Little Piece of Heaven

Tuff Start to the Cross Season

This past Saturday I kicked off my 2011 cyclocross season by attending the Queens of Cross race, not far from home. This venue has been kind to be in the past, I've won races (a race) here and generally had good results. This year I was lining up with the SM 3 for the last race of the year. I was nervous but I tried to stay hydrated in the warm afternoon sun and I remember to be patient on that first lap.

At the start, the officials started doing call ups. He must of read off 50 names for the 12 racers there (no shit). Near the end of the list I even got a call up, that was unexpected. 12 guys, he should of just said "line up". Callups are very important but not for the start of this race. The start had a good straight away then a u-turn and back to the first obstacle. I didn't kill myself, I knew they'd have to slow way down at the turn around, and they did. As we started with the first lap I started moving forward, I was feeling good and people were getting tired after the start. I passed about 4 guys as we came into the first barrier. I dismounted a looked up at the guy I wanted to follow, and jumped....

BOOOM

I clipped my foot on the barrier and went flying through the air like Superman! Splat, right on my stomach and elbows between the barriers. I'm sure I let out a nice "uuuugh" as the air was pushed out of my lungs. It must have looked spectacular because one of the coarse marshals was on me asking if I was ok before I even looked up. I actually felt ok and knew nothing major had happened so I jumped back on the bike. But my speed was really reduced. I felt like I had just been punched in the stomach.

My legs had more in them but puke brewing in my belly said, "not so fast dude". I was hoping if I could keep a few of the racers within my sight I might be able to catch them later. In the end I caught two of them, narrowly avoiding DFL. The wheel I was planning to follow before I crashed went on to win the race, he's a friend, it was good. Two bad I didn't lift my foot another inch. I am happy to say I rode every bit of the two huge, steep hills on every lap.

So, there you have it. I crashed on the very first cyclocross barrier of the 2011 season. Things can only get better now!

Phenomenal Lookout Ride

I got a jump on the rain this morning and climbed into to clouds on Lookout. Just me and the deer. It was fantastic.

US Pro Race

It's been a long hard week and I haven't been able to see much of the Colorado Pro Tour bike race that's been ripping through the state. But today I told everyone to go away and I took my 4 year old to the Golden race. We parked in town then rode up to the turn just before the pillars on lookout. My 4 year old muscled it out, it's the steepest point of the climb. We watched them race by then we quickly dropped back into Golden and saw the racers go back through Golden before racing into Denver for the finale. It was great to the pro racers on my roads. They were flying!
Racer sign in.
Had to ride the start after the race.
Chill'n on the dragon watch'n the race on the big screen after it left Golden.

Still Kick'n

Sorry for the long lack of posts. I'm still around and I've wanted to post some stories for awhile but it obviously hasn't happened. I've been spending a lot of time at work writing proposals. I'm not exactly a natural writer so when I get home and think of writing up a story for the blog, I just can't do it. I'm hoping things will slow down a little in the coming weeks so we'll see if I can get this thing going again.

One short story about today. My four year old has been on vacation for the past week (I didn't get to go because of work). When he got back I asked him if he'd like to go to the bike park, meaning the new Valmont Bike Park in Boulder. He, of course, said yes. When I asked him how long he wanted to be there he said "50 hours," so I planed for the morning. We drove out this morning before the heat of the day and had a blast! He was riding everything, I heard him laughing a couple of times as he rode ahead of me. When we got to the pump track he was all over it. He dropped in and didn't come out for almost 30 minutes! Velmont Bike Park is a fantastic park, there were kids and people everywhere. I really believe every city should have a park like that!

After the pump track we went down by the main entrance and ran across a true cycling star, Tim Johnson. He was just hanging out, so I told my 4 year old to go give him a knuckle bump because he was a super fast "mud racing" (Cyclocross) racer. Nate rode around Tim twice while Tim held out his fist, finally opting to be shy. Which I find funny because Nate as asked to watch dad's "mud racing movie" many times, the 9 ball dairies. The movie is about Tim Johnson's season when he won the cyclocross nation championships. So he knows who Tim is, at least on TV. Nate soon wandered off while Tim and I talked for a few minutes about the up coming cyclocross season, before Nate was getting out of sight. Tim's a down to earth guy and I enjoyed our conversation; thanks for asking a local cat 3 racer his opinion about the up coming UCI race, made my day.

Some of you may not be surprised to hear this but, where else can you go to your local bike park and find a nation champion? I think only in Boulder.

I'll post photos in an update.

