Work equals money, more work equals more money, to much work, well you get the picture not much time for anything. so other than working part of the day on saturday it was a much needed weekend with the family. So sunday the plan was to head to grants trail. me and the wife dusted off the roller blades put Lucas in the stroller and headed down the trail, i havent been on roller blades since i played roller hockey back in maybe 2001 and Bettina since the last time we came here to roller blade when we were dating. brought back a lot of good memories and it was fun watching Lucas jog back the last 1/4 mile or so.
Monday morning was a planned road ride, felt weird being on the bike on a monday, i think it took me 2hrs just to get warmed up. added a little to the same loop, few more little climbs for fun, felt good to get a big ride in. Me and Bettina spent part of the day chasing Lucas around on his new little 4 wheeler toy followed by a family bike ride to the park with lots and lots more of chasing Lucas around, the kid has endless amounts of energy...
Monday, May 28, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Paris Brest Paris
Congratulations to my father in law for qualifying for PBP, he did the 600k on saturday in 25 1/2hrs. He did this race 4yrs ago in a total time of 67hrs (45 riding time) not bad for being 57 years young! wish i could be there with ya, hopefully in another 4 years when it comes around again I will have a little more free time.... Best of luck in Paris
Sunday, May 13, 2007
fun at CW
2 things i dont like. racing back to back weekends, and working on a roof all week before a race. well i had both of these to deal with before this race plus trying to get some time out at castlewood to help the team get the course ready and try to get a little pre ride in. so friday came and it looked like it could rain at anytime, time being 7am. so i do the usual routine get all the tools out and start building some stuff. The good and the bad, the good being it started raining and now i get to have an easy day inside (perfect pre race day) the bad is its raining. back to the good, it quit before i got to the park. so easy day at work, helped a little with some of the course and then got a good pre ride in.
every race i have to have some idea of what i want to do, this one was easy go as hard as i can for the first and maybe second lap then maintain a good pace. This race brought some serious fast racers in the endurance field, when you line up next to guys like Chris Ploch, Dave Breslin, AnthonyDust and a guy that gets my total respect Kurt Fletcher you know its gonna be fun.
The race started as planned, chris jumped out in front and led us through the maze of sport racers on the first climb (sorry for any contact, cutting off, or anything else i might have done to interfere with the sport racers) so the first lap came and went, chris put a good 40 seconds on me and i had no idea were everybody else was. when i got to the top of grotpeter climb i was just far enough back from chris to hear him yell, i cant believe i got another flat, there has to be some sort of record for that kind of thing! well i figure now is a good time to get in a good pace. things were going good but i could see kurt making up some good time on me, so i thought the wicked downhill would be a good spot to make up some time, wrong the guy was with me the whole way down. so i knew it wouldnt be long before he went by to do his own thing, and that he did. all i could do was maintain a pace i thought i could handle the whole race. The next couple of laps came and went felt good, so im heading into what i figured would be the last lap and somebody tells me kurt is only 40 seconds up. you get to this and you have to ask should i go for it and take a chance of blowing up, cramps you get the picture. or just maintain a pace and finish in a good position feeling strong.... not this time i gotta go for it. i rode as hard as possible looking for kurt around every corner, almost gave up until i saw him on the last climb. brings back memories when i got to this point last year at the cw state race, i saw brian shoemaker (sp) just getting to the top and thinking man i wish i would of rode harder. i think he finished about 40 seconds ahead of me and won state in our age group. anyway seeing kurt got me all kinds of pumped up, i dont think i have every rode that hard in my life, when i passed him he had slipped, so i kept looking back to see if he was on my wheel and then ran into a tree, on a climb, stupid. i was having trouble trying to stay focused my heart rate was jacked at about 185 and all i wanted to do was get to the finish. when i look back on it, kurt was the strongest just came up a little short and i was just lucky to stay focused long enough to make it to the finish.
That one hurt bad in a very good kinda way!
every race i have to have some idea of what i want to do, this one was easy go as hard as i can for the first and maybe second lap then maintain a good pace. This race brought some serious fast racers in the endurance field, when you line up next to guys like Chris Ploch, Dave Breslin, AnthonyDust and a guy that gets my total respect Kurt Fletcher you know its gonna be fun.
