Sheboygan

The last race of the season has come and gone and winter is just around the corner. In some ways, I kind of looking forward to the winter, riding in the snow, riding the Science Center when the dirt is frozen with a bunch of my bro’s, pork producer’s breakfast at the Machine Shed (lot’s of bacon and sausage), homemade chili and soup and a little to no structure when it comes to riding. The road bike will be put into hibernation and it will be nothing but dirty goodness for the next several months!
I hit the road Thursday night to visit me Mum, sister (Scooter) and niece (Kennan). I always have a great time visiting with the fam, never get to do it enough because I’m always off racing my bike somewhere. Got there early enough to eat some homemade stew and most of Scooter’s banana shake from Whitey’s.


Scooter, Kennan and Uncle Cam



Being the good uncle that I am!



Hit the road once again Friday morning for the Land of Oz. Made it to Terri’s in Madison by late morning, unloaded my junk and went out for a ride in search of some metro dirt. I was looking for a place called Quarry Park, I read some reviews online, ‘if you can ride your bike for five minutes without dismounting, you’re doing good’. Sounds great! I took it as a challenge expecting to have a little fun. I never did find the park, looking at a map afterwards I figured out that I had rode a complete loop around it, coming within one block a couple of times. I did get a nice urban ‘explore Madison’ ride in. If you ever get a chance to check out Madison, do it, awesome city!
Saturday morning I made the 2 hour drive up to Sheboygan to recon the course for WORS #12, the season finale of the biggest mountain bike racing series in America. As I was rolling out onto the course, Mikey and Heavy D were cruising by so I hopped onto the back of their train and rode a lap with them. I ended up doing three laps, in an attempt to get the course dialed in and also because it was a lot of fun! The course had a crap load of roots, think Sugarbottom on steroids, and no, I’m not exaggerating! Also had some short, steep climbs, a water crossing, a little mud and some sweet, flowing singletrack. All of the necessary ingredients for a great race course.
I stayed the night down in Milwaukee at Tyrines, had a great dinner with some great friends, Tyrine, Tony G, Ulla, little Stanky, Gregasaurus and Mikey. Felt like the good ‘ole days when I used to go up there every other weekend. We sat around afterwards, ate some primo cookies, drank a little wine and bs’d about anything and everything.
The next morning I had my usual excess of coffee and a box of cereal on the way up to Sheboygan. Got to the course and the place was completely flooded with cars, enough to transport around 750 total participants! I found my old Alterra teammates and set up shop with them, they had five cases of Lakefront beer so I knew that I’d be covered for my last race post race nutrition.


Scoring some grub at Tyrines



With the huge payouts, $1700 for the winner, the Elite field was sure to be stacked, Chequamegon style. Swanson, the brothers Lalonde, Schouten, Mikey, Charcoal, Matter and a few others that had a legitimate shot at winning. The race started and I went as hard as I could without blowing my wad. My start was mediocre at best and ended up mid-pack. As we approached the singletrack I got stuck in the usual mid-pack bottleneck. After a few seconds we started rolling again and as the race progressed, I settled into my own pace and started picking off all of the cats that blew themselves up at the start. Sometime during the 2nd lap, I caught up to John Lirette, who at the time was the first 40+ rider. We rode together for a while and once we hit a flat, open section I passed him and told him to hang on. I dropped it down a gear and drilled it until I caught up to the next guy ahead of me who happened to be Ryan Grayer, the same dude that pipped me at the finish at Blockhouse. I looked back and Lirette was gone. Ryan and I rode together until the fifth and final lap. We caught and passed a few others, including Ray Nelson. Ray managed to stay with us and the three of us rode together for a while. About midway through the last lap, Ryan, Ray and another cat passed me going up a hill and kept right on goin’. A few seconds later all that I could see was a plume of dust coming off of their back tires in the distance. One of two things happened to me at that point, I was either completely tapped, or I simply didn’t feel the need to subject myself to more pain than I was already experiencing. I had nothing significant to gain, I was sitting first in my age and was a long way out of the money, so I took the easy road. I took a quick look behind me and saw nobody, so I put it cruise control and maintained my position to the finish.


Flyin' through the drink, the locale where a lot of races were deflated.



Catchin' some air time off of the mother of all roots



Sweet arm warmers



Check out Gregasaurus, he's so tall that they couldn't fit his melon into the picture.


I ended up finishing 19th overall and 1st in 40+, my ever elusive goal of a top ten overall in WORS race has once again eluded me. Doug Swanson won with a time of 1:52:04, I finished a humbling 9 minutes back in 2:01:08. I was hoping to do a little better overall, knowing that the field was going to be stacked, I knew that a top ten was going to be a long shot for me. I still had a great time, I love racing my mountain bike, even when I have mediocre days. I’ll definitely be back next season to do a few more WORS races.



The crusty old man's podium



The final men's podium


On the way back to Dead Moines I had plenty of time to assess. My average HR was a relatively low 174. Over the last couple of months, it seemed as though my legs had a hard time keeping up with my cardio. My initial thought is that I missed the mark on my peak, and maybe spent a little too much time doing active recovery rides over the last couple of weeks. Despite all of that, I still had a great season, especially the second half!

I have no idea what’s coming up next, the Dirty Duathlon is on November 3rd. My good friend Jenny Weber and I are planning to team up again this year in defense of our team title from last year. Both of my wheels are in good working order this year, so, barring any ‘mechanical meltdowns’, I should be able to partake in the le mans style start… man I hate running, it always inflicts a great deal of pain.


