Ponca

Being dehydrated isn’t a whole lotta fun. Funny thing is, the few times that it’s ever happened to me, I never seemed to realize what was going on until it’s too late. I usually come to the realization when I pee after the race and it looks like some kind of radioactive fluid.
Ponca is one of my favorite courses… I guess I tend to say that about a lot of the courses, so I guess that means that I love ‘em all! Anyway, I arrived at the course early enough that I was able to do a recon lap. I tell ya what, the folks at Sioux City Velo did a great job in putting together a challenging, fun course. It had a couple of steep climbs that reduced me to my granny gear during the last couple of laps. The great thing is that what goes up, must come down. Once I got the course dialed in, I was able to do most of the descents at full throttle.
My plan for the race was to go out pretty hard and try to solo off the front during the first lap. So the race started and about midway through the first lap there was about 5 or 6 man train ridin’ my wheel. As soon as we hit the next climb I turned the screws a little tighter and was able to loose everybody but Aaron Grady. I kept the pressure on for the first two hours and I couldn’t shake him. It was at about the two hour mark that I began to realize that I was probably going to be in trouble near the end of this one.


Tryin' to shake Grady off my wheel



I made Aaron take the lead after about two hours and we stayed together throughout the 3rd hour. At about hour three the lights began to dim and I began to yo-yo off of Aarons wheel for the next half hour or so. At about 3 ½ hours the lights were just about out and I was 100% in survival mode. I made it to the finish line at the end of lap 10 in about 3:40 and I had no ambitions of going out for #11. Lebedebadoo handed me a bottle of cold water, I stopped, dismounted my rig and tanked the entire bottle in about 2 seconds. I told him I was having some stomach issues. I tried to eat some food earlier but the appetite wasn’t there. He told me that I better get a move on because 3rd place wasn’t too far behind. I probably owe my salvaging 2nd place to Leb for the water hand-offs and the encouragement, thanks buddy.
So I got back on my rig and continued on. About five minutes later I felt great! It was at the point that I figured I hadn’t taken in enough water throughout the race. I had gone through five or six water bottles and I guess it was hot enough that it wasn’t enough for me. Lesson learned. It was a good thing that I left for lap 11 when I did because Leb told me that Gersib had rolled through less than a minute after I took off.
I never saw Grady again until the end of the race, a much deserved win for him. Despite my problems, he was the better man that day. Dehydration, mechanicals, whatever. It’s all a part of mountain bike racing and it’s all fair game. So a big congrats goes out to him. Gersib came in about a minute after I did for a hard earned third.


MG bringin' home third




JP rippin' the legs off the competition




Sydney Brown bringin' home the W in the Women's solo race



Now that I’ve had a little time to reflect on the race, there are two things that pretty much lead to my meltdown. One, not enough fluid intake. Two, I probably went out a little too hard. During the 1st hour, my average HR was 169, the 2nd hour it was 166, the 3rd hour it was 160 and the 4th hour it was 147. All of this added up to an average HR of 160 for the race. I maybe could have not pushed so hard at the beginning, try to even the pace out a little, but I think my bigger problem was definitely my lack of fluid intake. That’s always been somewhat a problem for me. I get away with it most of the time, but I’ve had a couple of occasions where it’s bit me on the arse. Someday I’m hoping that I’ll learn.
Getting back to Grady, he’s probably something like 18 years old? My plan, if he continues to put me in the hurt locker, is to introduce him to CVO.


Jedi Master CVO


Master CVO can take him on as his next Padawan. I’m thinkin’ that CVO can introduce him to things like cigarettes, beer and women. Yeah… that’ll slow him down. All kidding aside, Aaron’s only 18 and if he continues to improve he’s going to be scary fast someday. He’s riding like a madman this season, I’m looking forward to more racing against him. So again, a big congratulations goes out to Aaron for bringing home the win.
Next up is IMBCS #5 this Sunday at Seven Oaks Ski Area, yep, you guessed it, another one of my favs!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Crowder

