Falling behind

Colossal Cafe.

I know, I have been falling behind keeping my blog up to date, but lately I really haven't had anything new and exciting to talk about. Work has been really busy trying to organize our company retreat which is this weekend in Cable, WI. I will be happy when it is over so I can focus on my other big responsibility at work, Interbike. Interbike is a huge industry trade show that happens every September in Las Vegas.

Besides work I have been trying to stay on the bike as much as possible. Next week I will be heading west to Spearfish, SD for the Dakota 50, a 50 mile bike race/tour/ride. It is a phenomenal event I have been going to for the past 2 years now and look forward to it every year.

In preparation for the big race, I have been trying to keep to a healthy diet to stay in tip top shape. For awhile now a group of us have been meeting at a Colossal Cafe, a small local diner, for breakfast before we ride in to work.

Breakfast of champions, Short Stack and Bacon!

The picture is Joe's meal this morning. I went for the apple walnut scone as a starter and washed it down with a creme cheese, green onion and bacon omelet. I heart Colossal.

"The Dust Bowl" Ore to Shore race re-cap

Post race dirt lines

Thursday
Katie and I left Mpls early Thursday morning headed to Marquette. The 7+ hour drive went as good as could be expected. The i-Pod was kicking out the tunes and Katie and I took turns piloting the Jeep. We arrived to our posh Country Inn suit around 6pm MI time, unloaded our gear and relaxed for a bit before heading to Borders Grill for some quality Mexican food.

Friday
Friday morning was spent setting up the Salsa tent for the expo during registration and having coffee with the some St. Cloud friends who were also in town for the race. In the afternoon Katie, Schroden and I went for a little ride around town to stretch our legs out for Saturday’s race. After the race Katie and I had some great Thai food for dinner and headed to race registration.

Registration is always interesting, for 3 hours we stood around the Salsa tent and talked to all sorts of people about Salsa Cycles; the bikes, the jersey’s, racing, riding and countless other bike and non-bike related topics. For the most part, these conversations are a lot of fun, but at times some people can be very trying. When registration was over and the tent was tore down we went back to the hotel and I started getting my gear ready for the race.

Saturday (Race Day)
At 5:50am my alarm went off, I brushed my teeth and walked across the highway to Perkins and met Schroden for breakfast. When I returned from breakfast I gathered my gear, my bike and loaded everything into Schroden’s truck and headed to the starting line of the race. Mike and I took our time getting ready for the race. We had plenty of time to warm so we rode around the town for about 45min before we headed to the Start Line.
This year was the first year I got a preferred start at the race. Being able to ride right to the front of the field to line my bike up was a huge convenience and it made getting ready for the race much easier.

At 9:45 there was a very unofficial “ready, set GO!” and the race was on. The race started on with a about a 1-2 roll out on the road. On my single speed the pace was really fast and hard to keep up with. Once we turned off the road the race really started. For me, the first 10 miles of the course is really tough. There are number of rolling hills with a lot of traffic on them so it makes it tough to pick a line up each hill. Plus the pace is really fast because all the riders want to get out in front as quick as possible. On the top of one hill I heard someone yelling out the number of riders passing by. I was somewhere in the 60’s, this was not surprising. I would have liked to be further up in the field, but there was a lot of race left.

Finally the field started thinning out and I was able to settle into a good pace pass some riders. The course was very sandy and proved to be very difficult for some riders. My 29er was rolling through the sand quite nicely and I was really confident in the sand pits. Maybe too confident, somewhere around 20 miles into the course I was flying down a hill with a very sandy bottom. When I tried navigating the turn my front wheel washed out and I slammed hard, tangling myself up in my bike and hitting my face on the ground. I was able to hop right off the ground and get back on my bike but I was definitely shaken up, my head hurt and my knee was stiff and it felt like my hand took a good blow as well.

It must have taken my some time to start feeling better after the crash. I rode by myself for a bit and then a group of riders passed me. There was one single speeder in the group, when I saw him I realized my pace had slowed down and I need to start picking up the pace. It wasn’t long before I was back on track and riding hard again. Eventually, I came to a hilly road section where I was able to ride with some geared riders. I was able to draft them on climbs and then did all that I could to stay with them on the downhill. I was very lucky to have been able to draft some other riders on this stretch. If I had to ride the road section on my own I would’ve never been able to carry the speeds I did riding with the group. At this point I was about 30 miles into the race and feeling strong.

For the next 10 miles or so I kept up a good cadence and then with about 8 miles left the terrain got hilly again, there are wood chips on the course and it seemed like my speed cut in half. The only thing that kept my spirits up was the fact the race was going to be over soon. I got off my bike a couple times to jog up some of the hills. I thought running would be easier than muscling up the hills and I was worried I may cramp up if I started pedaling too hard.

With about 2 miles left the course widens and there is a path with more wood chips. This part is really painful, push as hard as I, can knowing I have less than 10 minuets left, and as soon as I am off the wood chips it is open road. As soon as I hit the road I could feel the cramps in my legs firing. I looked over my shoulder and saw there were no riders chasing me down. All I had to do now was pedal hard as fast as I could with out cramping up.

