Mitch the MashOr

A weekend at Council Bluff Lake

2011-04-05T09:59:00.026-05:00

The weather looked perfect for a two night camping trip in the Ozarks. The campground at Council Bluff Lake had just opened and the camping was free coinciding with the ceremony and completion of the John Roth Memorial site along with the official renaming of Middle Fork to Middle Fork-John Roth Memorial Trail. With little time to get ready, we took the guy approach, got everything together and stopped at the store to pick up what we didn't have on the way out. This of course leads to impulse buys like chips, little chocolate donuts........Non the less, we were on the road.

We arrived a little after dark, found a spot near the Ozark Trail Association group site and were set up in a flash. Adam settled on a log cabin style and built our fire using only things found around the site and started it with his fire starter that he got for Christmas. He had never used it before so this was prime time to get comfortable with it. It's one of the two piece ones with some kind of flint rod and a striker. With only the help of some dryer lint that we carry in our backpacks, he got it going. They had just done a prescribed burn of the entire campground so small tender was a little hard to find. We sat around the fire in the cool air and soon it was smores time. I'm not a fan but it's fun watching Adam and Eric make and eat theirs. Soon it was off to bed and with the temps dropping, there was little fuss from them.

Up early the next morning we stoked the fire and made some oatmeal to warm us up. Chased the oatmeal with the donuts. Had to have energy on tap for the long day ahead. It warmed up fast so we changed into our shorts and got our daypacks ready as the OTA shuttle would be ready to take us over to the DD/32 parking lot for the ceremony soon. John's wife had chartered a school bus to bring around 40 people down including his kids along with his mom and dad. I'd guess there were 100 to 120 people there from OTA members to the US Forestry to you name it. It was a perfect day for it.

When the ceremony was over we figured there would be a flood of people trying to get back to CB for the lunch that was to be served so I asked the kids if they wanted to hike back instead. They were up for it so we took off to hike north on the MF/JRM.

They couldn't comprehend the force it must have taken to move this bridge free of its concrete base down the creek.

We made it to the intersection of South Trace and MF/JRM.

Adam and Eric rounding a switchback on South Trace.

There is a cool spring that runs pretty much year round and even in winter, has green vegetation.

Soon we were at the connector that would take us over to the Council Bluff loop. Note the horses prohibited sign, we saw plenty of post holes on this section.

We hiked up to the campground to catch some lunch and take a short break. We had been looking for cool rocks and Adam wanted to go look some more so we headed back down to continue our hike. On the first leg of our hike you'll notice Eric is walking with a trekking pole, Adam's trekking pole to be exact. What a good big brother! We were also on the hunt for a fallen stick that Adam could carve up to have a walking stick for himself and we found one. He removed the bark and any rough spots with his pocket knife and then I carved his name in it. The small "knick" is for its first camping trip, more to follow.

Stopped on the foot bridge at the intersection of the lake loop and the connector.

A few pics from the lake loop, I don't think they had any idea how big the lake actually was!

Soon we were at the climb back up to the campground after some rock hunting in the nearby creek. The hike, about 6 miles, was no problem for Adam but it was Eric's first big hike and he did great!

We had dinner as soon as we got back. Adam started the fire from scratch again, this time he was a pro and it only took a few tries. We stopped by the memorial on our way out Sunday morning so we could actually read and enjoy it.

I took close ups of the plaque so I can send them to you if you want to read it, but I'd suggest you head down and read it for yourself!

Nate, Brian. Brian, Nate.

2011-03-29T08:51:00.024-05:00

Those were some of the first words I spoke when we arrived at Bass' River Resort on that Sunday morning. Brian and Nate had never officially met. I knew them both well and had no worries about the trip. Nate and I originally started talking about something like this months ago. Planning it for Saturday the last weekend in March was a shot in the dark with the weather, but I thought rain would be our major obstacle, not inches of snow and freezing temps. The forecast Saturday forced us to put the trip off for a day. It was that or potentially not go at all and if there was any possibility at all, that wasn't going to happen. I talked to Nate Saturday night and told him that Brian and I were going, he was on the fence but just needed a little nudge.

We arrived at Bass' at a little after 8 a.m. to much less snow than Columbia and St. Louis had when we left. After the introductions and few chest bumps, we were ready to head out. I was nervous, fo sho. I had a plan that in good conditions would be tough. Ride the gravel over to the Berryman and head straight south on the Ozark Trail, traveling on much of the Courtois(pronounced: Code away)section, at Hazel Creek Campground the North Trace section begins, at hwy DD the South Trace section begins which we would ride 2 or 3 miles of and then take a right turn on the Middlefork section ending our ride about 7 miles later at a campsite in Wolf Pen Hollow. We did all of that with one exception. We turned onto hwy DD and skipped about 4 miles of trail. The iffy conditions up around Hazel Creek had slowed us down and sapped us of precious energy. So to keep from setting up our camp in the dark, we made this decision. I will say this, when we left, I had no intentions of making it to our destination. I just didn't think it would be possible. We all had a few extra pounds of gear due to the temps, possible trail conditions and the forecast for snow that night.

It was clear that we had all given this trip the respect that we felt it deserved. Everyone had their gear together and very few adjustments had to be made on the ride. I've been on regular rides where there is that one person that constantly has issues and slows the whole group down. We were a tight group all day. We all made some clothing adjustments when we got to the Berryman trail entrance and we were off.

As you can see, there was some snow on the trail, but not too much. Most of the falling snow had melted from the exposed ground of the trail and hung around only on the leaves leaving us with great trail to explore. We were all very surprised at how well we could ride with all the gear on our bikes and our stuffed packs. My bike is heavy to begin with at close to 30 pounds. With my gear, extra tubes, full water bottle and a front fender it was right at 45 pounds. Would have been an issue if everyone else had normal rides, but we were all in it. Nate is the light weight of the bunch and probably did the best job of packing for the trip so he would toy with us on the climbs. He won't say he was, but he was riding at our pace and could have ridden away from us at any time. All was going great. We came to one of the new reroutes on the Berryman and decided to take it. I don't think it's officially open but it was the right choice. When finished, it will eliminate several muddy sections, long sections where the trail has become the watershed and is simply a creek bed now along with the section where I crashed last year. Almost 100% benchcut single track awaits you. Lots of armouring specifically near one of the creek crossings, it's very cool. It appears to me that this reroute will add some length to the Berryman loop as it heads way up into one of the valleys that the old trail just passed by. It was in this section that I noticed some tire sealant spraying from my front tire. A knife like rock had gone right in the tread area of my tire so I pulled out my little tire plug kit, dislodged the rock and plugged it. The sealant stopped the airflow but it was a big cut so I added a second plug and away we went never to have an issue with that tire again.
Soon we were finished with the trail that is shared with Berryman and on our way south on the OT. I rode ahead knowing a prime photo op was nearing.

We crossed hwy 8 and came to the Lost Creek crossing that we knew would be deep and would probably require this:

Shoes back on, no whining and we were off again. That next climb is a bitch! I stopped to take a shot a little while later of Nate just ahead of me on a section of trail where I swear they just got tired and gave up on normal trail building rules as it is crazy steep on both sides. Really I just needed a break.

Only notable thing from here until lunch was that some pricks had ridden the trail on motorcycles and did some damage to the trail which was making it tough for us. The ruts they cut were holding the melted snow and making it a slow go for us. If it's dry, motorcycles can do wonders for a trail but they had no business being on that trail when it was that wet. Soon we stopped at Hazel Creek Campground for lunch taking advantage of the good water source and picnic tables. Not sure why I didn't snap a pic, guess I was a little out of it?

After about an hour lunch we headed south on the North Trace section of the OT hoping the motorcycles hadn't, they had. We pressed on to Hazel Creek which in the past has been too deep to ride across but to our relief, was ridable. Within minutes we rode by the tree that the swarm of hornets came out of last year and attacked me, no hornets on this 38 degree day. After a while we came to Martin Road. We stopped for a breather and then I led us out from there, no more motorcycle tracks! Wohoo! Trail was firm, fast and dry, amazing! I soon started to have some bizzaro drivetrain noises and decided to do an on trail diagnosis. Separated chain link. Whipped out the tool chest and had her up and running before Nate could finish his Tiger Milk bar.

We were all getting tired so I presented Nate and Brian with an idea. I really wanted to make it to the campsite on Middlefork but knew we were running out of time and our legs were feeling a little like, well, we had ridden 7 hours on really heavy mtbs. So when we finally climbed up to the end of North Trace at hwy DD we turned right and bypassed a few miles of trail to get to the DD/hwy 32 parking lot quicker and easier. Saved us probably 20-25 minutes but we were going to make it and still had some tough riding to do this late in the game. Soon we were there! My goal was 6 p.m. and we arrived at about 6:15, not bad. It felt good, great! Gathered firewood, set up tents and started cooking some food. The waterfall was running strong and the firewood was dry enough to get a fire going with only a little tender that I brought along. Only after my belly was full did I think about taking any pics.

Then I asked Nate how he felt.

At about 10 it was cold and we decided to call it a night. It was easy to sleep, for me anyway. Had to get up once in the night to find a fresh snow on the ground and still falling, EPIC! Planned to get up early, slept until almost 8!

It was tough to get going that morning. Knowing that we had to pack all our stuff back up and then ride back was a little daunting. Collectively, we had already come to the realization that riding the trail all the way back wasn't going to happen. This was one of the reasons I picked this route for our trip, there were many, many ways to short cut. We were finally ready, the warm sun had melted away all the snowfall from the night and we had a clear trail ahead of us.

10:15 and we were rolling, about 2 hours later than we talked about leaving. After only minutes of riding, I could tell the slow leak I had been nursing in my rear tire was going to need some attention or I would slow us down all day. I stopped and put a tube in and Nate added some air to his tire at the same time. I led out down the next hill and almost immediately his tire blew off the rim! I didn't hear it and climbed the next hill before I figured out they weren't behind me. I started back down when I saw them heading toward me on the other side of the valley so I stopped above a double switchback section for a pic.

We pushed on and finally got back to hwy 32 and went by the memorial site for John Roth, a very special individual whose efforts made this trip possible with his love and dedication to this trail system we call the Ozark Trail. He will be missed. The dedication and completion of the memorial is supposed to take place this weekend, but it is still impressive.

From there we headed north on DD, end to end all the way to hwy C. We all had enough food but I remembered that there is a small bait store at that intersection and started wondering if it would be open and it was. Without haste, we started grabbing stuff off the shelves. Nate and I had the nice fellow make us a salami and cheese sandwich then split a big bag of chips. It was as good for the mind and it was for the body. Sun was shining but the increased speeds on the roads made it feel cold so we all layered up. We left there traveling east on hwy C then turning left on hwy P. I knew that the gravel road used in the Berryman Epic eventually came all the way over to P but I wasn't sure exactly how far we had to go. I started to wonder if I had missed our turn but didn't give in to the doubt and Nate nor Brian questioned me. We rounded a corner and there it was! Only one short wrong turn and we were soon in recognizable territory, what a relief! We actually saw some course markers for the Berryman Epic still posted on trees. The climb back up to Berryman campground destroyed me and I think it did Brian also. Nate floated away in the distance but I think he had motivation in the form of a latrine!

A short break and we started out on our last stint of gravel that would take us all the way back to Bass'. There are a few monster climbs between Berryman and Brazil Creek that I didn't remember as it's been a long time since I've ridden that gravel. I sat up for one last pic knowing the end was near.

51 miles on the way out, mostly single track. Over 9 hours start to finish.
47.5 miles on the way back, mostly gravel and road. 5 1/2 hours start to finish.

Thanks to Brian and Nate for helping make this happen. I know this trip made me a stronger person.

Death by Hills gives new life

2011-02-28T21:59:00.004-06:00

to this under-trained, overweight, lifeless lump. I had a blast as did the crap load of people that finished this year. Literally on the verge of cramping from Woodland Meadows to the end on each repetitive lashing, I somehow survived feeling okay. Awesome to see some new faces looking to conquer this thing. From ultra light, TDF lookin doodz to crazy strong nut cases like Nico on single speeds. From old veterans to Wendy, first time on road tires and in West County, nice freakin job!

Amazing the following this non-team team has. Only one casualty that I know of, I heard he just lost his........Momentum! No mechanicals that I saw, just a bunch of tough people making this point their Mecca.

Special thanks to C.F.R. who was riding like a man on fire at the very end.

It's about time(updated)

2011-02-18T13:40:00.019-06:00

Went on an awesome road ride yesterday with C.F.R and Steve Friedman. I showed them something that a lot of cyclists know about, but moar don't than do. I showed them a monument out on Old Manchester that was dedicated in 1921 to Victor Smith. Anyone who thinks they are tough just needs to stop and think of what it must have been like to ride a bike back then. My guess would be wooden rims, single speed of course. Only choice was sew ups or maybe even solid tires. I often wonder what those riders would think if they could see us now. Could they ever have imagined what the sport has turned into? What would they think about society? What would they think about the relationship between cyclists and motorists?

Anyway, it bothered me how bad the growth had gotten out there. Hell, I knew where the stone was and had a hard time finding it. Since I didn't want to ride today I got the wild idea to go out and do something about it. I threw the chainsaw, loppers, handsaw, rake and a bunch of other stuff in the truck and took off. I stopped by the other known monument located at Pond and Old Manchester to take a picture. This one is from 1923, dedicated to William M. Butler.

I'd think the building, trees and all have changed. This photo is available for purchase from the Missouri History Museum. Went out and tried to stage a picture to see if the building or trees are still there. Today's condition is kind of a shame.

I had the forethought to take a picture of the condition it was in when I arrived.

Here is a photo I just found that I took last year in the spring.

After about 2 hours of cutting, lopping and dragging, I was satisfied.

If you look at Old Manchester as traveling east/west from 100 and Fox Creek Road, then it is just past Rem lane on the south or left side, about a mile west of 100.

Who would you dedicate a monument to? I can think of a few awesome people that have made a serious difference to our sport. Stop by and look at it. Hopefully this clearing will last a few years but I will not let it get this bad again, it deserves moar respect than that.

Too Much Time on My Hands

2011-01-19T19:30:00.020-06:00

Well, not really. I just found this interesting and decided to take the time to see if anyone else felt the same. This is a dozen or so of my rides that I have recorded over time over-layed on Google Earth creating a picture of MOST of what I've ridden down there. When I say most I mean most because while I have ridden it several times, I have not recorded the South Trace from the Middlefork connection down to its end. That end not being the end of the Ozark Trail, but the end of mountain bike use, hence the creation of Middlefork. Middlefork allows all users to continue on with the flowy goodness of Mark Twain National Forest single track.

This map begins at the north only a handful of miles from the actual northern most point of the OT. Unfortunately, bikes are not allowed beyond this point on my map. In fact, I think we went just past the official Narrows trail head where you can access the Courtois section and begin riding south. It was a jeep trail but we did see the Huzzah signs which, I believe is where bike use ends. We rode in from Bass' River Resort and turned around to ride back.

From there to the southern end of my map is about 91 miles of single track, one way. Also in the top part of the map are the gravel roads used in the Berryman Trail Epic which can be used to bypass any or all of the single track between Bass' and Berryman. This section also contains the newest trail in the OT system.

After what I would call the first two "loops" when starting from the top, you make it to the Berryman. Only the west side of Berryman shares the dirt with the OT, but I thought the entire loop should be included. At this resolution, Berryman looks like one small loop and one very large loop when in fact it is one ginormous loop, 24ish miles to be exact.

Just below is another good sized loop that shows the OT on the left and a gravel return on the right. Under that, are two very small and one slightly larger loop which are all part of that gravel return. The OT only crosses the gravel two times here, but again at this resolution it looks like more.

From there it's all single track for a while, finishing the Courtois(Code-away) section at Hazel Creek camp ground and moving on to the Trace which is divided into a north and south section. North Trace ends at hwy DD where you have one mile until you reach the 1/4 mile long Tellock Connector(GORC had much to do with this re-route) which takes you over to Council Bluff Lake. A 12.5 mile loop around the lake with a 1/2 mile option up to the campground is in there. From the junction of South Trace and the Tellock, you keep going for a mile or so to the Middlefork fork. To its end, Middlefork is 24 miles. There is a large loop and a small loop in this section. These are the gravel returns that some like to use, I prefer the trail.

Just below the small loop is the start of the Karkaghne(Car-kag-knee), a 29 mile section and my newest addition to my map collection. The very bottom of my map is still about 14 miles short of completing this section so I have work to do.

While you can order up copies of any and all of these maps, these are my experiences. I've ridden all of this, in many cases LOTS of times. In some, only once. 117 miles of single track and 35 or so of gravel, it's a ton of fun. All of this within two hours of St. Louis and a ton of camp grounds available as well as camping on the trail itself. Beyond the south end of the Karkaghne is much more trail to be "mapped".

When I say they are my experiences, I really mean they are experiences I've had with friends. Some in races, others in non-races but all just riding to have fun. These are some of the Jerks that helped me create this collection.

Todd Hecht
Greg Ott
Jeremy Bock
Matt Grothoff
Dwayne Goscinski
Chris Ploch
John Pieffer
Nate Means +1?
Mike Best
Doug Davis

Bizarro Post

2011-01-14T12:51:00.010-06:00

Not really sure why I feel like doing this. That is, exposing my fat, white underbelly on the web, so go easy.

I was just sitting at my computer and since no one else is home, I opened up my media player and started playing one of my newer finds over my inadequate space saving monitor mounted speakers. I will begin by saying that I don't claim to have "been there with this band since the beginning", I just discovered them last summer after the release of their 6th-ish album. I found them while watching stuff on You Tube, this linked me to that and holy crap, I found Avenged Sevenfold. This is a good tune but the video looks like somebody had too much time to play on their computer, kinda goofy-Buried Alive.

Keep in mind, I like these guys because they pour out an energy that I fail to feel in 99% of the music released in the last few years. I'm not that into the whole skeleton and bat wing thing, but these guys have a sound that is real. I watched one of the music award shows a while back and all I could do was hang my head and turn off the TV. The music out there right now sucks, at least what they say is popular. Some of you will say that these guys are pussys and they've sold out. Some will listen to it for 10 seconds, cover your ears, begin to cry and then repent. It's not like I'm listening to Nickelback or anything. I used to like Nickelback, they had an awesome, powerful sound(for about 10 minutes). It's what you do with that sound that defines you in the music industry. Nickelback went the wrong way in my opinion. That's what A7x did right. If you listen to some of their old stuff you will definitely hear a different band than the last 3 or 4 albums. They were loud, fast, screamed a lot and didn't care what you thought. BUT, hidden in their stuff, even back in the beginning is a twisty, melodic and rhythmic vein that other bands search for and never find. I believe they found it and went with it, hence their newer, albeit more profitable direction.

I rushed out and bought Waking the Fallen, City of Evil, Avenged Sevenfold and Nightmare. Cost me about $40 after tax. Best $40 I've spent in a while. I'm not big on downloading music, I'd rather have the CD in my hand. I feel musicians deserve my $10 for their effort.

I guess one of the reasons I thought I'd write this is that unless you know me, you probably don't know me. My taste in music would surprise most from the impression I tend to give, or lack there of. I'm a no tattoo havin, non-pot smokin, light drinker with a wife and two kids, a den leader in scouts, mountain bike racer that eats too much and I happen to like a HUGE range of music. A range so huge that I'm not going to talk about it for fear of persecution. (Not that there is anything wrong with any of the above, I just have moar fun building pinewood derby cars than getting high.)

A7x history lesson from me and I don't know a ton. They are from, surprise, southern California. A 5 member band, they started really young in 1999 but when they broke into the scene, they plowed it over. In 2009 their drummer, Jimmy"The Rev" Sullivan died of a combination of heart disease aggravated by years of drug and alcohol use. They had already started work on their newest album, Nightmare but hadn't recorded any of it. A well know metal drummer, Mike Portnoy that was the creator of the band Dream Theatre stepped up and played the rest of their tour so they wouldn't have to cancel a ton of shows. A7x asked Mike to record the new album with them and he did. He liked the direction A7x was going so much that he decided to put DT on hold, eventually quitting DT and now tours with them. He's not officially a member but he fills in pretty well. Personally I think Mike might be technically a better drummer than The Rev, but I like the energy The Rev bled into his songs, you could feel it.