Thanks for reading,

CK

Blockhouse

Man I love Wisconsin. Lot’s of beautiful trees, rolling hills, great cycling and New Glarus Cherry Ale. Last weekend Andy Lueck and I threw all of our racing junk into my car and made the trip to Platteville, WI to do this pretty cool race they call the Blockhouse Roll. The course is located on private land and doesn’t see a whole lot of traffic, but the trails always seem to be in pretty good shape, nicely groomed for the most part.
The last time that I had done this race was back in 2004 so I didn’t remember too much about the course, a couple of really steep climbs, lot’s of rocks, two water crossings and some pretty sweet singletrack. They had also mentioned in the race flyer that there was going to be a couple of miles of new singletrack… always an adventure!
We arrived at the course about two hours early and had planned to do a quick lap before the race. I asked one of the officials how many laps we were doing and was told that it would be a parade lap and two full laps. So rather than doing a full recon lap and risk getting back too late for the start we opted to do several parade laps as a warm up. Because we weren’t able to do a recon lap, my plan was to ensure that I was 2nd wheel going into the woods.
We lined up for the le mans style start, the gun went off and I charged down the hill towards my bike. I was kinda hangin’ on to the back of my jersey to make sure that all of my crap didn’t fall out of my pockets and was the 2nd person to get to my bike. I hopped on and jumped into 2nd place behind Carlos Haeckel, a regular top finisher in the WORS series. As we were motoring up the hill, some dude with a UW Platteville kit went by both of us like a madman and led the way on the parade lap.
At the end of the parade lap, Carlos passed the dude from UW. Shortly after that I also passed him and sat on Carlos’ wheel going into the woods. We hit some pretty fun, very technical sections of singletrack and though I was struggling a little on some of it, I was having a blast! My lack of familiarity of the course took its toll on some parts, I’d round a corner at full speed and immediately come upon a gnarly section that was anxiously awaiting the chance to devour me and my bike. In my surprised state, I’d be forced to make a clumsy dismount and run over / through whatever it was that activated my pucker mechanism.
Carlos and I worked pretty well together throughout, he’d lead through the technical sections and descents and I’d take the lead on some of the climbs and flats. He would actually leave me in the dust on the descents, he was scary fast going down some of the gnarly, rock laden descents. It was probably better that I couldn’t stay with him on some of the descents because he had a wake of rocks flying in every which direction as he went downhill. When the terrain flattened out or went upward, I’d reel him back in. He did the race last year and was a little more familiar with the course than I was, so I was quite happy to let him lead as much as he wanted.
About midway through the first lap we managed to gap the rest of the field off to the point where we couldn’t see anybody behind us. As we began the 2nd lap, another dude, Ryan Krayer, had managed to close the gap a little. He’d get kinda close, but then fall of the pace a little. This continued until we hit the 2nd water crossing. I chose to dismount because the crossing was wide enough and there were a lot of big rocks that I couldn’t see. Carlos tried to ride through it but stalled out midway through. We both got through it and Carlos was able to get back on his bike and rolling pretty quickly. I got back on my bike and had trouble clipping back in before the next rocky, slime covered technical section. I had to jump back off my bike and run up the hill a ways before I could remount. By this time, Ryan was able to close the gap to me. I gradually closed the gap to Carlos and the three of us rode together for a short while.
We hit the last long, steep climb and Ryan pulled out from behind me and drilled it up the hill. Carlos was also able to gap me a little. I tried to respond, but as soon as I hit the throttle, my legs would not comply with my request. I knew that if I persisted, they’d most likely seize up on me, I’d fall over and most likely roll back down to the bottom of the hill in a heap. As I topped the hill we had about a mile left and I was able to reel Carlos back in. I sat on his wheel for a short while and my legs made a pretty quick recovery from the hill. I passed Carlos and went after Ryan. As we began the approach to the short climb to the finish I locked the rear end out and pushed myself just short of going cross-eyed in attempt to catch Ryan. I was quickly closing the gap but ran out of real estate. He crossed the line with a time of 1:51:58. I came through in 2nd with a time of 1:52:06, 8 seconds back. Carlos came through in 3rd with a time of 1:52:50. What a race! A great job to all that finished and congrats to Ryan for repeating as race winner. It was a very tough, physically demanding course.
After I crossed the finish line, I went over to bs with Carlos and Ryan and then went out for a cool down ride. As I was heading back towards the start / finish area I saw Andy sitting on his bike next to the road. As I approached him he began to roll, so I rolled up to him and we started talking about the race. He sounded like he had a mouth full of food so I figured that he was eating something. Funny thing was, he still sounded like he had a mouth full of something five minutes later. Turns out, as he was flying down a hill during the race and had his tongue hangin’ out of his mouth. A kamikaze bee hit his tongue and stung him. He showed me his tongue and it looked like he had a big ole’ kosher dill hangin’ out of his mouth. I made fun of him.
Overall, I was very happy with the result. Of the top three finishers, I was the least familiar with the course and was at somewhat of a disadvantage in the regard. I also think that I might have done a little too much during the week leading up to the race because my legs still didn’t the snap that I was expecting for this time of the season. My average heart rate of 172 for the race confirmed that my legs were a little off the mark. Peaking is such a black art, I always try to do just enough in the way of workouts during my peak period such that I minimize loss of fitness while also trying to get enough recovery in so that I’m fresh for important races. It’s hard to find that optimal balance. Last year I was able to get it right, this year I’ve been a little off but I’ve still managed to pull of some great results.
Next up is my last race of the season, the WORS season finale up in Sheboygan, WI on October 7. There are always a lot of big guns there, a ton of pros and semi pros. It’ll be a great end of season test for me!


Thanks for reading,

CK

Squirrel's Nest

Brutha Squirrel, look at the size of his heed, looks like sputnik.




Ch-ch-ch-chia Chad Vandelune, good to see ya smilin' bro.
This cat can grow the coolest skullet and beard, chia style.



As most of you know by now, two really good friends of mine suffered a huge lose back on September 5. 8 month old Price Vandelune passed away in his sleep from what was diagnosed as SIDS. Chad and Dorothy Vandelune (along with daughter Sydney) are some of the nicest people one could meet. I’ve probably spent more time traveling to mountain bike races with Chad than anybody else and through our travels forged a pretty strong friendship. I was pretty devastated when I found out about Price. My sister has a 5 month old daughter and my brothers’ son is going on a year. I don’t even want to think about it…
So this weekend was all about the Price Vandelune Memorial Fund and things kicked off with a ride at the Science Center to raise some fundage. Around 50 or so peeps showed and I heard reports that nearly $1,300 ended up in the pot once all of the dust had finally settled. That is the main reason that I am so into cycling, we’ve got a great group of people here in Dead Moines and everybody genuinely cares about each other. You could say that we kinda have the family thing going on.

Sunday: the last race of our fledgling IMBCS. I say fledgling because we’ve been treading water since it’s inception and in a lot of ways I’m OK with that. Everybody knows everybody and it kinda has that good ole’ grassroots feel to it. Chris Maharry’s Sycamore TT went through a pretty major transformation this year. The Sycamore Trail has pretty much succumbed to urban sprawl, high water, ATV’s, junked out cars and trailer park trash.


Master trail builder Squirrel, brap!!




CITA kingpin Ryan Hanser, if you see him, shake his hand and say thank you. If you're a hot chick, give him a hug, say thank you and give him yer digits.



This year’s edition, appropriately called ‘Squirrel’s Nest’ was held at the Science Center Trail System. Squirrel had a very hand in the evolution of this awesome network of trails smack dab in the middle of Des Moines. Race director Chris Maharry announced that half of the proceeds generated from the race would go to CITA (Central Iowa Trail Association) and the other would go to the Price Vandelune Memorial Fund. At the end of the day, CITA received $400 and the Vandelunes received close to $500. Pretty successful fund raising weekend!


Dirty goodness, Iowa style.




