In a nutshell

To milwaukee, home, back to Milwaukee, back to home, to Madison, back home,to Green Bay, and now just settled into a hotel in Marquette. Also some good miles on the bike without the need to get prepped for any races and even a couple group rides, and for anyone who knows me that is rare. the riding has been awesome as of late and I am really digging the new S-Works SL3!!!! Talk about a rocket ship!!

So my week has been fun. I rode with Big D on Wednesday night and had one of my biggest meltdowns in a long time! It was toward the end of the ride so the "ride of shame" was short and we did not get passed by any old ladies carrying flowers in their front basket on their bike! Then to finish the legs off Michelle and I went to Neenah and did the Thursday night ride out of Gear N Up! Scotty B is a good friend and it is always fun to see him and everyone else in the area. The ride was pretty tame and for the most part everyone just took turns pulling their weight and keeping the pace up there. It was definitely fun to go back to where I really got going. I remember that I used to just hang on for dear life and last night I barely averaged a HR in my endurance zone. Reminded me that all the hard work has paid off.

Now my next dilemma is what kind of riding I should do for the weekend? I have both bikes along and both the road riding and mountain biking look to be awesome up here! Any suggestions?

Recharging

Feel like things are finally coming back to me a bit.  Last week was a busy one and left me a bit worn down.  All I have to say on my last week, never, ever, ever think of putting in a commercial pool!  They make changes to codes/regulations seems like once a week which had us draining the pool last week for some guy to come in and take pictures/measurements and was only there for not even an hour!!  So 5 days of work for someone to walk around for an hour!

On the fun side, Michelle and I went to Milwaukee last weekend.  She race the Stupidweeks race on Saturday morning and just missed the break.  She ended up riding around with the 2nd group of 6 where no one wanted to work or help chase the 4 off the front.  Either way she said she still had fun and pulled off a top 10.  We then met Mikey, yup Mike Phillips, and Darrin at Crystal ridge to beat up on each other.  Loads of fun, not the trails so much but riding with those two!  We then continued with dinner and a Booze cruise out on the Gulf de Milwaukee!!  They had a live band on board and my people watching skills were in total overload!!

On Sunday we took the clan out to The Kettles.  I have not been there in over 4 years!  Man they have been busy building new trails!! So we started out slow on the blue loop then turned it up and beat each other into submission!  Again another fun day on the bike!!

This week I am moving forward with prep for the big races to come and it is going well.  It is rare that I am so motivated this late in the year, but I like the motivation and I am going to use it. 

Two wheels keep on turning

What a stretch of racing.  I do not not know why I cannot just make myself focus on certain races, but I love to race my bike so I sign up for everything.  So what have I been upto, lets start all the way back in April, here is my race schedule that I just completed:

24-Apr NUE Cahutta 100
2-May WORS #1 Iola
9-May Rasta Rally
16-May WORS #2 Rhinelander
23-May
30-May WORS #3 Wassau
6-Jun NUE Mohican 100
13-Jun WORS #4 Kewauskum
20-Jun Kewaunaw Chain Drive
26-Jun WORS #5 Subaru Cup ProXCT
4-Jul Firecracker 50
11-Jul WORS #6 Eau Claire

Not too bad considering the couple 100s in there and the 50.  Which for the Firecracker 50, if you have not done I highly recommend it.

So onto Eau Claire.  The group started the drive home from Colorado on Thursday, a quick stop in Baraboo Friday night to drop everyone off, Michelle and I made it home at 10:30PM Friday night, up on Saturday morning to watch the tour, throw everything in the car, then off again!! Love the trail in Eau Claire and would not miss it now matter how tired I am! Etiehr way the "GOOOOO" went off and i settled into 3rd wheel going into the first section of single track, a little bobble coming out and then in 4th behind Tristan.  Then halfway through the lap my chain dropped.  Faught it back on and settled into 12th.  Couple passes and then on the 2nd lap saw Ryan putting his chain on?????  Anyone else have problems dropping the chain on the "XX" rings??  Seems to fall from the big ring, over the small and likes to wedge between the frame and small ring?  I am trying new chainrings and chain this week, hope that helps cause it has happened enough to both Ryan and I to really become a problem. 

Either way, back to the race.  I could not chase back on with Ryan so I let him go. He ended up getting back to the group of 6 and actually took them for 4th spot nice work!!!  He had the ideal situation to sit in the group cause he was not going to chase down Darrin and I was dangling off the group so it was up to everyone else to pull and he played it right.  Darrin has a gresat ride again and finished 3rd.  TSP also had a good ride in 11th, Sott came in 28th, and Mark finished 4th in his age!! On the womens side, they are still making us look bad.  Lisa came in for 3rd, Di for 4th, and Michelle for 7th even after breaking off her grip and going over the bars.  She said she was a bit shaken and took her a little bit of time to regain her composure, but still pulled out a good finish.  We have concluded on the team that no matter how the year finishes up we are nominating her for the "Most Improved Rider" award. 