Ultimately, I started my collection of A7x to listen to while racing but they have become one of my top choices. I'm a big Tool fan also, but if you check out the movie Blood into Wine, it gives you the feeling that Maynard may be done making new music. Worth the watch by the way. He now owns a vineyard in Arizona called Cadudeus Cellars. To the critics, his best wine goes by the name Judith but it's hard to get. Listen to the song that plays on the Judith page, be patient and wait for part two to start. It is one of my favorite Tool songs and the lyrics are down on the page, read them. This guy's no dummy.

The elusive Karkaghne

2011-01-08T23:50:00.013-06:00

I looked long and hard unable to find any current, reliable information on this section of the Ozark Trail. It starts at the south end of Middlefork at hwy J through some of the most rugged ozark hills we have. I doesn't sound that crazy hard at 29 miles one way but after taking the plunge today, I can offer up a current point of view. I'll start by saying that this is not the trail for OT virgins. Start with North Trace or Middlefork. NOW, if you dig the challenge of staying upright or dying, climbing until your head explodes, seeing one of the moar amazing bluff trails in the mid-west and rock gardens that are tough but rideable, then head a little further south.

The drive takes about 20 minutes longer than going to 32/DD for MF. The ride starts with a creek crossing that we got across with dry feet followed by a few hundred feet of creek debris(big rocks). Soon the trail starts up a 3/4 mile climb on your first section of the mostly bench-cut Karkaghne, you must call it by name or it will get you. Seriously, 85% of this trail is bench-cut into steep hillsides. The north part from J down to Sutton Bluff campground was built about 10 years ago and much of it was constructed using machinery. This cuts a wider base that seems to hold up well against the forces of nature and allows you to rip when pointed down, moar resembling MF. The south end was built back in the 80's and tends to be much narrower although some of the north end is fairly narrow also.

Middlefork climbs about 125' per mile, Council Bluff about 80' per mile, Berryman about 95' per mile. The Karkaghne climbs almost 150' per mile. This doesn't sound like much, but try it and you will see. You may do as you wish but IMO this is not a single speed friendly trail, go ahead and call me a puss. I almost twisted my carbon bar into a knot trying to grab another gear that I didn't have. Long ass climbs that are above 15% for a lot of the time but with gears they are rideable. You don't fly through this trail like MF as hard as you can push a gear. There are many rock gardens that will challenge anyone to go dab free. The carnage from the Derecho,( ENGLISH: NOUN: PRONUNCIATION: deh-RAY-cho) in 2009 is a sight to see just as much as it will disturb you and at first, make you sick to your stomach. There are LONG sections where 95% of the trees are gone. I saw an estimate saying over 2000 trees had fallen crossing the trail surface on the Karkaghne alone, when we finished there were only three that require a dismount. Not that we cleared much in comparison but using a handsaw, we removed 20 or so that would have brought you to a stop. Lots of holes left behind from the root balls, Syllamo style, but only 3 or 4 that aren't rideable and apparently they are working to repair all of them as you read.

After you descend 1/2 mile into Sutton Bluff camp ground on the pavement and cross the Black River the trail makes an immediate left only feet after the bridge. This is when your jaw and face will start to get sore. A couple of quick dismounts on some steps up and then back down will lead you to the base of a massive climb with 7 switchbacks. We could not ride the first two but made the rest, with a "rest" in the middle, or two. After the switchbacks you head out onto the bluff. I know many of you have ridden the bluff trail at the ranch, this thing is like that on steroids and crack at the same time! Merely walking this section will make anyone pucker let alone riding it and it is rideable. Make sure you stop and enjoy the view, it's amazing! Huge cliff walls above you and an almost sheer 200' drop below you. Your jaw will hurt because of all the dropping and you won't be able to stop smiling hence the sore face. Moar climbing and descending on very narrow bench-cut from here to the hollow that drops you down to Bee Fork which is like a small river and was our turn around point. 14 1/2 miles to this point which took us 3:15. While we did stop a bunch to move/cut stuff, this was the toughest 3 hours I've had in a while. We could not see a way to cross Bee Fork without getting soaked but we think there is a spot up stream that may be passable.

Now shame-the-hell-on-me for not taking a camera but I'll just have to go back and get proof. It snowed on us off and on for the first 3 hours and was between 19 and 26 degrees which may have contributed to our difficult labors. The bummer and harsh reality of the Karkaghne is that it is likely to be a November through April only trail as it will be a jungle come summer.

Here are some nice maps broken down into three sections.

North
Middle
South

Here is my Garmin link in my continuing effort to "map the world" as Tom Albert puts it.

*EDIT* The only other suggestion I would have is look at the maps or have one with you before you head out. One common report I kept getting when looking for information was that it was a difficult section to follow and you could easily get lost. We had no trouble at all but I had a good picture of where we should be in my head and we watched for OT signs. The only place we did not see any was just before Sutton Bluff when you pop out on the road you descend on the pavement all the way to the river. You can easily miss the trail after you cross the bridge so watch for it. It's well marked when climbing back up on your return trip. The Sutton Bluff trail head has a small loop that connects it to the bypassing trail. If you go the wrong way it will just take you back to where you need to be, just drop down the steps with the handrail.

There is also an unmarked connector at the one mile mark that comes up from the Brushy Creek trail head so skip that. My guess is that would be the place to park if the first creek was too deep to cross. Soon after you will see a single track that crosses your path with green arrows marking it. Not sure what this trail is but just follow the OT signs and you'll be fine.

One of my hardest days on a bike

2010-10-25T20:52:00.010-05:00

Berryman Epic 2010, great weather, great trail conditions, great bike and a little luck. Up to that Friday a week before when I crashed, I was planning on maxing myself to at least better my time from last year and hopefully beat my time from two years ago. Within 30 seconds of crashing I knew my goals had to change. 10 minutes later I was hoping to shake it off, ride some more that day and I was sure it was just temporary pain. I swung a leg over the bike on a flat section of trail and after several tries to simply get moving I was successful. I made it 10 feet and almost passed out. From there I began walking back to the car. It took me about 30 minutes to walk a little less than a mile using my bike as a crutch. Thoughts of possible internal injuries and my placement miles from anywhere weren't doing me any good. I knew that where I landed on the rock, which originally was the source of pain, wasn't where the debilitating pain was coming from now. Scary shit!

We ran into Ryan, one of the promoters for the Epic at the parking lot and right then and there I told him I was probably out for the race. I couldn't get my shoes off and definitely couldn't put any back on so I drove home in my cycling socks. I wanted to drive so I could control the speed and the heated seats helped a ton. When I got home, my shirt had a big spot soaked in blood. Long story short, I was planning on taking my son on a once in a few years' chance camping trip that night to S bar F scout ranch down south of Farmington for two nights. We were going to sleep in the "treehouses" which are elevated bunkhouses built on a steep hillside that falls off into a beautiful lake very similar in size to Council Bluff Lake.

Once I got the okay that I wasn't going to drop dead if I went we packed up and headed out. I'm glad I went, but it was tough. I took my tentcot which is just that, a tent on top of a cot, and I was glad. I would have been sleeping on a pad on top of plywood. 10 days later and I still have not slept in my own bed. It sucked but I got through the nights. The older kids got to do a high ropes course that looked awesome. We were just visiting and Adam was not allowed to do it, damned insurance. He got to do the low ropes course, do a 5 mile hike and burn lots of stuff.

I figured out in the next day or so that I had at the very least fractured and bruised a couple of ribs. This explained the pain I was having and it brought back memories of my first go around with broken ribs back in 2006. By Wednesday I was feeling a little better or at least coping better. I still had a hard time putting on socks and could barely tie my work boots. I got part of the day off so I headed out to Lost Valley. Since I'm very familiar with this particular ride I figured it would be my best test. I had already decided that if I was going to ride in the Epic it was going to be on my full squish bike. All in all the ride went okay and although it hurt, I decided then, I was going to try and at least finish my 3rd Epic. If I backed off it hurt less so my plan was to set a goal and stick to it to avoid quiting. I sat down and looked at last years results. What pace did I think I could manage? I looked at some of the times and who set them. Soon I settled in on 7 hours. I looked at the splits.

It's one thing to be able to go fast. You push harder, but you are out there for a lot less time. I admire the people that can ride at their own pace and stick to it. It would be so easy to quit knowing that other people were showering and you haven't even made the last check point, but look at all the people that just flat out love to ride their bikes and keep going. This thinking started to scare me and I started to doubt my perseverance in my current state of mind so I decided to change my goal to 6 hours. I wrote down the splits for Ray Porter who finished 42nd last year. I rounded up his split times and ended up with a true goal of 6:05, printed several copies and taped one to my top tube just below the "Pedal Damn it" decal on my Niner. I just figured that if I was out there any longer, I would for sure quit. After all, I had a good excuse, right? BS!

The bruising started to resorb but I felt about the same. The forecast looked gloom but I was in it for a good time. It's different when there are over two hundred other people, friends, out there to do the same thing, we all have our issues. Didn't rain Friday night, sidewalks were dry Saturday morning and it was warm, too warm for me. Sleeveless jersey was it for me. Not even a little cool. Two years ago it was well below freezing, I won't even comment on last year. Jim Vandeven crashed and broke a bone in his leg two weeks earlier at Burnin' so he showed up to assist us, again my problems were BS! He took our drop bags and we headed for the start line. I was planning on starting at the very back. I kept seeing people I wanted to talk to so I moved around a little. Bob Arnold had provided Scott with a mini stick of dynamite to start the race and off we went. I felt good and didn't start too hard but seemed to move up, more than I planned. Once up the worst part of the big climb I pushed on the flats and kept passing. On the last push before the trail I got into a good position. No one right in front of me so I had some control and could roll the flats and downs how I wanted and back off on any ups. I soon gapped the riders behind me and caught Zach Brace. I did not want by him, there I stayed. Later he wanted some alone time so he let me by and cranked up the toons. I rode up to Larry Koester humming along on his single. I matched his pace up the long but gradual climb before the drop to the first check point, Brazil Creek. My goal was 1:10, I made it there in just over 59 minutes. Cool, but there was a problem.

I was now having some pain in my side, chest and my breaths had been reduced to what seemed half of what they had been. I knew it was time to back off. I started up the long climb after Brazil and really started to feel it. Quick version, I let at least 20 riders go by but that was okay. I was feeling every bump, every effort made me wince. I felt bad for other riders around me as I was very vocal, but on I pushed. I did catch two or three riders before the next check point and blew by Jeff Winkler pushing his bike, I could still ride! It sucks when someone like Jeff who actually had a good chance of making some money has bad luck and ends up destroying his bike and his chances, another reason I won't quit. Even with the stops I had to make, I still made the 2nd check in 2:05-my goal was 2:25. That was a pick-me-up.

A quick stop to pick up a new bottle and I headed south on the Ozark Trail, my favorite section of singletrack. By the time I was half way up the climb after the creek and sand pit, I had picked up 4 more spots. One by one each rider I encountered, I caught and passed. Catherine Walberg was the one rider that I passed and she passed me back, back and forth we went. She dropped me on the last section of single track before we got our 3rd tie and headed for the gravel. I settled in and started my methodical big gear push. Soon Doug Long came and went, he was cramping. I could now see Catherine again. Right before I caught her she made a turn where she shouldn't have and I yelled for her to follow me. I thought she would jump on my wheel but soon she fell off.

Approaching Hwy 8 I could see a group of riders. I recognized Jim Krewet's bright green back pack. I thought I would hang with them up the mile long climb back to Berryman for the 2nd time but I locked up and had to stop for a while. A few minutes later Catherine came floating by me and disappeared over the top. I coaxed my hamstrings into some soft pedaling and slowly made it to the top. I finished my spare bottle that I had in my feed bag and grabbed a fresh one. I was without a doubt dehydrated and it would only get worse. I made it to the 3rd time check in 3:42-my goal was 4:15. That was a great pick-me-up! That and the P-nut gallery cheering me on-Jim Davis, Todd Holtmann and Todd Hecht.

This was it, I couldn't quit now, the last section-the section where I had crashed last week. I have to admit, I rode puckered up tight, I rode with caution. Right at about same point, the last point I remember having fun on our ride the day I crashed I came up on a group of three riders, all from the same team. I was too delirious to notice what team or who they were. Turned out to be Brad Huff and his team mates were sticking with him, riding it out. 9 days of professional racing in China ending only two days prior, flying home to end up here and not quit-that's class! He won a stage, placed second in another and had yet another top five.

I pressed on. One more cramping session, merely surviving the climbs and doing everything I could to stay upright I was soon at the end of the Berryman section. I got to watch Catherine ride away from me one more time up the double track leading to the final gravel. 5:00 was my finishing time last year and where I was starting this final leg today, I was certainly going to smash my goal. Passed a few more riders and got passed once but I was done. 5:21 and change for 33rd place overall. Didn't make the shirt this year but managed to get my name on there for the first two years with 14 other solid doodz and I'll be back!

In some ways I could think that it just wasn't my day but I think it was my day, I just had to see through the pain.

Got broken ribs?

2010-10-19T16:11:00.003-05:00

Needless to say, I won't be racing hard for the Epic this weekend. Still hoping to ride. Kind of nice not having any pressure on myself.

Wausau 24(formerly 24 hours of Nine Mile)

2010-08-09T21:34:00.008-05:00

Wanted to finally do a 24 more than one time to see how I would do year to year. Granny Gear bought the rights to this race last year when Dwayne and I did it. Well, they decided that one of the oldest running 24 hour events didn't net them enough cash so they canceled it this spring for 2010. Man, was I and hundreds of others a little pissed. This is where the bad asses step in. Since GG now owned the rights but wasn't willing to use them, the more grassroots, less cash infused promoters had to come up with a new title. The Wausau 24 it became. Hundreds of dollars less to race for this soloist, I was happy with the change. Amazing that they put this together in such a short time, and they did it well. I would say in EVERY way, they out did GG. The only kink in my experiment was that they completely changed the course. So I couldn't compare very easily to last year, we still had a blast.

When I say we, I'm not referring to me and Dwayne. He had to man his responsibilities and stay home. Todd Hecht showed interest early on enough to save some dough on early registration, planning on racing the 12 hour. At the last minute Jeremy Bock and Greg Ott decided to go. Turned out great and we all had an awesome time. Greg was doing the 12 and Jeremy figured he could ride when ever he wanted if he did the 24, so it was.

We headed out Thursday afternoon and drove to Madison and spent the night. After a short drive Friday morning we arrived just before the noon time gate opening. We were 3rd in line for the solo camping and got our pick of the sites. We set up(in 75 degree temps) and hit the trail for a trip around the 11.5 mile race loop. I rode the Jet 9 squishy bike.....PERFECT! Just to confirm, we did a partial lap and I took the hardtail out this time. Nice ride, but I knew the Jet was getting the call up. Pretty sweet having the Air 9 for a back up bike. I would describe Nine Mile as being as close to riding in Colorado as I've been but without the altitude, as in, you can breathe. Lots of pines, so lots of roots. When it's rocky, it's rocky. Not too much in the way of sharp rocks though. Generally a sandy, but firm trail surface so no mud. One spot where the road had some water seeping across but not bad. We got a little rain Friday night and other than a few sprinkles during the race the weather was perfect. Got down to 60ish at night and 75 during the day. Very foggy in the wee hours of the morning.

Race started with a(back by popular demand) Lemans start. I didn't demand to run 300 yards to my perfectly functioning bike, in shoes that suck to run in. So I walked......so I waited for a long time when the first single track section came. Not worried at all, Jeremy and I soft pedaled the first lap in about 1:10. Our second lap with less traffic was 1:00. We did the first 5 laps together until he had some gut issues and had to stop. I caught Greg on lap 7 and saw him on lap 8, but never passed him. I was taking 10-15 minute pits by now. I finished lap 9 and stopped to mount up the lights. I decided now would be a good time to take a break and clean up. I washed off the legs, put on new shorts and made some food. Greg hung out for a while knowing that he only wanted to do one more lap and the rules stated that a racer HAD to be on the course when the race clock ran out, meaning, he didn't want to go out too early and risk having to go out again or get a DNF. I was getting comfy and started dreaming about the looming free pizza that would be showing up soon, so I decided to take an extended break.

After Lumberjack in mid June, I hadn't had a chance to ride much. My expectations weren't high because of this and thought I would finish better with a nice rest now. The pizza was real good! I think I had 7 pieces and a few beers. Now I felt like sleeping, so I tried. I couldn't. But I did lay down and rest the legs. Set my alarm for 4am and actually got up after one snooze. I felt surprisingly good and set out on my only full night lap. This was a disappointment to myself but I think it was the right way to race on that weekend. I proceeded to turn 3 laps in just over 3 hours, got to see the sun come up and moved way up in the standings. Jeremy was dressed and ready to go when I came through and we killed 3 more laps in just over 3 hours. 6 laps in 6:13, after riding over 100 miles the night before! Absolutely amazing how much faster we were going than all the other soloists still riding. I did manage to protect my placing on the last lap. I was in 11th before we started lap 15. I stayed in 11th, but I would have dropped a couple had I not gone back out. There were tons of people waiting to cross the line after the 24 hour mark when we finished 14. One guy was way ahead of me at 5am and as soon as I started the 15th lap, I overtook him. He could have gone back out and raced for it, but his last 5 laps had an average around 2 hours per lap. Jeremy and I averaged about and hour and 3 minutes.

Greg did 10 laps, Todd did 8 laps, Jeremy 12 laps and I did 15 laps. We all finished and had fun. Todd and Greg had most of our compound torn down by the time we finished our last lap which was AWESOME! I broke down and bought a image from the poor guy that was out there all day taking pictures.

My Garmin reset itself when I plugged it in to charge so my race is divided into two -parts.

Lumberjack 100

2010-06-22T21:44:00.005-05:00

I heard this one was going to sell out fast and some friends from here were going to do it, so I signed up on a whim. It was going to be a stretch as I was the leader for my son's week long summer camp out the week prior and I'm putting on my own race the next week.

My son and I geared up. When you are the "leader", you really gear up. Funny, me, a leader. Anyway, you have to bring all the stuff to keep your pack going all week long. We packed well and I think did just fine. They provide only open bottom canvas tents and cots. After chasing seven 10 year-olds around all week I wasn't sure I'd even be able to finish a 100 mile mountain bike race.

Todd and Karen Holtmann, Dwayne and myself headed out Thursday night for Manistee, MI. We drove until about 2 am and got a hotel room. Got up the next morning, ate at Denny's and finished the drive. We checked into our hotel in Manistee and then raced out to do a little Lumberjack recon. As soon as we got there we could see the masses had already been there. Canopies everywhere. We found a primo spot for ours, claimed it and then set out for a "12-15 mile" pre-ride. See the problem with that was Dwayne and I haven't been able to ride together much this year. We all took one bottle knowing that we wouldn't need any more than that for a "12-15 mile" pre-ride. The four of us started up a gradual but long climb at a nice pace. It wasn't long and another group caught us. I let them by. I looked up and Dwayne was up there right in the middle of their group buzzing one of the leaders' wheel. Dammit! I sped up and quickly Todd and Karen were no longer with us. We figured they would just turn around when they were ready to. Dwayne and I backed off and let the testosterone crew go ahead. I was leading now and we were just chatting. Soon we caught one of the guys they had dropped. Not long after that I rode through their group while they were waiting for their buddy. I kept a reasonable pace but the trail just started flowing and soon I was ripping it! Long story short, I stopped and waited for them on some double track and we all rode together, minus Todd and Karen. They had the sense to turn back by now.

We stopped when the course left the double track back to single track and talked for a while. The other group knew their way around and said they were going back. I wanted to see a little more so I suggested we skip the section of trail in front of us and ride a little more in another area. I didn't give Dwayne much of a chance to say no and took off. It became apparent about 1/2 hour later to me that we were out there and I had a feeling that we had passed the point of no return. Dwayne wasn't sure where we were and of course we didn't bring a map. We pressed on and soon came to the aid station which was at the 17 mile mark on the course. Good thing because I was out of water and filled up. Again, long story short. Us two smarties ended up riding the entire loop minus about 200ft! Like I said, we haven't ridden together much and it's just in our blood.

