Durango – Day 1 – Crash and Burn.

Sweet trail maps at almost every intersection.


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


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



Technical, rocky uphill.



Technical, rocky downhill.



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



Durango goodness. It would suck to crash here too.


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

Avon

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


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


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

Firecracker Five-O

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


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


The start of the crusty old man's race.


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


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



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


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

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

Thanks for reading,

CK

MNSCS - Mt. Kato

Photos courtey of Dana Schoppe and Jay Richards



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


Flesh eating roots.



Mt. Kato singletrack goodness.



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


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


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



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



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



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



Eventual men's race winner Jason Sager.


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


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


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


Chillin' in the shade.



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


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

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

Thanks for reading,

CK

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

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


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



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



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


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


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



Julie is really good at going around uphill corners.



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



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



Julie taking the corner like it’s bermed.


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


Julies’ diesel engine powered her to a strong finish.



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


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


Thanks for reading,

CK

WORS Dirt Circus - Wausau

Photos courtesy of Tyrine


Gooooooooooooooooooo!


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


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


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


Paul Ellis leading the train of pain.



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



Nine Mile singletrack...just add water.


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


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


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


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



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



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



The Eppenator-ette deconstructing the women’s field.


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

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


Thanks for reading,

CK

Lewis and Clark / Summerset

Photos courtesy of a bunch of different cats.


Brutha Squirrel and I early in the Summerset race.


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


Leading the way pushin' Mach 4 down Neverest.


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

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


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


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


Kinda reminds me of Durango, CO.



Buff singletrack.


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


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



My studly female kickin’ it on the drop.



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



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

Click here for a pretty sweet video that Piggy made.

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

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


Thanks for reading,

CK