Last year's race write-ups

Last year I didn't blog but I wrote up reports for my motorcycling friends. Here's what I had posted...

Platteville MtB race review 04/23/06
moto_123 and the UW Platteville cycling club put on a pretty nice race yesterday. Things that were good about it included but were not limited to...

...the weather.
...the course. Absa-freakin-lootly the nicest course I've ridden since some of the Austin Hill Country races of the late '80s. Not so technical that a good rider would need to dismount for obstacles, sweet downhill and up hill switchbacks tested timing and balance, rocky creek crossings, off-camber single track within inches of rusty barbed wire and a 20' drop-off. I hope nobody biffed it along that part.
...nice people and nice racers without 'tood.

It had a light turn-out but as it was the first event at that venue it should get better. It was definitely worth the drive. I'd go back for another XC event any time and anyone else should too. I now have two goals... get in better shape ( finishing 3rd was nice for not having raced in 11 years but I didn't like getting beat by only ~3 minutes, and I wonder how my lap time compared to the other classes) ...and bring a 21t or 22t cog for the clinb out of the valley. The 20t I had wasn't quite low enough given my lack of conditioning... but then if I'm in better shape I should be good with the 20t or even an 18t. I'm still getting a handle on the 29er gearing.

The only bad thing, and it wasn't bad yesterday but it could be in the future, was the parking situation. Unless the farm had a pasture or more of an open area available a future event with a higher turn-out will have limited parking issues.

But they have time to figure that out.

Thanks again moto_123 for posting it here on MSB. Next time I'll drag Tweak, Biggs and Samps along.

Eau Claire's results 07/04/06

My wife, daughter and I drove up to Eau Claire Saturday to have a nice weekend camping. Too bad I had to ditch them and race on Sunday. We found a decent camp site and I took off to pre-ride the course. It was nice to pre-ride and put to rest any demons I might have had about the gear selection I made. I've been running different gears at each race. 32(front)x20(rear) at Iola 14th and 25+ minutes behind 1st. 32x22 at Alpine Valley 16th and 11+ minutes. 32x18 at Wausau, 11th and 12+ minutes. 32x20 again for the mud at Kewaunee and 8th, 15+ behind. At each race I tried to see what my competitors was running and for the most part they were 2 teeth harder than me at each race. What that translates to is I have to spin my feet faster to match their potentially higher speed. Kind of like Samps running a tooth bigger on the rear on his race bike.

So for Eau Claire I decided to "man-up" and get with the program. I've worked my way up to 5th in the series points so I've gone completely over to "the Dark Side." So after talking with a few others that were running 32x18, which is the stock gearing on most bikes and also the most comfortable, I decided to run a 32x16. I did 2 laps of the course and I took my time to learn it. I repeated the creek crossings a few times to find the best line. I found a few spots where the trees were father apart without cheating too. I also found a hidden 10" rut in a flat grassy section... at 20mph. With only minor bruises and a stem imprint on my left knee I was able to ride away with everything intact.

That night we had dinner, hung out with other racers and their families and had a nice quiet night.

And NO RAIN. I heard you suckah's had rain. Too bad for you.

Race day... slept until 7:30. I let the girls sleep and I walked up the hill to the truck and gave the bike a pre-race going over. Air in the tires and fork. Oil on the chain. Wheels and brakes A+. The girls slept until 8:30 and then we had breakfast. I picked up my registration packet and socialized with some of the others in the single speed class. Only the "fast" guys were running a 16. I'd either have the goods or not. So I went back to the camp and finished getting my shit together for my 11:30 start.

I usually don't take warming up too seriously but I rolled around with my heart rate at 50-60% for 20 minutes and felt good. More importantly I drank 2 bottles of water in the half hour before the start. It was plenty hot even if I wasn't wearing leathers.

So at 11:20 we all stage. they call the top 4 in the points and then the rest "grid" behind them. This time I was third row center behind two teens and Rob, who is 3rd in the points. At 11:30 they give us the 3, 2, 1...GO!... and the teens promptly lock handlebars and crash in front to me. Some people's kids. I didn't go down with them but now I'm 100 yards behind Rob.

The first mile or so is all flat jeep road before the trail necks down narrower than the seat on DucDefender's 996. So I get on the gas, almost literally with my heart rate spiking at 186bpm. With roughly 200 yards left before the wood line I work my way through everyone and get on Rob's wheel and into his draft. If I hadn't put a 16 on I'd have never bridged the gap. The first half of a lap is pretty mellow with my rate in the 170-175 range. In front of Rob is 5 other single speeders. In and out of the trees, up and down the trail all seven of us are tire to tire... with a shitload of multispeeders bitching and moaning behind us. We finally come out of the singletrack onto more cross country ski trail/road and the multispeeders give'er the berries to get around us. When we return to the single track I find myself behind three of them with Rob just in front. Unfortunately they can't match his tempo and we start to get gapped. By the time we come out of the single track again I've lost sight of Rob and the others. I'm not alone though. Josh from Pardeeville has been shadowing me. As we come up on a sandy wash there's a couple of Multi's crashed in our way. We dismount and run around them and up the hill but as I remount my chain falls off. Great, I thought I'd resolved that. I pop the wheel off and reinstall the chain and wheel but Josh is gone. I settle into a tempo of 170 again. I go through the first lap and my wife asks if I need a third bottle of water. I'd downed a whole bottle but still had my second so I said "no" and tossed her my empty. A few meters later there's a table covered in water cups with kids handing them up. One asks "do you want a splash?" I say " in the face" Suddenly 6 cups of water all find the center of my face. Smart Bombs don't have that kind of accuracy. I wonder if those kids practice all year. But it felt great. The next lap is more of the same. Fewer Multi's are catching me as my average rate is 172. I'm also catching more riders. I drop my chain twice more but I've got it down to less than 10 seconds to get going again. To make things more interesting I'm rolling along and suddenly there's a biting or stinging right in the center of my back! The woods echo with "Son of a bitch!" as I reach back to get rid of whatever it is and I start tugging at my jersey. The pain stops but best of all I didn't miss a beat on the trail. With a quarter lap to go I put everything I've got into the pedals. I felt great even if it did hurt. On the last open area I come out and I can see Josh only a couple hundred yards ahead. Somehow I find the gas to catch him but I ran out of open trail before I could pass... and he knows I'm back there. He visibly ups his tempo and I keep on him. There's a slight straightening of the trail and I take the opportunity to make the pass through the brush. I don't crash and it works. I up the tempo more and he stick to my wheel. With less than a mile to go we go through some off camber mud & roots and he goes down. He's okay but he finishes 21 seconds behind me. I come off last series of turns and it's a open road to the finish. I was done and so were my legs.