The race: I pre rode the course on Saturday and due to the short length and the technical nature, I figured one of four cats were going to win, Andy, Squirrel, Conlan (JC), and possibly myself. JC and Squirrel are the two best bike handlers in the metro and a course like this would suit them well. Andy is pretty good bike handler also, but I’ve seen him romance too many trees in past races to be in the same class as Squirrel and JC. It’s not uncommon to see blood and / or dirt skid marks somewhere on his body after a race. Despite Andy’s affinity for trees and other immovable objects, he’s still one of the fastest in Iowa and always needs to considered as a threat.
I would typically ride a hard tail for a short TT like this, but I haven’t ridden a hard tail all season and my body, especially my nether regions, greatly appreciates that. I chose the Orbea because she’s been good and not bucked me all season. I also love the way the bike feels, she fits me like a glove and is very nimble on tight, twisty courses like the SC.
When my start time came I had no idea what kind of times everybody was throwin’ down. I locked the front and back out for the long, paved slightly uphill grind. As I approached the turn off into the dirt, I unlocked the front so that I could maximize power transfer to the rear until I got to the top of the short climb by the pump house. Once at the top of the climb I unlocked the rear and began my descent down Rollercoaster, the coolest stretch of singletrack in Iowa.
Once I hit the pavement after Rollercoaster, I locked the rear out again for the climb up into the Hillside. Once at the top I unlocked and began pursuit of my minute man. Much to my surprise, the first person that I caught and passed was JC. I figured I must have been riding really well and found it very motivating. As I passed JC I offered some words of encouragement and, with his tongue hangin’ out, he offered what I assumed to be the same. I passed a couple of others and motored on to the finish with a time of 18:31, good enough for first overall. Andy had the 2nd fastest time clocking 18:55. Squirrel brought home 3rd with a time of 19:02. WWJ came in 4th with a time of 19:11 and Sea Biscuit rounded out the top five with a time of 19:49. Great job to all!
Because it was such a short effort, I decided to go again. Andy decided to go again also (on his singlespeed) and this time he was my minute man. My goal was simple, catch up to Andy and knock him into the weeds as I pass by. I didn’t see him until I hit the hillside and I had finally caught up to him just as we were approaching a couple of big logs. As soon as Andy realized that I was on his wheel, he dumped the clutch and launched himself over the first log at full speed. I suck on big logs and slowed as I approached it. I popped my front wheel up and over. As my front wheel approached the top of the log I lifted my back wheel over. I was going a little faster than usual and mistimed the rear wheel. My wheel bumped into the top of the log and went skyward. My front wheel hit the ground and rolled about 20 feet before my rear wheel came out of orbit. Yep, my eyes were as big as a VW hubcap throughout the stunt and was quite happy when I realized that I had pulled it off. I saw Andy off in the distance and watched as he rode over the 2nd big log. As much as I enjoyed the experience from the previous log, I found it to be in my best interest to cyclocross the 2nd log. Once over the 2nd log I continued my chase. As we approached the finish I began to close the gap to Andy. As soon as he realized I was getting close, he drilled it and crossed the finish line a couple of seconds ahead of me. Good times!


Taylor's in the hurt locker, even before the race starts, he looks real mean in them Oakley's.



Check out the Mostly Reverend, he's wearing a helmet!!!



Proper post race nutrition is extremely important to ensure a speedy recovery. Looks like a cup of Endurox Beer4.



As I had mentioned earlier, this weekend was all about raising funds for a couple of great causes and it was a huge success! From the looks of it, everybody had a great time and in the end, that’s what it’s all about.
This weekend Andy and I are heading up to the Land of Oz to do the Blockhouse Roll. I’ve done the race a couple of times in the past and the trails, only open to the public on race weekend, are pretty sweet.
Two more races to go, then hamburger, French fry and taco ride season begins!


Thanks for reading,

CK

Chequamegon

Chequamegon… the biggest mountain biking throw down in the nation. Located in the beautiful north woods of Wisconsin, the Chequamegon 40 starts in Hayward and finishes at the Telemark Ski Resort just outside of Cable. 40 miles, point to point, mostly on the fabled Birkiebeiner Trail. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite races. The course is pretty much tailor made for my type of racing, lot’s of smokin’ fast flats, some rollers and some pretty insane, steep, long climbs and little to no singletrack. Despite the lack of singletrack, the race is still very technical in its own way. The speeds are so high, that the seemingly wide trail tightens up quite a bit in a lot of areas.
Goal: my only other Chequamegon experience was in ’03, 22nd overall, 4th in age, with a time just north of 2:22. I went in shooting for a top 20 overall and top 3 in my age.
I bunked up in a cabin that was about 5 blocks from the start with Padawan Gammell, John Newell, Jim and Sally Logan, Lang Wightman and Fishaus. Woke up to a morning low of 25, lookin’ out the window over the lake to watch the beautiful northern Wisconsin sunrise, the air looked crisp with clear skies on the horizon. The temps were sure to rise and was just about perfect by race time.


What I woke up to on race day.





The mass start... mass chaos.



Rolled up to the start about 10 minutes before the start and had a front row seat… then about five minutes before the start, Greg LeMond and his posse of what looked to be elderly folk slid in front. Once the dust settled I was in the 2nd row, still good enough for the 4+ mile rollout on pavement. Looking around, I could see that the field was stacked as expected. Lot’s of pros, Swanson, Tilford (former world masters champion), T Brown (former Olympian), Hall, the brothers Lalonde, Matter, Shouten, Phillips, Stolte, Hanson, Plews, Woodruff and a whole poop load of others.
The cannon went off and so did I. I tucked in behind the front row and caught the tow out of town. It seemed like about every 30 seconds I’d hear knobbies rubbing against knobbies. Cats were fighting for position all the way to Rosies. As we approached Rosies the aggression came to a head. The sound of rubber and metal scraping along pavement on the opposite side of the road caused me to move a little further to the left, exposing my nose to the wind. At this point I didn’t care if I was working a little harder than most of the others, I didn’t want to join the list of casualties.
As we hit Rosies, everybody hit the throttle and it was a mad dash to the front. Things became real sketchy real quick, I didn’t like what I saw so I backed it down a little to ensure safe passage into Rosies. When I arrived at the top of the hill I could see that I was a long way from the lead group and the second group. Not exactly what I had in mind but at least I was still upright. I upped the pace and eventually latched to what appeared to be a 3rd group as we hit the Birkie trailhead.
I worked my way to the front of the group and kept on rolling towards the 2nd group. At about mile ten, eventual race winner Jesse Lalonde rolled by me on his singlespeed. I grabbed his wheel knowing that he would pull me the rest of the way to the 2nd group. We caught the 2nd group, I sat in on the back of the group to recharge, Jesse continued towards the front and motored off the front towards the lead group.


The lead group with Mikey taking a pull.



As the race progressed our initial group of about 10-15 slowly shrank. As we approached mile 14, our group had caught up to a few stragglers that had fallen off from the lead group, including the Eppens. At checkpoint OO (mile 16), the lead group of 12 was about 20 seconds ahead of us. Our group was about 8 strong, the Eppens, Paul Hanson, Zack Vestal, Bjorn Selander and Dirk Rettig were some of the more familiar names.
Our group pretty much stayed together until we hit Fire Tower Hill, an endless, technical, three tiered climb that knocked me down to my 34x27. That’s when the shite hit the fan. We could see the remnants of the lead group about halfway up as we started the climb. Hanson drilled it all the way to the top, I crested the top about 15 seconds behind him. The rest of the group was quickly dropping out of sight. Once over the top I drilled it in pursuit of Hanson.


Workin' my way up Fire Tower Hill, it hurt real bad.



About a mile or two later I reeled him in and took control of the pace. He sat on my wheel the entire time and at one point had informed me that ‘I was killing him’. I said, ‘yeah, just don’t dog me at the finish’. We kept motoring along and eventually caught up to Evan Plews. He latched onto to Hanson’s wheel and I continued to pull the two along until we caught up to Bill Stolte at about 5 miles from the finish. Bill looked kinda like he had popped and wasn’t able to hang on.


Blockin' the wind for Hanson and some other dude.




With about two miles left, we started hitting some pretty steep rollers and my efforts were starting to catch up to me. Plews and Hanson rolled by me and I was dangling off the back. With about a mile and a half to go, the elastic had finally snapped and they rode away from me. Glad I was able to deliver Hanson to a nice finish… I can’t really fault him as there are no rules against sitting on another competitors wheel, I might have done the same thing if I would have been in his position. Had I not done all of the work that I did, we probably wouldn’t have caught up to Plews or Stolte, so it’s all good.
I ended up finishing the race in 13th with a time of 2:13:31, about 1:40 behind the winner. I crushed my best time by about 9 minutes and won my age group by close to 5 minutes. Mission accomplished… Simply put, I had the race of my life.



Top five.





6th through 10th



10th through 15th, check it, I made the big screen.