Race time now. We started the race about 2 miles up the road and then completed 3 thirty-something mile loops. It was cool at 7am and I actually felt much better after the previous day's ride. I started out about mid pack, Dwayne closer to the front. I was planning on racing my own race which is what I did. Back off at the beginning to get good and warmed up and capitalize when the terrain better suited me. Very few riders passed me and I passed tons on the first lap. Parts of the trail flowed and were awesome, others made you say,"what the hell, who would build a trail like this?" They ride snowmobiles in the winter as well as cross country ski, so bikes seem to be the bastard of the user groups. One section just flowed around a falling ridge for a long time, all bench cut and fast. It made one switchback, headed back the other way only to turn the corner and go straight up the hill side, ruts and all. Even with gears I walked one section the first lap, a few more the second and even a few more the third.

So first lap went well. I hit my lap button as I crossed the timing line at 2:40. My goal without the 2 mile lead out was 3 hours, so all was good. Grabbed two new bottles and took off in a lot less traffic. I felt like I was going much faster as I could hold more momentum and clear the steep stuff much better. At about the 10 mile mark I noticed my front tire going low. I really had to pee so I stopped, couldn't find a leak so I hit it with some CO2 and took off. The rest of lap 2 was good. I ate 1/2 of a pb&j, some pretzels and some banana at the aid station. When I pitted to get new bottles I used my floor pump to make sure I had good pressure. It was a little low but I wasn't concerned.

At almost the exact same spot as lap 2 I had to add air on lap 3. Here is where it started to bum me out. I felt I had made the right decision up until now. Adding CO2 only takes a minute. From this point on lap 3 until the end I had to stop 7 more times to inflate my tire. If the course didn't beg for me to push the corners and hit the dips hard to make it up the next climb I would have nursed it back. I remembered the course well enough that I would ride it until I came to a section where I could really fly and add air there to make it as long as I could. Would I have been better off just putting a tube in? Maybe. I'm okay with the decision I made and would do it again. I just got lucky that my seat bag was noisy on the pre-ride so I stuffed 2 more CO2's in it to keep it quiet, used them all. I figure I lost about 10 of the 17 minutes that I wasn't riding to my tire troubles. I'm not 100% sure but I think the tape sealing up my rim is leaking. I just haven't had second one to do any work on my bikes, so it's my own fault.

Doug Davis rode like a champ and finished in 8:00:31. Mike Best was about 8 minutes behind him. Dwayne came in a little over 8:15 and I finished a little over 8:20. My goal was 9 hours. I was tired but never cramped and after an hour or so I felt fine. Todd finished on a bastard bike that he had never ridden in 9:44 and Karen who normally rides a single speed finished on her 1X9 set up in 11:39, her first 100 miler. No one from this area quit. 199 started in my class, 155 finished and I placed 39th. I would recommend this race to anyone wanting to attempt a 100 miler. Just as a comparison, a racer from Chillicothe, MO-Mitch Bernskoetter did it two years ago in 12:17, last year in 11:08 and this year in 9:19, so I think Karen should be stoked. It's cool to see such improvements as people start to figure things out.

I have been finding that when doing really long stuff on tight trails that the Garmin tends to miss some points and usually you wouldn't notice it. But when riding for 8 hours you can really see the lost distance. So I don't really know how long the loop or the race was for that matter.

Here is a video that has Dwayne and Doug Davis in it a lot. It's not everyday that you run across stop signs out in the middle of the woods on single track!

MFXC, a Seagal non-race

2010-06-20T23:18:00.006-05:00

If you weren't there, then shame on you! All you had to do was follow a few basic rules and show up for the fun. I ended up mailing my post card to register for the free non-race from Washington D.C. As much of my life has been this year, I just didn't have time before our vacation to even think about it. Soon we were getting secret updates and yes, there were custom shirts to be had.

The day finally came. The feeling was much like the days before x-mas when you were a kid, couldn't sleep, couldn't think about much else. I traveled down with Karen and Todd Holtmann on a hot and finally rain free day.

The course was a touch of Council Bluff, the Tellock connector, a short stint on the South Trace section of the Ozark Trail, most of the Middlefork section of the OT, about 10 miles of gravel and finished off with a couple miles back up Middlefork to end in a different place than you started. It started off with a short run and then directly into singletrack. I trotted and went in behind about 10 other riders of the 30+ riders there that day. Flats were not unheard of, bonking was prominent and man was it hot!

All was going well, I had worked my way up to 3rd place but the heat was taking it's toll. One rider, a more disciplined rider, took advantage of my poor heat management skillz and passed me on the one short asphalt section. That rider was Jeff Yielding. He proceeded to put almost 6 minutes into me in the last 40 minutes. If the race had been 10 minutes longer, Larry Koester would have had me too. I was done. I had a cold PBR and relaxed for a few before riding back to get the car. I still felt really bad for quite a while, that is until I had two moar PBRs. Matt James tore it up for the overall win. Dan Fuhrmann claimed second on a single speed.

Hats off to Team Seagal. Other than a bunch of fun for us they gained nothing from putting on this event. Jim Davis, Mason Storm and many others did lots of work to the trails. THANK YOU!

Syllamo got its Revenge, again.

2010-05-10T22:00:00.009-05:00

What is it with this weekend and the weather? Greg, Jeremy and I headed down Friday morning exactly as we had last year only this year we didn't drive through the tornado, it waited until we got down there and set up camp to show its face. We had to take shelter in the bathrooms at the campground after the sheriff came through with sirens blazing scaring the crap out of everyone. We of course took to the women's bathroom. I'm not as dumb as I look. Crowd into the stinky men's bathroom or bring a chair and make yourself comfortable in the less stinky women's. After about an hour with only some light rain we headed back to our campsite and hung out for the evening. By the time we went to bed, there was only some rogue lightening and the rain had stopped.

I was feeling much better the week prior this year unlike last year's head and chest cold filled week. We had at least ridden the course once this time so had a basic idea of what to expect. I gave in to the idea that whatever you race on at Syllamo will take a beating and brought my Niner MCR with heavier and less expensive stuff on it. I would say the conditions were much better this year although I still had a healthy dose of chainsuck and was forced to ride 90% of the race in my bigger ring. Because more sunlight reaches the forest floor after all the trees fell last year, it seemed much more overgrown. If that was all I had to deal with I would have been as happy as a lark. I made it a whole 8.35 miles before I had my first flat, a 5/8" slice in the sidewall of my front tire. I took my place in the woods with a half dozen other riders fixing the exact same type of flat. After making a custom tire boot, adding a tube and inflating-all while fighting off hundreds of mosquitoes, I watched Matt Grothoff come sailing to a stop as the last bit of air left his now lifeless tire. I rolled my eyes and started down the trail wondering how the rest of this day would treat me. By now I had been dealing with chainsuck for a while, lost my glasses and was down a tube, but still having fun.

This time I got to mile 13.14 before I had flat #2. I pulled over because the leaking air that was clearly exiting from my rear tire this time, only it was a slower leak. I hoped I could get the sealant to take care of it. Once I stopped and looked at it I noticed the sealant in three different spots, WHAT THE HELL? Seems I pinched my tire, on what I couldn't tell you as I felt no rim strikes. A hole at the rim on both sides of the tire at the bead and one more in the tread. I didn't mess around and went into fix-a-flat mode. At least I didn't have to boot the tire this time. I was leap frogging Mason Storm and a few others so they were now hazing me and wondering what tires not to buy that I was riding. Seriously thought about pulling the plug, wasn't even at the first checkpoint yet and could make an easy return to the campground-after all, I had no more tubes, only a patch kit. It wasn't long and I was at the checkpoint and without thinking, headed back out to ride the green loop. I would return to this same point, hopefully, about a half hour later so I could reevaluate my status then.

I started up the small gravel climb to start the single track and saw Stuart Munson. Haven't talked to him in years. It was awesome to see him back on a mtb and of all the races to come back to! I went by him but would see him again, several times. Green loop went okay and so I filled my bottles and took off on one of the more "out there" sections of the trail, the blue loop. Managing to get just past the 20 mile mark, I succumbed to my 3rd flat. It was almost funny now......not really. Having only patches I found the hole, oops, holes in my limp tube-pinch flat! Patched to two holes and let the glue dry as long as I could stand it, it wasn't long enough. Aired it up and by the time I could get my head straight I could tell it was leaking. Lucky for me Keith Weinkein had stopped to make sure I was okay. When he could see my fix wasn't fixing he offered me a tube and a co2. I felt bad about taking his stuff but the prospect of a long walk wasn't very appealing, so I did. What a life saver, THANKS! For some reason I don't know why, I didn't use the co2 and gave it about 280 pumps with my tiny hand pump. Before that 30 minute dual flat fix I had been yo-yoing back and forth with Ryan from the BTEpic and he really got me thinking about bailing but after someone giving me another chance, I couldn't. Off I went, trying to ride carefully I was still picking off riders one by one.

I got into a nice groove and was having fun, starting to catch people that had been ahead of me the entire race like Greg Ott. Passed right through the check point on the blue loop and fought my way over the climb and back down to Hwy 5 for the second time. A few minutes after crossing the small river, which was much lower than last year, marks the start of the longest climb in the race. Still only able to use my big ring I marched up it, dismounting more than I wanted to. Finally caught Keith and felt bad about passing him, but he was having his own race. Saw Stuart for the last time just before we came out on the double track that leads you to the top. That last push sucked. I tried one more time to use my small ring and didn't make it two pedal strokes before it locked up-big ring it was. I knew that once you peaked and came to a gravel road, it was a much "easier" road ahead. At least now the miles were clicking off relatively fast. After a few grunts I made my way to the check point at the start of the red loop. Filled up my bottles again, lubed my chain and took off.

I had a hard time on the red loop last year because I was cramping so badly. This year I was feeling pretty fresh and it was flowing nicely. It's easy to think of the red loop as the "fast, or easy" section of the race but it's still 1/4 of the total miles so it seems to last forever. Everything was going fine until I rounded a corner and my back tire rolled due to low pressure. I stopped and aired it up once but it wasn't long and I knew it was done. No tubes and no one around I started running, or trotting, or walking. I had passed Pete Goode a few minutes earlier and soon he came rolling around the corner. Not to my surprise he was immediately offering up one of his spare tubes to me and I graciously accepted. He asked if I needed anything else and I said no. I found no thorns or anything in the tire and proceeded to finish the fix with a few pumps from the mini pump. No dice! Pete had given me a super light tube and the valve stem was very short and had no threads. Boy was I glad that I hadn't used that co2 that Keith had given me earlier. Emptied that thing into my tire and figured I would make due with whatever pressure I had.

Not long before finishing the red loop there was a tree across the trail that you could ride under if you saw it and ducked down, I didn't see it. I ran into that thing full speed and have no idea how it didn't knock me out or at least throw me off my bike. I paused for a few seconds, looked at that tree and carried on. Got my last mark at the final check point and took off down the remaining yellow trail. That red loop took me 1:30 last year, this year with some running and a flat I did it in 1:22. Only a few short ups to lead me back to the last mile down to the campground. Went by our campsite and saw Jeremy already clean in street clothes. Still feeling strong I was flying. I passed three more riders attempting to sprint, I felt bad but I was just riding. 6:37, 28 minutes slower than last year in better conditions. My ride time was 1:05 less than my race time and I'm sure I was walking for 10ish minutes, so I feel good about that. 5 flats for me, Dwayne ended up having 4 and finishing 20 minutes ahead of me. 60 people beat me, 127 finished after me. Wohoo! Top third! Jeremy ended up 6th overall and being in the most competitive class, 4th in 30-39, so no prize, no anything. I really think the top ten should be recognized as they do in every other epic style event.

We ate some awesome spaghetti, cleaned up and were home by 10pm. Thanks to Keith and Pete, I would still be out there if not for you guys! One of these years I will get my revenge on Syllamo!

Bone Bender 2010

2010-04-20T20:30:00.007-05:00

I know, I know, it's been a while. A few things, I've been busy and haven't had much to write about. Did a fair amount of riding this winter the least of which was on the mountain bike. The inevitable always seems to happen though, as my riding took a back seat to life right around the beginning of March. I still managed some good rides, but couldn't get back on track. That brings me to this past weekend.

After the conditions last year at the Bone Bender 6 hour I told myself that unless it was very dry, I wouldn't be going. Dry conditions in the weeks prior made Smithville Lake's trails fast and loads of fun. The weather could not have been better so off we went. Made it up early enough on Saturday to get an easy lap in and hang out with friends before making our way back to our hotel.

When we pulled up more than an hour and a half before the start I couldn't believe the amount of people already there. We found a spot to park and got ourselves registered. In no time at all it was time to line our bikes up for the run. This was my biggest mistake of the day. By taking my usual laxed approach in the run and not-so aggressive style of passing, I found myself waiting for 30+ riders to funnel into the first section of single track and for much of the first lap, waiting at nearly every turn. The leaders, my competition, were gone. With nothing in your way, a 55- 58 minute lap was very feasible. My first lap was 1:08. I found myself riding with Brian Busken and soon we caught Christian Stitz which was cool. At that point I wasn't too worried about who was in front of me or how fast we were going, just staying smooth and yakin' it up. 2nd lap with a short pit was just over 59 minutes, big difference!

My goal with this race was to get through my first event of the year without bonking, to get back in the mtb groove and just ride consistently. Excluding my first lap with all the traffic, I managed to complete five more with a time difference of only 3:40 between slowest and fastest laps. VERY happy with that. Never cramped and managed to easily stay in the bigger of my two chainrings, the 39t on my new XX cranks. I also didn't need the largest cog at all, so the speed was high. I will say that despite this course not having any extended climbs, it was still a tough six hours in the saddle. What is different about a trail like this is that to go fast and keep going fast-you must push, push, push all the time. Almost no place to rest, drink, eat or stretch. There was one new section added to this year's race and I thought it was the most technical section of the race, I loved it. A very narrow, off camber rocky trail with little room for mistakes. A few notable drops along with a few "squeezes", this section was littered with rock and a few roots. One drop off in particular drew a crowd for the first four laps and I witnessed a few good enders.

I was never passed and passed many, but the best part was riding with different people I know. There were about 95 six hour soloists and I managed to take 8th out of this bunch. A cool 11th overall, including the 18 six hour teams was very surprising. Broken down into age groups, I placed 4th in the 35-49 category. With so many racers on such a long course, it was tough to tell where anyone was. The one thing I will say is that I didn't get lapped by Jeff Winkler. He came in second overall to Cameron Chambers and Travis Donn, a very strong Duo team. Otherwise he could have claimed the overall victory. Cameron and Travis beat Jeff by 8:10, that's it!

This race kicked off the season for many including me and I hope to keep things rolling now. Oh, thanks to Jim Davis for the 4th lap beer hand up, it hit the spot!
Here is a link to my race on Garmin Connect. Lots of new info on there and I managed to get all the laps recorded in the "splits". Syllamo's Revenge, here we come!

CXMAS 2009

2009-12-20T17:32:00.026-06:00

Awesome! Hard! Icy! Whiskey, bacon and egg nog filled! Need I say more. 132 riders actually signed up and many more simply headed out for the ride. We filled the "Mound" parking lot with cross bikes, mountain bikes and even a few tandems. Did I mention Team Seagal rocks? Recap video here.

The course, which we partially marked Friday, had to be altered dramatically this morning. It ended up being shorter eliminating the bastard run up and down hill after, as well as the long climb up from the Katy. Some of the gravel, service paths and grass had to go also. No complaints, what-so-ever. It was a blast as there were factors that hadn't even crossed my mind until this morning. The ice in Bush was CRAZY! I saw numerous wipe outs. All of the ribbons we hung had been removed and the snow that fell Friday night covered up some of the arrows painted on the ground. A quick overview from Gino before the start was a life saver and the other 3 guys I was with would have been lost without some guidance.

We started out in front as did the other 20ish people that dressed up for the event. Not the 5 minute lead they got last year, but still cool. Jeremy set the pace and soon Jay Strothman pulled up and took over. Even the Hamburg was icy and I almost went down. As we turned right down into lost valley, I was in about 10th place. By the time we got to the top of the next climb I was riding in 2nd behind Jay. Stayed this way until Nico came bouncing by on his fixie. We had a pretty good group again after collecting our first zip tie. Approaching the next big downhill I jumped around Jay and Nico so I could bomb it. Soon we crossed hwy 94 and made our way through the bottom of the quarry and back out to the Hamburg. This is where the top 10ish picked up our "packages" that we had to ride with all the way back to the mound. My box was about 1/4 the size of last years, cool with me! Came through the drop off point and I was in the front of our group. A Hub rider, Devin Clark was with us now-man is he strong. We made our way over to Bush and started to encounter the real ice. We all figured it out pretty quick after we all took a turn sliding sideways, but we all kept it upright.

I knew that the "lake 12" section was still in the course and we were soon there. Punchor and the Professor, Dan above with the devious look on his face, were frying up huge pieces of bacon and had the whiskey shots all ready for us. I ate half the bacon and still had the other half in my mouth 10 minutes later. We were told to run the entire lake levy which nearly made me blow. Devin and Jay looked like Winnie the Poo, bouncing along holding his big red balloon, nearly floating. After we got back on our bikes we were joined by a Big Shark rider, Trent Donat. I quickly felt like these other 3 riders were going to have their way with me and I would get spat out and forgotten about. We took a moderate pace from here as I wasn't sure which way we were going. We headed into the "bike trail", (old roads that are blocked to trucks) and I led the way. We came to a fallen tree and I jumped off, over and was back on, the other three came blazing by me like they didn't even have to get off, freaked me out! We stayed together and soon I noticed all the ribbons I had put up were gone. I led us around what I knew to be the course and was starting to doubt myself until we started to see arrows again. The only way the rest of the riders were going to be able to follow the course was to follow our tracks.

Soon we were at the second manned check point, EGG NOG! I slammed it and rode away. They must have all sipped it because I was by myself for several miles. They caught me just before the turn to lake 36 which had to be eliminated, THANK GOD! That grass would have been sooooo hard today. I led us all the way back to hwy 94 and we had to stop and wait for the light. Jay had fallen off a bit and was able to catch back on. I led us back the way we had originally came, when we turned on the asphalt Devin said,"it's just you and me". We pushed it a little, but nothing too crazy. After rounding the last turn on the Hamberg we could see two guys standing up the trail, we both thought this was the finish. A sprint ensued the likes of most have never seen before. I was a full bike length behind Devin and pulled around for the win......Oh crap, that wasn't the finish! They pointed to the top of the mound, "finish is up there!" I slammed on my brakes to make the turn and rode up to the base of the stairs to the top. If I hadn't just given everything I had.....well Devin still would have beat me to the top. He crushed me! I carried my bike in my right hand until I heard that wrist snap and had to switch to the other hand. That wrist snapped just as I got to the top step. I looked back and it appeared as though I had 2nd wrapped up, more importantly, I was done. Devin beat me last year and did it again this year. The Doctor fled to another state when he sensed the thrashing he would take if he showed up this year.

My Ned Overend costume consisting of a 1991 replica of the jersey Ned wore when he won his UCI World Championship in 1990(yes, I have an 18 year old jersey), a pair of matching Specialized yellow paneled tights(that weren't much better than a pair of pantie hose......er, a, so I've heard), a slightly off era Specialized 2 Calorie Quest subzero helmet, the closest thing I could come up with for goggles, a mustache and signature Overend mole(which he had removed a few years back), was not enough for today's temps. I was very under dressed although the Oakley ski goggles rocked! The elastic cracked when I first put the jersey on, I'm sure there was someone there today that was born after I bought that jersey. Sad thing is, the only thing I didn't have sitting in my house was the stache. I drove all over looking for one Saturday night.

This costume was more of an interpretation of Ned Overend, say what he might have turned into had he not won the World Championship title, then slowly expanded and "let himself go". I'd say I looked more like a porn star has-been trying to hide his comb over under a helmet.

Gino, CFR, Nico, Jim, Hoff, the Professor, Punchor and many others put their hearts and souls into this for the last several weeks. Thanks to them and all the other volunteers.

P.S. After most were done I talked to several people asking questions about placement and had they passed so and so. Questioning someone about where they finished is the worst thing someone can do in bike racing and it was lame to do so. I wanted to say here that anyone I offended, I'm sorry. I felt like I pitched in a little with this race and when the small amount of help I gave was torn down by hunters or rangers it bummed me out. Truely I was more interested in whether or not everyone got to ride all of the course, it just came out way wrong. This "non-race" was about so much more than winning or placing and I lost sight of that for a bit. So I've tried to tell the ones I know, but can't tell the people I don't know and have to hope they look here. I'm sorry for doubting anyone's efforts today, you all rock.

Now this is cool!

