Thursday, October 28, 2010

Monday, October 25, 2010

Smithville CX

Smithville CX this Sunday was a blast! By far my favorite course to date, they did a better job than last year and I thought that was a good course…
We were all down in numbers: the usual suspects, Hippy, BradBob, Hoppe, JP and myself… Out of the woodwork came Spenser, Jimbo and Joel, all came out to race…

I did the 3 / 4’s first, got a second row start but made it to the top 5 on the hole shot... Well kind of, actually I was 4 back about 10 feet from the end of the pavement when we all were going to take the hard left, when some dude came flying in on the inside of the corner, locked his breaks (which is a feat with cantilever breaks) and proceeds to fall flat on his arse right in front of me… You have got to be kidding me!!!!!!!! Dude, it’s a 40 min race, chill out man…. What kills me is 1. the dude wasn’t even that fast 2. Were racing in the 3 /4's..... Anyway, its about this time I am a little wound up and holding back a verbal assault on this guy when five or so guys go right by me while I am waiting for this dude to get up… Not a great start…

I managed to pick some of the guys off during the race and ended up 6th… That’s just the way things go sometimes.. Felt much better than the week before at Boulevard Cup. I think the course helped us MTB fellas out a bit since it required some technical skills instead of just straight up wattage….

Second race was an hour later and I raced Singlespeed. I actually held on to the leaders for quite a while this race (much better than last week)… Was having some fun with things until I pulled an endo trying to put a dollar in my shorts from the dollar tree…. Yes, it was a little embarrassing, JP was right there to witness the debacle… You know it took me the rest of the race to make up the two spots I lost messing around… Wish it was at least a 5 or a 20 spot, I think that would have been more respectful, or maybe a beer hand up… Finished the race in 4th, one spot off the podium… Damn…

I think everyone had a blast. Hoppe was the big winner on the day taking 1st in his masters race! Good job dude! I am racking my brain on how to keep up with you….

JP, Hippy, Brad I think did well… I hope they feel that way… Jimbo made it out for this first and hopefully not last CX race of the season….

Also Spenser and Joel made it out… It was good to see you guys out there, hope to see you some more…

See for yourself... RESULTS and PIC"S......

Found this VIDEO... Us slow fellas...
Another VIDEO from the Mens Open Race... Bunch of fast dude here, thats for sure....

Hippy Ready to roll...


Hoppe up the hill!
 JP at the beach
 Myself looking devilishly handsome in my new kit
 Hippy movin like a man 1/2 his size
 Spenser up the hill with is steel SS!
 Joel's first race I think..
 JIMBO!!!!!
 Brad on the hippy's heels!!
Peace!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Boulevard Cup!

Holy crap, I was not prepared for that!!!! Totally different animal than MTB Cross Country Racing… My training was quite insufficient for this kind of effort.....

Took the family down to Kansas to Race the Boulevard cup, little Liam got his first taste of CX action and he’s not a month old… Got to expose the little fella early!!

VIDEO of Singlespeed race HERE... (Video is pretty awesome, you can get a good idea on how the course was)

RESULTS can be found HERE.

PICTURES can be found HERE..

Met Hoppe and JP down there and we all raced Masters at 11:00… Pre rode the course, there was two obstacles and one sand pit, not very much climbing, very fast…

I knew this was going to be interesting when I toed up to the line with a bunch a fit looking dudes… Wasn’t a chucky monkey around.. 30+ was up first so we took off like a rocket at the start. So were off, 40 min of pure pain/fun! Long paved section before a soft left to the course and I hit the hole shot two back.. Hells yes I’m thinking… Well, I am used to the pace slowing down a bit after you hit the single track, not the case here.. About a quarter mile in and I was getting passed like I was soft pedaling… Thinking, Okay, im still 3 back, wait 4 now, crap 5, s**t 6,7,8th now.. Caught my breath enough to stop getting abused by these fellas, but still did not make up any ground until about 3 laps into it when people started slowing down a little.

Ended up the race in 8th, could have been worse, I tell you that… Next up Singlespeed race for me and Cat 3 for JP and Hoppe.. Census from all of us was that two races in the same day kind of sucks.. Legs got really heavy, really quick.. All you could do was just pace yourself the best you could and try to have fun.. Having fun was a bit easier on this race because the kegs were tapped and the drum and trombone came out… People started getting a little rowdy and I loved it!! NOW WERE CROSS RACING!!

Only downer of the day is that my team mate, good buddy Hoppe was too busy worrying about getting warmed up for his Cat 3 race to give me beer handups… WTF?!?! Had to take one from a stranger… Just don’t feel the love….

See you all Sunday at Smithville!!!

Im sorry the pictures suck! If anyone can do better, please do so..

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

I'm back Beeoches!!!

Time to knock the rust off these dem legs of mine!! Babies sleeping a little better and have the green light from the wifey... Training without racing SUCKS!
Its on! Boulevard cup, This Sunday... Debating on what races to do, I wanted to race Cat 3 but its right after Singlespeed, so I think its Masters 30+ at 11:00 and then SS at 1:00....
Who else is in?