Padawan Gammell checkin' out some chicks butt.




Newell brinin' home 5th in his age group.


Some techy data for all of you geeks out there. My average HR for the race was 173. When I’m on top of my game it’s usually around 179-180. So I wasn’t as fresh as I could have been. I still have 3 races left this season and didn’t want to taper too soon. Based on my experience, I can carry top fitness over about three weeks of tapering. Once I go beyond three weeks I can feel myself starting to slow down a little. My last race of the season will be the WORS season finale up in Sheboygan and I want to show up with all four cylinders firing.
Next up is the Sycamore TT, I heard that it’s going to be on the Hillside section of the SC this year due to all of the urban sprawl that has plagued the Sycamore Trail.


Thanks for reading,

CK

Sugarbottom

I have a love / hate relationship with Sugarbottom. I love the trails, the place has just about everything you could ask for in mountain biking with the exception of any significant climbs. It has been the host of the largest mountain bike race in Iowa for as long as I can remember. When I do race there, the first thing that I say to myself when I finish… ‘man I hate this place’!
I really don’t hate Sugarbottom, the place has a lot of cool stuff, my favorite being the pine forested sections. Something about the smell of pine… kinda smells like Colorado. When I do finish riding or racing there, my entire body feels like I hit every tree along the trail. Lot’s of mutant roots and chatter in braking areas, enough to knock the fillings out of your teeth.
The race started, Eppen drilled the holeshot, Culley grabbed his wheel and I thought I had Cully’s wheel… perfect… right where I wanted to be. At the last minute, Nenninger (Grandmaster Lou’s favorite sparring partner) and Todd Gillihan put the squeeze on me. Rather than force the issue and risk hitting the deck, I backed it down and let them duke it out for Cully’s wheel. It was pretty frustrating because shortly after we entered the singletrack, Eppen, Cully and Ryan gradually began to gap off Gillihan and myself. I could have gone with them but I was stuck behind Gillihan.
Once we hit the gravel road, the leading trio was near the top and I was at the bottom. I went around Gillihan and began my pursuit with Andy Lueck in tow. About midway through lap one Andy was still on my wheel and I wasn’t making a whole of progress on reeling in the leaders. I asked Andy if we wanted to lead for a while. He rides there a lot more than I do and I figured this would serve us well. He went by and shortly thereafter he proceeded to T-bone a tree. I rolled by, asked if he was OK. I heard him mumble something as I rode by, I think it was probably a continuation of the grunt that he let out when he made his initial contact.
As the lap progressed I could see Eppen and Cully riding off into the sunset, however Ryan had fallen off the pace. This motivated me to push harder and I eventually reeled him in. He let me by just as we were entering a black section, the trails are marked kinda like ski runs, black = technical, blue = intermediate, green = beginner. I quickly opened up a gap and continued my pursuit of the Eppenator and Cully.
As the race progressed, my legs were constantly reminding me that I was at the end of a pretty heavy three week block of training. They felt good enough to maintain a pretty decent pace, but it wasn’t enough to do any significant damage on the lead that Cully or Eppen had on me. Lap two was pretty uneventful, lap three my body began feel the effects of the punishing course and I felt myself slipping into survival mode. In the end I held on for 3rd with a time of 2:37:29. Eppen won with a time of 2:30:33, Cully brought home 2nd in 2:34:44. Andy came in 4th with a time of 2:41:59 and Ryan rounded out the top 5 with a time of 2:42:59. Great job to all on a pretty brutal course!
I came into the race like any other race, with the expectation of winning. I’ve never won at Sugarbottom and feel like it is within my reach… someday! I still felt really good about how I did, my legs felt pretty weak throughout. My average heart rate for the race was 168, when I’m feeling good, it’s typically in the upper 170’s. So I was a long way from feeling on top of my game. I have some pretty big goals later in the season and have to train through a lot of races in order to maximize my training.
Next up is Chequamegon, the biggest race of the year. It’s the largest single day mountain bike race in America and is one of my biggest goals of the season. The field is always stacked with the fastest racers in the central states along with some pretty strong national level talent. It’ll be a great test that will provide a true indication of where I’m at. My goal… top twenty overall and top three in my age group. Stay tuned!


Thanks for reading,

CK

Nebraska State Championships

I can’t believe the final race of this years Psycowpath series has already come and gone. The summer has flown by like it always does, time flies like the wind, fruit flies like bananas… think about it… that was funny.
The Psycowpath season finale, like last year, doubles as a series race and the stand alone USA Cycling State Mountain Biking Championships for the state of Nebraska. And, like last year, it was held at Swanson Park in Omaha. The week leading up to the race was saturated with rain, making a postponement seem inevitable. Friday rolled around and the announcement was made, game on! It was also announced that the start was going to be delayed by three hours. As most of you know, I’m kinda freaky about my pre-race rituals, especially when it comes to food intake. So this time, I made some scrambled eggs and some buckwheat flap jacks in the morning and chased it all down with a pot of coffee. On the way to Omahole, about three hours before the start of the race, I crammed my usual box of Mueslix down my pie hole.
I got a phone call from a buddy of mine the day before the race, telling me that they were planning to run the course backwards. Interesting choice considering that all of the lines on the course flow in the ‘correct’ direction. So I arrived at the course, signed up, suited up and hit the course for a couple of recon laps. Usually one lap will do the trick, but because it was like a new course, I decided to do two laps to get a couple of the trickier parts dialed in. The course conditions were pretty close to perfect, damp, tacky, smokin’ fast in the corners… yep, it’s gonna be a good day I remember telling myself. I was a little concerned however during the recon, when I’d kick the effort up, my legs felt kinda flat, no high end. I still felt pretty good about my chances because I’ve been riding really well the last few weeks.
The race started, I went to clip in and my foot slid off the pedal. I tried again, slipped again, tried again, slipped again, by this time I’m sittin’ mid pack…crap. Thankfully the start area was wide open and when I finally got both feet secured I was able to work my way up to third wheel, behind Kent McNeil, 1st and MG, 2nd. McNeil began to pull away almost immediately. MG was doing a great job hangin’ onto his wheel for a while and I stuck to MG’s wheel like flies on stink. After a short while I was able to get by MG, Aaron Grady was glued to my wheel and was able to get by MG also. I’m sure Grady’s plan was to stick to my wheel and at some point later in the race, turn the screws and stuff my carcass into the hurt locker. He’s been real good at doin’ that to me this season. He needed to finish two places ahead of me to take the series title away from me.


Kent McNeil, off the front like a rocket




MG suffering from the ire of McNeil




By the time we had gotten around MG, McNeil had a 15 second lead on us. Initially, I tried to close the gap, but then I realized that if we did catch him, Grady could potentially win the race. If McNeil were to hang on for 2nd and me 3rd, Grady would win the series. So I kept myself ahead of Grady and maintained a pace that kept us about 30 seconds behind McNeil. At the end of the third lap Grady was still on my wheel. As we entered the woods for lap 4, he had completely disappeared. I had no idea what had happened to him. I could sense throughout the third lap, that he might have been yo-yoin’ on and off my wheel. So I initially figured that he had popped.
As soon as I realized that Grady was gone, I punched it in an attempt to reel in McNeil. I caught up to him about midway through lap 4 and rode his wheel until the end of the lap. Riding Kent’s wheel at Swanson is about as much fun as you can have on a mountain bike, the dude is smokin’ fast through all of the technical stuff, kinda like riding on a roller coaster. We hit the start / finish area and began lap 5, I passed Kent as we were rounding a corner and I upped the ante. Shortly after we hit the woods again, I could tell that I was beginning to open a gap on him. I kept the pressure on and the gap kept increasing. By this time we were hitting a lot of lapped traffic. As a result, there were a lot of peeps behind me and I sometimes couldn’t tell if it was a cat that I had just passed or if it was Kent or Aaron catching back up to me. So with the constant threat of somebody catching back up, I kept the pressure on.