2009-11-06T22:14:00.009-06:00

I have a feeling I'm not the only one that had no idea this was being built. Short story-construction started in 2005 and just last month they connected the two arches perfectly in the center. It will be a bypass around Hoover Dam which has multi-hour back ups daily right now. They used liquid nitrogen to cool the concrete! The arches were formed and poured in place. I pretty much get off on this kind of stuff. I'm sure if we had cable I would have seen a documentary on it.

24 hours a day!

Complete photo album here.

A new type of clone

2009-10-31T22:10:00.015-05:00

Hard to believe Halloween is here and gone. We had a whole lot of fun with this so I felt it needed to be shared. The festivities started with the preparation of our pumpkins that we brought home from our annual family fish fry. I have the kids draw on a piece of paper the face that they want on their pumpkin. It's fun to see what they come up with and keeps them busy while I prep the table and round up knives, spoons and bowls for the "guts" as they say. My two warriors claimed they were ready to do all the dirty work themselves this year, we'll wait and see. Once I opened up the tops on their pumpkins they turned in to prissy little things that didn't want to get their hands dirty. After a little help and explaining that there were no "worms down inside there" they were elbow deep and having a ball. Pics are full size so click for detailed "guts".

I was Darth Vader last year and they were both bent on being the same this year. So we were a trio of Vaders with mom rounding out the pose in her homemade costume as Dorothy. We had no time to carve pumpkins this week so it waited until today and she had little time to work on her costume so she finished it Thursday night-we need a break! I think she looked great!

With a cool night and finally no rain, we scoured the hood and came home with a load of plunder. I'm not going to eat one single piece! Adam's bag weighed 2049 gms or 4.5 lbs, Eric's bag weighed 2349 gms or 5.2 lbs

Berryman Epic 2009

2009-10-26T19:16:00.020-05:00

Epic it was. Where last year we had near perfect conditions, true to 2009, this year we had lots of water, lots of mud and a little rougher trails to contend with. I spent Saturday night out at scout camp with the family, what better way to prepare for a race than smores? A short night's sleep and it was time to leave. Coming off of a good result at Burnin', I didn't know what to expect. I pedaled twice in the two weeks between the events with no real focus. After looking at the list of registered racers, I had decided this would be more of a ride than a race. The conditions chased a hand full away but there were still 120 something racers. As soon as I showed up the priority was to pick up my registration. I was greeted by a few friends that asked me if I had seen the shirts. I responded with a no and then asking why. One wouldn't tell me and the other said, "you're going to like it". Finally Scott Mortimer gave it up, they put the names of the top ten finishers from last year's Epic on the back of the shirt, my 6th place included.

I must say, that's the coolest thing I've seen yet and in addition to the copious amounts of cash, this too will be something to chase after. Immortalized on the backs of all who take the challenge, I think it's cool!

The lineup looked fierce. Steve Tilford, Eric Pirtle, Garth Prosser, Dwayne and Jim, Jon Schottler, Bill Stolte, Josh Johnson, Mike Best, Clayton Bell, Matt Keeven.....No way for top ten, MAYBE a top twenty if all goes well. This is one time that I can say that I would change the results if I could because all didn't go well, I wish I had placed 10th.

After starting the race by climbing over Scott's trailer that he beached in the river so we didn't have to ford a waist deep river, the fast guys were gone.

Nothing new until making the last descent to Brazil Creek where I saw Eric Pirtle being carried up the hill not looking too good. Eric was in the lead when he hit a rock buried in the leaves and went over the bars "taco-ing", as he said, his body mid air into a tree. Another racer, Jason Ozenberger stopped to help him along with many other spectators by the time I got there. It looked to me like he had hurt his ankle the way they were helping him. The way I see it, Eric and probably Jason would have and should have finished ahead of me. I would gladly give up my place in this scary situation. All we knew after the race was that he was transported to a hospital in Sullivan and someone said he was having issues either feeling or moving his legs. We now know that he is home after being transferred to Barnes and released with a reasonable prognosis, bad bruising and a concussion-get better Eric! I can say without a doubt, I have never seen or been around ANYONE that can handle a bike the way he can. The day you think you are good, ride behind him and you WILL be humbled. Trust me, I've been there!. Can't wait to give it a try again soon. Scott the promoter gave Jason O lifetime entry to the Berryman Epic for stopping to help Eric, that's class!

Now that I feel puny, I'll continue on with the race report. Nothing too notable after the first check point at Brazil Creek. I started the first climb with a group of riders just ahead. I could see Matt Keeven, Jim Vandeven, Mike Best, Bill Stolte and Garth Prosser. I knew they would leave me on the climb and they did. Soon I found myself on Bill Stolte's wheel. He bobbled on a switch back and I was around him. Mike Best was right there and we soon had a good gap on Bill. We rode together with the traditional climb/descend yo-yo thing going on the whole time. We came to a long flowing section and Mike let me by. He stayed with me for a while. Somewhere in there I passed Jim Vandeven messing with a tire. I could not figure out what was happening, why was I passing all these doodz? Made the first Berryman check point and didn't even stop. Keeven was up ahead on his single speed looking like he wasn't even working. We made our way down to Hwy 8 which is followed by a serious creek crossing. Scott had built a killer bridge across the deep water. It was awesome, rode it no problem. Matt walked it and then I briefly was in front of him. I knew the climb that followed would leave me only a memory of his smooth climbing form as he disappeared into the distance.

Soon I figured out why I was passing all those riders. I was going too hard. Once Matt was long gone, Jim and Josh came by like a freight train. I knew they wanted to be together for the gravel sections as they could work together well. It wasn't long and Bill came by. I kept him in sight for a while but I had to back off. I finally lost him a few miles into the first gravel road section after the 3rd check point. It was at the end of this section while forcefully plowing through the deep water that was crossing the road that I caught Matt. We stayed together up part of the climb back to Berryman. He was about 30 seconds up on me at the top. I stopped to get fuel and I guess he did too. It was almost as if he was waiting for me to go into the last section of single track before him. Thanks for the Oreo, Jim! We were within sight of each other almost all the way to Harmon Springs, the end of the single track, the end of the Berryman trail, the beginning of my advantage over the single speed. He would have killed me if we were on the same bikes. I did expect Matt to catch me on the last double track climb, but I never saw him. I was in survival mode now, so I merely "got back". Must just be late in the race but that last 7 miles always seems tough. The trailer was gone so we had to cross the river on our own, it was deep and cold. Within minutes we were done.

I missed the 5 hour mark by 6 seconds which was 7:01 slower than last year. I felt good about being slower in those conditions, very impressive that Jon Schottler and 3 others were able to trump Chris Ploch's record from last year. Dwayne was on fire and got 3rd not far behind Steve Tilford, as in 30 seconds and 43 behind Schottler. Sounds like Steve had some flat issues but that's racing. Vandeven pulled one off and got 5th, Josh was right there for 7th. I was over 11 minutes behind Josh with Keeven right on my tail. Mike Best wasn't far behind with Jeremy Bock closing in fast. Jeremy made up huge time from the 4th check point to the end on me, Keeven and Mike. 11th place! Nice job. Bob Arnold rode an impressive race as did Zach Brace. Hats off to the non-racer of the bunch, Todd Hecht. 2 broken chains, a wrong turn and finished with a smile. There were some tough girls there braving the elements. Karen, Christine, Wendy, Loreen, all finished. Any riders that finished after about 5:45 got rained on, hard.

5 of the top 10 from last year made the top 10 this year. I'll have to give Scott positive re-enforcement on the shirt thing. Now we can have a saying, "I made the shirt!"

Top of the World

2009-10-12T22:05:00.021-05:00

It still hasn't sunk in.....what happened this weekend? I have raced solo for 6 years now at the famous "Burnin' at the Bluff" Mesa puts on at Council Bluff Lake. How cool to think back to that first year,2004 when myself along with Dwayne, Breslin, DD and many others thought it might be cool to try a 12 hour, solo. We had no idea what we were doing. We ate goofy stuff thinking it would get us through more hours than any of us had ever ridden. We, I drank like 5 protein shakes and ate a pound of beef jerky. I had never even thought about electrolyte replacement and cramped hard because of my ignorance. The studs that year did 8 laps, I did 6. We were hooked, or at least Dwayne and I were. Breslin won that year even with a myriad of mechanical issues.

Mesa's awesome trophies are creations of Jim and Judy Butler, some friends that now reside in Buena Vista, CO. For me, one of the major forces driving me to lust after the pain of 12 hours. Pics are hi-res, so click for better look. They do nice work!

The next year we had a little more prep time and knowledge. Breslin won again, this time completing 9 laps, unheard of! Not sure of his finishing time, but I thought it was around 9:30pm. I rode my single speed as it was the only bike I had and managed 7 laps while having a whole lot more fun than the previous year.

The 3rd year, and if you notice from the 2006 trophy, the only true "Burnin" year, Chris Ploch made this race his mission. He changed the way it was raced, going out hard and taking no real breaks. He finished 9 laps in less than 12 hours. With time to proceed on with #10 he was talked down by Adrienne. "No one will ever come close", she said. I had crashed less than two weeks before riding with Tom Albert and had a fractured rib. I went out and made 7 laps again finishing with Chris just before 9pm.

The 4th year Breslin was gunning for it, Dwayne was riding like a freak and I was feeling better. Dave went out hard with Dwayne nipping at his heals only to have mechanical issues and drop out. Dwayne went on to win and I finally got my 8 laps, but just barely. Almost impailed myself on the way home on this one. Mesa rented a semi to travel with these things, they're huge!

#5 was a fun year and it sucked. Zach Brace had been a strong contender but had issues that kept him from finishing what he started, until this year. I felt good until my 3rd lap when my quick link failed on my chain. When it separated it caught my der cage ripping it clean off my bike. I ran with my bike until another racer gave me a chain tool. Long story short it was a long lap and my next lap was long as I tried to recover. I still managed 8 laps in far less time than last year riding a back up bike. Now for the real race. Dwayne had the lead until lap 8, I think. He hit a wall and Zach took over. Zach flatted on the last lap but still had time and won with 9 laps in just over 13 hours.

Enter 2009. Perfect conditions as of Wednesday-not too dry, cool temps. Then the rain came. Nearly 48 hours of rain ending Friday night, less than 15 hours before race time. This was the first year for really adverse conditions. The cold I can deal with, the water I can deal with. Now it was cold and wet, very wet. CB drains well and all in all the trail wasn't that bad. It was the wet feet and clothes that I was worried about. How long can your body work to keep warm while riding your mtb and not shut down? I had visions of changing clothes and shoes, but it made no sense as they too would be soaked in the first 10 minutes. I tried to dress light for the start hoping to not over heat in the day and not freeze in the night hours. Man that water was cold the first time through! Several hub deep creek crossings made staying dry just not an option.

I started the run with a trot, knowing that unless you were in the front it mattered not where you started. Just go out easy and socialize. Avg heart rate was 13 beats lower after the 1st lap than last year. I did two laps on the single speed hoping to have a "fresh" bike for the improving conditions that I was praying for. They did improve, a little. I passed Zach on the 1st lap just before the half way point, this meant nothing, it was going to be a long day. Now on my geared bike, I caught Dwayne at the end of my 3rd lap. We rode together for about a minute and then he dropped me on the final climb. He pitted and I did not, so now I was out in front. I just cruised and he caught and passed me on the first long climb. We yo yoed back and forth until again he rode away on the final climb. I needed food, so I headed for my campsite and filled my pockets. I bombed down the asphalt starting lap 5. Right when I jumped back in the woods a bike came out from no where from my right. "Heads up", I yelled. It was Dwayne, cool. We just rode and talked for a while. Soon I started to pull away. This time when I got to that 1st long climb, I wasn't overtaken. I just kept riding. Finished the lap by myself and at the top of the final climb I looked back, no Dwayne. I had enough food and time for two more laps before I would need lights, or so I hoped.

Grabbed a bottle and took off on 6. All was going great, I felt awesome! Hard to believe that I was done with 6 before 5pm, over 4 hours left. Plenty of light left, I rolled out for #7. Jeremy Bock had finished 3rd in the 6 hour and was there when I left. I let him know that I was planning on eating and getting my lights next lap. He had some soup warm and ready for me,mmmmmm soup! A soooper quick pit and I was out on 8. Didn't need the lights right away but it was getting dark. By the time I hit the Enough boat ramp the leds were raging and about 5 minutes later my Garmin battery was not, I didn't give it a thought. My how your priorities change when actually racing to win! I love riding at night and soon had a huge smile on my face. Maybe it's contagious! I found the best line through the rock garden on this lap, what the hell? This is when the head games begin. EVERY light I could see was without question, Dwayne. Ahead, behind, across the lake and even the light pole at the boat ramp, all Dwayne chasing me down.

I made my way up the last climb and was told I had 7 minutes at the start of the previous lap. One last bottle, no way to check time and some cold ass feet, I took off in the dark. I was now looking for each and every mile marker. 1 comes fast because of the asphalt start. 2 took forever, or so I thought. I was still riding every inch of the trail almost as well as my 1st lap. I even rode up the step at the 5 mile mark onto the rail less foot bridge. Crossing the creek that came just after and telling myself "Self, that's the last time you have to go through that", was nice. No one at the aid station anymore I felt lonely, until I saw Matt Ochs just inside the woods. He was just hangin out, made sure he was OK, "see ya", I said. Crossed the dam and then the spillway I was soon approaching the beach. I came around the corner and saw another rider, a Mesa rider. It was Zach! I was worried he and Dwayne were back there hammering it out, running the pace up, but no more. By I went, back into the woods clearing the bastard creek and roots that followed one last time. Soon I was at the base of the final climb. I had no idea what time it was so I just rode on. I got up to what I called the halfway point where the trail turns left and then soon makes a hard right around a switchback where Tom Albert's emergency toilet had been located. When I made the left I looked down, there was a rider coming fast. I knew it was Dwayne! No way was I going to loose this now. I reached down and locked out my fork. I shifted to my middle ring and stood up. I climbed the remainder of the hill this way, knowing that if I could make it to the final turn, I would have it. Looked back down at the top and saw no one. I had gapped who ever it was. Just a few more seconds left and I was done! Turned out to be a "Wicked Fast" rider, Ryan Pirtle and Dwayne was never that close. He ended up having some shifting issues on his 9th lap. We rode a fast race, all of us. Dwayne's time was 23 minutes faster than last year's winning time and 13 minutes faster than his winning time from two years ago. I never would have guessed that with those conditions that I could finish 11 minutes past the 12 hour mark on that 9th lap that I had never ridden before! Only 11 minutes and I COULD have gone out for #10, not sure I WOULD have.

Jeremy helped me out a ton and had a raging fire going when I finished which saved me. I got really cold after I finished and stood around for a while. ICCC gave me a freakin awesome bowl of meatball pasta, best I've ever had. They had good cookies too. It took a long time to get over that chill, but a few hours in front of the fire did the trick. Sad to say I have to box up the Jet 9 to send it back and won't get another for quite a while.

45 laps...585 miles later, I may be off a little on my commentary, but right now I'm on Top of the World! Thanks Mesa.

Lots of pics here.

*EDIT* Finally cleaning up after a busy week, I picked up the bike I raced last Saturday. Holy Crap! It seemed heavy. So I weighed it, exactly how I raced it, minus all the mud and dirt.

Warsaw-The Finale

2009-10-06T08:53:00.014-05:00

Well the MWFTCS is over. 13 races completed in a well run series all over the state of Missouri. A few did them all, I did 10 and it was a ton of fun. Truman lake in Warsaw was the location for the last race. The series standings were set for most of the classes so attendance was off a little. Marathon still had 10 riders graced for the first time by an old friend, John Matthews who normally races expert. We didn't pre-ride the course so the first lap was a fact finding mission. John M, John Peiffer, Todd Holtmann and myself with Greg Ott not too far back after taking out his frustrations on a tree, cruised the 8 miles at a reasonable pace. Peiffer flatted at a point near the end very close to the start/finish line. Luckily someone had talked John into bringing an extra wheelset and he ran over, got a wheel and jumped back onto the loop and only lost a few minutes. John and I started to pull away from Todd and soon were riding alone chatting about stuff.

John had a slow leak about half way through the 2nd lap so I rode on while he hit it with some air. I just kept the same pace and it wasn't long before he caught me and we were on our next topic. I preferred riding in 2nd so he could ride whatever pace he wanted. I felt pretty cool and collected the whole time, never putting in any anaerobic efforts. We started lap 3 about 7 minutes before the experts started their hour and a half race. Usually they catch and pass us within an hour or so. Never saw anyone. I could tell John was working harder than I was because I was doing most of the talking. He started asking me how many laps I wanted to do and I said, "as many as I can!". Not what he wanted to hear. He was hurting. We finished lap 4 and he was out of bottles. I tried to give him one of mine as I always make too many. He didn't look good and started cramping right then and there. I waited and tried talking him into going back out but he was done. We had 12 minutes before the cut-off so I went back out.

I rode conservatively on the sharp rocks but blasted everything else. The only exception was a little dip about 3/4 of the way through the loop. On each of my previous laps I had just about rolled my tire off the rim at this spot and I wanted to see why, so I stopped when I came to it. I guess it was just a combination of high speed and the sharp dip because it didn't look like much. I had to be at peace with it though, pay homage. If I didn't stop I knew I would have to ride back out there after the race and look at it. Turned out to be my 2nd fastest lap. I felt like I could have ridden 5 more. With the description I had in my head of the course before the race, I was surprised at how rocky it was. Looking at the lap times, we did our first 3 laps faster than all of the experts, with a SPORT rider setting the pace for the fastest time of the day.

John P rode his way back up to 3rd, Greg took 4th and Todd got 5th. My first win in a while, a long while. I'm glad Matthews raced as it made it a little sweeter. Obviously, Dwayne wasn't there. I guess he thinks his wedding anniversary is more important or something? Whatever :) He got a mondo ride in on Saturday so he didn't miss much.

C Punchor from Team Seagal clinched his series win on Sunday in the single speed class. Nicely done! Seen here wearing only his coveted"Kum n' Go" boxers, he promised he would make a fool of himself as a sign of respect to his absent competitors.

After the race, we feasted on some tasty BBQ and beer. Much wind was broken and we made the long trek back home, that was a huge day.

24 Hours of DINO

2009-09-21T22:13:00.025-05:00

Funny how the Midwest seems to always get overlooked when people talk about the "best" mountain biking. Missouri has some awesome trails. Indiana will blow your mind with what they've done in the last few years. We rode some of the trails at Versailles State Park in the south east corner of the state. Even at 5 1/2 hours the drive would be worth making for a weekend getaway, all hwy. Brown County is another one I will be checking out in the next few months. The trails are narrow, fast and flowy.

This weekend Greg Ott, Todd Holtmann, Karen Holtmann and I went to race the 24 Hours of DINO-(Do INdiana Offroad). We left Friday morning hoping to get there, set up and pre-ride the course. We ran short on time and lap 1 of the race was our first look. It was the first race of its kind for them. This was my 4th 24 hour all in different states; Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana. Indiana was the best course, by far.

The race started with a typical short run to the bikes. What was not so typical was the required removal of a critical bike part to be carried with you as you "ran" to your bike. Front wheel seemed the most simple to re-install and nearly all agreed with the exception of a few Cannondale "Lefty" owners that opted to pull their seatpost in lieu of their bolt-on-and-then-retighten-your-disc-brake front wheels. This time I truly didn't run at all, just walked and didn't "run" into any bottle necks on the trail. The other thing that worked well for me was riding as slow as I could on the first lap, my avg heart rate was 142, really low for me. Not going anaerobic kept me from ever having the slightest hint of cramps and after the horrible cramps I had at Binder Lake, that was a welcome change.

Now that I had the pace set and had a plan for nutrition, all I had to do was ride and so I did. The laps were clicking off one after another with little pit time. The key to this trail was only giving gas when you needed it. I figured out how fast I needed to go so I wouldn't have to brake through the corners and carry as much speed as possible. You wouldn't believe how efficient this can make you. It is possible to go faster, but with a ton more energy expended. Let it all hang out on the faster sections and chill on the climbs. Even with this strategy a small chainring was never needed. The climbs are well designed in that they follow the contours, instead of short and steep they were long and gradual. Here is a video of the "Cliffside Trail". We rode up this trail. In the video, which doesn't do it justice, they are riding down it. I wouldn't call it a cliff, but it sure made you pucker up and I saw quite a few folks walking sections of it. Much of this trail reminded me of Roller Coaster at Castlewood, some of it Colorado. The bench cutting much like Love at Castlewood.

