That time of year!

From the crazy nuts over at DC! 

Yup, it's about that time of year. Hope you've been training your livers... 

Rosche

Later that same year at le Tour, Hinault had retired, and LeMan was recovering from his bird hunting escapades, Roche was the favorite. 1987 saw the most mountainous Tour since the war. On stage 20, crossing Galibier, Madeleine, and finishing on La Plagne, Rosche attacked early. Delgado then attacked, and Roche found himself 1:30 down in the middle of the last climb. He then crushed the remainder, in his big ring, pulling back all but 4 seconds. After crossing the finish line, he collapsed and lost consciousness. He came to after receiving oxygen and was asked if he was OK. His reply was “yes, but I am not ready for a woman straight away” (and that my friends is how it’s done).

From Velominati’s profile of Stephen Roche.

Give me some feedback bike nerds!!

I have one race and one project I am curious on your input...

First up... Cycocross!!!! I am going to run disc breaks again and am trying to find a good option for a wheelset. I know there are many, many, nay sayers on disc breaks for cross. Well I embrace change, you all can take your canti breaks and your 26" MTB's and suck it!!!

Now if only the manufacturers can follow suit. WTF guys? Get your S%$T together!! There are like 5 companies that are making disc bikes yet I have found one that makes a wheelset. I see Easton has one, but unless your JPow, us working stiffs can't get our hands on them.

See, they do exist... JPow's ride..

So I have found Reynolds makes one, Reynolds Assault CX Disc. And that's all I can find and better yet, I don't know of a shop that can order Reynolds. Anyone know of any other options? Other than running a MTB wheelset... I know that is an option, I am just tired of rigging stuff, wanted to make an attempt in actually putting cross specific parts on a cross bike. I want to try tubular, but as of right now I am just leaning towards another stans set and running tubeless. 

On another subject entirely, the only logical thing to do with cross on the horizon is enter a 60 mile MTB race, the Berryman Epic. 

http://www.btepic.com/

I have never done this race and it has been on my "to do" list for a while now. From reading other blogs n such I have a handle on conditions, etc...  So I have two questions to my 3 readers.. I am sure some of you have raced BTE before.

First, I think I need to get some beefier tires. But what? I normally run a Fast Track on the back and a Captain on the front. From what I gather, its rocky as crap and I know I will be in no mood to be changing flat tires.

Second, camel-pack or no? I freggin hate those damn things, yet I would rather wear one than run out of fluids and/or food...

Wow, its been a while

I wore a jacket on my Monday morning ride!! Holy crap!! Anyway.....

I have been so busy I haven't had any time to post any bike ramblings lately. I have been a bit out of it with work and then on vacation for a week. I missed several races due to it, but man, the beach is awfully nice this time of year..

After a week of this, its hard to get back to the daily grind!

It is very true statement that a running motor wants to stay running, a resting motor wants to stay at rest. Vacation got me in rest mode, ate like crap and did nothing but relax for a solid week, and now its really hard getting back in gear, let me tell ya..

Looking at the the racing schedules coming up and it is very bleak, making it hard to train hard with nothing really on the horizon. You have a race up in Swanson Park NE thats not that far away, but its this weekend and I just got back from vacation and am sitting kinda fat and legs kinda weak at the present moment.

We have a good MTB race in Columbia next month and some Endurance races, but really its about cross time if you can believe it..

So its looking for me its maybe one more MTB race and then on to cross. Where did the summer go????
Summer has about left us and I have only raced 6 times. Man, things sure don't pan out like you think sometimes but that's life..

I had a blast on my only two road races but they look to be done also.. 

Next up UFD Championship on Sept 30..(Maybe that is, I haven't ridden my MTB in 2 months!!)

&

HOLY CRAPBALLS!!  Cross is here man..

• 9.22 & 9.23 Manions Cyclocross
• 10.21 & 10.22 Joules Cross

On another note, I am toying with the idea of riding my MTB Single Speed again.. Everytime I think about it, I smile. That's got to mean something, right?

Other than my babble, here is some cool stuff you might check into...

Ethos Racing has a good link to Dan Miller, a stupid fast dude from Columbia. Its a great read, I highly suggest it..

Another good little tidbit is a local roadie, Joe Schmalz was picked up by Bissell and racing in the Tour of Utah. I don't know him but thats pretty damn cool!

Tour of Lawrence

Hey! This is my first road race report!! Heck yah..

First off let me say, that was pretty flippen fun. Well, only doing two laps (5’s) did not really put the hurting on you for long enough to be miserable. 

I really did not know what to expect coming into the race other than it was something new and I was excited about it. I had the 1^st day of school nervousness on the start line. I haven’t had that kind of feeling for quite some time. You always have a little apprehension before races but not the kind that you can feel in your legs. I really don’t know how else to describe it.

I looked around on the start and noticed this aint a Cat 3 (beginner) MTB race! There were a bunch of guys there; big…small… hairy legs… shaved legs….23lb motobecanes…. 16lb Tarmacs with carbon Roval wheelsets.. Quite the eclectic group..

Once we started I motored on up to the front. I did not know how this was going to play out, but I did now I did not want to go down, that’s for sure. I have seen the bike handling skills of some of these guys in cross season and I don’t want to be behind them on any corner. Through the entire race I don’t think I was any further than 5-6 back.

First lap of the circuit was pretty uneventful, pretty much a warm-up lap. The profile on their website is pretty deceiving, from the looks of it, there were three climbs in the circuit, but the first two “hills” came and went all while I was looking around every corner for the hills. There was a good climb right before the start finish, but that is the only one I would consider a climb.

Here they come!

