kirkpatrick

Man I’ve been lookin’ forward to this day for a long time, oh since about this time last year, day 1 in Durango. Woke up at 6 bells, poured myself a cup of cereal and kept pouring myself a cup of cereal until the box was empty. Fuel. Sat on the porch of my cabin, watched the sun rise over the mountains, did a little reading, ate a banana, some yogurt and a cup of joe. Man what a beautiful morning, something like 60 degrees, not a cloud in the sky… perfecto.
So I figured I’d do my favorite road ride up to Silverton and back today. I figured I better hit the road kinda early because they’ve been getting a lot of rain in the early afternoons. So I got all of my crap together and was on the road by 9. As I was headin’ north I could see in the distance the clouds starting to gather over the mountains for a little powwow. I made it up to Silverton without encountering any rain or problems, except my front shifter is getting ready to crap out on me. Gotta have the 53 tooth ring for the descents, maximum speed is where it’s at. I also didn’t seem to have any trouble with the whole altitude thing either, never have so I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me.
Turned around in Silverton and headed back up the toughest part of the ride, a 7 mile climb up to Molas Pass with a gradient that varies between 6 and 10%, mostly 8-9%. After 50+ miles in the saddle, most of which is spent goin’ uphill, tends to soften the legs a little and makes the climb out of Silverton pretty tough. The clouds continued to gather and I could tell they were gettin’ ready to raise some hell all over my arse. I made it up to Molas Pass without any significant rain, just a couple of sprinkles. Rolled down the backside of Molas and began the 3 mile climb up to Coal Bank Pass, again encountering only light sprinkles.
On the way down Coal Bank I figured I was home free from the rain because the clouds were becoming fewer and the sky was getting bluer… saweet! About this time, my HR monitor decided it was gonna crap out on me too, great, more money to spend when I get back. So I was getting close to this gas station that I usually stop at to refill on agua and it starts to rain kinda steady, nothing heavy, just light stuff. So I get to the station, go inside, get some water, look outside and all hell broke loose. We’re talkin’ sheets of rain and a whole shit pot of hail. Glad I got to the station when I did. Never ridden in hail, I bet it sucks. So I sat there for about 30, waitin’ for the rain/hail to stop.
It stopped, I hit the road and about 1 mile later the road was dry as a bone, never even rained there. Crazy stuff. I got rained on every once in a while on the way back to town, it was all light rain so all was good. Finally made it back to the cabin, my old man was there, sittin’ on the porch throwin’ down a cold one, lookin’ like he was enjoying life. So despite all of the bad crap that happened today, it was still better than any solo road ride in Iowa!
Some stats from the ride, total distance – 107+ miles, 8800+ feet of climbing, average HR around 160, max HR at 178 (a few times), 6:20 of total ride time with an average speed of about 17mph. Max speed of a little over 46mph, would’ve been faster but I got stuck behind some old people in a coffin on wheels.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading,

Cosmo

Pix from Manawa

Some photos from Manawa courtesy of brother CVO










Goin' down the drop




















Chasin' down Shim



























BS'n with MG