Mechanically, the only issue I had all day with the bike was a pin-hole leak in my front tire. I thought for sure the sealant would take care of it and hit it with some CO2. Lasted about 2 minutes. I pulled the wheel off the bike, found the hole and let the sealant pool. It sealed up and I aired it back up, manually. It held for the rest of the lap and as soon as I got back I hit it with the floor pump to my normal pressure. Todd had warmed up some soup so I took a dinner break. Tire seemed fine when I got ready to go back out. I was amazed at how much light my new Cygo Trion light put out. It's a 600 lumen led with a self contained battery, no cords. I rode it on the lowest and the medium low settings with no issues. Lasted all night with one quick recharge at dinner and a full recharge when I took my long break.

After 12 laps I had nearly an hour on second place but was getting really sleepy. To me it wasn't worth making a big mistake and getting hurt so I took that break. If I had stuck to my plan of a one hour break I would have been right with 2nd and easily ridden ahead, but I hit "snooze" and it turned into two hours. I was able to make up 25 minutes on him but once it started raining I called it, again not worth it. My bike was clean, I was still clean and dry. The winner came in about 30 minutes after I finished 15 on his 16th lap and went back out. It took him forever to finish that lap and he was covered in mud from crashing, blood visibly pouring out from his knee. He wanted it. He and I both got plaques, his said 1st, mine 2nd-that's all. He had a pit crew of 4 that fed him on the bike, gave him lights at dark, took them back when it got light, we did EVERYTHING on our own. So his times are essentially ride time with only a few minutes of stopped time. I was consistently riding between 1:02 and 1:10 laps but pitting between every lap. My 15th lap was 1:04 ride time, his 1:27. His crew was also keeping him updated on the other soloists. I was told after my 14th lap that I was 20 minutes behind Tim Mack, he didn't go out on 15 so I was told I had won. They forgot to tell me Martin Sanders was ahead of me also. At that point I couldn't have caught him anyway.

Todd crashed hard and called it after 7 laps, still 91 miles! Greg rode a great race finishing 4th with 13 laps and Karen finished 2nd to a seasoned endurance racer and did it all on her single speed. 585 miles ridden between the four of us, pretty flippin cool! Best part is that I feel totally fine a day later. It was 4 days before I felt okay after Binder Lake. It would be nice to race an entire race and not have rain play a part. A little hard to decipher, but here are the DINO lap splits. Find a rider, laps are in the right column, total time in the left.

The course was 13 miles, but the Garmin only picked up between 11 and 12. I attribute this to how tight and twisty the trail was. To keep the file sizes smaller the Garmin only makes periodic updates and on an open trail or the road it is very accurate. Not sure why I didn't get elevation until lap 5 but oh well. Around 800ft per lap X 15 = 12000ft. Lap one includes the run and a lap around the pool area. I started my lap at the start line each lap. So my breaks show up at the end of the laps, conversely, they show up at the beginning of the laps on the DINO splits. Next time I think I'll start it at the beginning of the lap, hit lap at the end of the lap and hit lap again at the beginning. That way I'll have accurate lap and break times regardless of whether or not my bike is moving.

"Backside" Race

2009-09-13T10:59:00.015-05:00

The 11th race in the MWFTCS took place in the back part of Castlewood State Park. With the main artery severed a year or so ago many people have quit riding back there. Here is some history for those of you that have never been there.

There was once a trail that passed through a narrow piece of land between the Meramec River and the Union Pacific rail line. Always thought to be Castlewood land we rode through without care. After a few heavy rains and floods the river began to carve away at this outside bend and trees disappeared along with massive amounts of real estate. Soon signs showed up posting "no trespassing" and "Union Pacific-private property". This was our trail! WTF. Turns out the railroad owns an easement which now was being encroached upon as the pathway moved up the bank closer to the rail bed. I'm sure they were becoming concerned someone would get hurt and sue them. Funny thing is, that river bank is going to need serious repairs soon and maybe now the burden will fall upon the railroad and not Castlewood. Now the only way to legally get to the back section of Castlewood is to drive around to the town of Sherman Beach, or ride 3 miles of the Al Foster trail in from Glencoe, not very convenient. Some have chosen to break the law and continue to cross the private land. Either way the trails still exist and get more use than I expected to see.

Back to the race. With the first cross race today and a GORC workday the same day, turn out was not huge. There were 86 racers, well below the MWFTCS average, compared to 43 at the MOBRA race in July at the same place. Saturday races are always tough because those who work at a bike shop are generally working. We had 10 in the Marathon class for about 15 minutes, and then there were 9. Bummer Barry! No, the head tube is not supposed to come apart from the top and down tubes.

My plan was to just "ride" this race. I went a little harder than I wanted to, but it felt good. My hardtail is out of commission right now so I rode my dual squishy bike. Good choice for the roughness, just a little tougher on the steep climbs of which there were three spots that gave me trouble. Dwayne, now back from Denmark, left us behind at a 120bpm heart rate I'm sure. Eric Schuck led our group with Todd Holtmann following closely and me buzzing Todd's wheel. Jeremy Bock was the snake in the grass, conserving, calculating, ready to strike. Didn't take long for Eric to back off. We were all still tired from the 6 hour solo effort from last weekend. Todd and I cruised a few laps and I could see Jeremy behind us on the last climb each lap. Todd had a small puncture and was spaying sealant so I told him so. He stopped to check it out and I never saw him again. Wasn't my intention! I guess it sealed up and he kept going. I held Jeremy off for a while but soon he turned it up as I was turning it down. We rode together for a while until we came up behind a slower group. He had the gas to get around one of them and then run up the hill around the rest of them. I had to pick my way through the group and by the time I had, he was gone.

At this time I reverted back to my original plan to "ride". I had a lap and a half to go so I just gave it what I had on the flats and simply completed the climbs. I held on to 3rd and made my entry fee +$10 back.

Now for the real story. At 9, my son raced his 2nd mountain bike race. We've just started riding off road and I think he's doing incredibly well. We went out Friday night to get a feel for the terrain and there were many sections he wouldn't ride. In the race he blazed through a few of these sections like a pro. The kids race was on a modified course in the more flat part of the full race course. They did 20 minutes plus finish the current lap. Adam made it in 29 seconds before the cut-off and went back out for a third lap. He had just passed another rider and now had a clear trail in front of him. One of the hills he just barely made it over earlier he now flew over in 6th gear, he only has 8 and it's the hardest. He almost made it up one of the really big and steep hills that I never thought he would have even tried. In this very diverse group of kids ranging from first timers to 12 year-olds on adult bikes he got 6th and didn't get lapped, awesome! Most importantly, he had fun.

Binder Lake

2009-09-07T00:13:00.011-05:00

Great competition, great conditions(2nd lap on), great temps, great people. With all the rain the day before it was iffy as to what the race day would bring. We set up for our 2nd Binder Lake 6hr with the threat of rain looming ALL around us. It did end up raining a bit before the race, but no worse for the wear. I thought about actually trying to run at the start to get a better position, not possible. I still had to pass a ton of riders on the first lap.

All was going well, I was keeping Dan Miller and Mike Best in sight for the first 5 laps. It was on lap 6 that I met my fate. A T-shaped puncture right in the center of the tread of my rear tire. It sealed up once I let the sealant pool over the hole. I thought I was in luck and whipped out my inflator and hit it with a blast of CO2, out came all my sealant like a garden hose. Now it was time to buckle down and fix it. All told the attempt to re-inflate, the repair and the cramps that came after I remounted the bike, I lost over 13 minutes. Doug Davis, Zdenek and Eric Schuck all got by me in that order. I quickly caught Eric and finished the lap with him. I had to stop and get another tube, CO2 and bottle-Eric didn't stop. I caught and passed him 2/3 of the way through lap 8 but never saw Zdenek or DD. Other than fighting cramps the race went fine after the flat. I missed going out on a 10th lap by 2:18, 10 was my goal but I'll have to wait for next year.

Jeff Winkler, what do I say? He was within 2:37 of the Cameron Chambers and Travis Donn duo team and only 13:34 behind the duo team of Chris Ploch and Tom Albert, the overall winners! Keep in mind that he was less than half a lap behind after 6+ hours, riding by himself! Dan Miller of Columbia in 2nd, was smokin' with 10 laps in 6:18:09, beating last years winning time. Mike Best in 3rd also beat last year winning time after a sub-9 hour ride at the Leadville 100, you've got to see his gold belt buckle! DD taking 4th only 1:09 behind last years winning time. Jeff lapped Zdenek in 5th place! I came in 6th, which would have netted me 3rd last year only 56 seconds behind last years 2nd place. Needless to say this year was faster with a slightly slower trail surface, albiet much cooler temperatures. Christian Stitz and Todd Holtmann rode a very impressive race finishing 9 laps. Karen Holtmann won the solo women's race. Massive efforts were expended by all. The only thing I missed was one of those flaming hot pork steaks!

Results 2008

Results 2009

*EDIT* After a closer look at the results, I was in 4th before I flatted, moved back to 9th and then made my way back to 6th. So 5 riders made it by while I was changing my flat and I made it back by 3.

Cape

2009-08-31T23:56:00.021-05:00

This course was not epic, it was not super rocky, it didn't have a ton of climbing, it was just 100% ridable fun.

Klaus Park, a new venue was a welcome change. While last year's race was still much fun this easily out did it. Nearly 100% shaded, a 3.3 mile loop of fast, narrow, twisty single track made for a tough race day. Brad Brown, Cape local, super racer was there and I knew would set the pace. Matt Ochs, also from Cape was looking fast and fit. Not a huge field but not an easy field either. I came down with Greg Ott, Jeremy Bock and Dave D'Alessio, all Marathoners. We set up a sweet spot to pick up bottles as we had no support and soon we were racing.

Brad led us out Matt in second, me, then Jeremy. Brad soon had a small gap. Matt and I stuck together for 3 and a half laps until I felt like upping the pace and passed. Within a minute I felt my rear tire getting soft. I stopped and could see no leak so I hit it with a blast of CO2. I could hear it leaking but couldn't get it to stop. I took off with hopes of making it back to our pit to get another wheel. I was flat with 200 meters to go. A not so quick wheel change and a fresh bottle and I was rolling again. Jeremy had burped his tire flat near the end of the 3rd lap and had to re-inflate it but came by me while I was fixing mine. No one else got by me.

Jeremy and I rode together for laps 5,6,and 7. On lap 8 I kicked it up a notch hoping to chase Matt down. 8 happened to be the lap Matt cracked on. He was riding such a good race. I passed him and could tell he was done. I only saw Brad on the freakishly winding sections that would play mind tricks on you. I started to watch my timer when I would see him and quickly figured out that he was 2-3 minutes ahead of me. Going into lap 11 I figured it would be my last, so I mentally "backed off". About half way through that lap I decided to go until I couldn't go. I pushed and pushed and soon started to wonder if I could make it out on a 12th lap. I made it with only 7 seconds remaining. Could have stopped and wouldn't have changed things, but what if Brad flatted or just fell apart? So I took off, no new bottle, just what I had. It soon became apparent that I wasn't catching Brad, but I was OK with that.

Brad had no mechanical issues that I know of. He just rode a clean race. Jeremy came in not far behind me on lap 11 for third place. John Peiffer got 4th in his first Marathon race, Nice! Greg wasn't feelin it and was lounging when I came through on one of my laps. John must have paid the photographer to take pics only of him!

Dang it! let me get around this tree first!

Christine's gonna get you!

This is my good side! My legs are cramping...must get the shot.

Don't you love my shorts?

Niner Air 9 Carbon

2009-08-26T13:21:00.020-05:00

I've been watching this one lately. Haven't heard much on the details. Post mount rear brake, internally routed shift housing, sub 3lbs. Might be BB30, a Cannondale pioneered press fit bb design that doesn't use bb cups but has an oversized spindle. A reduced "Q" factor, the width of your pedal stance, is possible with this design. I'd love to see a direct mount front derailleur.

Built up with Sram XX, I could do without the lettering on the American Classic wheels. Rear shift cable enters top tube on the non-drive side and is definitely internally routed, not sure on the front shifting. Pretty sure I can see a front derailleur clamp though.

12 seconds

2009-08-22T10:51:00.026-05:00

Lost Valley was the setting for the second Team Seagal Non-Race, a night relay. The skies looked ominous and eventually opened up with a few light showers that only kept us from riding much before the "race". Instead we sat around and ate Nutty Bars. Jeremy Bock and I teamed up and he went first in the much appreciated non-lemans start to begin the 4.9 mile loop. While he was out on the first lap I had my first ice cold PBR, race fuel. Not to my surprise, he was the first one back in and off I went. It's tough going that hard with no warm up. I made it around and then Jeremy and then me on the final lap.

12 seconds. That is what separated our fastest and our slowest laps. Jeremy threw down a 18:58 and a 19:05, while the big assed boat anchor, I managed a 19:03 and a 19:10. We both deviated by 7 seconds from our first to our second laps. Greg Ott was the only other person to manage a sub 20 minute lap. I think all those who partook in inter-race PBR ingesting should get a time bonus, nah the PBR made me ride without care while fulfilling all my nutritional needs. Typical for me, I went too hard at the start of my first lap, then had to recover at the top of the climb. Went much easier on the second off the start then pushing the climb and maxing out on the gravel-much better. I got to go out on a "victory" lap with Gino and Nico at a much more preferable pace. I have to admit, I was hoping for a mandatory PBR chug at some point, would have needed more coolers.

1st - Team Big and Tasty (Mitch Johnson, Jeremy Bock) - 18:58/38:01/57:06/1:16:16
2nd - Rock Hard (Rock Wamsley, Dave Smith) - 21:15/42:33/1:04:04/1:24:29
3rd - Team Mullet (Brian Busken, Caleb Hulsey Chris Dial) - 21:37/44:51/1:06:03/1:28:12
4th - TC Man Men (Coach, Marshall Lawson) - 22:04/44:40/1:06:46/1:28:12
5th - Momentum (Jason Pryor Keith Weinkein) - 22:34/44:11/1:07:52/1:29:56
6th - T'aints of Steel (Mike Barro, Walter Davis) - 21:55/45:20/1:08:33/1:32:27
7th - Team Rockhounds (Jeff Powell, Steve Timm) - 24:12/46:12/1:08:58/1:33:33
8th - Bryan Adams, Steph Adams - 25:10/53:12/1:14:35/1:35:49
9th - 2 D00dz (Greg Ott, Jason Roberts) - 20:18/51:25/1:11:22/1:41:19
10th - Team Funhouse (Scott Lankford, Damon Moore) - 27:21/52:45/1:19:50/1:45:19
11th - Hub Bitches (Ron Clipp, Devin Clark, Andy Borger Chris Saxton) - 24:35/55:15/1:25:46/1:46:51
12th - Super Dave (Todd Hecht, Dave Dalasio) - 24:44/48:05/1:24:15/1:47:30
13th - Judd and Gino (Judd Myers, Gino Felino) - 30:43/57:54/1:24:45/1:49:00
14th - Nikko, Zach - 34:15/1:00:27/1:28:43/1:54:10
15th - Christopher, Margarette - 28:48/1:06:39/1:28:22/1:59:32

15 teams, some with 3 riders made the obvious choice as where to be on a beautiful Friday night.
Photos here courtesy of Mike Barro. Thanks to Mason, Craig, Gino, Coach,PBR and a bunch of other cool people. I think Caleb wet his cut-offs!

Ratpure In Missouri, uh Misery

2009-08-17T22:41:00.015-05:00

Anyone else notice that my legs are a little bigger than Zach's? That's what I was thinking when I was watching him float up the climbs ahead of me.
My first RIM was a great one. If it hadn't rained I think Zach would have done 13 and pretty sure I would have done 12. Neither one of us knew the race had been called and were both planning on going back out. I made the mistake of not changing to my knobbys and slipped and slid around on my last lap. I crashed twice ripping all my 6 day old scabs free from the tender flesh underneath.

The proposed 12 hour race started with a WTF run up a steep, rocky wasteland. I walked. Conditions were great, not too hot, reasonably dry, dusty in spots. Not being a climber I think it's odd to say that the climbing didn't bother me. Perhaps it's directly proportional to the lack of speed I possessed while conquering said climbs. Other than pushing my heart rate higher than I wanted, they didn't affect me. I enjoyed every bit of this race course and only wish we could have had some fast, dry night laps.

The pit/camping area was superb. They weaved the course through the tents and the cheers were a plenty. All in all I was stoked with the way the race unfolded. Zach and I were close for the first four laps and then I had to take a few minutes to refuel, never saw him again. He is so smooth and consistent. With my present physique I just can't be in that crowd. Zach earned this one and I feel like I'm getting more in tune with my inner something. I think it's going to be a good year to Burn at the Bluff. We missed Dwyane but he'll be back soon.

We managed a 1,2,3 for St.Louis in the 12 hour overall. Todd Holtmann won his category which was good for third in the overall. Karen Holtmann won the women's 12 hour and Christine Ford won the women's 6 hour solo. Team Seagal was there in force snapping wrists up to the very last minute to clinch two podium spots. They had a cooler of PBR taunting everyone as they emerged from the woods nearing the end of the lap. Watching those guys and their gals lounging in those awesome chairs made it tough to keep chasing.

Nico in his street clothes when he should be in his effin riding stuff out on the course!

Kinda bummed, totally stoked

2009-08-13T00:36:00.012-05:00

This past Sunday was the 9th race in the Midwest Fat Tire Championship Series, Spanish Lake. I last raced here in 1995, narrowly beating Dan Schmatz for 2nd in a sport race. Trail is definitely better these days, but still has a ton of gravel and rough grassy sections. I happened to find some of that gravel and get to know it a little better than I would have liked. This was the beginning of what led me to be "kinda bummed". I'll get back to that as it sucked and what made me totally stoked is better. Greg Won!

The race started out with what I thought was an easy pace. I again just sat back and followed. It was Todd Holtmann, Eric Schuck, Greg Ott and myself setting the pace. All was good through the first lap. Todd and I were together, Greg and Eric were together only a few seconds back. Todd stopped to get a new bottle to replace the one he dropped and I was in the lead. I felt like I was cool and calm when about 200 meters past the start/finish I went to turn into the single track and washed out, going down hard, very hard. I went down on my left leg and quickly went face first into the dirt. When I got up my glasses were hanging down off my face, my visor was broken and my thumb hurt. I felt for blood and didn't see too much so after Greg and then Todd came by I took off. I quickly realised that I wasn't going to be gripping the bar with my right hand and as soon as I tried my first shift, found out that my injury might be more than I thought.

I figured out a way to hold the bar so I wouldn't die while navigating stuff and found a way to shift using the rest of my hand. Had I had trigger shifters, I would have been done. (Monday after the race I tried to unlock my car using my remote and couldn't push the button with my thumb.) I really thought about stopping, but pressed on. Finished lap 2 with Todd, not far behind Greg and less than a minute on Eric. Cruised lap 3 and all was the same except Greg's lead grew. Todd dropped back on lap 4, Greg pulled away and Eric was unchanged. Lap 5 was when I started to feel everything. It was getting hotter, my arm was starting to hurt from compensating and my spirits started going downhill. I backed off and soon Eric caught me. Greg was far gone by now and Todd had stopped to take a cool down. Somewhere in there Nate came by me. Before starting my 7th lap I stopped and took a 10+ minute break. I wasn't sure that I would be going back out but also wasn't ready to quit. Just before I went back out Pete Goode came through taking over 4th. I left just hoping to make another lap. It went OK and went back out for another. I was slow but didn't get lapped and pulled off a 5th place.

Greg rode like a man on a mission for the win. Eric made a charge on lap 7 but Greg turned it back up and finished with over a 3 minute lead. Awesome job. First win for Ghisallo in the Marathon class.

Now I'm nursing my hand in hopes of doing the Rapture in Misery 12 hour this weekend. If nothing else it will be some good training as I've done none for the last few weeks.

Dun Blowed It!

2009-07-30T20:52:00.005-05:00

I had a chance to do something I've never done before, ride 200 miles in one day. It hurts, no matter what, no matter who.

