Lot's of spare time on my hands

Since the end of the CO season and the holidays, I have taken some time off the bike. Not by design, but more because I want to survive to ride when it is warm.

After the first week off the bike I was ready to get back on. But the second week did not want to cooperate. With highs in the single digits and lows in the negative double digit's, shrinkage was an issue as well as keeping the rest of the body warm. No one should be out riding in this brutal cold except Jon.

Through being sick and hacking up green stuff for another week, this weekends race in Lyons is now a distant memory. But all is not lost. My wife loves me with this special Christmas gift. That is 3 litre's of the best Belgium love that is around. Between this, the bottles of Maredsous 10, Karmeliet, Chimay red and a sixer of Leffe, all is good around the house at this point.

So I have had plenty of time to find some really funny cross vid's from around Al Gore's intraweb that you may or may not have seen...Enjoy!!!

This one is pretty funny...dude from PDX racing in Europe and get's in Dick Gronendaal's way!

Here is the "infamous" shoving match from Nat's with JPage's wife with the "nuggy"

It's a JP kinda day..here getting taken out by Bart Aernouts at Deigem this weekend

Things Tim Johnson and I Have in Common

For Yaxmus this year, I got a wee bit of CX Bike Porn!




I got a chance to watch it yesterday. It is pretty well done and will provide me something watch when I need some CX motivation. There was one particular part that I found specially inspiring. But to explain why, we first need to........


Rewind back to the 2007 Interbike show......

Rich, Dash and I were wandering around looking at the latest toys. As we rolled through the SRAM booth, we saw they had a bike with the brand new (at that time) Red grouppo. I had heard about the upgrades to the front derailleur and was highly interested to see how much the shifting had changed from the Force components that I had been running all year. The bike was up on a stand and in a sultry bike voice said "Come play with me, big boy". I swear it did!!!! I started shifting the front derailleur back and forth checking to see what SRAM had changed in shifter throw distance and how they had put in a trim capability that all the Shimano and Campy converts wanted. Behind me I heard a guy say "Hey, it's $5 for every time you shift my bike." Figuring it was some SRAM guy being a smart ass, I promptly ignore him and kept on shifting the front derailleur. The guy starts counting out loud "$5, $10, $15, $20, $25". Finally, Rich firmly says to me "Hey Brian, I think he wants you to stop dicking around with his RACE BIKE!" I am like...."Huh? Race bike?" I finally stop focusing on the Red shifting and widen the aperture a bit to notice that the bike is a brand new, yellow and white, Cannondale TJX. The next thought through my grape was "Aw crap, it can't be." I turned around and sure enough, it was. There was Tim Johnson standing there patiently waiting for me to fork over $25. Luckily for me, TJ is as nice of a person is he is fast on a bike and let me off the hook. He was mainly trying to make sure this bike would be out at the CrossVegas course in a couple hours for him to use.

The TJX was set up with a Fizik Arionne saddle and for a fleeting moment my usual desire to be a smart ass tried to surface and ask him if he found that the pointy rear contour of the Arionne gave him big bruises on the inside of his thigh when he performed a Flying Bike Prang (A full description of an FBP can be found here.) I had been running that same saddle on my Kona and knew first hand that the size of bruises you can put in your thigh with that thing are pretty impressive. That thought was quickly replace by the realization that someone with the mad CX skilz of Tim Johnson would never miss a re-mount bad enough to perform an FBP.

Fast forward back to present day........

Oh, how wrong I was. There, in the Bonus section of the 9-Ball Diaries DVD, at 2008 World CX Championships no less, is video'ed documentation that Tim Johnson does indeed know how to perform an FBP. Granted he does not finish off the maneuver by grinding his leg on the rear tire, but most of the basic components are there. I gave it a 8.5. Congrats Tim!

With the CX season drawing to a close, my contributions to this site will drop. If I see something really stupid while doing Neutral Support for the ACA races here in Colorado over the summer (Jeez, what are the chances of that?!!) I will blog about it.

Zondag, Zondag, Zondog

So I went to a bike race this weekend

And a boxing match broke out.....

So over at the rbr forum there was this tasty post dealing with the "continuing" fued between Adam Meyerson and Colorado's own Jon Baker who rides for Vitamin Cottage:

baker went down in a big 180 corner on the first lap (the one just after the turn around the tree). meyerson was right behind him, and ran into baker and went down too. they got up and were tugging at their bikes - there was a pedal tangled in spokes - and exchanging some choice words. baker finally got free, and as they were starting to remount, baker throws a big right roundhouse at meyerson, and it looked like it landed square on the left side of meyerson's face. meyerson said something about baker getting suspended, and they both rode off. i can't say for sure that baker made contact because i was directly behind him, but it sure looked like he landed the punch.