On another note, I stared reading Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald... Insightful, I suggest taking a look.

Doing a trial run for a little to see how it goes for the remainder of the CX season and then it will be in full affect come spring... I have to keep up with those Cat 1 animals!!!
So far I have got my body fat checked and started keeping a food diry. Its very enlightening to write calories taken in a day. Once you see it on paper, if your like me, is very motivating to eat right. When you have to wright down 700 calories for some Arbys curly fries, you think twice.... If anyone has any questions on how its going just let me know... I have only started, so give me some time.....
Just in case your wondering, Boulevard Pale Ale is 175 calories....

Peace!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Cross Out Cancer CX Race Report

By the time I got to the race, Randy and BradBob had already raced their first race. We ran into them in the parking lot on the way to the registration table and Randy warned us that the course was very rough and recommended letting some air out of tires to ease the jarring terrain.

We watched the next race start while Randy and BradBob pointed out some of the points on the course to watch out for. There where three sets of barriers. One set of two high barriers at the end of a straight away, another set of two high barriers directly after a hairpin turn on the other side of the course. And finally a set of three small 6 inch barriers that where jump-able if you had the speed. The course weaved back and forth with several tight turns, and turns that I originally thought would be no big deal. Other features of the course were a parallelogram of death. Instead of being a spiral, this thing had some tight corners to maneuver around, and then spit you out onto one of the two straight-aways that were not up hill. The other downhill straight-away was on loose dirt with a sharp hairpin turn at the end preventing you from wanting to pick up much speed.

Emma and I hung out with the Jeff and Amy from Renaissance and watched Randy and BradBob’s Masters 35+ Cat4 race from in front of the parallelogram of death. Randy killed it, finishing first. From where we were sitting, it didn’t look like he had any problems with any section of the course. BrabBob had some problems with his chain and finished 11th.

Women’s race was up next, so we were getting Emma ready to race, and first thing we notice is she has a flat tire. Sure enough, we went to the cross races without a spare tube or tire levers. We managed to round up a tube and levers from some other racers and quickly changed the tire so she could race. I don’t know if she had enough time to get a practice lap in though. She did good in her first race in two years, and it being only her second race ever. She finished with a flat tire (rode it right over the finish line with maybe 10lbs of air) in 17th place.

I raced single speed, which was the last race of the day. My plan was to race into the larger curves and pedal right on through picking up speed. That didn’t work out too well for me, with the combination of low tire pressure, loose dirt, and dry grass it was very difficult for me to keep my wheels underneath me. On two occasions I found myself somersaulting through the corner. I did manage to keep my bike in my hand, so it was pretty easy to get going again. On my second wipe out, I was kinda glad I crashed, because I wasn’t paying attention to the course and would have run right into the largest barriers. After spilling the corners a few times I decided to take it a little more cautious through the rest. I couldn’t get enough speed coming up to the small barriers to bunny hop them like some of the racers, but I was able to wheelie over the top and bounce the back over them on a few laps, although most of the time it was just faster to run them, especially if there was anyone else going over them at the same time.

With it being as warm and dry as it was, the dust was pretty bad and my mouth dried up and became lined with dust pretty quickly. So on one of the laps when I rode through the feed area, Jeff from Renaissance handed me up a bottle of water, which I promptly choked on as I tried to turn into the parallelogram. I thought I was going to have to get off the bike and puke for the next third of that lap. I did manage to finish in 15th place, and Emma met me at the finish line with a cold beer ready for my drinking pleasure.

On a side note, I am not too fond of having my race as the last race. I hardly have enough time to drink my post race beers before every one starts tearing down and heading home.

Nationals/CX

Cameron Chambers won the 24hour solo, singlespeed national championship this weekend... Article HERE... You can see the results HERE and marvel on how consistent the lap times are.... Flippen animal!!! Very impressive, HTFU indeed Sir...

DeStad CX was this weekend also... I know that the hippy, Bradbob, JP, Derrk and Emma went down.. One of you should post a race report... I spoke to the hippy and he won the cat 4 35+... Flippen sweet, results here.... Photos by Roger Harrison here...

I would have posted some pics from Roger but I could not figure out how to get them saved... Or don't have the time to figure it out anyway....

Next up, CX races this weekend... I am going to actually try and hit up the Boulevard Cup on Sun....

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Boss Cross Video

I think I see a couple of you guys in here?

[youtube]gf6-yZ5DaQo[/youtube]




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf6-yZ5DaQo

either of these work? I am not sure how to embed.

Friday, October 1, 2010

2035 National Champ!!!

As of Tuesday, we have a new Hard Breatin Fat Kid, the future 2035 National Cross Country Champ.... Only one decision now, gears or no gears????

MTB season is wrappen up, recognize a bunch of names on the UFD series...  Its too bad that some more of us did not race more often, I think we have a good concentration of good mtb riders here in town....

Soooo, while I am off the bike for a little while, you guys have been slaking.... I know there is come CX racin going on! Anyone going to post some updates/ reports/ pics of the Hippy taking a crap???? Anything?????