Rocky Mountain Omnium – Road Race

This past Sunday was the final day of racing for the Rocky Mountain Omnium. It was going to be the longest day of racing, the road race. This race had an interesting dynamic from the start. It was the Colorado State Maters Championship Road Race and because of that there were a lot of new racers that had not raced the previous days. You see, as an omnium it’s like a stage race but the biggest difference is it’s not a requirement to do all of the races. As a result the number of racers at the road race was going to be double what had been racing all weekend. This made planning a strategy for the race, interesting. It also made for races within the race. There was the race for the overall omnium win and there was the race for the day, which happened to be the state championship. Not all the racers are going for the same ‘race’, so you can see it was a little complex.

After losing David in the crit, Tom and I had to think this one through. Tom was in second place overall for the omnium but of course wanted to win the state championship. Dane, the guy currently in first place for the omnium had demonstrated his strengths all weekend. He did a fantastic time trial and won the crit. He was sprinting all over the crit and no one had an answer to that. The road race presented us with an opportunity; about half way through there’s a 10% hill followed by a longer 5-6% hill. Dane is a big strong guy that’s gravitationally challenged, he even told us about his Superior RR troubles with the “Wall”. So, we had to exploit that weakness and get Tom free.

At the beginning of the race a number of the other racers came over and asked about Dave’s crash during the crit. It was nice and very appreciated. People were genuinely concerned. Most of us are fathers and have a day job making accidents something we all want to avoid. The race started slow, my legs were tired before we even got started. We had 50+ miles to go and no one was in a hurry. I was happy to set the pace for a lot of the outward ride. I stayed near the front and when the pace slowed I would move up and keep things going. About 10 miles in the road turned to dirt. The dirt was smoother than the pavement and not a factor at all. I continued to patrol the front, chase anyone thinking about getting away and kept the pace moving.

Before the right hand turn towards Burns I took the front. The climb was only a few miles away and I begin to push the pace. There were a couple of turns and I drove through each of them. I continued to push but not too hard, I wanted everyone to chase. I wasn’t trying to get away. The plan was to get the pace high so that when we hit that hill the gravitationally challenged would already be at their limit making the hill harder. I hit the hill and continued to keep the pace as long as I could, then I pulled off and watched the field shatter into three groups. Tom was in the lead group and Mike another teammate for the day was in the second group. Low and behold, Dane (first on the omnium) was in the third group and hurting. The gaps were opening up so I jumped on his wheel and let him pull away. I wasn’t going to help chase until that lead group had some distance.

The gaps opened up and once we got back down to the river valley I was comfortable that the race lead was too far up the road so I started to pull through. We were rolling down the river valley picking up racers that had obviously over exerted themselves on the hill but managed to hang on a little while longer. After the weekend of racing and the effort going out I was quickly running out of steam and ended up getting dropped. I found a new friend and rode in with my new partner in pain Kurt. It was more of a parade to just get it over with, we worked together so we didn’t have to be out there any longer than necessary.

I struggled in about 8 minutes after the finish to see Tom holding up his second place prize. Amazingly Dane did catch the lead group in the final miles, which blows me away. It’s a real testament to his strength. That effort however totally neutralized his killer sprint as he had given everything to get back in the group. So, sadly the strongest finisher may have not won but in the end but the strongest team did. Tom got second on the day but it was enough to win the overall in the omnium. I finished 15th and managed to get enough points for 5th overall in the omnium. The winner was someone that had not raced all weekend. Too bad, he missed out on a lot of fun, loser. (I’m just sad I didn’t get a chance to meet him)

Looking back it was an emotionally interesting weekend. The time trial on Friday was a lot of fun even if I didn’t have the right equipment. I feel like I did well coming in 2 minutes behind people with professional grade time trial equipment while I was full on retro (that’s right Merkx style, no aero equipment). The crit was hard both physically and emotionally because of my teammates crash. By the morning of the road race I had no idea how my body would react. In the end it did what was needed, maybe more. I really enjoyed racing with the team and meeting everyone else in our category. I’d also like to tell Dane, sorry dude but there’s an opening on our team for you anytime, you’re a hell of a strong rider and a great guy. J

Rocky Mountain Omnium - Criterium

This weekend I've been in Glenwood Springs, CO participating in the Rocky Mountain Omnium. My team has had a good group of three racing. It's been a lot of fun. Yesterday was the time trail and the team was in 1st, 3rd and 7th overall. I was in 7th, so today at the criterium my plan was to attempt and keep our lead racers in a good position. I spent a lot of time on the front going as hard as I could. My plan was simple, make it a hard race. Our guys had proved they were fast so I just needed to reduce the field. Things were going well until the last couple of laps. My friend David who was sitting in 3rd place had been riding on the back of the field for most of the race attacked. He got a good lead and I quickly got to the front and tried to block. A couple of racers were yelling at me but hey "come on around, if you can." Adventually they caught Dave and I immediately counter attacked. I was on the front going into a fast corner when there was a crash a few racers behind me. I looked back but I couldn't see who it was. I sat up because I knew I had two teammates back there and if they did crash I wanted to give them a chance to get back on.

