Yesterday was a bummer. I wanted to do a Tuesday night Crit, but I dont have a Cat 4 license, so I am not allowed. Next week the C races will begin, so I will hone for another week and see if I can face my fear of riding a Crit. I stuck with a 30 mile ride with some hills mixed in. I have not ridden in Wildwood in a while, so it was nice to put some work in on those. This morning, I awoke early to ride the SS at castlewood. the trails were suprisingly dry. the rollercoaster was ripping fast and flowing well. It has finally been ridden enough to make it a smooth ride. I got an hour and twenty min. in before I had to shut'r down. It felt great to get some single track in, as the weather this year has not afforded me much.

Base Training

I did 149 miles on the road last week. This was split between 4 rides. Not alot of intensity, or sustained power. Just some spinning on the open road. I did the ghisallo group ride on Sat. with 15 extra miles afterward. I am planning on getting several more rides like this in before the Castlewood race on May 10th. I am also on for the May 18th WORS race. I will probably get a few higher intensity rides in on the trails before then, just to open the legs up. On Sunday, after my ride, I went to Forest park to watch the Crit. It really fires me up to watch these races. It is a huge scene, that makes me want to be a part of it. Maybe I will try my hand at a few of them, but I want to try a Tuesday night ride first. After that, I had some IPA's with MJ and Chris whilst we watched Liege, and an old Flanders clip. Nice top off to the weekend.

Race Re-cap

Back to the real world this week. I got a road ride and a lost valley ride in so far for the week. Lost valley is great for the single speed. It allows you to really dial in the spinning, and focus on your form. I got to ride a lap with come guys from Momentum Cycles in St Charles. I have met them on the trail before. Good group of guys. All in I got two laps, one in each direction. 1:34 ride with a 155 avg HR. But lets talk about why I rode LV last night. I awoke a 5am yesterday morning and was rolling from the Elk lodge near Castlewood at 5:35am. I came down the road to the Grotepeter flat section that brings you to the ranger station. I notice that my rear cassette was skipping a bit, but ignored it and instead looked at the faint light coming over the trees I began to ascend the Love/3%/Mountain Ridge trail, and boom! Next thing I know,the derailleur is dragging on the ground. PISS!!!! The hanger broke off, and crushed my ride. I WALKED back to my car, passing a ranger opening the gate. We said our hello's, and moved on with our day. I went home, switched bike, and slept for another hour. The whole ride home I was planning how I would get a ride in for the day. I used to get really upset when things like this happened to me on a ride with limited time. But now I try to just take things as they come, and remain calm. I don't want to cloud my judgment.





Here are some more pics of the LBL race. Big Ring Breslin found the link for me. Good thing too, because I tried to find it and was unsuccessful. Any hoe, I took third in the sport race age 19-29. Not sure about the overall results, but my time was 1:58.37 for the 22.6 mile race.





The guy making the face dug his front wheel onto a tree pretty hard. I told him a few minutes earlier that we should work together to close the gap with the leaders. but after he crashed, I got around him, and never saw him. It makes me re-think my strategy. Would I have ridden slower if I stayed behind him for longer?

Lots of Big Ring!

This weekend Dave, Wes and I went to the Land between the Lakes to flex. I showed up at Mesa a little early to pick up my bike. I had a new pair of Mavic Cross Trails UST wheels put on my bike this week, with a set of Avid BB7s. It was the first time I got to check out the upgraded rig. We drove down on Saturday night and stayed in a sweet motel five minutes from the race. On Sunday we awoke at 5:30am to fuel up on bran muffins and some dark coffee. I felt pretty good after logging some major sleep. The warm up consisted of pre-riding a short section of singletrack. I lined up after watching Dave dive into the woods first with Wes not far behind. I always get a little jittery at the last seconds before we start. The officials kept delaying "1 more minute" to wait for some stragglers. First mistake of the day was not being in the big ring to start. It was about 300 yards down hill start on a fire road. The two other guys on the podium were the first into the woods with two others and myself right behind. There was the usual BS banter for the first few minuets of the race. These guys were going hard off of the front and next in line did not line up to work that day. We pulled around him hard and went to work. I worked my way up into the 3rd position pretty quickly, probably the first 4 miles, but only saw the lead group twice before they disappeared for the rest of the race. In looking back, I needed to dig a little deeper at the front of the race to catch these guys. That would have at least made them work a little harder. I know that you cant win them all, but I at least want to make the guy that wins work for it. Any ways, the trails were in pretty good shape, some mud and bogg here and there. The climbing was in the first 5 miles of the loop, with the last 6 miles being rolling and twisty. I was able to big ring 98% of this section on both laps. I really felt like I was doing some hard riding, even if I wasn't competing for the front spot. The new wheels and brakes performed flawlessly. The tubeless tires defiantly increased my confidence on the descents, and the brake wheel combo really let me carve the turns. This is huge for me, as I usually am pretty conservative on when descending. I concentrated hard on proper hydration and nutrition during the race, and felt great during and after the ride. Dave and Wes took 1st and 3rd respectively in the expert race. Congrats to them for a badass finish in a race that approached 3 hours. All in all, the boyz from STL came down to Ky to represent.

TSALI

I got the opportunity to attend a SERC series race at an are in North Carolina. TSALI has 4 trails that can only be described as EPIC. the trail was flowy and the acents and decents are bomber. the conditions were muddy as have been most of the races this spring. I took 8th in the sport race for 19-29. I did not feel like I pushed it extra hard in the middle part of the race. To be honest I felt like I was on the defensive for most of the race. Not a good place to be. Once I knew the final 5 miles was in sight, I got a little more aggressive. I passed 3 people in that section. The nutrution program seemed to work well. Dave gave me some electrolight pills before the race. That and dilligent hydration payed off. the quality of life was definatly better this race than thelast two at C-bluff and St. Joe. I wish I had some pictures, but I dont, so you will just have to take my word for it. I guess I need to get a camera and use it.

The beginning

This blog is about my adventures that I have from day to day. Here is a picture of me a the summit of the Grand Teton. My father and I did a single day ascent in 15hr and 15min. Not bad for our first single day try. The beer in the parking lot tasted pretty damn good afterwards. Alpine climbing has taken the back burner with the end of long vacations that school afforded me. A couple weeks per year is the most I get now. Bike racing is starting to take over. I began racing cross country MTB in september 2007, and I am hooked. I also tried my hand at cyclocross. Man is that addicting. CX is all about pain, and putting the hurt on others in yoru race.

So this picture shows how crazy these races can get. My buddy Tim caught this photo of me coming over the barriers.

This spring I have begun to race XC pretty consistantly. I tried hard to stay in shape over the winter with some spinning and cross training. We had a pretty good work out that we called Pain fests going. The objective was to get 300 reps in of various excercises that work multiple groups. It was developed by a guy named Mark Twight. Any ways that gave me a chance to start building a good base this spring. I got to realize a dream of racing for a well established local Team. MESA. These guys have helped me emensly with knowlege and motivation.