At the beginning of the week I was pretty sure that I was going to head up to Phillips, WI and do the WORS race. Around Wednesday I talked to Shim and he said that he and a few others were heading down to Crowder to do the race there. Crowder? I didn’t know there was a race there this weekend… sweet! Crowder has some of the coolest trails in the Midwest, but it can also be pretty brutal. It has a couple of rock gardens that’ll knock the fillings out of your teeth if your bike is lacking suspension. I’ve raced there two other times and both times I did it on a hard tail, and both times I came home with a pulled calf muscle.
I figured I’d be OK this time with my plush, full suspension Orbea Oiz. Both times that I had raced at Crowder, the competition had been pretty tough. The race is a part of the Heartland Series and it’s based out of Kansas City, so it’s pretty much the state series for both Kansas and western Missouri. Guys like Tilford like to show up and rip the legs off the local competition. I was kinda hoping that he’d show for this one also. With the exception of the WORS race, I’ve been riding really well the past few weeks and I was anxious to see how I might do against a mutant.
So I arrived at Crowder, registered and scoped the competition. Cameron Chambers, the 2005 national 24 hour champion was there sporting some sweet tube socks, the kind that I used to wear back in the 70’s. He’s also got a pretty killer afro, kinda like the one I used to have back in the day. Shim, Limpach and Grady from Nebraska were there. Frankenbike was there as well as the series regulars. It was a pretty big field, oh about 30+/- starters in the pro / semi-pro / expert field… nice.



The calm before the storm, I think I was checking out Chambers tube socks


We lined up for the start, I locked out both the front and back anticipating a pretty fast race for position going into the singletrack. My strategy was pretty simple, I wanted to be the first man into the singletrack because part of the trail had some pretty new tread that was kinda sketchy. I figured somebody was probably going to go down and I didn’t want to get caught up in it.
The gun went off and so did I. I hit the throttle hard enough to ensure that I was in the lead going into the singletrack, but no so hard that I put myself into the red zone. I’m not sure who was on my wheel, probably Grady because shortly after the start he went down in a heap. His mishap briefly clogged the trail up enough that I was able to gap the field. I pushed pretty hard going up both climbs to ensure that the gap stuck. As I was nearing the top of the 2nd climb I heard a rock skip across the trail behind me. I looked back and it was Chambers climbing the hill in stealth mode. He was real quite like until he hit that rock, didn’t know he was there. I got to the top of the climb and I drilled it hoping to separate myself once again. It worked because I didn’t see much of him again until after the race.


Flow




Cameron Chambers sportin' the retro tube socks




Third place finisher 'Shim' rockin' the singletrack




The one and only 'CVO' from FFL


The remainder of the race was pretty uneventful, I was riding really well, my legs were feeling good and the trails were primo. I encountered a bunch of lapped traffic throughout the race, but it really wasn’t much of a problem, just had to be patient in the narrow sections until I could get by.
I ended up winning with a time of 1:39:19. Chambers came in 2nd in 1:45:20, followed by Shim with a time of 1:45:52. Yep, it was a good day indeed. Part of the fun of these races is hanging out with everybody afterwards. There’s usually a pretty long wait for the awards ceremony, I never usually mind too much because it’s always a good time hanging out with all of the mtb homies that you only see at races.
Next up is the Ponca Marathon at Ponca State Park in northeast Nebraska. Another one of my favorite venues, sweet trails, beautiful scenery… what more can a greasy mountain biker ask for? WWJ is paying 8 deep in the pro / semi-pro / expert field so hopefully this will encourage a lot of fast guys to show up. I’ve won the race the past couple of years and I’m hoping to continue along the same path.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Return To Oz

