What a weekend

The house was full again of some of our close cycling companions and some Australian guy?? Where did he come from?  Either way it made for a fun weekend of racing bikes, hanging out, and eating well!  Good thing we were riding bikes a lot cause we went through a lot of food!! 

So the race recap.  Lots of podium time for Team 212/Specialized.  We started things out on Saturday with Sarah racing the Cat 2 race and I am sorry but I cannot remember how she did?  I believe she won her age group and was 3rd overall, but don't quote me on that.  We then moved into the Cat 1 race.  The women made the men look bad in this event with Lisa 1st overall, Di 2nd overall and Michelle 10th overall!! Not to mention Michelle winning her age group!  Ryan ended up 5th overall in the Cat 1 race out like 100 competitors!! Sweet.  Then it was onto the PRO Men.  Darrin rocked the day with a 16th overall, while myself I will talk about later, and Scott in 56th. 

Short Track.  Sarah scored the first win of the day in Womens Cat 2 by taking the overall on her antique Klein!  Lisa then followed with a win of her own with Michelle coming through for an awesome 7th Overall!!  Ryan came in wtih a 7th overall in shrot track as well!!  Then Darrin backed up his XC finish with another 16th place in STXC, Myself later, and Scott 41st. 

It was then up the hill for Super D.  I am still a bit confused on where everyone finished on this cause I was completly bonked by the time everyone got down the hill.  I must say though it was the biggest turnout for Super D that I have ever seen!!  Either way the big story here is Darrin took his first PRO win with the win in Super D!  I somehow ended up on the last podium spot after riding down the hill and not pedaling much??? Oh well it bought ice cream! 

Next up is the Firecracker 50 in Breck!  I cannot wait! 

If you didn't come to Wisco!

Well you should of!  The course rocks!

Going cross eyed

Thats what it will be like this weekend.  Michelle and I went down to the site of this weekends showdown in Wisco.  For what we could figure out the trail is going to set up for a good, HARD, battle.  Maybe not against each other as much as 7 laps on the hill.  The course is about 4 miles long and from what we could tell you snake all over the hill with several short climbs.  The reason I say from what we could tell is there are trails cut all over the place down there!  Downhill, Cat2/3 loop, Cat1 loop, Pro loop, Super D, STXC so at times it became hard to follow the exact route.  Either way the legs will be screaming at the end and you will be testing your fitness.  It is not quite my style of a course with the punchy climbs, I prefer long drawn out climbs(Which we do not have in the midwest), but the course is going to be a blast.  Come out and watch or at least represent the midwest as we bring back top ranked racers for a WORS race!

Smiles ear to ear!

What an awesome race course!!  This past weekend the crew containing Michelle, TSP, Di, Jon, and Lisa, went to the UP, eh!  The chaindrive was the race and I must say the course was a blast!!  Tons of singletrack that kept you on your toes the entire time.  The race start was a nice roll out since there was a head wind on the way out and Brian, Mike, and I were all just busy chit chatting to keep an eye on each other.  After the 3 mile lead out, I decided I didn't like my position going into the KOM before the singletrack so I went around everyone on the side of the road and hammered in to the hill.  My mistake was I set up to lel Mike, and Brian to get on only to get destroyed up the hill!  Ooops!!  Eitherway I got back on the lead group containing Brian, Mike, and Chad and we flowed through the singletrack smiling ear to ear!  Unfortunately I woke up with a fever and sore throat so I was struggling with a really high HR and just not feeling the best.  I was still riding OK and it did not change the outcome of the race at all.  My biggest mistake came about 15 miles into the race when I went to move my water bottle from my jersey pocket into my bottle cage.  I fell off the group about 10 seconds, but did not panic.  I ended up chasing and took a risk in one corener and went over the bars.  I bounced right back up but could not get my chain out of between the frame and small ring.  Either way once I got back going all I heard from every check point was 1 minute.  I was not closing and they were not getting further away.  Kind of sucked cause i rode the rest of the race by myself.  In the end I finished 4th overall.  I guess Brian and Mike sprinted it out for the win with Brian taking it cause he had more knobs on his front tire, guess it was that close!!  Todd came in 7th overall so two of us in the top 10!

For the women, Di came in for 2nd overall and Michelle rounded off the last podium spot for 3rd.  Lisa also took here age group win in her 2nd  MTB race ever in the 16 mile race!  Nice work girls!!