So, next on the schedule?  Reload and get ready for the Triple crown races. 

Shortest Epic Ever

Yesterday turned out to be the shortest epic mountain bike ride in history.  Brian, Spencer, Ryan, and I headed out French's Gulch headed to the land of bliss singletrack descents.  We were spinning along up the hill and at about th 20 minute mark, mother nature decided to hurl hail at us the size of M&Ms.  We ended up takign cover underneath a bunch of trees:

We ended up hanging out for about 30 minutes as it continued and started to turn the trail white!

It let up for a little bit, but it was just enough to get us out from our shelter so that she could throw more at us.  After taking shelter in the woods and a couple close lightning strikes we decided to fly down the hill and back to the truck.  By the time we reached the truck we were all so cold and beaten from being pelted with hail.  After having to bail on our last ride out here, we decided to improve our moods by hitting up the Breck Brewery!  That helped!  We are leaving today and next up will be Eau Claire!

Easy spin down the bike path

Well that is what it was supposed to be.  Kind of hard to do that with all the trails hidden in the mountains calling your name.  So all of us rolled out of the condo, ripped down the hill we are staying on, and I mean ripped at like 40 mph on knobbies for the 4 miles to town. We then hit up the bike pat hbetween Avon and Vail.  It was nice to just roll along and spin the legs.  Once into Vail the decision was made to head up to this overlook that followed the Wednesday night race hillclimb.  After 20 minutes of climbing we came to the top and we had a great look of where we came from:

After the 20 minutes of climbing we figured that there had to be a trail to cut us accross to the condo since we were at the same elevation.  We asked a local and got the scoop!  So we all saddled up and headed even fruther up the hill, another 20 minutes up and we found the trail.  It was awesome, this nice flowing trail that had great burms and every so often popped you out into these alpine meadows.  We pushed on, then pushed on, then pushed on....... We have to be there?  I only brought one water bottle as well as everyone else in the group minus Spencer and Ryan who ended up having to share their 2nd bottles with us since this trip was their idea anyway.  At about 3 hrs into the trip we hit this hike a bike section, the section that the local said that if you get to this point you made a wrong turn!  Suck!  Well we hicked it, and hicked it for 20 minutes up these steep, rocky sections till we finally found the road that we were looking for. when we came out onto the road the trail was posted from the other direction:

Needless to say we were all pretty tired by the time we weere done with our trip that went from a ride down the bike path and turned into a 4 hr over the mountain trip.  We then decided a good dinner was in order and at the end I think Lisa can explain the way we all felt:

 Not sure what today has in store, but looking forward to another good adventure!!

All roads lead down

What a fun day!  The guys headed over to Keystone to work on our Super D skills, cause we have lots of those in Wisco!  Either way it was a blast and had lots of fun.  We were there for 3 hrs and managed to get 4 runs in and 28 miles of down!  Sweet!  We kept things pretty chilled and had zero stops at the ER, another plus.  The only casualty of the day was Brian deciding to work on his dismounting skills face first.  We did this fun trail that had an awesome corkscrew that started about 15 feet up then you circled around it down to the ground, it was pretty cool!!  Check it out here. 

Today I think is going to be a chill day and just get some relaxing in.  We have been on the go pretty much since we arrived and most of us seem to be dragging from the affects of racing and altitude starting to really take its tole.  Gonna need a vacation to recover from vacation!  Where to next??

Race Pictures

2 posts in less than 4 hrs, enjoy.

Oxygen Required!

Well I just got a good reminder of how bad it hurts to race at altitude!  I had a good first lap coming through at just a bit over 2hrs, but then we had to do another lap.  Really!  The first one hurt bad enough.  Well, needless to say I had granny gear envy and ended up walking a couple of the really steep rocky climbs.  After all that I ended up running a 2nd lap of 2hr and 44 min! Ouch!  This race out here is awesome though and I will be back.  I will workon getting soe pictures cause we have some pretty good ones within the group.

The girls rocked the team comp and ended up in a sprint finish for 2nd place.  Lisa nipped the girl at the line and even ended it with a nice fist pump.  Was pretty cool to watch and they are really starting to make the guys look bad!!

Today we are thinking bou tdoing downhill runs at Keystone.  Never done it before and it sounds like fun!  Lets hope my next post is not from the ER!

Invasive species

That's what I have, so the doctors say, and it will not go away.  The word that I am getting is I have a Bronchial virus or something.  All I know is I have a fever, shortness of breath, and just want to sleep all the time.  Not even my multiple daily lattes seem to help anymore.  I am not sure I believe all this, but I do know that I am not at 100% which is not good when you are headed to elevation to race.  Either way, we are off to Colorado and looking forward to the entire experience.  I will do my best to keep up with post and maybe even get some incriminating pictures cause I know either Ryan or I will do something stupid while we are there!! 

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!