The Nine Mile 24 hour started out with a longer than I expected run to our bikes. Running is ok if you are anyone but me, running in cycling gear(shoes) while starting a 24 hour mtb race SUCKS! Around 250 (runners) started the race and I couldn't believe I got on my bike about mid-pack. We rode about half a mile on double track to find a bottle neck at the start of the single track. Next time I walk to my bike, hang out for 5 minutes and ride my own pace. Nothing like red-lining, then STOPPING to wait and then riding the single track as slow as possible. Soon it smoothed out and we were cruising. Dwayne dropped his chain and in a blink we were "out of sight", he said. All that did was allow me to lead him for at least ONE lap of this freak show. I went harder than I wanted to and felt I paid the price later on.

The miles clicked off relatively fast dispite the technical sections we encountered. The loop was a little over 14 miles, several of which were either gravel or cross country ski trails, kind of like double track with only one track. Anyone who says that this trail is not technical is smoking crack. There was a section from the 4 to the 5 mile marker that lacked a 20 foot section of the trail that didn't have either 5 turns or 15 rocks and roots. It wasn't that difficult mind you, just not that easy at 2am. There were a half dozen rock gardens that separated the men from the boys and more turns than Deal's Gap ever thought about. I did have to laugh when I came across the XXX-Danger signs. Tough sections and I guess if you were in a 14th hour daze, you could get hurt. We didn't prepare enough to have quick transitions and wasted time between laps. Next time we have bottles sitting out and stop less.

It rained on us in the late afternoon but the trail recovered well. I should have changed clothes after it rained and paid the price later with some saddle(butt) issues. The night laps were fun and I was getting back into it when I kind of hit a wall. I was cold so I decided to get into dry stuff and eat some real food. Once dry and clean, the tent looked real good. I climbed in for about an hour and a half and warmed back up. By the time I got going again the lights were no longer needed. I couldn't believe how well I was riding at this point in the race. Seeing the sun come up was a good boost. Knocked out a few more laps and started to think about the nine hour drive home and cleaning up our campsite/pit area. The voluteers at the check in table told me that I was seconds away from being lapped by the leader and so I called it. I should have checked for myself on the computers. He started lap 13 51 minutes ahead of me and I reduced that lead to 30 minutes by the end of that lap. His last lap was 1:53 and I had just finished a 1:25 lap with a short break. If I had ridden a 14th lap, 2nd place would have been a given. That would have forced a 15th lap by one or both of us, or a truce. All that's easy to say now that I'm recovered sitting in my cosy chair, I was in some pain and discomfort at the time. It was still stoooopid.

Still close to 200 miles, still 4th place. I was showered, had eaten and taken down our camp/pit by the time 3rd place came in. Indiana, here we come. Maybe this time, with less than a year since my last attempt, I'll remeber to not make the same mistakes.

24 hours of 9 mile

2009-07-23T17:22:00.004-05:00

Dwayne and I are leaving tonight for Wausau,WI to ride in a 24 hour race. Surprizingly, it's a 14.2 mile course. If interested Granny Gear uses Real Time scoring and you can watch us turn laps into the night. We carry a timing chip that posts our times within seconds of completing a lap on the web. Sorry, I can't tell you exactly how to look at the times once you get there but I think it will be relatively easy to figure out. I'm in the "Men's solo just for fun" and Dwayne is "Men's solo singlespeed". It costs less than half to not race for the Championships so we figured we would have to win a ton of prize money to break even if we had, so we went just for fun. The race starts at 11am Saturday and ends at 11am Sunday.

If you watch closely you will be able to tell when I shove a stick into Dwayne's front wheel in an attempt to gain back lost time. I've also replaced his Stan's sealant with whole milk. So not only will he not have flat protection, but I figure by Sunday morning his bike will begin to smell real perty! Wish us(me) luck.

Non Race #1 Chubb Challenge

2009-07-20T23:23:00.005-05:00

This post is bound to expand like my belly after 3 delicious tall PBR's, a burger, a brat and half a bag of chips. Which happens to be what I ingested after claiming the "Champion" ranking from this years first Team Seagal non-race. Beyond that I just had a freaking awesome time yesterday at Chubb.

It was cool as shit to see all those people out there ready to scrape some paint(and knees, and shins, and elbows......) in front of a crowd. I must declare to all who graced this event with their presence, I have ridden Chubb more times than most people have ridden a mountain bike. That trail taught me how to ride, period. Ride Chubb and you can ride almost anything. Anytime you think you are good, there is a different line that will kick your ass.

There were as many, if not more, single speeds as geared bikes. I thought about the single speed but I was going to put a wuss ass gear on, so I refrained. No way in hell I would have made hardly any of those sections on a single speed. But sections were made by many sporting gears that I couldn't run at Lost Valley.

We got to see spectacular, slow motion falls. We heard chainrings scraping rocks(including my own XTR big ring). Frames and forks bouncing off of rocks like empty PBR cans. Blood was spilled, tubes were punctured, chains were torqued from their rings(Jim, pure power). After all was said and done we finished to a grill of hot goodies and lots of ice cold PBR. Wendy made enough cheese stuff to feed ALL of the Shriners, mmmmmm cheese spread!

If you missed it, shame on you. And in case you are wondering, if you don't feel capable but are interested in this event, next year come out and hike along with us. This could easily be spectated on foot. Thanks to Seagal for a fun Sunday. Hope to have some pics soon.

Here is a link to some video. Thanks Greg!

Sacked

2009-07-17T23:51:00.004-05:00

Didn't plan on doing this one when I was plotting the upcoming race season. 3+ hour drive and a course that I didn't care for too much last time I rode it. I remember it being a little over 3 miles and rough as hell. Not the fun kind of rough, just rough. A series of events changed my mind and Sac River was calling to me.

Greg, Dwayne and I went down early Sunday morning encountering some rain on the way down, but nothing too bad. It had clearly rained there sometime that morning but only made the rocks and roots a little slick. We registered and suited up for a pre-race lap. I could immediately tell that this was a much improved version of what I had last ridden in 1997ish. It had everything. 6.3 miles of fast and smooth, twisty and rooty, and loaded with rock ledges to go up and down. I was very happy with my choice to race the Jet 9, my short travel, 29" wheeled full suspension bike.

I started out at a slightly below redline pace and sat in around 6th place going into the woods. Within 2 miles I was in second place with Greg on my heals until he flatted. I never saw anyone again, including Dwayne. Didn't expect to. I had a pucture in my front tire on the second lap and my sealant took care of it for me. Didn't lose that much pressure so I pushed on. I finally got passed on my 4th lap by the 3 fastest experts and eventually a 4th followed by the two "old guy" experts and Gino, one fast single speeder on my 5th lap. Turns out Dwayne wasn't too far ahead until the last lap. I kept him to a sub 7 minute lead through the first four but he had over 14 minutes after the 5th lap. He put in a He-Man effort on the last lap chasing an expert while I started to run out of gas. I fully expected him to lap me, or at least make it out for a 6th lap. He didn't miss it by much.

Bike worked well. I felt pretty good. I haven't been feeling my best lately and have been trying to figure out why. I used this race as a gauge to see where I am in my training. I was scared to death that I had over-trained. This is often the end of a season and is very hard to recover from. I was worried because Dwayne and I are heading out next week to race a 24hr in Wisconsin. I rode well last Tuesday night at Lost Valley and completed my first century this year today so I think all is well.

Best part is that I still have the series lead by two points, Bou-ya! Here is a link to my race on the new Garmin Connect.

Finally a dry race!

2009-06-22T17:40:00.003-05:00

Made it through a hot one yesterday at St.Joe state park. Used mainly by atvs and motorcycles St.Joe provided one of the better race courses I've been on in a while. The work that went into this race is hard to comprehend. From what I hear, just last week this trail was not in great shape and flat out hard to follow in places. It was awesome for us. Thanks Mark.

We pre-rode about two miles and then came back. With minimal effort my heart rate was in the 170's, I knew if I went out hard at all I wouldn't finish. So when we lined up at the start line I stayed in the back. I figured I could just roll with the field and not feel pressured to chase Dwayne and it worked. It wasn't long and I had worked my way up and was riding alone, making reasonable time. Drinking as much as I could and conserving on the climbs, I was able to claim 3rd only having to ride four 8 mile laps. Dwayne and Zach both did five for 1st and 2nd. I could have done another but didn't want to.

I will definitely go back and ride St.Joe sometime when it's not 96 degrees.

Aviation Challenge

2009-06-16T08:43:00.029-05:00

OK, so this will be my 2nd non-bike oriented post. I know bikes but occasionally I do other things. This past weekend I took Adam, my eight year old to a camp in Huntsville, AL. His interest sparked when his school was having a contest; write an essay on a dream you have and you might be awarded a "Dream Grant"-money to go after this dream. So Adam did.

His dream was to go to a camp Mandy, my wife had told him about. She went to the "Space" camp when she was a kid. He seemed more interested in the "Aviation" side of things so he aimed and scored a direct hit. He was chosen to receive a grant which partially covered the cost of the camp. They offer a pilot/co-pilot camp which we thought at the age of eight would be the way to go so we signed up.

After looking at the maps and choosing a route we headed out Thursday morning. Since we had all day we decided to take a detour on the way down and drive the "Trace" through The Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky and Tennessee. It's a nice road that winds through protected land with no stop signs, lights or houses to be seen. Definitely worth it. It added about an hour, but I had never driven the entire section. Before we knew it, we were in Alabama looking at a horizon dotted with NASA rockets.
The next morning we checked in and took out bags to our "quarters", a small room with seven beds designed for kids under 14, five of which were bunk beds. The other two families had already claimed their beds so we took what was left, both bunks. After a quick orientation we met our instructor "Oz", her first name was Dorothy. We jumped on a bus and headed to "Aviation Challenge", an area used to train future fighter pilots all the skills they will need to survive the flying and the crashing that could go with the flying. We spent hours in real training flight simulators. We practiced crash landing and swimming out of the "dunk tank", a mock of a plane that they lower into the water and you have to swim down and out a window to escape, sometimes with a disability or injury. Practiced a water rescue from a mock helicopter in a basket.
We learned what to eat and what not to eat, what kind of fires to build depending on where you crash land, enemy or friendly territory. We built a shelter out of our parachute(in the rain I might add). We built a stellar fire using only what we could find and the matches in our survival kit and Oz commented that our fire was the best she had ever seen as an instructor-go scouts! Adam rode in a real training centrifuge, not like a ride at Disney. The real thing with its only purpose being G's. I chose not to so as to not ruin the rest of my night. This also allowed some of the kids to ride it twice, yea, that's why I didn't ride it! My favorite part was later that night, "Blitzkrieg"!

We were issued our BDU's, cammo shirts and instructed to put on our old long pants we were told to bring. We headed out near dusk into the woods. Each of us was given three chips and the mission was to deposit the chips in one of the three tins with small flashing lights on them placed in different areas in the woods. The closest tin was worth one point and if you wanted to you could put all three chips in this tin and be done with three points. The second tin was worth five points but required more risk to get to. The third tin was worth ten points and not only was further back in the woods, but was guarded by an instructor. Pitch black now, we crossed into the woods and had to assume an "army crawl", lift your head or move when one of the patrolling officers came by and you would loose a chip. Loose all three and you were out. Adam and I went separate ways but both had our sights set on 30 points, no less. The guard at the ten point tin had a high power flash light looking for movement and was ten feet up in a tree stand. I watched how she flashed the light and figured out that there was a stand of trees that blocked her view and headed for their shadow. I was able to make good time only having to watch for the foot patrols and quickly was past the first and second tins with the third in my view. Soon the guard figured out I was lurking and started aggressively looking for me. I made it right up to the tree she was on and stood up on the back side of the tree in the shadow from her light. She knew I was there but couldn't see me, I don't think it ever occurred to her that I would be standing right under her. I waited until just the right time and dropped my chips in the tin which was an empty coffee can. It made a loud plink and I yelled "Blitzkrieg!". Once safe I looked in the light cast by the guard and saw Adam only feet away. He had circled all the way around the guard and was approaching from the other direction. Soon he dropped in his chips, success! All in all we only crawled about 75 yards but I was drenched with sweat and filthy. Tons of fun! The kids roasted marshmallows afterwards and we headed back to get cleaned up and go to bed.

Before we knew it, it was Sunday morning and time to graduate. After receiving our certificates and a pin for completing Blitzkrieg they awarded one kid the "Right Stuff" medal. This kid being the most likely to become a fighter pilot someday ended up being Adam! Out of the three space camps and our aviation camp, he was the only kid that was picked for an individual award. I think the reason for this was his knowledge of the aircraft. Oz was going over the parts of a plane and the physics behind flying and he essentially had all the answers to her questions. He even added a few details I honestly don't think she knew and was consequently blown away by him. They asked me if I had studied with him before the camp and I told them that in order to do that I would have to know what he's talking about.........he's eight!

Runny Rhetts

2009-06-09T17:49:00.009-05:00

Once again, perfect conditions the day before the race and downpours the morning of. It rained a little on us while seeing the trail for the first time on our practice lap and then just a sprinkle during the race. It was a sloppy and slippery start but after two laps the conditions improved. Unfortunately, the damage to the drivetrain had already been done. The first two laps also required much more strength to keep the bike upright and moving forward. Once the trail dried up I lacked the power I wish I had on tap and my chain sounded a little sickly. Now I know why they used grass mixed in with mud to build houses back in the day, that stuff sticks and was stuck in my derailleurs.

All in all the trail surface wasn't that bad. Rhetts Run is a short but demanding course. Lots of trail crammed into a small area. Not to put a cloud over this event, but due to the small loops that this system has which means the trail must come and go only divided by a piece of ribbon, there was some short cutting going on. Most people come out to challenge themselves but some will do whatever it takes to advance. Usually the winners clearly and decisively win and it's further back that the funny stuff can happen. I have no fingers to point, but watched lots of people and heard of other people witnessing the same lameness. All I have to say is that I will outride these folks on a course like Council Bluff where it proves more difficult to cheat. My buddies Chad Brixey and Dwayne both double flatted and chose to walk every inch of the course instead of DNFing. They also noticed some odd time changes going on. After a while it pissed me off and I yelled at a couple of riders.

Past that, this was one of the most fun races I've done in a while. Big field, lots of carnage, rocks, roots and PBR after. I started about mid pack. Slowly picking my way through riders, I had my one unplanned dismount midway through my first lap. No one close enough to see it, I feel I must recap. I rounded a slightly down hill left turn into a small dip/creek and was coerced to one side of the trail by a wet root. I tried to correct and over did it. Before I knew it I was on the downhill side of the trail trying my best to stop while plowing over some poor saplings. I came to rest after bumping into the trunk of a small tree only to find out that there was nothing to put my downhill foot on and toppled over like I was still clipped in to my pedals. I was laughing as I got up and only got passed by one rider. First chance, I was back by him. I figured out half way through my 2nd lap that I had hit the stop button on my Garmin when I crashed so I lost about 3/4 of a lap.

In a while I came by Dwayne fixing a flat. Wouldn't be long before he would blow back by me. Turns out that would not be the case as he had a second flat and had to walk. In a lap or so I caught Nate Means who I chose to ride behind for a while and pick up some sick lines, thanks dude! 3rd place was right ahead of us and soon he and I traded places. We swapped spots a few more times. The last time he came by me I thought that was it, he was flying. It lasted about 30 seconds and I think he blew. I went by him never to see him again. I went into my 6th lap still in 3rd and was caught and passed by a guy on a single speed racing marathon class who was absolutely flying. Pretty impressive to see someone come on that strong that far along in the race. I had no answer. I continued to rail what I could rail and poke my way up the climbs to finish 4th.

While it was cool to get cheered on by Chad and Dwayne each time I passed them, it was a bummer that they nor myself had any idea that you could change out parts on your bike back at the "pit" area. We all thought racers were self sufficient, meaning you use what you carry. Pretty sure those guys would have picked up a spare tube and continued to race had they known the rules. Now we know! Jason Stiger tore it up for the win, nice job! Paul Krewet made a guest appearance and announced official retirement, maybe. Jay Strothman rode a strong race, dude flies on a mtb, flies on a road bike. Greg Ott got another top 10 finish. And Todd Hecht made his debut into marathon racing, don't give up.

Syllamo's Revenge 2009

2009-05-13T17:59:00.011-05:00

To start off I have to declare what an idiot I've been for not doing this race before now. You hear 46 miles and it doesn't seem too bad. This place is real!

The race starts off with a mass start(352 pre-registered,294 started) with less than an eighth of a mile before the start of a nearly mile long climb up a soft gravelish road. From there almost all of it was single track.

Syllamo is located in Arkansas near Mountain View. The "hills" are much bigger than we have in Missouri and there are lots more pine trees. They have done an excellent job building these trails following the contours of the peaks and valleys. There are tons of climbs, but most are manageable. The trails are broken up into separate loops; yellow, green, blue, orange and red. We followed the outside of these loops to make one big loop.

The weekend before this race I started having symptoms of a head and chest cold. I told myself it was allergies and tried to get over it. By Tuesday I barely had a voice. I was coughing up green/yellow stuff but still wanted to go. I decided to take my own tent to sleep in so I wouldn't keep Greg and Jeremy awake or infect them. We pre-rode a little Friday and I felt OK, not great, but OK.

I'm no climber so even on a good day I wouldn't want to be at the front. So I wasn't worried about my starting position or hammering to get to the climb. I just cruised and tried to survive. I'd say I was in about 60th place at the top starting the single track. Not 5 minutes into the trail I saw the first casualty, broken chain. Soon the first steep up and off the bike we came. As far as I could see ahead of me, bikes being pushed or carried. I rode behind Scott Davis. He's the promoter for the Berryman Epic. Dude does not like it when he has to walk something he could potentially ride. We passed some other riders in the technical stuff and soon found a reasonable pace.

We came around a ridge top that had been devastated by the winter ice storm. There was barely a tree standing, looked like it had been logged. There was a small tree, say 5 inches in diameter laying flat on the ground. Would have been an easy obstacle any other day of the week. We picked up quite a bit of speed approaching it and all of the sudden Scott was over-the-bars and on his back, bike flipping through the air landing about 30 feet down the trail. I did my best to slow down but still hit the same rut Scott had hit and even knowing it was there almost did a header myself. My front wheel disappeared down nearly to the axle just when you would normally load the suspension fork to assist with the needed loft to clear the tree. I seriously thought Scott would be hurt. I've never seen anyone go over that hard, that fast. He said he was OK and told me to go on, so I did. He DNF'ed, but never heard if he went any further after his endo.

It wasn't long after that when I had my first sign of cramps. From that point on I had to nurse my leg muscles by backing off on the pedal pressure and stopping to stretch, frequently. I started to think about quitting, I mean I was barely past the 10 mile mark with 35+ miles to go! With it happening that early I knew it wasn't nutrition, it had to be over exertion from being sick. I had come too far to quit yet so when I came to the first checkpoint I decided to go some more. I knew we came right by this same point after riding the green loop. I drank a ton, used my gears to my advantage and lowered my heart rate. I started feeling a little better.

Now in survival mode, I just wanted to try and finish. I had no idea what the remainder of the trail had in store for me but pushed on clicking away at the miles. I was still having a blast riding all of the rocky, ledgey stuff. I was also having major issues with chainsuck. Not only while shifting, but whenever I applied much power. It seemed like if the trail stayed dry and the chain had time to "clean" itself, it got better. I was off walking a bunch of stuff that I would normally ride. May have done me some good, a little walking.

I soon came up on the last check point which was the start of the red loop. I knew this was supposed to be the fastest and most flowing section, but I had forgotten how long it was. If I had been fresh I would have mashed this thing out like nothing. Too bad I was on my last leg. There was very little descending and required near constant pedaling. This made it hard for me and brought on more cramps. I must have stopped 20 times on this loop if only for a few seconds each time to stretch. I was watching my elevation and had noted what it was at the check point knowing that I would be returning to that same spot. It gave me and idea of when I would finish the red loop, I was that desperate.

A quick fill of a bottle and I was back in the woods on the last leg of the yellow loop. I didn't think it was very far and I was right. One little bump and I popped out at the top of the climb that started all of this craziness. Mach 5, a near miss on the way down and I was done.

If you had asked me right after if I would do it again I might have said no way. Now, I can't stop thinking about next year. Dwayne rode looking for his own revenge and finished in just over 5 hours for the win. He was over 24 minutes ahead of second place. Fuhrmann, Zach and Gino with a flat, were right there. Matthews took a header but still rode well and Ploch stayed with John. I lost at least half a dozen spots on that last loop to finish in 22nd. I'm happy to have finished and know that there was some awesome competition. Only 132 riders finished and several were taken to the local hospital and hopefully are doing fine.

