trail work tomorrow

actually, trail work last night and tomorrow and whenever you can until the ballyhoo. jeff, jesse and i went out and finished cleaning up the work jeff had started in dustbowl, gunnar, and north 40 then took a stroll down to death valley which is still a river at this point. there is some basic maintenance that needs to be done which is normal for a. summer maintenance and b. post storm clean up. there will also be some trail reclamation and rerouting necessary as well. what this means for now is NO DHPT TIME TRIAL TOMMOROW. instead, we will be meeting near death valley to rebuild/reroute what we've lost there. if we have more than enough people we might be able to send people out to other trails but death valley is in need of some serious work. luckily we have a great group of volunteers and i firmly believe we will have the trail situation remedied before the ballyhoo.

race pics

weird...i thought we climbed the entire race...

definitely considering puking...

daddy...daddy...DADDY!!!

afton avalanche

wow...where do i even start with today? left town just after 6 and after driving through rain for the first half of the trip i called a buddy in the cities who checked the weather (and double checked my directions) and he said things might turn out okay for the race. hhmmmm...okay? pretty vague. get there and i'm ready to pre-ride sometime between 9:30 and 10. i pre-ride one lap and instantly realize two things...32x17 on a 29'er in less than ideal conditions with a LOT of climbing is way too big of a gear, and crossmarks suck huge donkey balls once their packed with mud. i went down three times in the pre-ride from washing out in sorta high speed corners. let the excuses begin. get back to the vehicle with a couple of hours before the race. run into fellow vassago supported riders steve and zach stillwell. they finished first and second overall in their race while i was out pre-riding...awesome job guys. pre-race was normal...minor adjustments on the bike, lower air pressure (hoping to get as much out of those tires as i could), eliminate rotor rub, get some grub, ipod and hill climbing to warm up. 15 minutes til race time and i start meandering around the start line. experts going out at 1:00 and comp at 1:02. moved up to comp for the first time to try the comp ss class with no expectations. here's the problem with testing yourself...sometimes you find out you're not as good as you thought you were. not that today went like that, but the thought was certainly going through my head. anyway, 2 minutes til experts take off and i realize i don't have my timing chip. this is bad. i was in the first line of racers and i had to take off on a dead sprint riding almost 3/4 of a mile to get car keys, get to the car, get the chip and get back to the start. got back to the starting line with about 30 seconds til the start and now had to start DEAD LAST. catch my breath, go. damn it hurt...a lot. turns out that in the couple of hours between pre-riding and racing the course dried up just a bit and the crossmarks ran flawlessly. the bike ran awesome mechanically. i felt terrible. got bottlenecked right away and literally had to just stop and wait, knowing the leaders had a clean run. damn i hate not starting at the front. way too many geared guys riding a totally different flow than me and it hurt me. legs blew up and i had no idea where i was in the pack. felt like i was passing people but felt like there were a ton in front of me. finished with no idea of how i did. turns out i won the single speed class and was 24th overall. damn, no complaints here. would have liked to have done better overall, and certainly have plenty of excuses, but really none are necessary. everything that went right and wrong today were totally within my control so i have no one else to thank or blame.
so...fellowship, awards, beer, packing, mcdonalds, and then...called spinner only to find out that decorah wasn't so lucky today with the lack of rain. ended up talking with multiple locals all of whom said don't even bother trying to get back into town tonight. roads everywhere are flooded, storm sewers are backing up and causing more flooding, the river is dangerously close to going over the dike, possible evacuations, and a good possiblity that the apartment might be unreachable right now coming in from the outside. either way, sketchy enough to not bother trying. so, "stranded" at the in-laws and will try heading back in the morning.
i'm always amazed by how much climbing there really is at afton. my legs hurt. high life should help. pictures later.

racing tomorrow...i think...

holy christ what is with this weather?!?!?!? hail, tornados, flooding, downpours. it just never seems to end. it doesn't seem like the weather has been reliably nice since the first summer sizzler got shut down last fall during trek world. supposed to be racing at afton tomorrow, and racing in the comp class for the first time (now that they have a comp ss class). no idea what its going to be like or if it'll be worth the 6 hours of driving on my one day off. basically just hoping i don't spend a few hours walking 18 miles in the mud. too bad the mt. king 2.4's rub my stays or i might be considering a tire change. whatever...everybody's gotta race in the same mud.

24/9

officially decided to do 24/9 as a four man open. decided not to have my first ever 24 solo be the first 24 hour race i've ever been to. this will give me a chance to experience a 24 hour race once before taking on the solo fight. me, bill, jeff and spinner...the unicorns. plans for world domination are forming already. coach jeff will start regulating sleep and diets soon. we'll be fast...real fast.

urban style

wednesday night urban ride. haven't done one of those in a long time, at least not in weather above freezing without snow on the ground. ogara, zack, me and we drug travis out. his secret training has paid off and he really rode well. the steelhead came out of hiding...i love that bike. piggish, missing the peg that gave it some custom-ground-dropout-personality, welded chainstay after cracking top and bottom, and the crazy stiff argyle fork...still love that bike. everyone threw down some shit they hadn't pulled off before, including myself working a bench at luther's cfl that has a near 90 degree corner. of course, i also looped out of a wheelie drop down about a four foot stairset which messed with my wrist and slid across the concrete on my hip. i was a little concerned about skipping a chance to get on the trails with the afton race this weekend but the impact of urban riding on trail riding is easily underrated and i really have no concerns about getting out and tearing up the town a bit. unfortunately i tweaked my knee a couple more times which seems to be happening on a regular basis. i'm acutally getting a bit nervous about how my knee's gonna hold up through the rest of the season. i think i'm gonna have to be a little careful for a while and try to get it to rest up before my endurance races get started. rather not start taking time off but i might not have a chance soon. damn. regardless, shit happened tonight and its always cool to see people pulling stuff they've never done.

hail yeah

headed out for a ride saturday right after work. the day had been gorgeous and i was looking forward to getting some good trail time alone. on the way to the trailhead the sirens started going off. living in a small town that still has a 6 o'clock siren i didn't think much of it...then it hit me. i checked my phone and it was 5:45. i checked the sky and it was getting really dark. whatever, the last few times the sirens have gone off nothing's happened. 2 minutes onto the trail and it started raining. when i got up into the pines in van peenen i stopped to work on my bike when this rolled across in front of my feet.

so i put my helmet back on just in time to take a couple frozen golf balls to what would have been my skull. jumped back on the bike and kept riding...couldn't get much worse, right? the trails turned to mud with periodic mini rivers and lakes. stopped along the way to take this pic trying to show how much hail was actually making it through the trees.

the ride was a riot but had to do some serious clean up on the bike by the end of it. i guess it wasn't just the bike that needed cleaning...