Grady firmly attached to my wheel



Grady and I railin' a corner



I started lap 6, still had the same paranoia goin’ on, so I continued to keep the pace high. About midway through the last lap, I began to realize that I had a pretty sizable lead and could relax a little. I ended up winning the race with a time of 2:06:05, Kent held on for 2nd with a time of 2:08:55 and is the USA Cycling Nebraska state champion for the 2nd year in a row. MG held onto 3rd with a time of 2:14:56, Monte Brewt brought home 4th with a time of 2:15:00 and Aaron recovered from a flat tire to bring home 5th with a time of 2:15:08. Great job to everyone that finished!


Chasin' down McNeil shortly after loosing Grady



Entering the woods with the throttle wide open on the last lap.



The final Psycowpath podium of the season, the payoff after a lot of hard work.


As with all Psycowpath races, everything was great, the course, the organization and the peeps. I do think that running the course backwards took a pretty serious toll on some, I saw a bunch of cats limping around after the race with their shoulders in a sling, bandages around knees and a lot of dirty skid marks on lycra and skin. Despite the casualties, it still looked like everybody had a great time!
So, for the 2nd year in a row, I won the Nebraska State Championship race on a course that used to tear me up one side and down the other. I’ve gotten to know the course pretty well now after having raced there for the past few years and it has become one of my favorite places to race. I also managed to repeat as the Psycowpath series champion, which means no race entry fees for next season… saweet!
A huge congrats goes out to Kent McNeil for repeating as the USA Cycling Nebraska State Champion. If Kent had been able to compete in as many of the races as I did, he would have made things a lot more difficult for me in my quest to repeat as the series champion. Kent is easily the fastest mtb’r in Nebraska and in most cases, faster than I am.
Aaron Grady proved to be the revelation of the season. If continues to race, he will be the man to beat in the future. MG (Matt Gersib) also had a great season, he used to destroy me in mountain bike races a few years ago.

Next up is the 24 Hours of Iowa at Seven Oaks. 24 hours of mountain biking goodness on some of the sweetest tread in the Midwest! This years Rassy ‘A’ team will consist of myself, Padawan Jed Gammell, Andy Lueck and mountain biker turned tri-geek Ben Garrett.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Big Crack

Swim, bike, run. The three disciplines required to complete a triathlon. I did a sprint distance triathlon back in the day, maybe 1983ish? Ended up finishing something like 9th overall, 1st in age. It was one of the most painful experiences that I’ve ever gone trough. Ranks right up there with doing a marathon off of training that consisted of 2 miles a day, three or four days a week, or maybe even the gut wrenching hangovers that I used to get back in my college days… Kinda gets the gag reflex goin’ just thinking about it.
Nowadays I don’t swim, not sure why because it would make for some great cross training in the winter. Anymore, when I try to run, I can’t do it without throwin’ a rod or blowin’ a gasket. I guess my old body is a little too frail to handle the constant pounding that one’s body is subjected to when running. So how does one participate in a triathlon when the threat of drowning or a blown out calf muscle seems imminent? Find a couple of peeps that like to run and swim and do the team competition!
At last years Big Creek Tri, my friend Terri asked if I would be interested in doing the bike leg for her team. The weekend was open and I was in need of a good, high intensity workout, so I accepted the invite. She’d also asked another friend, Kristy Feldman, to do the run. In short, we ended up winning the coed team competition and agreed to defend in 2007. We ended up getting the same team together and even though I had a mountain bike race the day before, I was still hoping to crack 25mph for an average speed.
The race started and Terri came out of the water in just under 35 minutes in around 140th place, strapped the timing chip to my ankle and I was off like a scalded dog. I don’t have a tri bike so I borrowed some jammers from my buddy Michelle and clamped them onto my handlebars. I did a short trial run with them and didn’t feel all that comfortable when I was in the aero position. Once I got onto the open road of the bike leg, I dropped into the aero position and felt really comfortable right away, sweet! I was really surprised at how good my legs felt and was able to peg my HR into the mid 170’s. I held the effort throughout the ride and finished with a time of 57:17, good for a 26 mph average over 40k and ended up being the 2nd fastest bike split behind TJ’s smokin’ fast 53:41. I managed to pass a lot of peeps on course and brought our overall placing up to around 10th overall. I passed the chip off to Kristy and she left the transition area with smoke comin’ of her shoes. Kristy clocked a 41:31 10k split, which ended up being the 11th fastest split of all of the men and women! The end result, not only did we win the coed division, but we were the fastest team overall!


K-Dawg bringin' home the bacon.





Team Vitruvian Triad on the podium.



A lot of work went into putting on the event. My good friends Craig and Jenny are the race organizers and relied heavily on a lot of volunteer support. I helped out a little a couple of days before the event and also helped out after I finished the bike leg. Volunteering was a lot of fun, it’s a great way to spend time with good friends and meet new people. It’s also nice to know that I helped in the success of the event and the event was just that, a huge success!

Next up is the season finale of the Psycowpath series which also doubles as the Nebraska state mountain biking championships on August 25. I won the race last year and look to do the same this time. I’m in the drivers seat for the series title, all I need to do is win the race or finish one place behind Aaron Grady. Stay tuned for a full race report.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Maskenthine

So here we are, mid August and I’ve been the bridesmaid at every Psycowpath race this season. The competition is, without question, a lot tougher this season with McNeil resurrecting his good form and the arrival of the surprise of the season, Aaron Grady. I usually always come back from Colorado with good form. 60 hours of riding over a two week period, when done correctly, will result in some pretty substantial fitness gains.
After 3 hours and 15 minutes in the car, I finally arrived at Lake Maskenthine in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. It’s actually a pretty nice area, a nice lake, some nice trees and nice people. The word on the street leading up to the race was that the trails were not that great. It’s really too bad when rumors like that start to spread. The folks at Elkhorn Cycling Club put in a lot of work to get the trails built and put on a race. When a course gets a bad rap, it always has an adverse effect on the turnout. As was the case at this race with about 60 or so in attendance. It’s too bad because those that didn’t show missed out on a really cool course.
The drive took a little longer than I had expected. I arrived at the course about an hour before the start and didn’t get a chance to do a full recon of the course. I suited up in the Rassy camo and rode the first mile or so to get the start dialed in. The plan for the day was to get into the singletrack 2nd wheel and stay there over the first lap to get the course dialed in. If I felt good after the first lap, I’d take the lead and try to bag the win.


Rollin' to the start.