There has been some banter that Baker will be suspended from USA Cycling. How will this affect his ACA race program?

According to the presidence that was sent when Beth Estes was still in charge, when Scott Moninger was suspended for his dope case, ACA also would not allow him to race. The recipitory agreement with USAC and ACA says that each will follow rules.

Let's see how this plays out over the next couple of months.

Final wrap on Nat's....

Compton wins...no one is susprised by that

Trebon wins...no one is susprised by that either

Big suprises though...Brandon Dwight defended his age group title. That is one tough chore to do. With a field of over 125 guys, having a good start position is key but holding all those hungry dog's is another. Congrats to BDub.

Day 2 and more titles coming back to CO

Day 2 held a full slate of races. Mosty courgar class and some youngsters again. Onceagain, the kids from CO have done us proud.

Just a quick run down of yesterdays races.....

Juniors:

Mina Anderberg won the Jr Girls 10-12 from Mudskippers

Michael Dessau was 5th in the Jr Boys 13-14 from 5280

The upset of the day goes to Jeff Bahnson from DE, he beat hometown fav Yannick Eckman in the Jr Boys 15-16 by almost a minute. There is a story in there somewhere.

Cougars:

In another upset and getting PDX on the board, Wendy Williams beat Karen Hogan of Louisville in the Womens 40-44 race.

Martha Iverson won the 60+ cougar title from Durango.

In the Womens 35-39 race, Arvada's own Lisa Strong from ToughGirl came in second.

There was a token Mens race also. Mens 45-49, Dennis Farrel was 4th. Nice ride by him. With another huge CO showing in this class, there were 125 or so guys for this one.

We also had some late returns from the Show Me State on Thursday's rides.

Boulder's own Gary Thacker won the Mens 55-59 race. Gary has torn it up most of the year in the 45 group this year also. Congrats to him!

Walt Axthelm riding out of Durango won the 70+ race.

Guess there is hope me yet to win a race. Only 32 more years to go....start the countdown clock!!

Will try to get another update out later tonight....

Keep cross'in it up in KCMO kids.....

Day 1 is in the books

Day one of Nationals is in the books and once again, Colorado has done itself proud.

First race of the day was the Ladies B race. Susan Prieto from Blue Sky Velo finished up in 7th place. Diedre Garvey from Lousiville Cyclery came in a respectable 13th place.

Up next was the first Killer B's race for youngens under 29...and is the winner way under 29. Just like his brother's win at the Boulder Cup in the "jr's" race where he kicked the sand out of all of the 3's when starting 2 minutes behind them...was our own Clif Bar rider, Robin Eckmann. Robin won the old fanshioned way, he eeeaaarned it, with a full on sprint win over a dude from NC that goes to Appy State. Robin is only 16 years old...the dude he beat is in college. Robin has been laying the wood to lot's of guys this year in the open class so this should come as no suprise. Rounding out the podium was Robin Guillaume from the Durango Devo team. He got his podium by also winning a sprint over a dude from NC....bad days for guys that are living in the tar heel state, huh? Coming in at the 11th place was Daniel Matheny from the Mafia racing team. Those guys have uber cool kits.

Next race on the docket was the Killer B's, 30 -39 cat. This is the one that I would have been racing if I was racing. Did I even race this year?...I think I more participated than raced, so can someone please hand me my participation ribbon?

Matt Opperman did CO proud with his 11th place finish. Matt is a local "legend" around CO. First off, he is super nice guy and will help anyone out that has a problem on race day. He is also the Head Mechanic for the Gary Fisher MTB Pro team. He hangs out with fast kids which in turn makes his uber fast. He is also a full time dad to 2 kids, which makes how fast he is that much better.

The last race of the day was the Killer B's 40 plus race and it seemed to be a dandy.

This cant be right though...there were 51 guys in a sprint finish all with the same time for the podium?
In a cross race?
Did the judges just get lazy or something?

Give it up to Darren Cheek for finishing in 4th place. Bryan Hardwood in 6th, Jared Shuttleworth in 7th and Harold Stephenson in 15th. There were a ton of guys with CO connections with placings. The list is long and distingiushed.

Scott Mares in at 47th. He just wrote a new book on cyclocross...pick it up for that favorite bog trotter in your family for Christmas

Chris Shotwell raced and finished up in 63rd. I think he is doubling up this weekend also. Chris works from Sram down in the Springs. He will be racing then doing tech support. If you need a wheel this weekend, hit those guys up. Rumor has it they have Zipp 404's as pit wheels...we should all be that lucky.