The next lap around I saw David laid out on the road not looking good at all. They kept us racing but basically neutralized that corner. We all took it really slow. The ambulance and race EMTs came out and eventually helped him off the road. The race kicked back into action with about 3 or 4 laps remaining. I went to the front and ramped it up. I really didn't feel like racing and just wanted it over. I also needed to help my last teammate Tom. The last laps counted down quickly and I let the race go to sprint it out while I soft pedaled around through the finish and over to the crash corner. David was getting put on a backboard. It sounded like when the crash happen he was hit low and basically flipped over and landed on his head and shoulder. His helmet was blown out and he didn't remember the race. His collar bone was pretty obviously broken and he has skinned up.

We gathered our things from the race and went to the hospital. He was looking a lot better there. He'll be ok. Likely need surgery on the shoulder and a couple of painful nights with the road rash. Makes me wonder why I do some of these races. I have another hard road race tomorrow but my head really isn't in it. I'm just sad it happened. He's worked really hard to get in shape this year and it was clearly paying off. Keep him in your thoughts.

Winter Park Epic Singletrack Race #1, The Hill Climb

The 2011 mountain bike series kicked off with the Winter Park Hill Climb. I was a little uncertain it would happen with all the snow still on the ground in the high country. But this hill climb is on the service road that goes from the base of Winter back up to the top. They ploughed the road to get service vehicles up so we were in good shape. The road was in perfect condition, all the trails however were still under snow or water run off.

The weather was fantastic. Much warmer than I anticipated. I decided to ride the 29er this year because two years ago when I did the race it was on a CX bike. I felt over geared and needed another gear or two smaller. The climb is just over 2020 ft altitude gain in 5.2 miles. That works out to be an average of about 7% but there are a few flat places, a couple of sustained grades around 10% and two pitches over 15%. Therefore I went with the 29er because it had the gears and it's only about 7 pounds heavier.

There were about 26 racers in my category. I got a center front start. At the start a group of about 10 seemed to leap off the front. I settled in behind them hoping the group would stick around a little while. I was wrong, after about a minute the group started to shatter. I ended up riding around racers as they peeled out of the group. Three racers quickly shot up the road and I decided their pace was too hot for me. I was in fourth within the first 4 minutes of the race. I was truly surprised how quickly the race fell out.

Hill climbs, for me, are a lot like a time trial. Just get give it all you have to the top and tactics don't really come into play. About half way up a racer from my group caught me and we stayed within a few seconds all the way to the top. Right at the final 15% climb to the finish I herd another rider behind me. Knowing if I had a rider pass me at this point it wouldn't be good, I gave it all I had. I ended up finishing 5th. The 3 riders that got away early finished 4+ minutes ahead, the 4th place guy I was chasing finished about 13 seconds ahead and the guy behind me was only 9 seconds back.

Two years ago when I did this race I finished in 48:21. I was hoping I could get my time under 45 minutes. I ended up finishing in 44:00. Pretty good! On a side note I think I was abducted by aliens on the way down the mountain. My butt cheeks felt like someone drove nails into them. Poorly executed annal probe? Time to recover.

Check out the new blog header photo taken right at the top, heading up the final 15+% climb. I was way deep in the pain cave.

New Toys

Mountain bike racing starts tomorrow. I'll have a review on these baby's soon.

Fountain of Youth

Made it back over to the Golden Bike Park for a little refresher after the recent mountain bike clinic. The pump track was dry and ready to roll. I had so much fun. I was planning on a short little ride but ended up riding everything for about and hour. I felt like a kid back when I used to spend all day at the "dirt hills" on my BMX bike. Only this time the kids were watching me rail the corners. See the two sitting in the upper right hand of the photo. One of them had crashed and cut his elbow. (Yes, I checked he was ok. Minor cut but I think he was done for the day. Funny, these two geniuses rode to the bike park with their helmets on then took them off to ride; that's thinking.) They just sat their watching the old man on a 29er cross country rig rip around the pump track. Ha Ha