Second lap the pace did not pick up very much and I kept waiting for the action to begin. Turn after turn, same pace, and same story. We hit one section that on the profile was the middle “climb”, but I would say more of a gradual slope. I could tell everyone was content in just staying together as a group and see who could climb up to the finish first. So I thought that prospect sounded rather boring and wanted to spice things up so I attacked and created a decent gap.  This is about the time my MTB legs failed me a little.  They are great for short intervals, the attack went beautifully but once the engine is up, keeping it there for the amount of time necessary to make it stick was a different story.

Delaying the inevitable.. At least there were only a select few left!!

I did a great job of breaking the field up, looked back and there were only 3ish left chasing me. Gave it all I could trying to hit the final climb first and see how it goes from there. At the end of the straightaway following the downhill I looked back to find they have found their way back to me about 20 yards back. I then sat up to conserve what energy I had for the climb to the finish. Hit the hill 2^nd back for most of it. Guy put in a dig from behind, I tried to hold his wheel, but when the climb pitched up at the end I just could not keep up. From there I hammered the best I could to the finish for 2^nd. DAMN! THAT WAS FLIPPEN AWESOME FUN!! My MTB brethren are going to be so disappointed in me for enjoying this so much..

After the race Darrell and I went up to watch the Cat 4s race. Hung out with the KCBC dudes and watched from the top of the climb. I am wanting to cat up as soon as I can and wanted to see how the boys were going. Uhhhh, fast.. I am game for it, but there were some folks who looked miserable out there doming up that climb on laps 4 and 5. I can’t even imagine the Pro 1/2’s doing it 14 times.  Honestly that would be tiring even at cursing speed, let along race pace.

All in all, I am doing more of these things for sure!


Other report over at TWIN SIX if your interested.

RESULTS HERE

Rogers Picks for the weekend HERE

Tour of Lawrence

Okay, its not set in stone, but thinking of getting my roadie on.. Tour of Lawrence is this weekend and I am thinking of doing the circuit race on Sat..

Saturday
June 30

Event Type	Time	Location	Event
Race	8:30am	KU Campus	Master's 40+/50+/60+ KU Circuit Race
Race	10am	KU Campus	Cat 5 KU Circuit Race
Race	11am	KU Campus	Cat 4/5 KU Circuit Race
Race	12noon	KU Campus	Women 3/4 Juniors 14-18 Juniors 10-13 KU Circuit Race
Race	1pm	KU Campus	Cat 4 KU Circuit Race
Race	2:30pm	KU Campus	Cat 3 KU Circuit Race
Race	4pm	KU Campus	Women Pro/1/2 KU Circuit Race
Race	5:30pm	KU Campus	Pro/1/2 KU Circuit Race

So I need some help from my CX/Roadie friends. Do I have to start at Cat 5? Do I do that race or the 4/5's? I just know you guys are a peculiar bunch, love your rules and shaved legs carbon parts and all...
Just need the 411 on everything..

Down and Dirty/ MO State Championship

What a great turnout for the Down and Dirty/ MO State Championship MTB race at Warsaw Lake. I pulled in about an 1.45 before race time and could hardly find a parking spot. Damn, this field is going to be deep! Saw the usual suspects out to give me a arse whoopen, but I was determined to give them a run for their money. It had been a while since I had a good race effort in my legs with my mechanical at Robidoux Roundup, so I really did not know what to expect. In a good note, I finally have gotten over my hamstring issues that have been bothering me the last several weeks.

Race started down a very long gravel road which had rock pebbles flying around like rocket ships. I personally don’t care much for glasses for MTB so I was a little apprehensive I was going to get one shot directly into my eye. I hammered it just hard enough to get in front of a couple dudes I wanted to, yet behind the guys I knew would be tough to hold onto a wheel. Minus the guys who just killed it on the start, I was able to keep up with the main bunch for about half a lap before I started blowing up.. I did not think I was going too hard, but the all too familiar feeling of misery, aka the full body drain that tells you that your putting in one hell of an effort, was creeping on me fast. I do have a motto that if you don’t feel like quitting at some point during the race, then you’re not going fast enough. Halfway into the first lap is not the time to be feeling this way however. So I started to back off a little to gain some composure.

By this time teammates Micah and Roger was just ahead of me and Craig was back (how far I didn’t know). On another note, Doug Long passed me at this point with what looked like plenty of gas in the tank. I remember thinking that was pretty impressive. Unfortunately for him, I saw him messing with a tire shortly thereafter… Anyway, finished out the lap feeling a little better. Looking back on the race, its not too often that the first lap goes worse than the last two.

I did lose a bunch of places on the first lap when I fumbled around on a non-technical section but started to pull a couple of people back in on lap two. I started feeling like I wanted to put in a couple digs and see about putting in a decent lap here. I passed a guy (can’t remember who now, it’s been to long) and remarked to him to be careful as I was bound to blow up shortly. Little did I know that I was going to mean that literally. There was a section towards the end where the rocks were just a little bigger and had more off camber areas to it. I was in recovery mode after a good dig to pass a couple of people when I clipped a pedal and ended up over the handlebars, face plant followed by summersaults down a ravine.  After checking to see if all my limbs were still attached I picked up my bike and proceed back to the trail about 10 yards away, same dude came by to see me in all my glory.

Can't really see it from the pic, but hit the ground so hard I broke a huge chunk off my helmet.

Third lap was pretty uneventful, just hammered along as hard as I could and not blow up. Finished 5^th out of 8 in Cat 1 30-39. Overall Cat 1, 11^th out of 28. RESULTS HERE

Teammates did well ,Micah came in 4 min ahead of me for 4^th and Roger came in 1-2 min before me and took 2^nd in the 40-49.

There were some fast guys out there that weekend!!