Robidoux Roundup

Okay, a little late on this post. Figured I better get it up before this weekends race.

Being at my home course, and one that I know like the back of my hand, this is always my best result of the season as far as MTB racing goes. I was going to kill myself out there trying to keep up with the top guys that beat me down on a regular basis and give some overdue payback to a couple of guys that have gotten the better of me the last couple races.

Randy, Craig, Brad and the rest of the trail hippy disciples had Krug in the best shape I can remember. The course was perfect! I know I am biased but the work that goes into this race as far as trail maintenance is second to none. Its always cut three feet on both sides throughout the entire single track. When was the last time you raced without some overgrown areas on the trail? Not here! A huge thank you to everyone that make this race as sweet as it is!!! And for not 100% ostracizing me for not pulling my weight. Another story entirely.

Anyway, I knew from the start that I needed to hit the single track right behind the stupid fast guys. I made the mistake last year of not hammering it as hard as I should and I found myself riding my breaks the first 2/3 of the lap.

Race started perfect! I hit the single track sitting on TDonn's wheel, behind GWiz and two other dudes. Little did I know, this was also the end of my race.. I heard a pop on the road climb leading to the singletrack but did not think much of it until my handlebars started rotating on the first downhill.

Typing a multitude of profanity could only express maybe 1/3 of how I felt at this time. After the first little climb, I hop off to the side and tried to fix my stem, only to find that one of the bolts was completely stripped. I got it as tight as I could and tried to pedal on but I had to stop again and try to fix it. At this point all the Cat 1's were long gone and half the Cat 2's had passed me also.

Apparently this little 5Nm actually means something.. Yah, I am an idiot!

Once I thought I got it rigged enough to ride further I passed all the Cat 2's and just thought I would turn this into a good workout. Try and catch whoever I can. On to lap two I had taken back some places and even passed some of the tail end of the Cat 1's, but half a lap in and I had to face the inevitable and DNF.

This was my 2nd DNF, EVER! It took me a solid week to get over having to DNF on my home race. Disappointed would be the understatement of the year. Owe well, thats racing..

All those that had to miss it. Sucks to be you, the course was sweeeeet!

On to this weekend down to Warsaw, we'll see how it goes..

Dirty Little Secret/KS State Championships

Aaron puts on one hell of a good event! Its a damn shame that Fancy Creek State Park kicks my arse every time I race there!!!

The venue is great! Good food, swag, well organized, you name it. I just suck when I race there. I did do better than last year as none of the Cat 2's or Singlespeeds caught me, but that is about all the good I can take from my performance.

Head on over to Twin Six for a general race report. They are awesome folks and have the coolest gear you can buy.

Back to the report, start of the race I did announce that I was going to take the hole shot and then proceed to show everyone down with my stellar technical abilities. Its like a superpower I have. The inability to pick a decent line even if they spray paint the thing for me..

I guess its kind of insane of me to expect any kind of decent performance when the only practice I ever get on any rocky technical section is on race days.

Anyway, start goes off and I am sitting fine, about 6 deep. Once into lap one for a bit I have somehow lost 4 additional places in a matter of minutes. I pass a couple dudes, gap them, then hit a section that gives me fits and they catch right back up. That pretty much sums up my race. Well except for the second lap which I was in a funk and had no desire to put any kind of effort into it what so ever.

It actually crossed my mind to DNF this lap I was having such a hard time being motivated. If it weren't for never quitting a day in my life I just might have done it.

My last lap got me out of the funk a little bit and I got the desire to push it a little. Felt just good enough to have a little fun with it and start looking forward to this weekend. Its always nice to race on your home trail.

Robidoux Roundup is this Sunday. Lots of climbing and you can get into a grove on the single track. No damn rock gardens!!!!

• Blog is HERE
• FB site HERE

Randy, Craig, Brad and crew have done a steller job with Krug. I just rode them today and they are in the best shape I can remember!!! Owe did I mention is is wicked fast this year... Lap times have already been in the mid 30's... We can expect some of the stupid fast guys to his low 30's.

St. Joseph Bike Fest!

Check it out!!!

http://stjosephbikefestival.blogspot.com/

Help Local (KC) Girl to Race in Europe!