We then finished off the weekend with some riding of the Tech trails were I learned how to MTB!  Cannot believe how sweet those trails are.  They are even well marked.  Whoever is doing the work up there definetely has it figured out and I recommend a trip up there to ride!!! 

Speaking of trips, everyone in the midwest had better represent this weekend at the Subaru Cup!!  We have a PROXct race coming to town and after all the grumblings I heard post Alpine Valley not coming back I expect to see you there!  So get out and race the big dogs coming to town.  It is not often that you get the oppurtunity and they are fast!!  Not to mention the course is one of the better WORS courses.  I will give more info on the course later in the week, I think Michelle and I are going to go scope it out on Tuesday. 

Heads been spinning, and the wheels too.

At least they were 2 weeks ago at the Mohican Mudfest.  We arrived down there to a tornado warning and these ice chunks falling from the sky leaving nice little imprints into my 6 month old truck.  Freak'n sweet!  Guess that is what I get for taking Mother Nature off my Chistmas Card list.  Don't tell her, but I don't send out Christmas Cards anyways!  So the crappy weather continued and all in all, 2 tornado warnings, 4 inches of rain, hail, and with all that flood warnings were published on Saturday afternoon as well as Scott's, Mark's, and my DNF.  Not to mention the other 200 and some racers that did the same!  What a mess. 

The same weekend some of us were @ Mohican, Darrin was busy up at the 3hr WEMS race in GB where he came out with the win.  Also the same weekend Michelle and Sarah represented 212/Specialized on Tarmac at the Wisconsin State Road Championships.   They did very good and after all was said and done Michelle ended up taking 3rd for a nice podium, check out how close she was to 2nd:

pic stolen from Jay!

Sarah did well too, finishing I think3rd overall but had a one day license so guess you don't count in road racing if you only race every once in a while!

This past weekend was the Kewaskum WORS race.  The team did well with our nightly feed being moved to Darrin and Lynn's since all of us were down in the Milwaukee area for various things.  It worked out well cause we all had food babies by the time 7PM rolled around!!  Yum, I love to eat.  Michelle and I also decided that it would be a good idea to get some R&R in this weekend and decided to get a hotel in DT Milwaukee.  We ended up crashing at Hotel Metro and really enjoyed ourselves.  They had a bar on the top of the building and could not pass it up even though we were racing the next day.  The problem was that we were so cozy that when it came time to start thinking about racing, that was the furthest thing from my mind so we ended up going over to Darrin and Lynn's again to take in everyone elses pre race jitters to try and get the motivation up.  Well it never came!  Etiher way the race went well, even though I blew getting into my pedal at the start and was sitting in something like 20th hitting the 1st climb.  I kept it moving and raced my own race hoping people would blow, no luck with the race time being so short and came in for 6th place.  Really enjoyed it though cause I rode around with Ryan all day and was even treated to the girls new 212 cheer!

I must admit, when I heard Ryan clapping back there I had to give a little dig, but it was all in fun.  So for the day Darrin was 3rd, Me 6th, and Ryan 7th.

Now onto the ladies.  Lisa rode well and battled it out with Abby all day only to lose by 5 seconds once the dust settled.  Not sure how everything went down but On the first lap Ryan and I saw Lisa crest the top of the hill with a small gap so she must of decided to go from the gun.  Michelle struggled a bit and was not real happy with her placing, but I am super excited to see her back racing and how much improving she has done so far this year.  If she keeps going I might have to stop racing and support her! 

This weekend Michelle and I are headed up to do the Chaindrive.  I have never done this race, but went to school up there and know how much fun the trails are.  Scott and Mark will be headed over to the Lumberjack 100 and the rest of the team I believe is laying low to get ready for the ProXCT race to hit Wisco the following weekend.  Cannot wait!  If you are on the fence on weather to do this event, you better book your travel and not miss it!! 

Where's the love?

Next up is the Mohican 100.  It should be fun with a lot of climbing and sounds like good singletrack for parts of the course.  From what I am hearing from Scott it might not be exactly what I would prefer with a bunch of short steep climbs, but either way it is climbing and I like that!  I also have a bit more motivation after taking 2nd at Cohutta and not getting any love from cyclingnews in their pre race press release!  Thanks!