Double Header

2009-04-25T09:15:00.007-05:00

Has it come to this? Greg and I will finally beat Dwayne, one way or another. Nah, he still beat us.

Sure was glad I had titanium bolts holding my disc brake rotors to my hubs. Sure was glad I bucked up for the carbon fiber handle bar. Sure was glad I invested more than the cost of an entry level mountain bike in my XTR crankset. Sure was glad when my bike weighed 70 pounds last Saturday at the Bone Bender 6 hour in Kansas City. It rained all night and up to the start on this mostly flat ll mile loop we planned on spending a quarter of a day on. Didn't look so bad from the parking lot. It wasn't so bad for the first few miles.

By that point I was running 5th or 6th and Dwayne was in the top three. I could see their tracks and that was the only way I knew that I was near the top 5 because they were gone! They managed to ride through sections that quickly became a peanut butter fest for the rest of us. Bike stopped dead in its tracks. Walk ten feet spend copious amounts of time and energy cleaning the wheels so they could roll, repeat, repeat, repeat.....Gloves covered in goo, no hopes for a shift from this point on with the Grip Shift. I pushed on and told myself this was my one and only lap, quiting for sure. Conditions improved and then worsened. I found myself pushing my racing sled until it wouldn't roll, cleaning handful after handful of a thick mixture of mud and leaves from my tires. I would try to ride again, slinging huge blobs of mud and come to an abrupt halt. Enough, if I continue to babble about this, I might not sleep tonight.

I finished my first lap in just under 2 hours! The last mile and a half of the course wasn't as bad and it lulled me into thinking,"it's not that bad, I can do another one". Whatever, I went back out. When I neared the section that gave me trouble on the first lap I almost pulled off on the bike path and called it. I didn't. Continued on and what had taken me what seemed like an hour had become a completely rideable section that was over and done with in about 45 seconds. Couldn't believe it! I later came to some still unridable stuff and some that was worse than the first lap.

The third lap saw better conditions and a fourth would have been almost normal. The really "wet" sections got worse, but didn't slow you down much. I finished lap 3 at 5:37 and wasn't sure how far behind me 3rd place was. I lubed my chain and grabbed a fresh bottle and waited. At 5:45 Stephen Carney rolled in. I presented to him that he could settle for third or we could go out and battle it out for second. It didn't take him long to opt for the third place finish. I keep getting second to Dwayne, but in most cases I'm having to ride a lot less than him. Hard to believe that it took me 5 hours and 37 minutes to ride 33 miles. I knew this would be a race of attrition.

We cleaned our stuff for the next hour and a half and then headed south for some food. Dinner was awful, we found a hotel and then assessed the badness that we had put out bikes through. More cleaning and lubing, then to bed. Got up early and headed further south to Neosho for the race #3 of the Midwest Fat Tire Series, Le Tour de Tick. It poured on us for the first hour plus. Then it started to clear off. When we got there it looked pretty wet. Did I mention that I'm sick of racing in the wet? All we heard was how good this trail manages water, OK.

All in all it wasn't too bad. No pre-ride to speak of, just a few sprints down the road to make sure the bike was working and to wake up the legs. Small showing of dedicated racing freaks put me in third going into the woods. I was riding with Dwayne and Jason Stiger, the one from the Rim Wrecker. Just over a mile into the race I had a flat. 1" long cut in the sidewall of my rear tire with about 1/2" completely through, Stan's sealant didn't have a chance. My guess is that it cut earlier and when I bottomed out in a dip, it tore open. That's racing, it's what you do now that will make you or break you. I carry two tubes and a tire lever with about 18" of duct tape wrapped around it for this very occasion. I made up a boot with 3 or 4 layers of duct tape and tried to stick it to the inside of my tire. It fell out when I had the tube in and tire about 80% of the way on. Trying to put it back in the tire came off.........................I eventually got it and aired up my tire. ALL of the beginners had now passed me. I started to ride up the climb I had stopped on and I could tell that the CO2 cartridge I used was insufficient and needed a bit more air. Soon I was rolling. The bummer is after a flat and now riding with a tube, wondering if my patch will hold, I never ride the same. No excuses, just can't trust the thing and constantly wonder if "that root" I hit was too hard and will I pinch flat?

I immediately began my trudge through the beginner field on almost all single track. Most were more than happy to let me by. Larger groups would prove difficult, but would eventually fall to my heroic efforts. Last place, by a long shot after the first lap. It wasn't long before I passed the first marathon class racer. At least I wasn't in last now. One by one I slowly picked off the next and the next. Greg was riding strong and very consistent. Todd Holtman was cheering us on and letting me know of my progress. Not that my goal was to catch Greg, but getting a time check on him told me how I was doing. 9 min behind, 6 min behind, 4 min behind and then seconds entering the last lap. I was pretty sure Greg was in third and I in fourth. For all I knew he was going to put the hammer down like he had on our ride with Dwayne just a week ago and I would never see him. I knew this was my last lap so I was giving it all I had. It took a while for me to catch him. He was climbing way faster than me, but I had more power on the flats and the advantage on the descents. I got by him on a short steep bump that he picked the wrong gear for and had to hop off and walk. Soon I had a solid lead until we came to the longest grunt of a climb. Not much, but given the conditions it was the toughest part for me. When I got to the top Greg was right with me. I think he worked really hard to catch me and it wasn't long and I had a gap again.

Unlike the Bone Bender, the conditions worsened as this race went on, we were just trying to stay upright. I was no where near catching Jason and Dwayne was out on his 6th lap by himself. I can take pride in the fact that I didn't quit. Would I have caught Jason without the flat? Don't know but I'd bet if I came up behind him near the end he would have done what was needed to stay away.

All in all a good weekend. Thanks to Greg for driving and thanks to Craig Basler for kindly loaning us his car rack so we didn't have to destroy our top tubes. That's a ton to do in about 39 hours.

Snow, mud and beers

2009-04-03T11:01:00.019-05:00

Seems odd writing about a race five days later, but I just haven't had time. I'll keep this one short(maybe). We thought Council Bluff had missed the brunt of the snow and it would be "OK". Turned out they had several inches of wet snow. It was sure perty for the start of the race. Lots of snow still on the trees, seemed cold and was really really wet, everywhere. We didn't even warm up, how could you? I figured I had a certain amount of life in my bike and planned on conserving it.

Marathon class took off with a spray of water from the rear tires of the leaders as we sped up the campground to the entrance. We made a wrong turn and did an extra loop-de-loop and laughed. Hey it prolonged the inevitable, muck mayhem. Dwayne led us into the woods with two other riders between us. I wanted to capitalize on my heightened ability to succumb to the forces of gravity, but was unable to. Uh, I was at the mercy of 2nd and 3rd. Once we hit the main loop I was able to get by and soon caught up with Dwayne. We "rode" together for a while and chatted. It was cool making the first tracks in the snow. This don't happen too often. I was redlining and Dwayne needed to be set free. So I jumped into the lake and pleaded for him to save himself. Not really.

He rode away from me after we crossed the torn up spillway. I needed to back off. I'm pretty in tune with where I need to be when and at that time it wasn't racing with Super Dwayne. Jason Stiger was the only rider within sight when I looked back and he was making huge efforts to close the gap. I almost stopped and hid from him as it was very intimidating. About 2/3 of the way up the big climb near the halfway point of the 13 mile loop, he finally caught me. It wasn't long and he had a little gap on me, Dwayne was gone. I looked at my timer on one of the open climbs and Jason was about 40 seconds up on me, still no one behind in sight. Now it became my race. I pedaled on up the hill to start lap 2 and shed a layer exposing my perfectly clean Ghisallo jersey. At least I'll get my ass kicked in style! I figure it's like those tear away goggles for your team kit.

I didn't see another Marathoner on lap 2 and it was becoming painfully evident that I was going to have plenty of time to start a 3rd lap so I pressed on. Not knowing how many would do three laps I couldn't waste any time. I was sure at the very least Dwayne, Jason and I would have the good fortune to finish off what was left of our brakes and drivetrains. On my second and third lap I was passing some racers and getting passed by others. Those doing the passing ended up being Chris Ploch chased by Dave Breslin, 1-2 in the open experts and later Greg Sandknop, singlespeed winner, chased by John Mathews dominating the 35+ expert class. I just kept telling myself, "you're doing three laps, they should be going faster than you!" I have long conversations with myself.

Oh, one of the racers I had caught and passed was Jason Stiger. The efforts he had dished out earlier had taken their toll. I closed in on him not like a cheetah, but more like a Komodo Dragon. Here's how they hunt.
"Animals that escape the jaws of a Komodo will only feel lucky briefly. Dragon saliva teems with over 50 strains of bacteria, and within 24 hours, the stricken creature usually dies of blood poisoning. Dragons calmly follow an escapee for miles as the bacteria takes effect, using their keen sense of smell to hone in on the corpse. A dragon can eat a whopping 80 percent of its body weight in a single feeding."

X x 80% = 172lbs You fugure it out. I wonder how much Jason Stiger weighs???? Sounds like I'm in the wrong skin!

Anyway, I've been there, I felt sorry for Jason. That had to be a rough last lap. Still cool that he was guaranteed 3rd place as we were the only three that did a third lap. I just rode conservatively and finished in 2nd, 15 minutes behind Dwayne and 25 minutes ahead of Jason.

I bought a set of Hayes Stroker Trail brakes last February and still have the original pads after a lot of riding and racing last year. The bike I rode in the Rim Wrecker had a 3 week old set of the same brakes. The rear pads are down to bare metal and actually wore a grove in my rotors once the pad compound was gone. The prize money covered my entry fee, two sets of pads and a chain, that's all! Not complaining as Andy Gibbs put on a great race. It would have been really easy to call this one off.

Greg Ott, LUCKY, did two laps which was good for 8th place. Dwayne is leading the series with 48 points, I've got 2nd with 42 points and Greg is in 3rd with 30 points. It's going to be a fun year!

Lost Valley Luau

2009-03-22T22:27:00.017-05:00

Thanks to Mesa Cycles for hosting the first official mountain bike race of the year. And a special thanks to Gorc and it's volunteers for all the hard work that went into the new trail section that now bypasses the defunct bridge and washed out hill. It took two work days and a ton of man hours to make it happen. We pre-rode the new section before the race and I raised my eyebrows with concern. It was very soft in places, rough in others and the bench cutting in some places was not "cut in" yet. At speed it turned out to be just fine and I looked forward to it(get me off those gravel roads!). It was funny, as we encountered traffic-riders in other classes and some lapped riders, I heard a lot of moaning and cussing especially in the long "soft" section. All I could do was smile, chuckle to myself and motor on. Here is a shot of Nico rounding the switchback near the old bridge.

The Marathon class races until 3 hours passes by and then you finish what ever lap you are on. Last year this class was the bastard class. Today it was THE class. Not to take away from Cameron Chambers, Mike Best or Chris Ploch which in this order, put the other Experts to shame, but we had 31 in the Marathon class today! What's cool about this is that a lot of these people just wanted to try it for the first time and see what they could do. Compare the times of the top three Marathoners and they aren't far off from the experts and we still had two to three laps to do. Yes, I had the pleasure of ending my day in this top three. Dwayne won, Dave Breslin took a convincing second and I pulled off third.

The race started at a pace that I could handle, which was surprising. I was way behind a few, but still with the bulk of the riders. I passed several riders on the first climb which again, surprised me. Dwayne looked like he was shot out of a cannon, gone. We formed small groups for the next gravel road section but I knew I wanted to be ahead of these groups before we got to the first single track. Near the end of the gravel I stood up and attacked. Dwayne, Dave and Brad were out of sight by now. I entered the new trail GORC built and just tried to "flow" through it. It wasn't long and I caught Brad and then I was following him into the older single track, which I am very in touch with. I requested a pass on the left from Brad and he obliged. Swoopy descent over, I found myself on Dave's wheel. He bobbled and I was in front of him. Knowing that we had a moderate climb ahead I suggested that he go around me, so he did. I kept him in sight and was able to bridge back up to him on the next descent. We rode the double track together and stayed close until the creek crossing near the end of loop one.

Dave put a small gap on me before starting lap two. He kept that gap until the new single track again where I caught him again. Then right where it ends, he flatted. Sounded like a cut sidewall to me, but it turned out that the bead popped off and after remounting it, a blast of CO2 got him going again. Lucky! I had no idea, so I pressed on. I finished lap two in second, by myself and rode all of lap three alone. I didn't look back but Dave and Brad were closing in on me at the start of lap four and caught me after the first climb. I first saw Dave and asked him if he knew where Brad was and he said,"he's right there!". I turned to see Brad only a bike length behind me. I could tell Dave was on a mission so he was gone, never to be seen again. Brad passed me but I didn't let him get too far. I caught him on the new single track and we rode together for nearly half a lap. I could tell he had worked really hard to ride with Dave and I had backed off and felt a second wind approaching. I led into the last bit of single track. Another racer crashed right in front of me at the "waterfall" creek crossing but I managed to hobble past him and keep going. I guess Brad ended up crashing also.

I cruised the downhill and began the push up to the end of the lap to start lap five. Brad was only seconds behind me. I knew this was it, the last time up the "prick-of-a-hill" gravel climb so I gave it what I had. When I got to the top I locked out my fork, put my head down and "mashed". I blew by a group of five in a pace line and I think I startled them. When I got to the end of the gravel I looked back and could not see Brad, it worked! I rode carefully the rest of the lap for it was raining a little and I didn't want to crash. We were riding through tons of other riders now, which slows you down a bit. I crossed the creek at the waterfall climbed up the other side of the valley and looked across the valley and no Brad. At this point I was pretty sure I had it. Nice easy pace back to the finish for third. Third to Dwayne and Breslin, I'll take it! Nice job everyone. Greg did awesome also taking 6th and a few duckies too!

Secret playground

2009-03-15T11:00:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was a ball buster. Greg Ott and I poached a group ride made of real men. Mike Best, Nate Means, Doug Davis and Jason ?, don't know him. They came down from Columbia to camp and ride in the Mark Twain National Forest. Where else can you go out and ride all day and only scratch the surface of what is possible. The Ozark Trail is an expansive system of trails mostly open to mountain bikes and is managed by the Forest Service but mainly by the Ozark Trail Association of which I am a lifetime member. While I can't get down very often to help, I figure I'll at least support it with my membership.

*Edit*The handsome group of guys and gals that volunteer for GORC have a hand in this trail system's sweetness. That hand went to work on Sunday and re-routed a section of North Trace that had become the path for the nearby creek. Looks like I now have an excuse to venture down again to see the fruits of their labors. Thanks GORC!

This group then became "manlier" when joined by Dwayne Goscinski and Chris Ploch. We planned a banner ride consisting of a teasing of the Berryman, a chunk of the Courtois section of the OT and the entire North Trace section of the OT. While only about 26.5 miles one way, it's a tough ride with tons of climbing and lots of creek crossings. The trail surface was stellar for most of it. One section in the middle of the Courtois section has been "horsed up", holes poked in the soft earth that then collect water and never dry out. In all fairness the trail design in these sections contributes to this problem with a less than ideal choice of routing the user through lowlands. The equestrians still could make better decisions to stay off of trails when wet. Other than that, the trail was nearly perfect. Only a small number of trees down. When you cover this much ground and see the miles of dense forest of primarily deciduous trees, to have half a dozen trees down is not a problem.

Of course this was not enough, so we continued down past hwy DD on the South Trace section and rode the Telleck connector over to the Council Bluff loop and stopped there. Then it hits you. Over 28 miles from where you started, no place to get water or food and you're more than tired. Only thing to do is reset the Garmin and go. I thought it would be cool to get an out and back, recorded separately so I could compare all the data. This ride is definately harder on the out than the back which can be seen in the elevation profiles. Greg and I thought about cutting out many times but opted to finish it and I'm glad we did.

I was happy that I didn't walk ANY part of the ride except for the large trees and I had the exact average heart rate, out and back. This tells me that I accomplished my goal to stay smooth and meter my efforts even though the group full of testosterone was dropping us at the beginning. I've never had to worry about having enough daylight to finish a ride when said ride started at 10 am, holy crap! I finished my last bit of food with about 6 miles to go and ran out of water with about 3 miles to go, no big deal. Greg and I had no tubes left between us, I used one of mine and Greg's only tube, and my second tube had a bad valve stem. It just became more and more epic as each minute passed. I can't wait to do it again, but next time we stash food and water and do a loop at Council Bluff!

To add insult to injury, Super Dwayne thought the planned route sounded a little "weak" so he took it upon himself to show up in the morning while it was still dark and do a warm up ride. What would that warm up consist of but a loop around Berryman! I cannot even imagine! Freak! So my 8 hours and 46 minutes pales in comparison, whatever hurt I thought I had going on......

Got Wood?

2009-01-29T21:32:00.000-06:00

Been a little busy lately, hence the lack of posts. Busy with what?, you say. Pinewood derby of course. Adam is a Bear this year and we have fun with the derby. We like to go fast, but more importantly, look cool. With this being his third year and building our seventh car.....yeah I said seven. See last year my wife and I had a bright idea to suggest we have a parents race the night before to raise money for the pack. Since we suggested it, we had to enter it. So that meant a car for each of us last year and the same this year-seven total. So here is his first car which won best design in his den. Lightning McQueen, of course. Ka-chow!

Last year he wanted Jeff Gordon. It was all NASCAR. For some reason that year I had the urge to sit on the couch, eat Doritos and drink Busch beer. I gained lots of weight and had to have therapy to correct my reduction in vocabulary. After peeling off the life size 24 stickers from the sides of my truck, I moved on. This car also won best design is his den and raced to 6th place in the pack which meant a trip to the district races. This is a much more intense crowd and we went from top amatuer to bottom pro. This year has been all Legos all the time. So when I asked him what he wanted to make his car like he handed me a Lego rescue truck. Off we went! I told him that to make it look more realistic we would have to shorten the block some and make it taller so the proportions would be closer. Both of these changes theoretically will cause your car to run slower, theoretically. We didn't go crazy but tried to make it look like his Lego truck. I liked this one alot! It's simple, but cool. Turned out to be a pretty fast car anyway. Didn't win any design awards, but got 6th place again so districts here we come.

With my first car I wanted to try something different. The block of wood they give you is 7" long, 1 3/4" wide and 1 1/2" high. You then place the wheels on either side of the block and the 1 3/4" sets the cars stance and cannot be changed. How many cars do you see driving down the road with their wheels outside the body of the car? So I did some measuring and figured out how wide I could make the block and then bore wheel wells and maintain the correct width. An easy way to do this would be to glue pieces onto the sides, but I wanted a seamless body so I went to work. I ended up getting second in the parents race to a car with totally modified wheels. While this is allowed in the parents race, my car was legal to the kids' rules. Dig the attempt at the neon down lighting?

This year I wanted to something other than a car, truck or anything I had seen before. It took a while to come up with an idea and then it hit me. A racing pinewood derby track. Enough said, it was good for second again and the guy who won raced the same car as last year! The committee(my wife and me) amended the rules for next year so he won't be doing that again.

Now onto the most simple and best ideas. Mandy is truely into it for the fun, not competition. This car took about half the time to make that mine did and I think it's just as cool if not cooler. How many bitten watermelon wedges have you seen with dual exhausts and seeds made out of lead?

And now for this years best parent car. We first ditched the "factory" wood block. In search of the perfect chassis, we looked in the back yard. Mandy took special leader training this year and is working on the last steps of her Wood Badge training. It's pretty involved and it's been a ton of work. Her car is the Wood Badge symbol, on wheels. Yep, it's a log with a hand carved hatchet, river birch in case you're wondering.

The way I see it, if we both enter a car in the parents race for Adam's remaining two years and do the same for all of Eric's five years, then I'm looking at another 21 cars! Sounds like I might have to buy some more wood working tools.

Thank Steven for the egg nog!

2008-12-21T20:27:00.000-06:00

This is what my bottles looked like after I got home this afternoon. What is it that causes us make totally stupid decisions that go against all the good stuff we've been taught? It was 12 degrees at Klondike Park in St.Charles this afternoon which was the site of Team Seagal's CXmas non-race. For whatever reason I decided earlier this week that I was doing it no matter what. Even when the predicted highs dropped from 28 to 16, I was in. Even when I started to feel the effects of a head and chest cold starting, I was in. So back to the real bad decision.