The race started as planned, chris jumped out in front and led us through the maze of sport racers on the first climb (sorry for any contact, cutting off, or anything else i might have done to interfere with the sport racers) so the first lap came and went, chris put a good 40 seconds on me and i had no idea were everybody else was. when i got to the top of grotpeter climb i was just far enough back from chris to hear him yell, i cant believe i got another flat, there has to be some sort of record for that kind of thing! well i figure now is a good time to get in a good pace. things were going good but i could see kurt making up some good time on me, so i thought the wicked downhill would be a good spot to make up some time, wrong the guy was with me the whole way down. so i knew it wouldnt be long before he went by to do his own thing, and that he did. all i could do was maintain a pace i thought i could handle the whole race. The next couple of laps came and went felt good, so im heading into what i figured would be the last lap and somebody tells me kurt is only 40 seconds up. you get to this and you have to ask should i go for it and take a chance of blowing up, cramps you get the picture. or just maintain a pace and finish in a good position feeling strong.... not this time i gotta go for it. i rode as hard as possible looking for kurt around every corner, almost gave up until i saw him on the last climb. brings back memories when i got to this point last year at the cw state race, i saw brian shoemaker (sp) just getting to the top and thinking man i wish i would of rode harder. i think he finished about 40 seconds ahead of me and won state in our age group. anyway seeing kurt got me all kinds of pumped up, i dont think i have every rode that hard in my life, when i passed him he had slipped, so i kept looking back to see if he was on my wheel and then ran into a tree, on a climb, stupid. i was having trouble trying to stay focused my heart rate was jacked at about 185 and all i wanted to do was get to the finish. when i look back on it, kurt was the strongest just came up a little short and i was just lucky to stay focused long enough to make it to the finish.
That one hurt bad in a very good kinda way!
Monday, May 7, 2007
Syllamos Revenge
So we packed up on thursday night and headed out to Blancha
rd springs, home of the syllamos revenge race. I thought this race would be a perfect camping trip for the wife and kid and so it was. We got to the campsite at about 11 30 thursday night. The sky was starting to clear a bit thankfully, considering it rained most of the way down. So we got the pop up all ready and headed to bed, Lucas was fully stoked to be on his second camping trip.
The morning brought us some chilly temps with a little bit of sun peeking over the trees. finally the rain is gone, so after some cool hiking with Bettina and Lucas we have some lu
nch and then its off to preride some of the course. So i got in about 2 good hours of riding the legs were fresh and ready to race.
5 am had arrived with the sounds of race day beeps from the heart rate monitor singing tunes of lets get the heck out of bed and race. So i eat a bagel and have my usual NOS its a race day must ok so its now a everyday must. soon after chris shows up ready to do a little pre warm up i can tell he is highly pumped and ready to race, we were definitely feeling the good vibrations! So we do the racer meeting and then head over to the start l
ine, I line up in front with some guys that i have looked up to since i did my first race back in 03 at the very least i actually felt comfortable being up front for the first time.
So the race started off pretty fast with Bob leading us off to the big hill climb then with sum pre planned race tactics i pushed the pace on the climb hoping to thin things out a bit and get everybody a little in the red for the start of the single track, approaching the top of the climb, chris, eric pirtle, and matt long passed me leading us in to the single track. I had no problem with that figuring they would hit it hard and was just wanting to set my own pace and get comfortable for the next 48 miles of single track. Well the bummer was chris was at the bottom of the first downhill with a flat, worst spot of the race for that to happen considering how tight and rocky the single track was. So i kept to the plan and tried to stay smooth, I managed to catch up with eric and saw that matt wasnt very far ahead. every thing was going good until this dude caught up with us and was wanting by in the worst way, no biggie so i let him by, here is the problem though, he would get to every climb and die so i would go by then he would catch up and want by again. the next climb came and so i passed him and eric not what i had planned but this guy was driving me nuts! well in the process i was catching up to matt pretty quick still felt smooth and the heart rate was in check, bummer was i could feel my back rim on every rock, the tire was a little low and figured i better add some air. luckily the air held and i was back in business but in my time down eric had passed by. So i get to the first check point and matt and eric or up by 2 minutes and i am still thinking chris is going to catch back up. well i found out later that chris had a few more flats along with some of the other guys from the team. so my race was going very well considering. well other than running in to matt at one of the road crossings he was stopping his race, never did hear why? i never did see anybody else racing, at the second checkpoint eric had gotten more time on me so i upped my pace a little, by the third checkpoint i was still about the same time back 8 minutes or so, finishing up the last loop the smoothest and fastest part of the race course, i got to the last checkpoint and the time was still the same so i was just stoked to be in second place with no major problems like last year. rolled down the last downhill to the finish for a final time of 4:36. 8 minutes behind first place eric pirtle. after a race like this you usually hear some pretty cool stories, well me and the family were hanging around the finish line Mark Bauer came in finishing up his race claiming that a snake he had gone over had bitten a hole in his back tire and the stans had sealed it up and a fellow racer had witnessed the event. that is a hard one to beat! great job on finishing the race mark and great job to the rest of the team, overall as a team we took 3 of the top five spots and would of had 4 if chris would not of flatted. this is a course that will be beat you down like no other if given the chance and hopefully will be waiting for us all again next year! enjoyed the rest of the weekend camping with the family and chasing the little guy around, finally he ran out of energy on the way home.
