Rhonda and TC battling on the run-up
Melissa on the bridge
Upon Further Review
17 hours ago
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Perfect CX weather this weekend
Per NWS
Friday Night: Showers likely, mainly after midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 58. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
Saturday: Showers likely. Cloudy, with a high near 63. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
Mounted up a Maxxis Mimo up front in preperation for wet sandy race. Now I just have to decide if I should risk my shoulder this week or give it another week to heal.
Friday Night: Showers likely, mainly after midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 58. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
Saturday: Showers likely. Cloudy, with a high near 63. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
Mounted up a Maxxis Mimo up front in preperation for wet sandy race. Now I just have to decide if I should risk my shoulder this week or give it another week to heal.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Weekend Update
Thursday night I ate it pretty bad at Dr. X's Sugarhouse clinic. I was descending a fast grassy slope chatting with J Dub and next thing I know I'm landing full on my left shoulder. I was barely able to limp home riding one handed and immediately hit the ice and vitamin I. Friday California Bob was in town and we had plans to ride Super Crest. Not wanting to bag out on plans made months in advance I sacked up and did the ride. It hurt like hell at times and I walked a couple sections that I would have needed both arms to clean but this time of the year you can't let a minor thing like a sprained shoulder keep you away from that ride. Saturday we spent most of the day at a BBQ relaxing and Sunday I planted 150 bulbs in the front yard one handed. Over the weekend my shoulder seemed to be healing pretty fast but over the last couple of days the healing has plateaued. I cant lift much with that arm and carrying a bike is out of the question so on the official injury report for Draper's CX race I'm listing myself as questionable. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wind Cave and Dirty Bikes
The day after Moosecross we hiked to the Wind Cave northwest of Victor. It was a pretty cool hike and the fall colors were spectacular but the 1800 feet of climbing over 2.6 miles worked over my non hiking legs.Last night I embarked upon a long overdue project. Bike Cleaning. It took me over two hours and I couldn't decide what was worse. The fact that we own eight bikes or the fact that I'm so lazy that they were all long overdue for a cleaning.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Grand Teton Brewery Octoberfest
This is truly what is at the end of a rainbow. A Leprechaun tossing a keg
Rhonda likes her beer dark, bitter and plentiful. I'm glad her taste in men isn't similar.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Moose Cross
We woke up Saturday morning in our B&B to the pitter patter of rain on the roof. All through breakfast it poured buckets on and off and I started getting excited for a mudfest of the ages. After breakfast we got our gear together and headed the five miles down the road to the venue arriving to mostly clear blue skies. No more rain but at least the course will still be wet right? Wrong! It rained all morning five miles up the road but the course had only received light sprinkles. We headed out on our warmup laps to very un-crosslike conditions. Very dry and very dusty.
Rhonda's group raced first. She hung with the leaders through most of the first lap but gradually fell back as her lack of saddle time due to a myriad of injuries over the last six weeks caught up with her. She finished 7th out of 15 or so but two of the girls who beat her moved up and did the A race later finishing in the top 10.
For my race I got a call up to the line. The race organizers must have sensed the cross demon lurking within me and wanted me up front where I belong (It also might have been that the call-ups were based on time of registration but I'll go with the former idea). My cross demon decided to stay hidden till another day and I was quickly but in my place near the back. I rectified that during the first run up where the mad skills that Kathy and Ali taught me burst out and I loped (I'm too tall to call what I do running) past 5-6 people. I passed a few more people on the 2nd barrier section and settled in with a small group in the middle of the field. The rest of the race was basically me gaining a ton of time on the straights and getting killed by the MTB'ers on the tight corner sections. By the end of the race the corners were so loose that I was buried to my spokes at times and had no traction while the guys on fat tires just floated through. I finished 10th out of 20+ which I felt pretty OK with for my first cross race. I was clean through the barriers and kept my intensity up the whole time. I raced pretty well but got killed in the multiple 180 deg corners. I'm thinking the 30c tires that came on my bike aren't going to be meaty enough for some courses so I'll probably look into an upgrade to some 35's.
Cyclocross is wicked fun. In MTB races I often have trouble maintaining intensity and focus because I usually spend most of the race by myself. Everybody in my category is either five minutes ahead of me or 5 minutes behind me and there are so many people on the course I have no idea who's who. In cross there is always somebody near by and they're always direct competitors. You always feel like you're battling (even if it is for 10th place). Also you don't have to worry so much about saving energy for the next climb. You just pin it and go. The only negative to that is that it hurts like hell all I wanted to do was finish the race but as soon as I was done all I could think about was my next race.
Rhonda's group raced first. She hung with the leaders through most of the first lap but gradually fell back as her lack of saddle time due to a myriad of injuries over the last six weeks caught up with her. She finished 7th out of 15 or so but two of the girls who beat her moved up and did the A race later finishing in the top 10.
For my race I got a call up to the line. The race organizers must have sensed the cross demon lurking within me and wanted me up front where I belong (It also might have been that the call-ups were based on time of registration but I'll go with the former idea). My cross demon decided to stay hidden till another day and I was quickly but in my place near the back. I rectified that during the first run up where the mad skills that Kathy and Ali taught me burst out and I loped (I'm too tall to call what I do running) past 5-6 people. I passed a few more people on the 2nd barrier section and settled in with a small group in the middle of the field. The rest of the race was basically me gaining a ton of time on the straights and getting killed by the MTB'ers on the tight corner sections. By the end of the race the corners were so loose that I was buried to my spokes at times and had no traction while the guys on fat tires just floated through. I finished 10th out of 20+ which I felt pretty OK with for my first cross race. I was clean through the barriers and kept my intensity up the whole time. I raced pretty well but got killed in the multiple 180 deg corners. I'm thinking the 30c tires that came on my bike aren't going to be meaty enough for some courses so I'll probably look into an upgrade to some 35's.
Cyclocross is wicked fun. In MTB races I often have trouble maintaining intensity and focus because I usually spend most of the race by myself. Everybody in my category is either five minutes ahead of me or 5 minutes behind me and there are so many people on the course I have no idea who's who. In cross there is always somebody near by and they're always direct competitors. You always feel like you're battling (even if it is for 10th place). Also you don't have to worry so much about saving energy for the next climb. You just pin it and go. The only negative to that is that it hurts like hell all I wanted to do was finish the race but as soon as I was done all I could think about was my next race.
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