Okay, just did some looking at the Tour, don't think its Europe. But hey, Canada is cool too!

Click here to go to her blog to donate...

I will be joining 3 other girls from the Midwest on July 10 and competing in a five day stage race, Tour style. There are only 25 female teams in the world that are allowed to enter and each team will have 4 girls. I am super excited about the opportunity to race with the best girls from all over the world! This will be a huge learning experience and will help me advance towards my future cycling career goals (Collegiate and Pro) as well as provide some great exposure. Hopefully I will meet some new friends who love bikes as much as I do along the way.

The Tour de la relève internationale de Rimouski is a six-stage cycling race organized for male and female Cadets (15-16 years old) as well as for female Juniors (17-18 years old).

I need your financial support to make this trip happen and am hopeful you are able to make a contribution. Every little bit counts and it is easy to make a donation using the button below, no amount is to small or to large!

Thank you for your support,

Karen Brocket (AKA K-Rocket)

OMBA Caramba, Continued..

Well, now that I have had some time to sit back and reflect on OMBA Caramba, becides JPB (who always whoops me). I just got my arse handed to me by the locals man!

Rolled down there the day before with the family, decided to make a weekend of it and visit my oldest stepdaughter in Joplin. Thinking I would be well rested staying an hour away was foolish of me. Come midnight I am up waiting to get new bedding because my little man just vomited all over the entire bed, not to mention the Fraternity semi-formal going on in the hotel.

Got up and got a decent breakfast and off to the SAC River Trails. I saw the Ethos Crew; Brocket Family and Steve-O. Also saw Doug Long & Tony Sherman who has finally CTFU to 1 this year. Did not have any  other TwinSix or Go Racing teammates racing.

Start was up a the road until a 180 back down to the singletrack. I settled in about 5-6 back pretty easily and stayed there until the singletrack where the lead group had already gaped me by about 3 seconds. I held on about 20 feet behind for a while. It actually crossed my mind that I was going to be able to close the gap until I took a switchback a little wide and my front end went out from under me and I was on my side staring at a 360 dude. Once he got by me I got up and caught back up with him and was hoping we could give chase to the lead group.

About this time my stellar bike handling skills took over and I lost another position to Tony S. Again I had to catch back up with them. I knew Tony had pre-ridden the trail and I knew he was going to make a move and I needed to be on him when that happened. Just like I planned it, saw Tony blow by his guy and here I was taking a drink and missed it. My strategy is going as well as my bike handling at this point.

Finished up the lap in this order, the 360 guy and I caught back up within 20 seconds of Tony and that's about the time he pulled a Keyser Soze on me and I never saw him again until the finial lap. Forget about the lead group, they were handing it to me bad at this point.

I was held up a little by the 360 fella, but I kind of felt bad, I fell right in front of him twice. Owe well, that's racing.
Finished the race about 2 min behind Tony (qualifies for a nose bleeding, not an arse kicking) for a 6th out of 7 (one guy DNF'd!! Awesome!) in the 30-39. But before I could get depressed about it, I looked at the overall and felt a little better, 7th out of 17.

Looking back, my legs felt great. Week leading up was perfect, just need to get that extra little bit of fitness going. In years past, about half way through the race I would be bargaining with myself to get through it (eg. only one lap left, etc.). Its different now, I was actually thinking on the last lap that I wished there were one more, perhaps I could have reeled someone in. So I am going to take that as a positive and move on. PTC will help me get where I need to be. Think Manhattan is next on the radar. It chewed me up and spit me out last year!

Here is JP's race report on his blog and Ethos blog. They were the only Northerner's I saw down there with a post. On another note, Doug Long had a pretty good race in my opinion. He's still got plenty in the gas tank.

It was wonderful to have my baby boy out! Can't wait till he can race himself!

OMBA Caramba

Posted a report from OMBA Caramba over at TwinSix, 

tap on the logo and go over there and check it out..

I will post a detailed one here later on this week.. 

Here are the Results

Here for pictures

BoneBender 2012.. The Good, Bad and the Ugly!

Another year has started for the 2012 MTB season! Like last year the first race of the season for me was Bonbender which is always a rough way to start the season.