Colorado CX State Championships Report

Thoughts, analysis, ruminations, observations, comments, and questions about all aspects of the 2008 Colorado Seniors/Masters State Cyclocross Championships.

This last weekend, several members of the Frites en Mayo Velo Club (FMVC) squad loaded up the bikes, wheels, and other CX essentials and headed to The People's Republic of Boulder for States...............

.............Now, I see from the ClustrMap that someone from Iran tunes into this site so, let us digress a bit and explain the facts of life about CX in Colorado for that person and anyone else who is not familiar with the CO CX scene. It is a known fact that are a butt-load of cyclists in Boulder, Colorado. This in turn, leads to a very healthy CX contingent. If you follow the adventures of G. Keller , you know that the Wednesday morning training sessions in Boulder regularly draw 70+ riders. Now, from the casual outside observer such as moi, your common Boulder CX racer falls into one of two groups. Group A is filled with characters like Mr. Keller, Aaron "Boups" Bouplon, and several others. These guys are at nearly every race, every weekend, everywhere in the state. Group B is loaded with individuals who live in mortal fear that their Subaru will blow up if it crosses the Boulder County line. If you don't believe me, just go to the ACA website, pull up the 2008 CX results page, and look at the number of racers that show up to each race. If you are a promoter who has a race outside of Boulder county, you can expect a 25% drop in total number of racers. If you are a promoter with a Sunday race held outside of the Boulder County and the Saturday race was in Boulder County......... yeah....well... good luck with that. I am not compling here. Just pointing out the facts.

This leads to the canons of CO CX. 1) States will always be within a 20 minute drive of Armate Coffee in Boulder. It has to. Everyone who has a desire to win states wants to beat any and everyone in order to prove they are truly the best in the state. In order to make sure that will happen, the phenomenon I describe above requires that the race be in Boulder. 2) 1/3 of the guys racing at states will have been to 10 or less CX races during the year. Some of them you will not have not raced aginst all year. But..... everyone of these guys will be seriously fricken fast.

OK, back to the race. This years race was promoted by Chris Grealish of DBC Events. He of Boulder Cup and CrossVegas fame. OK..... I gotta digress a bit here about Chris. On race day, most promoters are making decisions a mile a minute and barking orders at volunteers to be immediately carried out in an effort to insure that the race runs smoothly. Not Chris. At a DBC Events race you will find him always on the move about the course. Always with an intensity about him..... and always with a trash bag in hand picking up what others are too lazy to. I always want to say something like "Hey Chris, you are the head guy at this thing, shouldn't you be making decisions a mile a minute and barking orders at others so that this place looks better when we leave than when we got here?" But one look at the intensity he has and I always decide to choose life instead. People, I shit you not. CrossVegas this year.... The Men's Elites are on lap 2, Dave Towle is screaming in the mic "They are absolutely throwing body blows out there!!!!", the beers have been flowing in our group and many others for a while now. The one community trash can had reached overflow proportions. And who walks up, changes out the liner bag and hauls off 5 cases of empty beer cans? Chris Fricken Grelish! Was he watching one of the best CX races to hit the states? Hell no! He is making sure I got a spot to to dump my next dead solider. Chris sets the example that many others should follow.

Ok.... back to the race. Rich and I were up in Boulder the day before and there was a couple of inches of snow still. With temps predicted to be in the 50's, the melt would be on and we were certain then that the states course was going to be muddy. However, about 2pm on Saturday, the snow eaters started and by Sunday morning, the course was nearly dry. The course design was just loaded with 180 switchbacks, side hill traverses, barrier sets with barriers at different heights, and a sand pit just so you could get some in your shoes. It favored those with lots of explosive power and good technical skills. Having left most of my explosive power in the porta-potty about 20 minutes after arriving at the race, I did not think highly of my changes for a decent finish.

Dash decided that this was the day to race the 45+ open instead of the Beer Drinking Dad League (BDDL) with us. Or, in other words, Dash decided to see if he could turn himself completely inside out on the course in an effort to not get lapped by multi-State and National Champion, Karl Keister. OK.... I must digress......So, here is a question to ponder. It is well known that humans do things for two reasons. Either to get something (gain pleasure), or to avoid something (avoid pain). Does that work for bike racing? I mean, it does not really strike me that Sven Nys wins races because he wishes to avoid the pain of losing to Lars Boom. I think that Sven Nys wins races because he wants to kick ass and takes immense pleasure in it.