I made up two bottles with the intent to use one an hour, hoping I would finish in two-BAD IDEA- read on. The non-race was 30 miles of mostly gravel road, Katy/Hamberg, pavement with a hint of trail and unimproved gravel. We started in Klondike, rode down to the Katy, then made a left on Terry Road, Oh Terry Road. That thing is a hell of a climb! Not as steep as Matson Hill Road but certainly longer, more rollers. Then we turned onto Duke Road, a paved and also rolling road. Luckily we then turned and descended Matson Hill Road which led us back to the Katy. Miles into what seemed like a headwind brought us to the Hamberg turn off and soon our first check point. Long before this I realized that my bottles were frozen solid(effect of said bad idea), I thought about dumping them somewhere where I could retrieve them later so I wouldn't have to carry the dead weight, but never did it. Approaching the first check point I saw a table with cups stacked half-time-at-a-soccer-game style. Behind the cups I could see Pabst 12 packs and expected to have to down a cup of beer. Instead it was egg nog! If we could have a Tour De Egg Nog much like the Tour De Doughnut(which I want to try sometime), I think I would win. Not that I'm an egg nog fan, but I put that mofo down! It turned out to be my only hydration for the event which was fine. Up the Hamberg to turn into the back side of Lost Valley, I finally put some time on the fella, Ryan Heine I think, that I was swapping places with for the last 10 miles. He was on a fixed gear cross bike, I rode this. My Retrotec "Classic" that I picked up about three years ago. You know how when it's really cold all your components seem to operate "slow like", my whole bike felt slow. When I got home, I noticed my rear hub has a bearing that is locked up, done. Don't think it would have made any difference in my finish, which happened to be 4th. One place away from a coveted CXmas hat, dammit! Back to Lost Valley.

After bombing down the rough gravel downhill and suffering up the big gravel climb I approached the first "detour". It was supposed to be the "mud pit", but given the temps was the "rutted field of ice". About a mile later I came to detour #2. This one forced a dismount up onto an old foundation, over several old steel I-beams and down a couple of steps. Didn't even know that old thing was there. If you have it, click on google earth once you've opened my GPS recording of the non-race. You can see the foundation at the upper left corner of what looks like the northern loop, pretty cool! One more descent out of Lost Valley and the advantage for the mountain bike was over, all smooth from here. We crossed Hwy 94 back to the Hamberg trail. Another check point loomed ahead. You may have trouble believing this, but we were given a large, wrapped(like a Christmas present) box and told to carry it all the way back to the Terry Road and Katy junction. WTF! over. So I did. It was empty, but still a pain in the ars to carry. When I finally made it to the drop off point we also had to do a series of barricades in tall off camber grass. I was spent by then and started to cramp at the thought of lifting my heavy legs over the obstacles. After lumbering through I got back on the bike, stretched and pushed into a wicked head wind all the way to the finish. I was glad to be done, toes and fingers numb. The people with face masks had ice from frozen breath, the guys with facial hair had ice beards.

Felt ok after a half hour in Michaels Jeep with the engine running and the heated seat on. Michael did it on his urban road bike with mountain style handle bars. He only had 28mm road tires and ended up flatting once in Lost Valley and soon after a second time. He was able to nurse the second one all the way home to finish. I can not imagine changing a flat in that cold, it kills your fingers. Greg Ott did it on his only bike, a Niner One 9 single speed. Good job to both!

Thanks to Team Seagal for putting this on. It's one thing to get dressed up and ride in this weather, it's another to come out and put on an event for free. They stood out in the cold for registration, taking pictures, manning check points and waiting for everyone to finish AFTER marking the course-very well(plus clean up). Was run as well as most sanctioned events I've been to, even the "floating finish line" was cool, you had to chase it down! Mark it down for next year all youins that stayed home and ate bon bons.

2008-11-17T23:56:00.000-06:00

Ahh, here it is! I've said all along that I was happy on a hardtail and that full suspension wasn't necessary with big wheels, but now look at me. I thought it would be cool to do my winter riding on a squishy bike and maybe prove myself wrong. Niner does an excellent job with the details on the frame, now it's time to see how it rides.

The design is a VPP(Virtual Pivot Point) in which the rear end swings as if attached to a pivot located out in front of the cranks. By changing the length and arc of the linkage plates they can control the path of the rear axle throughout the travel. This is where the CVA(Constantly Varying Arc) comes from. In the first part of the travel the rear wheel actually travels back, most of this travel should be taken up by sag if set up properly. From that point on the wheel follows a more upward path. This translates to a very active suspension that braking and drivetrain forces have little affect on.

BTEpic

2008-11-04T14:34:00.001-06:00

The results for the Berryman Epic are up.

1 CHRIS PLOCH 30 1 1ST 30-39 GEAR 4:42:46
2 BRAD HUFF 29 2 1ST 29- GEAR 4:43:29 69
3 MIKE BEST 34 3 2ND 30-39 GEAR 4:44:3269
4 MATT KEEVEN 32 4 1ST SING SING 4:45:17
5 TRAVIS THROWER 21 5 2ND 29- GEAR 4:52:29
6 MITCH JOHNSON 34 6 3RD 30-39 GEAR 4:53:05 66
7 CLAYTON BELL 25 7 3RD 29- GEAR 4:55:13
8 RICHARD MACHYCEK 42 8 1ST40-49 GEAR 5:01:55
9 JIM VANDEVEN 34 9 GEAR 5:04:50
10 DWAYNE GOSCINSKI 37 10 GEAR 5:05:09
11 ANDY GIBBS 35 11 GEAR 5:06:50
12 JEREMY BRADSHAW 33 12 GEAR 5:19:11
13 WES BIERMANN 31 13 GEAR 5:20:29
14 JIM KREWET 35 14 2ND SING SINGLE 5:24:45
15 ERIC SCHUCK 50 15 1ST 50+ GEAR 5:29:12
16 DAN FUHRMANN 16 GEAR 5:31:42
17 SCOTT PEIPERT 27 17 3RD SING SINGLE 5:34:57
18 STEVE HULL 54 18 2ND 50+ GEAR 5:35:50
19 NATE MEANS 36 19 GEAR 5:39:06
20 SAM YOUNT 27 20 GEAR 5:45:30
21 JASON OZENBERGER 33 21 GEAR 5:45:40
22 RICK SEDERBERG 59 22 3RD 50+ GEAR 5:47:27
23 GARRETT SPEINMUT 23 GEAR 5:48:15
24 CHRISTIAN STIZTZ 30 24 GEAR 5:49:45
25 STACEY LAPRESTA 31 25 1ST WOMEN GEAR 5:49:58
26 MATT PAYES 30 26 SINGLE 5:51:55
27 SCOTT MORTIMER 36 27 GEAR 5:53:34
28 TOM ALBERT 50 28 GEAR 5:53:35
29 DOUG LONG 55 29 GEAR 5:57:30
30 CHARLES EMMONS 33 30 GEAR 5:57:31
31 BRYAN ADAMS 41 31 2ND 40-49 SINGLE 5:59:39
32 DATHAN ATCHISON 39 32 GEAR 6:00:30
33 MATT SCHWEIKER 22 33 GEAR 6:01:43
34 ALLEN COCHRAN 33 34 GEAR 6:02:05
35 ALAN CORUM 35 35 GEAR 6:02:47
36 NATHAN KOEN 25 36 SINGLE 6:03:27
37 TOM LAURIA 57 37 GEAR 6:04:23
38 ANDY SCHUETTE 25 38 GEAR 6:05:06
39 LOREEN MATTSON 40 39 2ND WOM GEAR 6:06
40 ADAM MANNINEM 25 40 GEAR 6:08:24
41 JARRED BRACKETT 35 41 GEAR 6:11:30
42 CHAD BRIXEY 38 42 GEAR 6:16:07
43 TODD HOLTMANN 39 43 GEAR 6:17:50
44 ANDREW WARRER 22 44 GEAR 6:20:09
45 CHASE KELLY 23 45 GEAR 6:21:16
46 CODY RANKIN 34 46 GEAR 6:21:36
47 JARRET KINDER 29 47 GEAR 6:21:59
48 BRIAN ROGGEVEN 34 48 GEAR 6:26:33 182
49 BRIAN BUSKEN 37 49 GEAR 6:28:09
50 MATHEW FULLBRIGH 37 50 GEAR 6:29:17
51 SARA MILLER 27 51 3RDWOM GEAR 6:31:15
52 JR. SHOEMAKER 45 52 3RD40-49 GEAR 6:31:59
53 WALTER DAVIS 40 53 GEAR 6:35:28 120
54 ROBERT METZ 24 54 GEAR 6:37:10
55 JASON MATYAS 29 55 GEAR 6:44:50
56 KAREN HOLTMAN 38 56 GEAR 6:44:50
57 KERRY RASCHER 45 57 GEAR 6:46:15
58 PETE BERMUDEZ 60 58 SINGLE 6:48:10
59 SARA PARRISH 40 59 SINGLE 6:48:13
60 TOM BURKS 62 60 GEAR 6:59:59
61 STEVE MILLER 43 61 GEAR 7:01:30
62 CHAD CANFIELD 33 62 GEAR 7:05:55
63 SUSAN WILLIAMS 42 63 GEAR 7:11:42
64 KEVIN WILLIAMS 25 64 GEAR 7:14:35
65 MARK SIEVERS 46 65 GEAR 7:39:20
66 CHRIS LUDWIG 47 66 GEAR 7:49:00
67 LON FARINELLA 33 67 GEAR 7:49:01
68 123 68 GEAR 9:24:2769 181
69 GEAR 9:24:3670 58
70 GEAR 9:29:13 103

Gone in a Flash

2008-10-28T20:51:00.001-05:00

This is my year, so I'll apologize now for the time you'll never get back if you take a few minutes to read this.

2008 has come and gone. What a year! When I think back to last fall completing my first 24 hour solo and then two weeks later my 4th Burnin' 12 hour, I knew then I was hooked. Hanging out with Dwayne Goscinski and Chad Brixey at the 24 made the monster effort doable. I had ridden with Dwanyne several times at the Ranch and the Burnin' 12 hour two other years. I knew Chad from my previous life in Springfield, Mo. but it had been a long time since I had seen him. I planned to train all winter and stay in good shape, that didn't pan out. Come March of this year I hadn't ridden much and I went on a ride at Lost Valley with Michael Rawitcher, Greg Ott and Dave Dellisio and barely hung on. That was it!

The next weekend the same group of four did a long, for that time of year, road ride. It was cold but my attitude was different. We knocked out a little over 60 miles in the hills out west and I was the strongest at the end. Towing 236 pounds up all those hills was not where I wanted to be. After that, I really watched my diet and rode whenever I could.

I now had a goal, Dwayne and I were talking about doing a 100 mile race in July. Although there were lots of races before then, I knew even July would be a push, so I refrained. Lots of riding, 3 months and about 25 pounds lost later, Dwayne and I were thinking about a SUPER ride. We planned it for July 5 and I was definitely nervous about venturing out on this one with Super Dwayne and his huge base miles. Long story short, it was incredible. 167 miles, every hill we could work into it. I started at my house in Manchester, Dwayne at his in Crystal City and rode toward each other until we met near House Springs. We did a big loop on stuff I normally ride but was mostly new to him and then cruised south and did his big loop which was new to me. We ended up at his house and I drove back home. We were in 5 different counties that day so we named the ride such. I was beyond wasted at about 140 miles but continued on and finished as strong as I ever would have expected. 5 Counties Ride.

Michael, Dwayne and I planned a trip to Colorado to coincide with the Breckenridge 100 race I mentioned earlier. I was stoked because Michael and Dan Libby, from Denver had decided to do the 38 mile version of the race. The trip was incredible, the race was...well hard, fun, demoralizing....I could keep going. Short version, I quit after 68 miles. Dwayne didn't think 100 was enough so he did 110+, but finished. Michael was glad to only have signed up for 38. The altitude was a killer. Started at 9600ft, peaked at 12,600+ft and never dropped below 9,200ft. For us Midwesterners there just wasn't enough oxygen. The rest of the trip was awesome! Day in day out riding, visiting with Jim and Judy in BV. Riding the Crest trail again. The photo on my cover page is Michael near the beginning not far from Monarch Pass. The photo at the top is the view of Jimmer's work shop with some little mountains in the background.

Now we're on to August. Mandy and I wanted to do the Moonlight Ramble on our tandem. It starts at midnight and takes about an hour and a half to ride. The thing is I was planning on doing my first cross country(shorter and faster) race in Cape the next morning. We got home at about 2:45am and I had to leave the house by 6am to make the 9am start, who needs sleep? If you think that's nuts, Dwayne did the 12 hour at Landahl in K.C. which finished after midnight and proceeded to drive home, took a short nap and then headed to Cape himself! He took off like a madman at the start, I just tried to hang on. Then there were three, we dropped the rest. Brad from Cape was leading and Dwayne began to fade(as he should have!). I chased Brad but had to settle for 2nd. OK by me, I was back! Dwayne wasn't far behind me.

Then I had my sights on a new adventure, my first 6 hour. 12 hour races for me to this point had been go super easy and be smooth. A 6 hour is short enough that you have to go fast, but long enough for endurance to play a major role. I couldn't believe the turnout. There were over 40 racers going solo! I decided to ride my single speed bike to keep things simple and this was a great course for it. Except for getting started way back in the pack it was an awesome race. I started my last lap in 5th place and briefly caught up to Mike Best who was in 4th, but he had more in his tanks than I did, so 5th it was. I was happy.

My next bright idea was to go with the Monsanto Mavericks and help raise money for MS research by riding in the MS 150. And as always, 150 wasn't enough. Greg and I did the double century but it felt great. What a great group of people!

In lieu of the Landahl 24 that we had planned on racing all year and then was canceled, Dwayne, Chad and I then traveled to Ohio to the 24 hours of Mohican. What a weekend. A 9+ hour drive, packing way too much stuff, raining on us most of the way there and pouring on us when we got there, it couldn't have been better. Fun course, good people and the most I've been able to ride with friends at one time, ever! Seemed like the three of us did lap after lap together. I was happy with 3rd place considering the guy that got 4th won it last year! If I go back to this one I will be taking a helmet camera, some of the stuff we rode you wouldn't believe!

Now for some R & R. Mandy-my wife of 12 years, Adam-my 8 year old, Eric-my 3 year old and I headed to Florida and a Disney filled week. We had a blast and due to my wife's excellent planning, picked the perfect time of year to go, great weather and no crowds. I found out that I don't like to be spun around in circles really fast!

After our trip I had one week until the 5th Burnin' at the Bluff 12 hour, the race to always look forward to. Dwayne is always fast, I knew Zach Brace was fast last year and was gunning for it this year. Zach's times last year were way faster than mine and only because he stopped did I finish ahead of him. I didn't really pay much attention to who else was in the race, I just assumed there were some other fast guys but didn't want to waste the energy on worrying. Typical start, which happened to be a 200ish meter run to your bike, I DON'T RUN WELL. I found myself lumbering through the short cut grass as if it was prairie grass up to my waist, heart rate 180, place-near dead last. I've got 12 hours, right? I spent the next 15 minutes trying to pass slower riders on the narrow and sometimes treacherous single track. Soon I caught Zach who was behind a bunch of other riders. I decided I would stick with him, if he passed someone, I was going to pass them. He says I was pushing him, that is, making him feel like he was slowing me up or something, but my head was about to explode the whole time. With the run we turned a 1:14 1st lap! My second lap was 1:13 with a 3 minute break, the only time I've come close to a 1:10 lap in a 12 hour. The lap is about 13 miles, mostly single track, rocky and has several climbs, none of which are super tough.

My third lap, I was on track to come in well under 1:10 when my master link on my chain failed and when it did, it took my rear der. with it. Like a dummy, I had forgotten my chain tool. My only hope, as it happened with 5 miles left in the lap, was to borrow a chain tool and shorten my chain to create a single speed. I ran with my bike, a loosing proposition, for about a mile until someone gave me a tool-Thank You! It was the hottest part of the day and I was on the dam so I kept running to get in the woods and some shade. I tried to put the chain on my 21t cog but it wasn't tight enough and bounced off as soon as I tried to ride. So I figured I would put it in the smallest cog since that's where it was bouncing off to. I did and as soon as I pedaled it shifted up to the next cog making the chain unbelievable tight and tough to turn. But hey, it wasn't falling off, so I made the best of it and pushed my hee-man gear(71.38 inches). I still managed a ride time of 1:21 but lost about 45 minutes and had to work so hard that I had to take a longer break before going back out. You see, everyone razzed me for bringing extra bikes, but because I did I was able to keep on racing.

I set up my back up bike and rode 5 more laps feeling like I was doing the right thing by not quitting. On my 8th and last lap of the day I was riding at night. I LOVE night riding! I was picking off riders one by one and soon at the 4 mile marker came across a guy I had never met, Kyle Shour. I was going way faster than he was but waited to pass in a safe place. When I did he asked me what class I was, "solo", I said. Then he asked me what lap I was on,"8", I said. "How bout you?", I asked. In a bummed out voice he said,"8". That was it, just the boost I needed. If nothing else, I had just moved up a spot on the last lap. I had no idea where I was, could have been 10th place for all I knew. I tore up that last lap and when I finished and everyone realized that I had passed Kyle for 3rd place,they went nuts. Again, I was super happy with that. I knew that 1st and 2nd would be Dwayne and Zach, although not in that order. Zach had the race of his life. He had passed Dwayne and even with a flat on the last lap, won the 5th Burnin' 12 hour. Way to go Zach! And by the way, the picture of the trophies at the top....Anybody else have all 5?

The end was near. This past weekend had to have been the high of all highs for me. I don't win much and when there is tough competition, I don't usually place well. Enter, Berryman Epic. A 55-60 mile race including the Berryman Trail, Ozark Trail and gravel roads. 92 racers, I hoped to 1st, finish and 2nd, place top 20. A neutral start got us rolling and led us to a 2 mile gravel road that essentially climbed most of the time, not my forte. I pushed reasonably hard to get pretty far up before entering the single track, I had learned my lesson. This race was just fun! I found myself riding with guys that are consistently faster than me, Wes. I just tried to ride my pace and pound on. We came up on Travis on the side of the trail. I think he had crashed, so he got on with us and it wasn't long before he passed me. I pushed on and soon was at the first check point. The check points are to verify that each rider completes the entire course. Checked in and off I went. Caught Jim Vandeven just before and thought for sure he'd be right there with me, but never saw him again. Passed a few riders fixing flats, but saw no one else before the Berryman check point. I had a hard time finding my feed bag and when I did, I grabbed new water bottles and took off.

We started south on the OT, I had never ridden any of this and it was cool. Lots of climbing and my heart rate was too high so I backed off. Nearing 28 miles on my computer, I heard a rider closing in on me from behind. Mentally, this killed me. He didn't look like anyone special, so I thought I was going to become a door mat for everyone behind me. Come to find out it was Brad Huff, who is an accomplished pro cyclist. In a little bit I came to the next check point and the end of the OT. The lady said, "8th place". I asked her to repeat herself as I couldn't believe it. It was on now! I pulled on to the gravel road and shifted to my big ring and began "mashing". It wasn't long and I came up on Eric Pirtle. He was cramping and was done, that's racing. So that meant 7th place. I continued to hammer. Back on a short section of blacktop now I looked up and could see another rider. It seemed like I was gaining on him when we started up a near mile long climb back to Berryman campground. He pulled away from me, I must emphasize, I don't climb well . At the top, I stopped to grab something to eat and started to ride away when I noticed the rider I was chasing was still filling his bottles, so I took off. I knew this next section well so I gave it all I had.

The climb after turning off of the last of the single track was brutal. A long straight climb with no break. You could see all the way to the top, so that meant you could see all the way down from the top. I pushed my way up it and then turned around expecting to see someone on my heels and saw no one! I wasn't home free, but I felt pretty good about where I was. Head down, hammering into a headwind, I suffered my way back. When I started down the big hill we had climbed in the beginning and I figured out where I was, I let it all go. I almost wiped out at the bottom of the hill because I was going so fast. Soon I was done. Not the usual 20-30 riders already finished and showered. Chris Ploch, Brad Huff, Mike Best, Matt Keeven and Travis Thrower all still dressed in their gear looking tired like me. But where's Dwayne? I hadn't passed him. I find out later that he missed a turn and I must have been very close to him and got by him before he figured it out. Killer race, can't wait to do it next year!

I can't believe all that happened this year. Gone in a Flash!