Great Job Chris!!! Great event yet again... Also love the helmet!!

Did the 6hr duo open, with Craig Hoppe.
In the words of SC, BoneBender is on a mans course, and like him, I prefer woman's courses!!

The Good; I am definitely a stronger racer than last year! At least on a fitness standpoint. Thanks, PTC!
The Bad; So is every other rider!
The Ugly: My technical skills.. Monday I felt like I was hit by a truck! In reality it was hitting the deck 2 1/2 times, and playing pinball off every rock, root and tree out there..

Race started on a pavement/double-track/field start rather than the the run, which everyone I am sure appreciated. I started up front, but still behind the heavy hitters I knew had huge engines, Elwell, G, JP, etc...

By the time we actually hit the single-track I had settled in between teammates Roger and Micha, only about 20 seconds(ish) behind those stupid fast dudes mentioned earlier. This is exactly the time the carnage of what I call the first lap started.


I held onto Rogers wheel for about as long as I could but I was all over the place. Tire pressure too high, technical skills too low..

This first lap was slick as can be, all the rain made the roots and rocks like they had grease on them. About the time I got into a good groove, I would go through a horrible time just keeping my bike rubber side down.

The entire lap consisted of me hammering to catch back up to someone then screwing up a technical section and repeat. I also had to put some CO2 in my back tire at one point (passed by couple dudes), chain fell off and I had to adjust my guide to get it back on (passed by more dudes), then my handlebars were rotating down and had to stop to tighten them up (passed by even more dudes). Ended up the lap and about crapped my pants to see I had just put in a 1:20+ lap...
Not the best start to a season!

Second lap, Hoppe came in and handed off the wristband/timing chip that put us in a good position. The second lap went much better than the first. The course started drying off and you could start riding more stuff. I knew we were in the top 5 at this point, but not exactly sure where. I also knew that it was a tight race. About 1/3 of the way through JP came by like I knew he would, I let him go by never to be seen again. Once you hit the aid station you could pretty much hammer it. I motored on pretty will until St. Louis (sorry I forgot your name) came up on me. Damn, that dude just made up a couple of minutes on me!!
Once we hit the last couple of climbs to get out I gave it a good little effort and got away from him a little bit. I'll be damn if that was going to be a pill I was going to swallow for him to pass me or be sitting on my wheel at the end of the lap.

Last lap and I knew it was close. While I was waiting for Hoppe, saw first go off... Then Tony in second... Then some dudes I had not seen all day go off in third!! I took off about 100 yards behind him... St. Louis was still waiting and I had no idea how far behind he was going to be..

Once we hit about 2 miles into the singletrack I had caught up with third place but yet again my stellar bike handling skills screwed me and I went through a section like a monkey riding a unicycle and I lost him..
I was cramping like crazy at this point, I was a little too overconfident in my fitness and did not take in as much fluids as I should have the first lap and was paying for it now..
I actually got in the groove of some of the technical sections later  this lap and basically pedaled just hard enough to go as fast as I could without my legs completely seizing up on me. I met up with Mark Cole and followed him for a couple of miles. Finally the endourlites kicked in a bit and started to feel a bit better.. Mark let me by and I just hammered it home, figuring the best I can do now is hold on to 4th, I am sure St. Louis is not far behind me.
Came to the very last climb out of the woods and Ill be damned if I did not catch back up with 3rd.  I got right up on him and he was just going to let me by until he saw my number. I stopped and asked him what he wanted to do about our little situation we had developed. I could see he was mentally and physically about at his tipping point. He hesitated to contemplate what I had said to him and just kind of stood there. So I just  took off and ran the rest of the hill, did my best CX mount and headed to the finish like for 3rd... Bruised and beat up but still had gas in the tank and had a blast!! That was a good race, I love the competition..

• BoneBender results can be found HERE

Go Racing had a pretty good turn out... You can go check them out here!

BradBob! Lookin lean this year.. CAT 2 for LIFE!!

Hoppe finishing up a lap with his new CDale full suspension. 

"The kids", getting faster every day.

Roger Killing it!

The Man, The Legend, The Hippy!