The plan for the weekend was to head over to Lewis & Clark for the IMBCS / Psycowpath race. Shim called me Thursday night and told me they had just gotten hammered by a bunch of rain. He said the race was very doubtful as the forecast for Friday was something like a 90% chance of rain.
A good friend of mine had moved to Madison, WI a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about when I might have a chance to pay her a visit. So we were talking Thursday night and I mentioned to her that my race was most likely going to be postponed. She suggested that I come up that weekend. I told her I’d think it over and let her know on Friday.
I kinda remember there being a WORS race that weekend, up in Wausau, one of my favorite race venues up there. Friday morning came, I’m sitting at work, throwin’ down some coffee. The status of the Lewis & Clark race was still up in the air. I was talking to tPod and he said that he thought I should go to WI. Screw it, I’m goin’. I took off from work early, threw all of my race stuff into the car and hit the road for the 4 ½ hour drive to Mad City.
WORS races happen rain or shine. From 1999 to 2002, I did every WORS race. None of them were ever postponed or cancelled. Every other weekend, I’d throw all of my gear into the car, meet a bunch of buddies from Milwaukee at the race venue on Friday and we’d camp all weekend and do the race on Sunday. Lot’s of really good memories…
The Elite class at WORS races is always stacked with pro’s and semi-pro’s from all over the Midwest. Hands down, the best competition that you’re going to find in the Midwest.
This particular race had a new format for WORS, they call it a marathon. 40ish miles for the elite and comp class, mass start (sort of), lot’s of double track with some sweet singletrack sprinkled throughout the lap. It rained for most of the two hour drive from Madison to Wausau. We got to Wausau and the course was still pretty dry but the rain was coming, it was just a matter of when. As is typical with any WORS race, there were hundreds of peeps riding around the venue on mountain bikes. The vibe was all about mountain bike racing, just like I remembered.
I wanted to get to the course two hours early to give myself enough time to get registered and maybe do a recon lap. We got there with about 75 minutes to spare. So I hustled over to registration, got signed up, used the can, then went back to the car to get myself into race mode. While getting ready I ran into a few of my old camping buddies that I hadn’t seen in a couple of years, Gregasaurus, Tyrant, great to see those guys again.
I got a halfway decent warm up in and rode over to the start area amongst the 700+ other racers. They had the usual call ups for the top 20 cats in the series points, I rolled up behind the top 20 and had a pretty decent start position among the 60+ starters in the elite field. We had the usual 10 second countdown and then it was ‘Goooooooo!’. I had a pretty good start and within the first mile I was sitting in a comfortable 4th place with Doug Swanson leading the train. For the first three or four miles I was hovering in the top ten in a pace line of about 20 or 30 and we were flyin’ down this forest road. It was at this time that the cat in front of me, Marko Lalonde took a swig of his water bottle. Next thing I know, his arse is about a foot above his saddle, both feet are out of his pedals and he’s doin’ the splits over the top of his bike. I quickly realized that the shite was about to hit the fan. While he was in the process of crashing, I grabbed a handful of brake, front and back, probably locked both wheels up, and ran into him. I somehow managed to land on my feet with my bike layin’ on the ground. I braced myself for the inevitable multi-bike pileup and got drilled by the next guy in line. I came out of it still on my feet, but my bike was at the bottom of a pile of bikes. When I finally got back on my bike I was in last place... game over. I started up again and managed to pick off quite a few others throughout. I pretty much rode the entire race with the first place woman, Sara Kylander-Johnson, a pro from Duluth. We swapped pulls throughout and worked together pretty well. It kinda turned my not so fun situation into a fun one.
About midway through the first lap it started to rain and it didn’t stop until after I crossed the finish line. My legs seemed to feel really good, but I had a hard time getting any kind of speed going, felt like I was going really slow and I wasn’t making up ground on the rest of the elite field as I had expected. Throughout the race the course conditions worsened but it was all 100% rideable throughout the race. It was actually pretty easy compared to some of the mud races in Iowa, the mud wasn't as peanut buttery. Towards the end of the race, I could hear my back brake starting to rub, figured it was probably caked with mud so I didn’t think much of it at the time.
So in the end I finished something like 37th out 60+ starters. Very disappointing. I was really hoping to match or better my best WORS finish of 10th overall. It was still a lot of fun and it was good to get back and experience the WORS madness.
It was about a week after the race when I finally got around to cleaning up my bike. I rolled it out to the driveway and noticed that the rear wheel was doing more sliding than rolling. I hosed my bike down and put it on the workstand. I tried to rotate the back wheel and it took some effort to get thing to roll. So I took the wheel off and took a closer look at my brake rotor and noticed that it was bent, happened during the multi-bike pileup. So I pretty much rode the entire race with a severe rub in my rear brake… great. Explains why I was riding like a pig (no offense Brent) when my legs appeared to feel good.
Being the competitor that I am, I feel a strong need to redeem myself. After looking at the local mtb race calendar, there are a couple of open weekends that happen to coincide with a couple of WORS races. So the plan is to do the race in Franklin, near Milwaukee, on August 5 and the series finale in Sheboygan on October 7.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Snakes And Melons

Snake Alley… I was looking forward to throwin’ it down on the snake this season. My legs were feeling pretty good, motivation was high and I was looking forward to dukin’ it out with Nathan Moenck and Matt Landon for the 3rd time this season. Rain threatened all day and as I was buttering up my chamois, the skies let loose. I sat in my car for a few minutes, going back and forth about whether I would race or not. The rain kept falling as was my morale to race in the rain. The thought of washing out on one of the downhill corners got the best of me and I decided to pull the plug. Road racing is a low priority for me and I’ve already fulfilled my quota of skin loss for the season at the ICRR.