Anyway..... back to the race. Rich, Scott, Vegas and I went down to watch Dash start. He had a decent one and went out of our sight sitting somewhere mid-pack. We went back to the car to continue the change/warm-up routine. Five minutes later, Dash showed up looking none too happy. I turned out that he flatted 100 yards past the pits on the very first lap. That put him with close to a mile to run. A crushed man, Dash returned, changed out of his kit, and began drinking. That's PRO man, totally PRO.

The DBBL went about as well as I could have hoped given my trials, tribulations, and resulting form this year. The main highlight of the race happened about 30 minutes in. The race was pretty strung out. I was pushing the limits but not making up much ground on the group in front of me. As I was going along a side hill that was one of the few muddy parts of the course, I saw off to the side a guy who was walking along the course with a certain intensity and carrying a trash bag. Yup, the man himself. As I rolled my I said, between gasps for air...."Hey Chris! Great Race! Thanks for putting it on!" Chis replied.."Hey, Thanks!" I was already past him so I did not see his face, but it actually sounded like he smiled! Right then an there, my race was made.

Here are some pics of the day

The essentials of CX. Pit wheels and post-race Hoegaarden

Dash chose to fire the FMVC team kit for his final race of the year.

We now know that this pissed off the Belgian Frites Gods

and the result was a flat 2 minutes into the race and a DNF.

Here is a pic of Rich chasing Scotty B around the course.

Funny ass event that happened right at the beginning of the race.

The BDDL was still an 80+ rider pack and Scott buried his

front wheel in pot hole that he never saw.

Cries of "Donner's Down!!!! Donner's Down!!!!"

where heard through the pack.

We all know that there is a certain Colorado Racer whose whole body

gets stiff at the site of white Sidi Dragons. But people let me tell you.

I heard that these new MAVIC shoes were coming out in July.

I got my hands on them in August and exactly 6 seconds after I got

my hands on them it was seriously pissed. That's when I was told

that they don't come in my size.

Why do the French gotta hate on big guys with big feet?

Action photo of some Cat 3's testing how deep the sand is.

The competition was fierce it tell ya!

This little guy kept riding the sand pit over and over.

He did not care who or what part of the race was coming through.

He was determined to get the line perfect.

And finally, a word from one of FMVC's sponsors.

If you are ever in Denver and want to enjoy the best

Belgian Beers on tap in a place where the frites are served with mayo....

There is only one place to go.

Best of luck to all those racing Nats!

The season is over when....

.....I hardly knew the cross season this year.

With the season starting up in early Sept and me still on the sidelines, I was over before it started...at least for me anyway.

With states last week in Boulder, it brought out all of the regulars plus the "johnny come lately's" for the last race of the CO season. It was a really fun and hard course that Chris and Joe put together from DBC Events.

Dash had decieded to up his game and race in the 45 open race. He will be racing that class all next year and wanted to get a jump on the competition. That came to a flatting halt when he punctured right past the pits and the guys would not hand him a wheel but offered to change it for him once he ran the course with his bike to get back to the other pit entrance. He elected to ride back to the car on a flat and start drinking Hogaarden's and eating Twinkie's.

I wanted to start at the back, as usual, but with me pre-registering for the race blew that part of the race plan away. I was lined right up behind Shotty, who had been racing all year. Brian was on my right side and Scott "Donner" Bates was behind us. Whistle blows and we take off. That was about the end of the race for me. With all the up's and down's, this fat kid had no shot. With 1 lap to go, I was done. I was doing my cool down lap while everyone else was racing and James from Izze flatted and was sitting top 10. I did the right thing and gave him my wheel so he could finish up. I ended up with a DNF for the last race of the year...so it goes. So the scoreboard reads:

5 races
ICCC #1 - 56th
PP SC #2 - DNF, rolled a tire with 2 to go
ICCC #2 - 27th
ICCC #2 - 6th, this was the SS class with only like 8 guys in it
States - DNF

It is what it is. I would say racing this year was a success since I only have 600 miles in my legs for the year and that was all mtb miles starting June 1st.

There is another race on the calendar. That would be Boulder Racing's New Years weekend race up in Lyons. Brian is only running 4 classes. Similar to what PDX runs. I think that I will be racing the B's race....just another race to get my arse handed to me, but this is supposed to be fun, right?

Will try to do daily updates with Nat's in KC this weekend. The fun starts on Thursday. And the rumor on the street is Portland for National's next year.....get your Fango's and Rhino's ready for the mud, the blood and the beer.