The race started on a gravel, slightly uphill road. I let Grady slip into the lead and about halfway up the hill another dude passed both Grady and I and led the way into the singletrack. Not sure who the dude was but he was kinda holding up the train until we hit the first open section. Grady and I passed him and started to gap the field a little. Grady kept the pace pretty slow and shortly after we had gotten away, MG caught up, then Kevin Limpach, then JP. Towards the end of the first lap, MG went by me and tried to get by Grady, but Grady was having none of that. MG told Grady to pick up the pace a little because there were a few cats that were catching up to us. He kinda slit his own throat because Grady turned the screws a little tighter and began to gap MG off. I passed MG and bridged back up to Grady and we both began to pull away from the rest of the group.
Grady and I began the 2nd lap with a nice gap and as the 2nd lap progressed Grady began to slow a little. I could sense that a few of the cats that we had just gotten rid of were beginning to close the gap again. So I passed Grady with a pretty hard acceleration and was able to gradually gap him off. My gap continued to increase throughout lap 2 and 3. After the start of lap 4, I could see that I had about a 3 or 4 minute cushion. I decided to put myself into energy conservation mode in an attempt to save my legs for the next days race, the Big Creek Triathlon. I put it into cruise control and ended up winning with a time of 1:36:45. Kevin came in 2nd with a time of 1:39:21, Grady finished 3rd in 1:39:53, JP came in 4th in 1:40:09 and MG rounded out the podium with a time of 1:42:42. Nice job to all on a dreadfully hot, humid day.


The Pro / Semi Pro / Expert mens rostrum



As I had mentioned before, the course was a pretty cool course, with some fun singletrack, some pretty fast rollers and a few sections that had us rolling through some pine groves. Two other cats from central Iowa made the long drive, cancer survivor Sean Meyers and Bruce Brown. It’s always great to see folks from Iowa making the trek across the river to do some raging in the Psycowpath series.
So with one race let I’m in the drivers seat to take the Psycowpath series. I hold a slim 10 point lead over Grady, 309 to 299 with one race left. Grady’s been riding really strong all season and I expect him to be just as strong at Swanson. Kent McNeil will be there also along with a lot of other fast cats. It’s gonna be sweet!

Tomorrow I’m doing the bike leg of a three person team at the Big Creek Triathlon. I’ll have the same teammates that I had last year with Terri Juhlin doing the swim and Kristy Feldman doing the run. We won the coed team competition last year so we’ll be looking to defend!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Another off weekend for the local mtb racing scene… what am I gonna do this weekend? Sit around my pad, maybe get some good long rides in…. or road trip to the Land of Oz for some high caliber regional mtb racing. Wisconsin Off Road Series (WORS) race #7 in Franklin, WI, on the south side of Milwaukee just happened to be this weekend. So on Thursday I loaded up the car and headed to the QC to visit my Mom, sister and 3 month old niece. It’s always a good time visiting the fam, it’s especially nice now that my little sis has a beautiful little daughter!



Scooter (sis) and Kennan (niece)


Friday morning I hit the road early for Madison. My plan was to get there early enough that I could get a nice, long endurance ride in on the some of the sweetest road riding in America. Arrived in Madison by late morning, unloaded the car and suited up for an awesome epic ride. Ended up doing part of the Ironman Madison bike course and some other miscellaneous roads and logged a total of 100 miles for the day with an average HR of around 150. What a ride! My legs felt great, the roads were incredible and there were a lot of great hills, some kicking up to as steep as 17%.
Saturday morning Terri and I hooked with a few of her tri friends for an easy active recovery ride of 90 minutes. Another great ride on some really sweet roads. All of the rural roads around Madison are paved / blacktop. Most of the rural roads around Madison are paved, unlike Iowa where most are gravel, very nice!
Sunday finally came and I loaded the car up with my race gear and hit the road. Stopped by Barriques for a very large cup of joe and a sweet roll as an appetizer for the main course, my usual box of Mueslix. Talked to my buddy, Gregasaurus, who’s the race director and he said that it started raining at around 6pm Saturday and finally stopped at around 6am this morning… great… another mud race.
I arrived at the course in time to watch the Citizen (beginners) race and their bikes were caked with peanut buttery mud. It was incredibly humid out, 147% humidity I think is what the radio said? It was overcast with little to no wind and very muggy. So the course remained pretty muddy throughout the day.
Back in the day, when I used to do all of the WORS races, I’d do a course recon on Saturday because it’s against the rules to pre-ride on Sunday, too many races going on throughout the day. Didn’t get a chance to recon this time, it’s all good though, I kinda remember a lot of it from racing there a few other times in the past. A lot of tight, twisty singletrack, perfect for the locals.
My plan for the day was to get a decent start, didn’t want to kill myself trying to get to the front as it was an uphill start and with 50 or 60 peeps in the elite field, along with the muddy conditions, I figured it was gonna be total chaos. Series director Don gave the command to start, “Gooooooo!” and we were off like a pack of wild banshees. I got clipped in right away and kinda took it easy as we rolled up the hill. Once at the top, I took a look around and saw that I was near the back. We hit the field section, which is about a mile long? The trail was full of deep mud puddles, just waiting to suck the wheels of unsuspecting mtb’rs in and cause a pileup. There were a few pile ups, but I was close enough to the back ‘o the pack that I could avoid it all.



Heavy D, one of my bro's from back in the day


I passed a few cats and made it to the singletrack unscathed. We started weaving through the tight and twisty singletrack that the Franklin course is known for and was surprised at what little effort it took to hang onto the wheel in front of me. As we transitioned from one section of singletrack to the next, I was able to pick off a few riders at a time in the open sections that separated the serpentine singletrack.



Workin' the peanut butter


I passed Scott Cole, one of my 40+ competitors and he said that I was sitting in 2nd place for the 40+ category. I kept the pressure on, my legs felt great and I was handling the muddy conditions surprisingly well. I was surprised at how quickly I was able to reel in racers that were in front of me on all of the technical, muddy sections. About midway through the race, I caught up to the leader of the 40+ race on one of the flat, open sections. As I passed him, I hit the throttle pretty hard in an attempt to blow by and maybe demoralize him a little, maybe dissuade him from trying to go with me. I heard him react and he was on my wheel until we hit the next section of singletrack. Once in the singletrack, I was able to gradually pull away. As the race progressed, I was able to pass quite a few others and in the end I managed to claw my way up to 14th overall and 1st in the 40+ elites.



The men's podium, Jesse Lalonde (1st) Marko Lalonde (2nd) and Brian Matter (3rd)


I was extremely happy with the result for quite a few reasons. I usually suck in the mud, but today, I felt like I was handling the conditions better than most. Because the course is in Milwaukee, there are a lot of peeps that have a huge advantage over the out of towners. Lastly, I had a pretty lousy start and had to expend a lot of energy working my way up. I didn’t really mind though, my main objective for the day was to get a good workout in, finish the race and not destroy my bike. Mission accomplished!
From what I can remember, my best ever WORS finish was 10th overall. I think I had a couple of 12th place finishes in there also, so this was definitely one of my best results on a tough course. I plan to head back up and do the season finale in Sheboygan on October 7. My goal is to finish within the top 10. If my form is still good I think that I’ve got a shot at it. It’s a good course for me and I’ve had a lot of good finishes there.
Next up is Psycowpath XC #5 at Lake Maskethine on Saturday. I have no idea where this place is, somewhere in northeast Nebraska. Looking at the map, it looks like it’s gonna be a pretty dreadful drive with little to no cell phone coverage. Thank God for iPods! On Sunday, Terri, myself and Kristy Feldman will be defending our team co-ed title at the Big Creek triathlon in good ole’ Des Moines. Should be a fun weekend!