I find Rob and we shoot the shit about the race. My wife comes up and seems to think we were 4th and 5th. An hour later the results are posted... Rob was 6th, I was 7th.

But best of all I was less than 6 minutes behind first!

I'm still 5th in points, but I managed to beat a few of the guys ahead of me in points plus a couple of Minnesotans helped by placing. Before I was 193 points behind 1st. Now I'm only 106 points behind 1st.

Now I'm starting to pay attention to my training. I've been only riding hard once a week between races. I think I can get out at least, oh, three times a week.

This is great. I feel like I'm chasing Rossi.

7/24 Phillips race results
I really should start taking this more seriously. The only trail time I'm getting is the day before the race for an hour of so and the races.

I sort of paid for it yesterday. Saturday I did two laps, the second lap at race tempo and HR, and I felt great. I got a decent nights rest and was plenty hydrated. My HR monitor showed I was 165bpm average/177max for the first lap. I felt great and was running in 3rd with a group of 3 just a few meters behind me. Then I fell apart. My legs had no power and I just couldn't find a tempo on the trail (144avg/154max). The 3rd and thankfully last lap was marginally better (153avg/172max) and I was able to draft and out-sprint a multispeeder at the finish.

I ended up 6th overall and have moved into 2nd in the series points. Rob was 5th and has moved into 1st in the series points. Stuart was a no show.

1st-Rob @1132
2nd- Me @1104
3rd- Stuart @1049
4th-Joel @987 (he's won 4 of the races, & either DNF'd or no showed others)
5th- Tie between Adam & Ryan @ 920

Anyway, If I come across any photos I'll post them. I'm going to noodle around the neighborhood now.

Devil's Head Races 08/28/06
Saturday was fine. Got there just in time to warm up by climbing the ski hill to the start for the Time Trial... with 6 minutes to spare. They started us one at a time in one minute intervals so you had to ride at your own pace. I was in full hammer mode the whole lap. The heart rate monitor was sitting at home but it didn't matter. I was railing. I caught my 3 minute rider first and then my 2 minute rider. I was in such a good mood that I was hooting and yelling like I was on a cattle drive "YEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAW!!!!" I later found out in unnerved my competitors One said "how could I get into a tempo with you yelling like that?" I was loving the single track and the rocks.

I finished 2nd Saturday. One lap in ~28 minutes.


Sunday sucked. We rolled up just in time again. Off we went up the hill at the start. I was doing okay but with it being a three lap race I had to dial the tempo down a bit from the day before. A quarter of a lap into it disaster struck. I hit a rock coming down a sandy drop and my front wheel anchored against the rock... and me and the rest of the bike kept going. My front wheel now looked like a hard shell taco. No need to panic. I'm running disk brakes so I beat the wheel against an innocent tree until it was "straight" enough to pass through the forks. This took ~6 minutes. Two of the other single speeders caught me at that point and I hooked on to them and tried to find my tempo. I passed them both half a lap later but then I had a brain fart. I tried drinking with one hand and steering with the other... as I crossed a rock garden obstacle. Next thing I know I'm buried in wild rose bush. Josh, the other SS, says "what the hell?" I reply "don't drink and drive" as I hold up my bottle. Later he said it was the funniest thing he's seen in years because it looked like I was in control the whole time and that I just "decided" to go off trail. I caught up and rode with him for a while until I did another flier over the bars. A couple more minutes lost to wheel "truing" and I was back at it. I was determined to finish and get at least 150 series points rather than 6 for a DNF. My wife was keeping track of my position as I would pass her twice per lap, one uphill and once downhill. I was running 10th. On the second lap I gave my chain tool to a multispeeder with a busted chain so he could finish and on the last half a lap I gave another single speeder my spare tube and pump so he could finish. I figured my luck couldn't get any worse. WRONG! They'd been pouring gasoline down bee hives on the course so lots of folks were getting stung. I'm not allergic so it only pissed me off when one targeted my left Achilles tendon through my sock.

In the end I finished 9th. Three laps in 2:03:43, 32 minutes behind Jay (1st Saturday, 2nd Sunday) who beat me by only 78 seconds the day before.

But hey, not bad for a guy that was laying in the UW ICU four years ago to the day.