29 Nov ICCC On The Cross

Work has got in the way this week. So just some pics and random thoughts about the race last weekend.

This is about a good of CX weather as you can hope for in C0lorado.

Overnight snow and a hard freeze yielding to mid 40's for the high on race day.

An early look at one of the dismount sections.

It was not all single-track. There was a section of paved path.

This section was all ice when the Beer Drinking Dad League (BDDL) ran.

I was in a two-wheeled slide on more than one corner.

Plenty of guys went down.

Doc Crum came out and did his very first CX race in the Newbie class at 8am.

We are pretty sure he broke his fun meter.

Start line at the BDDL

Random Thought -> Part way through the race, I found myself thinking about what I could write about this race in the blog. A few weeks ago, I was talking with Jon Grinder about writing blogs and admitted to him how sometimes I think about what I am going to write about while I am racing. He pointed out that when I do that, I am probably not really racing. Instead, I am riding my bike and thinking about this damn blog! The guy that just passed me.... now he was racing.

Mid way thru the BDDL, the sun started to do it's work on the course.

Greasy would be one word you could use for course conditions.

Random Thought -> I seemed to have collected more bruises than usual this race. Some I know where and when I got them, others I don't. I got a nice one on my left calf where Dash nailed me with his front wheel when I hit the brakes hard in the single-track because the guy in front of me went down. My right calf is about half bruise.... I got no idea. Then finally, I got a big bruise that runs across the inside of my right thigh.... again, no idea where I screwed the re-mount to give me that one.

Dash had the lead going through the final lap. My only shot on him was going to be to try and win the final sprint at the line. But then be blew the line coming around a corner in the single-track late in the final lap. Me and one other got passed him.



When the conditions are this good, it is all smiles afterward.

And here was the real reason to race. Ding Dongs for every finisher!!!!

Next weekend is the Colorado State Championships. I should be fun.

How much fun can one person have?

Snow, mud, dirt, sand....I think that I am in love.

With Saturday's race we had it all. It was the second race of the On the Cross series and once again, Big Tom Hall has come up with a great race course. We set up the course on Friday, knowing that it was going to be fun. Flowing singletrack, pavement, sand, a very quick jaunt onto the beach and a couple of barriers make up the 2.3 mile course. We got some imput from guys out riding it and went home for the night.

Wake up and there is white stuff everywhere. This is going to be good. I show up and started helping out with registration and then get pulled to do some quick course maintance and marshalling. I run back over and grab my numbers, that right, I am going to double up this weekend. I have now doubled my races for the year within 3 hours.

I line up with 42 hearty and quality guys for the BDDL race and the whistle blows. It starts off fast down the service road, I once again, sitting in about 39th place and hit the first barrier and everyone comes to a screaching halt. I tell my teammate Scott, let's count guys that we pass today. One by one, we start picking off guys that are off the trail, fixing dropped chains and falling down. We get back to the start/finish area and deciede that we will start racing for Ding Dongs since that is what they were giving away after the race. Then some dude on a mtb tries to pass us in the barriers. He falls down in front of us and then falls again down the little dip onto the beach. I go past him and then Scott drops his chain and I try to wait but nobody is coming back to me so I press on.

Lap 2 and I start picking off guys with issues. I am catching guys in the muddy singletrack, catching guys at the barriers and catching guys on the road. Lap 3 and 4 are just a tongue wagging, mud in the teeth from smiling good time. At the end of the cold, muddy, wet and fun race I finish 27th.....how is that even possible? Since round is a shape, that is all I have at this point. Brian finished 17, Ron was 19th and Scott was 31st.

Scott also toed the line in the 35 Open class and stayed on the lead lap and finished 24th in his first foray to that category. Congrats to him becuase that class is uber fast.

The second race was 2.5 hours later in the single speed category. It was a small group of 7 but we took a rolling start and then ramped it up. I sat at the back with Big Tom and we had a really good time. My legs were toast but it was great to be out again. Tom took the sprint to the line in 5th and me in 6th place....truly my best finish of the year!!!

I did not get out for Sunday's foray into the snow but heard it was again epic. But you can read all about it here.

I want to give a big shout out to my buddy, Anthony Carcella (surfamtn over at the RBR board) He rides for Rocky Mounts and we have battled the past couple of years for top 20's. This year he is just killing it. With a 4th place down at On the Cross #2 and a 3rd place at Sunday's race, he is peaking for States this week. Tony, we will have Duvel after the race Sunday...come find us and we will hook you up!!!