Melon Head… I went back and forth with myself as to which race(s) I wanted to do. I finally settled on doing the 40+ race in the morning and the 30+ race in the afternoon. Unlike Saturday, the weather was fantastic all day long. A great day to be outside. The 40+ race had about 45 starters and the pace throughout the race was crazy fast. A lot faster than the 30+ race in the afternoon. It took me the better part of the first half of the race to work my way to the front of the peloton. My plan going in was to sit in and watch for dangerous breakaways. I was a one man band, so I didn’t want to waste any of my bullets chasing down a breakaway that wasn’t going to stick. Everything stayed together until the end so on the penultimate lap, I began working my way to the front again. We got to the top of the hill and I noticed that there was a dude off the front and pulling away. I didn’t really think much of it because I figured to group would swallow him up and spit him out the back. I managed to go through the corner at the top of the hill at the head of the peloton and as we went through the start / finish area nobody seemed interested in coming around me. Shortly after that point I looked back and quickly realized that I had a pretty substantial gap on the peloton. I had to make a pretty quick decision at the point, do I punch it and try to stay away or do I back it off a little, wait for the peloton and save my bullets for the sprint. I figured the peloton was close enough to me that they would catch me if I tried to stay away so I soft pedaled down the hill. I got to the bottom of the hill, looked back, same gap, so I drilled it going up the hill. Two or three dudes passed me right before the corner and I got pipped by a couple of others at the finish and ended up in 9th. Not to shabby for a greasy mountain biker, I was good with that. If anything I got a great LT workout in!
The 30+ race was pretty uneventful for me, my plan was to hang on, not get dropped and get another good fitness building workout in. As I mentioned earlier, the pace was a little slower than the 40+ race. I was floating near the head of the peloton throughout the race, tryin’ to keep my nose out of the wind and my arse off the pavement. Once again the peloton was ‘gruppo compato’ on the penultimate lap. So I figured, what the heck, I’ll try taking a flyer off the front again, see how it works this time when I really mean it. At the top of the hill I drilled it and was able to establish a nice gap. Going down the hill I could sense that somebody was trying to bridge to gap. I looked back and it was none other than Jimmy Cochran. It was at the point that I quickly began to realize that the lights were beginning to dim. I looked back at Cochran and told him that I wanted half of his payout for the leadout, then I looked forward and gave it all I had. About halfway up the hill he passed me as did the remainder of the peloton. I shut it down and rolled across the finish, satisfied with another great workout!
Now that I’ve had some time to reflect, I think I finally figured why the cosmo’s didn’t align for the Snake Alley race. Last year, tPod and I found this video game arcade. I was kind of a geek back in the early 80’s, you know, the kind that would spend countless hours at the video arcade playing games, acting like a dork, etc. I was pretty crafty at the helm of Galaga and it just so happened that this arcade had an old Galaga sitting there. I fed the game a quarter and tPod stood there and watched me play the game for nearly an hour on one quarter until I rolled it over. I killed off all of my extra men and we rolled. The next day I had a stellar day on the Snake… Didn’t do that this year. Now I know better. Next year I’ll be all over Galaga.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Psycowpath #2

The last time I raced at Swanson Park was last fall and it was one of the best races I’ve ever had. The Force was strong with me that day. The trail conditions were pretty close to perfect for me, a little damp, nice and tacky for maximum grip in the corners. I took home the W and I was hoping to do the same this time around. A few things were a little different this year. The tread was dry, mostly bone dry and a little dusty in some spots. Kent McNeill, who finished 2nd last year, has been riding a lot more this season so he was going to be really tough to beat this time.
My plan for the race was to let McNeill lead the way into the singletrack and tow me along, provided I could hang on. The gun went off and I was the reluctant leader throughout the start loop. I tried to slow down enough so that somebody would take over the lead, but I didn’t want to go so slow that more than one cat passed. I ended up leading into the singletrack with Kent on my wheel. I decided to keep the pace a little on the slow side so that I didn’t blow myself up tryin’ to drop the field.




Leading the train during lap 1


At the beginning of the 2nd lap, Kent passed me and I jumped on his wheel before anybody else could get around me. Didn’t do me a whole lotta good though because he then proceeded to drop me like a bad habit within about 100 yards and he continued to increase his lead throughout the next lap or two. I continued at my own pace, tryin’ to hang onto 2nd. I figured Kent was long gone. I could see Steve Jarrett a ways back and it looked like he was starting to reel me in so I kept on it.



Tryin' to reel in McNeill


Kent’s lead had increased to about a minute by the end of lap three. About mid way through lap 4 his lead was down to about 45 seconds, by the end of lap 4 it was down to 30… I was goin’ as hard as I could and it ended up not being enough. Kent took home the With a time of 1:40:56, I brought home 2nd a scant 7 seconds back in 1:41:03, the Deal came in 3rd with a time of 1:43:49.
I came up a little short on my goal for the day, but I was still really happy with the result. Kent, the Deal and Shim are tough to beat on this course. It’s always tough to beat somebody in their backyard. So I’m definitely happy with the result.
Next up is the Snake and the Melon Head Criterium.