Thanks for reading,

CK

Durango Day 7 – 7/20

Decided to give the road ride to Silverton another go. I could tell as soon as I started rolling that my legs felt a lot better than they did the last time that I did this ride. I finished the ride about two minutes quicker than earlier this week and my average HR was 137, about 4 beats less than earlier this week. A good indication that I’m getting a little more acclimated to the altitude. The ride back from Silverton rolls in a southerly direction and as I was heading back up to Coal Bank Pass I was riding into a pretty stiff head wind, something that I don’t usually encounter on this ride. I ended up fighting a head wind for the better part of two hours while heading back towards Durango. The weather was also a lot cooler with temps hovering around the lower 60’s and dipping as low as the upper 50’s at the higher altitudes. Very nice for such a long ride. I also noticed that my throat was getting a little irritated from breathing in all of the diesel fumes from knuckleheads that would pass me by and accelerate leaving a massive black cloud for me to ride through. Mean people really do suck.

Durango Day 8 – 7/21

Felt pretty lethargic today, so I decided to listen to my body and take the road bike out for an easy active recovery ride today. Had a big breakfast with the old man at a local greasy spoon, said our goodbyes and then I headed back to the cabin. Rode back into town and headed east on Florida Road. Ended up being a very enjoyable ride with some beautiful scenery. Florida Road follows along side the Florida River, your typical mountain stream with crystal clear water that tumbles over rocks and other obstacles, very picturesque. Retraced my route back into town and ended up getting a little over two hours in. Felt a lot better afterwards, looking forward to another epic ride tomorrow!

Durango Day 9 – 7/22

Decided to do a road ride today, headed east out of town on Florida Road down to Ignacio. The plan was to get 100 miles in today and by the time I got to Ignacio I only had about 42 miles in. Doubled back up to the turn off for the road that heads up to Vallecito Reservoir and rode to the north end of the Reservoir. Turned around and rode back to CR 245, then to CR 240. Took CR 240 back to Durango, rode through Durango and rode back up to the cabin. The beginning of the ride was pretty much the same as yesterdays ride. I enjoyed the road so much that I decided to do it again today, only further to do a little exploring on some roads that I’d never ridden before. Ended up being a great ride, lot’s of beautiful rolling (by Colorado standards) hills / mountains. I call the hills rollers because I ‘only’ netted about 4,500 feet of climbing. My legs felt great today, the effort was mostly Zone 2, though on a few of the hills I ramped it up to Zone 3 a little.

More to come later,

Thanks for reading,

CK

Durango Day 4 – 7/17

About a week ago I got an e-mail from a dude I sort of knew through racing, Rob Houlihan. I’d never actually met him but we knew of each other. Anyway, he e-mailed to ask about the cabin that we stayed at last year when we were in Durango. I told him the what and where and it turned out that he and his family were going to be here at the same time that I was. So after a couple of phone calls we were finally able to hook up for a ride. We left the cabin around 7:30 in the AM and rode down to the Telegraph Trails. My legs were still very sore, I don’t ever remember having legs this sore from the previous days rides. I probably should have taken it easy today, but it was the only chance that I’d be able go for a ride with Rob. We hit the trails and maintained a pretty good pace up to Pilaski’s Point. After a while I could tell that Rob was a little quicker on the technical descents than I was, so I made a point to make sure he led the way when going downhill in the interest of preventing myself from wrapping myself and/or my bike around a tree or rock. It’s a lot more fun for me to follow somebody that is better than I am at technical descents. I followed his lines as long as I could hang onto him and had a great time of it. I ended up getting about 4 hours of total ride time in. I was only able to get about 24 minutes of Zone 2 in with rest being Zone 1. I didn’t try to push myself too hard because I was obviously in need of some rest. It did end up being a great ride despite how tired I was.

Durango Day 5 – 7/18

I decided to take a recovery today and do a road ride with the old man. I woke up with some very sore legs, were talkin’ lifting weights with the legs for the first time in a year kind of soreness. It hurt to walk down stairs, it hurt to walk downhill and it hurt to get out of bed. We headed into town and scored a breakfast of bacon, eggs, potatoes, pancakes and coffee at a local greasy spoon. The only bad thing about the meal was the freeze dried coffee, but that’s how it is at greasy spoons, if they have fancy coffee then it ain’t a true greasy spoon! We tooled around town, rode up to some of the neighborhoods at higher elevations to check out how the rich folk live. I can’t even begin to imagine how much some of these pads cost. I suppose it doesn’t really matter because as long as I continue down my current path of employment, I will always be classified among the common folk and I’m A-OK with that. Pops cut out of the ride after about 90 minutes because he was feelin’ a little cooked from his rides over the past couple of days. I continued onward at a nice easy pace of about 110 -120 in an attempt to help flush some of the crud out of my legs. It ended up being a nice easy three hour ride, enjoying the Durango cycling vibe and scenery.

Durango Day 6 – 7/19

Headed out in the morning and rode Dry Fork up to the Colorado Trail. Rode the Colorado Trail down to Durango. Rode up Animas Mountain and did the big loop to the top of Animas Mountain. Paused to enjoy the amazing view of Durango and the Animas River valley. On the way up I passed a couple of peeps that were running up the mountain. Pretty amazing stuff because the climb up was mostly very technical terrain and a lot of granny gear climbing. Once I got back to the bottom of Animas Mountain I rode back over to the Colorado Trail and back tracked it back to the cabin. My legs were still pretty tired, about the only time that I could get my HR into Zone 2 was when I was going uphill. I didn’t really persist, my legs were still in obvious need of some rest. So at the end of the day I had about 5 hours of total ride time, 2 of which were in Zone 2. My average HR was around 131.

Stay tuned for more updates,

Thanks for reading,

CK

Cycling Bliss

Durango Day 1 – 7/14

Arrived in Durango around 1, got checked into the cabin and ready to ride by 2. Rode over to the Telegraph Trails, I was really jones’n to ride. I haven’t ridden in 2 days, way too much time off. Hit the base of Horse Gulch road and began the climb to the Meadow Loop. Hit the Meadow Loop, paused and smiled to myself… aaah, it’s good to be back… the fun was about to begin. Rode around the Meadow Loop to the base of the climb up to Pulaski’s Point and was pretty surprised at how good I felt at altitude.


The climb up to Pulaski's Point, the lower trail is the old telegraph lines, the upper trail is the grind to the top



The climb up to Pulaski's Point



The ride begins at about 6,600 feet and probably tops out at around 7,500 feet maybe? Not a lot of elevation change but a lot short climbs, some of which are pretty severe, enough that I was reduced to my granny gear a few times. It typically takes a day or two to get myself somewhat acclimated to the high altitude here. Today it seemed as though I never left! If you ever get a chance to make it out here, you gotta ride the Telegraph Trails. My total ride time was about 3:15 with an average HR of around 151.

Durango Day 2 – 7/15

My first epic of the trip, the Kennebec Pass Loop. Somewhere around 50+ miles of high altitude off-road riding. Left the cabin and began the 2 ½ hour climb to the ‘Notch’, a few hundred feet above Kennebec Pass at just over 12,000 feet.
The first hour was pavement, the next half hour was gravel and the last hour was some technical jeep roads. Some of the climbs on the jeep road are so technical and steep that I had to drop it into my granny gear a few times. There were a number of times when I came real close to stalling out and dabbing. Once at the top I stopped for about 20 minutes of chill time and enjoyed one of the most amazing views that my half blind eyes have ever had the privilege of seeing. I ate a Clif Bar, drank some water and began my way down to Durango via the Colorado Trail… nothing but 26 miles of sweet singletrack.


This... is why I ride.




Need I say more...