rd springs, home of the syllamos revenge race. I thought this race would be a perfect camping trip for the wife and kid and so it was. We got to the campsite at about 11 30 thursday night. The sky was starting to clear a bit thankfully, considering it rained most of the way down. So we got the pop up all ready and headed to bed, Lucas was fully stoked to be on his second camping trip.The morning brought us some chilly temps with a little bit of sun peeking over the trees. finally the rain is gone, so after some cool hiking with Bettina and Lucas we have some lu
nch and then its off to preride some of the course. So i got in about 2 good hours of riding the legs were fresh and ready to race.5 am had arrived with the sounds of race day beeps from the heart rate monitor singing tunes of lets get the heck out of bed and race. So i eat a bagel and have my usual NOS its a race day must ok so its now a everyday must. soon after chris shows up ready to do a little pre warm up i can tell he is highly pumped and ready to race, we were definitely feeling the good vibrations! So we do the racer meeting and then head over to the start l
ine, I line up in front with some guys that i have looked up to since i did my first race back in 03 at the very least i actually felt comfortable being up front for the first time.So the race started off pretty fast with Bob leading us off to the big hill climb then with sum pre planned race tactics i pushed the pace on the climb hoping to thin things out a bit and get everybody a little in the red for the start of the single track, approaching the top of the climb, chris, eric pirtle, and matt long passed me leading us in to the single track. I had no problem with that figuring they would hit it hard and was just wanting to set my own pace and get comfortable for the next 48 miles of single track. Well the bummer was chris was at the bottom of the first downhill with a flat, worst spot of the race for that to happen considering how tight and rocky the single track was. So i kept to the plan and tried to stay smooth, I managed to catch up with eric and saw that matt wasnt very far ahead. every thing was going good until this dude caught up with us and was wanting by in the worst way, no biggie so i let him by, here is the problem though, he would get to every climb and die so i would go by then he would catch up and want by again. the next climb came and so i passed him and eric not what i had planned but this guy was driving me nuts! well in the process i was catching up to matt pretty quick still felt smooth and the heart rate was in check, bummer was i could feel my back rim on every rock, the tire was a little low and figured i better add some air. luckily the air held and i was back in business but in my time down eric had passed by. So i get to the first check point and matt and eric or up by 2 minutes and i am still thinking chris is going to catch back up. well i found out later that chris had a few more flats along with some of the other guys from the team. so my race was going very well considering. well other than running in to matt at one of the road crossings he was stopping his race, never did hear why? i never did see anybody else racing, at the second checkpoint eric had gotten more time on me so i upped my pace a little, by the third checkpoint i was still about the same time back 8 minutes or so, finishing up the last loop the smoothest and fastest part of the race course, i got to the last checkpoint and the time was still the same so i was just stoked to be in second place with no major problems like last year. rolled down the last downhill to the finish for a final time of 4:36. 8 minutes behind first place eric pirtle. after a race like this you usually hear some pretty cool stories, well me and the family were hanging around the finish line Mark Bauer came in finishing up his race claiming that a snake he had gone over had bitten a hole in his back tire and the stans had sealed it up and a fellow racer had witnessed the event. that is a hard one to beat! great job on finishing the race mark and great job to the rest of the team, overall as a team we took 3 of the top five spots and would of had 4 if chris would not of flatted. this is a course that will be beat you down like no other if given the chance and hopefully will be waiting for us all again next year! enjoyed the rest of the weekend camping with the family and chasing the little guy around, finally he ran out of energy on the way home.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
chubb
looking to get a mountain bike ride in before the big http://www.syllamosrevenge.com/ race this weekend, chubb is always the first thing that comes to mind. well my goal was to beat the rain before it came, no such luck considering it was raining most of the drive there, but man i needed a ride bad. the good thing was the major downpours waited till i was on my way back from the west tyson side. i have always had a goal for chubb from back when they used to do the time trial. rain, lots of very slick rock, little bit of mud, these are the things that kept me within seconds of reaching that goal. but of course those things or just excuses so as a mtb racer i think i will always be asking myself were can i pick up that one more second!
work was awesome today got a lot of the upstairs ready to start putting the plywood on the roof, got to do a little field framing over one of the bays also, should look pretty cool when its done considering it has 12 ft walls on that section.
work was awesome today got a lot of the upstairs ready to start putting the plywood on the roof, got to do a little field framing over one of the bays also, should look pretty cool when its done considering it has 12 ft walls on that section.
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