Wisconsin State Championships - pics

Cranksgiving ‘06

Val, Brean, & Augie put on an incredible alleycat today. The premise was you got a list of stores & items, the first person to the finish with all the items from the right stores (and the receipts to prove it) win. Afterwards all the food gets donated to a local food pantry.

My favorite moment had to be at the dominicks on Halsted near Madison and watching a flood of bikers gunning for the cereal aisle while shoppers and workers look on stunned & confused. So good.

I took it easy during the race since tomorrow is the Wisconsin State Championships. My race starts at 10:30a and google maps says it’ll take 3 hours to get there so I’m waking up early. My goal is not getting last. We’ll see what happens.

Jackson Park - More pics

Luke Seemann is a fellow TripleX racer who came out super early to help build the course.
Luke took some cool pictures of all the races; here are some from my race.
Luke also has a great blog decisive moments

Jackson Park - Pics

Lucas took a bunch of awesome pictures. Here are some of me…

Pre-race ritual - 2 clif shots and a bottle of water

ChiCrossCup #3 - Jackson Park - Chicago, IL

76 Cat 4 men today in Jackson Park. 76! The goal I gave myself last night was to get right in the middle of what I expected to be a 60 racer field so I picked 30th place.

xXx racing-athletico puts on this race so a few of us met up at 7am to build the course and set everything up. It is absolutely unbelievable how much work is involved and we got the course marked off minutes before the first race. I course marshalled a race and just generally hung around until my 2:45 start. David Sachs floored the Cat1/2 field which is incredible considering not only ’cause 1. Robbie Ventura (Floyd Landis’ coach) was there too, but also because he had a horrible accident last winter involving him, an SUV, and a bike blown to piece. Kevin from team Killjoy looked super strong in the Master’s class and I’ve got to ring the cowbell for Killjoy since they are the coolest team.

At the start I right away was on the tail end of the first group and generally stayed there the whole time. As usual I always start slow and get progressively faster as the laps go on (another reason to upgrade so I can race 45 min plus 1 lap). Lucas & john showed up to cheer (Caroline & Anna just missed the race, but showed up nonetheless) and with all the xXx-ers sprinkeled around there was always someone cheering which definitely makes me push it harder. After the first lap I started to make some progress and inch my way past a couple riders who blew themselves up on the start and settled in trading places with the same two guys: University of Chicago jersey & Red Jersey. On the fourth lap I turned around and saw that my closest man was at least 30 seconds back so I pretty much spent my energy putting pressure on the two of them during the barriers and the run-ups, letting up a bit on the straights, and tailgating them during the singletrack-ish parts. Based on their size I knew that if it came down to a sprint both of them were much stronger and would end up beating me so my plan was to pass them on the last run up and then drill it and try and break away. My moment came and I had a perfect dismount, a nice quick run, and a textbook remount, but I just could not seem to shake them away. In the last singletrack section I slowed down and immediately jumped out of saddle to use the rubber band effect to my advantage, but instead UofC caught my wheel, and Red Jersey got his. We hit the last 100 meters and I hammered like crazy almost shifting to my hardest gear when I saw both wheels pass mine right at the line.

I got 32nd place which while 2 off my goal is actually really good since instead of 60 racers there were 76 (40%). Adam got 2nd, Ted I think got top ten, and 4 guys asked about Ben. I’m really happy with all of my technical skills so far this season. My dismounts, and running are definitely my strength especially compared to some of the other 4’s, my remounts have improved a lot. I need to work a lot more on my overall power and also my recovering from hard efforts. Next year I am definitely spending more time in Palos getting my singletrack down so I don’t hit my brakes too much. I fear, I brake, I lose. Lucas took some really cool pictures and hopefully I’ll post them whenever he’s done downloading them off his camera, in the meantime I’ll add pics from yesterday’s race in Janesville. Next week is Wisconsin’s state championships and the week after is Illinois’ in Montrose Harbor.

Wisconsin Cup #7 - Janesville, WI - more pics

Let me take this opportunity to credit Renee Callaway from madcross.org for these & other pics. If you click on any of the images I tried to put credits where I could & I have more photos in my flickr account.

A good start! & notice all the mountain bikes.

The first mile was just one long sloppy climb

Wisconsin Cup #7 - Janesville, WI

What is the best possible thing to do after 3 days of having the stomach flu? Race! Cyclocross is a pretty short season especially in the Midwest. In other parts of the country the seasons start earlier and go until much later making for that many more opportunities to race. For me I want to get in as many races as possible because after the the state championships in the beginning of December there’s a long cold winter until the first road races in April.

Woke up and while it was dry in Chicago on the way up the cars heading south were covered in snow. Janesville had about 2 inches drop the night before, and with a temperature of 34 and rising it wasn’t too long before the course turned to my favorite, mud. This time the mud was much wetter and didn’t gum up the gears too much until it turned to ice which made it sound like my chain was going to snap any second. The Cat 4 field was bit smaller today and everyone was talking about recovering from various illness so at the whistle the pace wasn’t too furious.

The janesville course was a long one about 2 miles long which meant we only got in 3 laps. The front half was the only really technical part with only 4 areas where you had to dismount. One was a weird ledge they had us drop off so we could run alongside the beach which was pretty cool. The best was a short steep section that was ridable albeit sloppily that turned 90 degress into a 150 meter long slick ruted climb that everyone had to get off and run through. It really amazes me how I much faster I am at running than everyone considering I only just started this year. Now if only I was faster on the bike…

After the race (3rd from last place) I was totally soaked in mud. Racers took turns dunking their bikes and rubbing off as much as the mud off as possible. Funny how at the start of the season I was so careful with my bike, while now I was literally throwing it in a lake to get it clean. Part of me wanted to just jump in myself to wash off. Next year I’m bringing some soap. Tomorrow is Jackson Park and the week after is Wisconsin’s state championships.

Pure Sweet Hell

Here’s the trailer for a terrific documentary…

ask to borrow it

Comments & Crashes

My first comments (!) and about one of my favorite topics…crashes. If you’ve been reading so far you’ve probably noticed that there is a lot of falls, collisions, and crashing going on in cyclocross. For me there are 3 major reasons for crashes. The first is the general propensity for a bunch of amateur bikers to be nervous & sketchy, multiply that by 60+ and crashes are inevitable. Next are all the risks of riding off-road. Whether it’s large amounts of mud, slick grass, creek crossing, roots and rocks all the while weaving through trees. Lastly, for me is the difficulty of jumping on & off of your bike while my heart is pumping out of my chest. Below are two pictures Lucas took illustrating just such an example from last year.

Since then I’ve practiced my dismounts & remounts a ton. Practically everytime I go out for a ride, go to a friend’s place, or come home from the store I work on perfecting my cx moves. The net result has been all of my falls being 1. nerves or 2. off road related. My answer to those risks? Um…at least in ‘cross the ground is soft.

Working from home

Here’s my setup for working at home: Work laptop has Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Visio, and Powerpoint open. iBook’s got email and iTunes running. When I’m at the office and I have everything running on my work laptop it starts to move very sloooowwwly. I need to ask them for a RAM upgrade. Hmm… a post not about cycling. How odd.