Thanks for reading,

CK

La Madre de Las Montanas

Going into the weekend, I kept a watchful eye on the weather forecast for the weekend. Not that it really means anything as we all know that a meteorologist has one of the most forgiving jobs in existence. As it turned out, the weather all week was good enough that by the weekend, the trails were in near perfect condition.
The 2nd edition of ‘La Madre de Las Montanas’ was located at Sockum Ridge State Park, just south of Iowa City. The place is a diamond in the rough, fast, technical, flowing trails. I’ve been looking forward to this one. The stage race format is pretty cool, though for whatever reason, I wasn’t looking forward to an entire weekend away from home. It’s only May but I’ve been gone racing my bike somewhere every weekend since the beginning of April.
So Friday night a couple of friends of mine, were getting hitched in the Amana’s. It was a really nice wedding, lot’s of fun, lot’s of friends and lot’s of Amish food (fried chicken, pork chops, roast beef, fried potatoes, Costco chocolate cake and wine that I would liken to Shim’s favorite Port wine, ugh). And yes... I ate it all... lot’s of greasy fried chicken, lot’s of greasy pork chops and lot’s of greasy potatoes, cake… I made a pig of myself... we’re talking major food coma. It was all I could do to walk around. I figured the next days races were all short, intense efforts so I didn’t really need to worry too much about consuming food for stamina… yeah, I know, not real sound logic, it’s pretty amazing what kind of power greasy food can have over the functionality of one’s brain during life's week moments.
So Saturday’s race went a little something like this. We started off with the time trial which a lap of the cross country course backwards. I was a little concerned about the days events because I’ve done little to no LT training this season. I was pretty close to the middle of the starting order and in a race like this I’m always concerned about traffic. I started my lap and was very slow to ramp the intensity up. Once I got going things started to flow really well. Bike handling was pretty good, grazed a few trees but no direct hits. Caught and passed a four or five of the peeps that started in front of me. I ended up winning the TT with a time of 16:08, Dominic Moraniec came in 2nd with a time of 17:00, Tater Tot was 3rd in 17:07. I was off to a pretty good start!
Next up was the hill climb, which consists of charging up a gravel road, looping around at the top, then bomb your way back down to the bottom. I took off up the hill with my front and rear shocks locked out to maximize the amount of power going from my legs to my bike. I charged my way up the hill, hit the loop, unlocked both shocks and hit the descent with a little caution, didn’t want to wash out in all of the loose gravel. I ended in 1st with a time of 1:14.26, Sea Biscuit came in 2nd with a time of 1:17.26, with Dominic rounding out the top three with a time of 1:17.76.
We finished off the day with the STXC, which consisted of a loop that we raced around for 20 minutes plus two laps. The legs were still kind of smartin’ from the days earlier efforts so I wasn’t really sure what to expect out of ‘em. The madness started, not sure that I remember who took the early lead, me? Dominic? Maybe it was Tater? Anyway, I ended up leading with Dominic snappin’ at me heals for the first have of the race. I eventually gapped him and shifted into overdrive for the win. Dominic came in 2nd and WWJ followed in 3rd.
Sunday was the XC race, Cully showed, Nathan Moenck was there, cool… I knew it was gonna be a hard, fast race. The race started with Cully drilling up the hill. I had my usual issues with getting clipped in, once I got my feet hooked up I had to put myself into the red zone to catch up to the leaders. Cully led it into the singletrack, followed by Nathan and myself. Cully continued with the insane pace, I was in the hurt locker and I couldn’t find my way out. Cully started to gap Nathan and I, then Nathan started to put some space between he and myself. Next thing I know, Nathan’s on the side of the trail, said he dropped his chain. I passed by and never saw him again until we neared the finish.
Cully continued to increase his gap until about midway through lap 2. I eventually caught and passed him somewhere during lap 3. He looked like he was kinda payin’ the price for the fury that he unleashed at the start. I continued to increase the gap and towards the end of the race, I could tell that Nathan was starting to close in on me. I kept my good eye on him and put it in cruise control. I took home the W with a time of 1:50:49, Nathan brought home 2nd with a time of 1:52:30. Cully came home in 3rd with a time of 1:55:24.
Props go out to Andy, Kristin and Andy’s parents for putting together a great weekend of racing! I’ve kinda fallen behind on the race updates, I’m a busy man with training, running a mountain bike series, coaching, working, eating, sleeping and more eating… I love eating…

Thanks for reading,


CK

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