About 70% of it was downhill, the remaining 30% is climbing… steep climbing, some of which was so steep that I had to hike-a-bike. I pushed myself so hard going up a couple of the climbs that my legs started to cramp a little. Ended up with about 5 ½ hours of ride time, an average HR of around 151 and some very tired legs!

Durango Day 3 – 7/16

My all time favorite road ride, Durango to Silverton and back. Leaving from the cabin I end up with a total distance of around 109 miles. I could tell almost as soon as I started the ride that my legs were very tired from yesterdays efforts. I continued as planned figuring that my legs would eventually come around. As I started the first climb of the day my legs told me that if I persisted with this nonsense, I’d be in for a very long day. It should come as no surprise that I did persist, and it was a very long day. I still thoroughly enjoyed the ride, beautiful scenery, a lot of tough climbing and some screaming fast descents. In the end I had 6 hours of ride time, 8,800 feet of climbing, and average HR of about 141 and once again, a very tired pair of legs.


More posts to follow.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Seven Oaks and Manawa

Brief race reports…

Seven Oaks

The weather turned out to be near perfect, sunny, warm and most importantly, dry as a bone. Overall, the attendance was disappointing. However the expert field was stacked by Iowa standards. We had nearly 20 experts! As always, I looked around to see who was going to inflict the most amount of pain on me. The king of pain, Brian Eppen was there. Cully Todd, Andy Lueck, WWJ, John Eppen… Yes, Eppen has a sibling, a brother that will soon be inflicting even more pain upon the Iowa mountain bike racing community. Even tPod decided to show up for some pain and suffering.
So the race started, I led the way into the singletrack followed closely by Eppen and the rest of the field. Within a the first half lap Eppen and I had opened up a pretty substantial gap.


Leading Eppen before he put me in the hurt locker.


About ¾ of the way through lap one, Eppen passed me for the lead. I rode his wheel for the next lap or so. Everything was going pretty good, I was feeling pretty good, I was riding well. Though I did have that feeling that if he were to turn the screws a little tighter, he’d start to gap me. We hit a pretty technical downhill switchback, he went through it pretty quickly, I tried to follow suit. I took a pretty stupid line, dumped my bike over, got up, dusted myself off and tried to close the gap. I was getting pretty tired + Brian was flyin’ = game over for Cam. It wasn’t due to a lack of effort however, I worked myself over pretty hard to reel him back in, but it wasn’t happenin’ today.


tPod showin' his prowess on the dirt



Sea Biscuit entering the pain cave



The screaming tifosi lettin' it all hang out


Brian ended up winning with a time of 1:39:43, I rolled in 2nd in 1:40:30. Cully came in 3rd in 1:43:00. tPod was a big unknown for most of the field and brought home a had earned 4th in 1:46:22. John Eppen rounded out the top five with a time of 1:49:31.
All in all, it was a great day of racing! The trails were in the best condition that I have ever seen. Sea Biscuit and the folks with Singletrack Promotions did a stellar job in prepping the course. Seven Oaks continues to be one of the best venues for all things mountain biking in Central Iowa. The next race at Seven Oaks will be the 24 hour race on Labor Day weekend. I highly recommend this to anybody that loves to ride a mountain bike. I’ve done the 24 hour as a member of a four man team the last two years and had a ball!


Manawa

It was a blazing hot day with temps soaring up to 99 degrees in Council-Tucky. Manawa is a fairly new venue, it’s pancake flat, very tight, very twisty, very technical and very fun. Of all of the race courses, this is the type that I struggle the most on. Going in I knew that it was going to be an interesting day.
As is always the case with Psycowpath races, the expert field was stacked, McNeil, Grady, Deal, Shim, WWJ, cyclocross superstud Wilhelm was there. My plan was to make into the woods 2nd wheel and let somebody that was familiar with the course show me the way. The race started and I got boxed out by McNeil and as a result, ended up 5th wheel going into the woods. McNeil was leading, followed by Gersib, Schlake, Shim and myself. McNeil pretty much dropped everybody almost immediately.


McNeil puttin' everbody in the hurt locker at the gun


About midway through lap one I passed Shim. Shortly thereafter I passed Schlake. I looked back and had a train of about 6 riders behind me. Near the end of lap one I caught and passed Gersib. Right before we hit the start / finish line I saw McNeil up the trail, he looked like he missed a shift and got it stuck in reverse. I and the six man train behind me passed him like he was standing still. He was obviously having some pretty major issues to slow down that much. So all of a sudden I’m in the lead. Not exactly where I wanted to be at the time. So I continued on, trying not to push too hard in the singletrack to ensure that my legs would be able to counter any attacks that might be uncorked over one of the open sections. I lead throughout lap 2 and all of lap three and the six or seven man train behind me was still there. Things were about to get interesting…


The Rassy camo at the head of the train


I knew the only way that I was going to have a good finish was to try and split up the train behind me a little. The only way that I was going to be able to do that was to uncork a massive attack on one of the open sections. The way that I felt, I knew if I had done that I would have put myself into the red. I’d been in real trouble if somebody would have been able to go with me and possibly counter. So instead I decided to slow the pace down on one of the open sections with the hope that somebody else would attack.
Sure enough, I heard somebody accelerating through the grass on the left side of me. I took a quick look over my shoulder to see who it was and how close he was. I wanted to time a counter attack such that I could jump on his wheel and follow. The deal went flyin’ by me, I grabbed his wheel and followed.


The Deal unleashing his fury


I think Grady was riding third wheel. Shortly after the attack, it was just the three of us and we were moving along at a pretty quick pace. I was kinda tired and riding like an amateur in the tight twisty stuff. The Deal was able to gap me a little, Grady recognized that this was probably a pretty critical juncture of the race, passed me going over a log and chased after the Deal. They both got away from me pretty easily and I put myself into preservation mode with the hope of at least hanging onto 3rd.
About midway through lap 4, I noticed that I was closing the gap a little. Grady looked back, saw that I was closing, passed the Deal and took off like a scalded dog. I caught and passed the Deal shortly after that and started y pursuit of Grady. Shortly after the beginning of lap 5, I closed the gap to Grady and rode his wheel. My plan was to stay on his wheel until the last open section of the lap, pass him and bring home the win.
We stayed together until we got close to the end of the lap. He managed to gap me a little before we hit the last open section. My legs were cooked, I couldn’t close the gap and he entered the last section of singletrack ahead of me. Aaron ended up winning the race with a time of 1:45:23. I brought home 2nd again with a time of 1:45:30, a painful 7 seconds back. The Deal salvaged 3rd with a time of 1:46:06, followed by Schlake with a time of 1:46:44. Mod had an awesome day rounding out the top five with a time of 1:48:00.


The podium, check out the dork on step #2


It was a pretty exciting race from start to finish, lot’s of fun to be a part of it. I bet it was a lot of fun to watch! I’m very happy with my result on a course that’s not really well suited for me. Just about everybody had home course advantage over me and that’s a pretty big factor on a course like Manawa. I don’t mind finishing 2nd to a cat like Grady, or any of a number of others in the expert field for the Psycowpath races. There’s a lot of really fast guys across the river and anytime that I can finish near the top end of the field can be considered a good day.
So the first half of the season is officially over. I’m sitting in 1st for the Psycowpath series and 2nd for the IMBCS. It’s going to be an interesting and fun second half of the season for both series. I’m not gonna worry about that for a short while though because all that’s on my mind right now is Durango! I've been in Durango for about a week now and I’ll try to get an update on how the rides are going. So until then, thanks for reading.

CK