When I crossed the finish line I checked my time, 2:57:59. The time was 4 minutes slower than last year and 7 minutes off my goal of 2 hours and 50 minutes. I was happy to have finished. I felt like I rode a good race but didn’t know where I finished in the field. After cooling down I check my results and saw I was once again the 1st single speed across the line, and the 30 rider out of 518 (17 spots better than I did last year).

Schroden and I after the race. Mike was 2nd in his age group. Nice work!

Needless to say, I am stoked about how the race went. There was not a lot of exciting stuff that happened after the race. I ate, went to the awards ceremony, ate again, went to bed, ate again, drove home, ate again, and now I am going to bed again.

Well tomorrow it is back to work. I cant wait to get on my geared bike and take a nice leisure ride to work.

Headed to Marquette

Tomorrow Katie and I are heading north to Marquette, MI for the Ore to Shore race. The event is a 50 mile point to point race with Salsa as the main bicycle sponsor. Katie and I are attending the event to represent Salsa before, during and after the race. We will be loading the Jeep up with 5 Salsa bikes, the pop up tent and a bunch of Swag to hand out to the hundreds of Salsa fans screaming for a piece of the Pepper Power.

I am pretty excited about the race because last year I was fast enough to win the single speed class. Meaning this year I have to defend my title, something I have never done before.
To me it seems a little weird. I have been putting a lot more thought into the race and worrying about it more than any other race. I don't think all the worrying will take the fun out of racing, I just want the race to begin.

My El Mariachi, 34 x16, Pace ridgid fork, red pepper bell.

All week I have been riding in on my Mariachi single speed, trying to get my legs used to spinning one gear for a long period of time. I am running a 34x16 which is what I ran last year so I hope it does the trick again. I wanted to push a little harder gear this year but chose not to.
After 3 days of commuting and about 100 miles of riding my legs feel pretty good. I did one hard ride to work and threw in some hills and I felt really strong. I hope I feel strong come Saturday.

Look for the Race report Monday or so. Have a great weekend everyone.

WTF!

Last night around 6pm the 35w interstate bridge collapsed.


My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who is missing loved ones due to this tragic catastrophe.

Movie Night

Tonight I spent the evening sitting in the basement watching a moving and trying to avoid the heat outside.

Tonights movie, Kung Fu Hustle

The Movie Poster reads, "Imagine a film which Jackie Jan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny". I can't say I fully endorse this movie and encourage everyone to go out get it. But I would say if you like Tom and Jerry type violence and choreographed kung fu this is a movie for you.

I recommend switching the language to English, turning off the subtitles and watching the movie with the voice over. It just ads to the comedy.

Enjoy!

12 hours of 9-mile "The Bloody Steak"

Take a second and think of your absolute favorite thing to do. Reading, Watching T.V., Running, Eating, Drinking, whatever. Now imagine doing this activity non stop for 12 hours. Doing something you really love for half a day may sound fun at first, but consider the physical and mental efforts needed to accomplish this task for 12 straight hours. I love to ride my bike, and this weekend I signed up to participate in a 12 hour mountain bike race. The objective is simple, ride as many laps as I can from 10am to 10pm. If a I finish a lap before the 12 hours is up, I have two choices. 1. Cross the starting line and do another lap, or 2. Wait for the 12th hour to end and finish the race.

When riding a long distance like this the most important thing to do is make sure to eat and drink enough to keep your body working properly. This sounds easy at first, but after 6 or more hours your mind starts to lose focus, your digestive system isn’t happy and it is easy to stop eating. That is why going into a ride like this you need to come prepared and have a lot of foods available that sound appealing when you are absolutely exhausted. My food list included, some energy gels, potato chips, Oreos, pasta salad with tuna, grapes, lots of water, an energy drink and some cola soda. The nutritional value of the food isn’t as important as just getting calories back in your body.

Another thing that makes a race like this much easier is having someone at your camp who can support you as you come through lap after lap, refilling your water bottles, having food options ready for you and doing minor bike adjustment like lubing your chain or putting your lights on when night comes. It is also nice for this person to give you race updates to let you know what place you are in or where the other riders at your pace are in the race compared to you. I was lucky to have Katie give up a nice sunny weekend to come and be my race support. This is not an easy job, there can be a lot of responsibility and at some times you are doing some really crappy jobs to help the rider out. Katie did a great job helping me and I am very thankful for everything she did, even when she sent me out on my last lap at 9:20pm.

Yep, thats a pink head band. They really work, I got it for free, and luckily most cyclist accept silly clothing as tools of the trait.

Going into the race I had set a goal of riding 10, 12-mile laps. If I could finish 10 laps, I was hoping to finish in the 5 of the participants. The course this year had some new trail cut so it was longer than past year. I was told each lap was close to 14 miles. In the beginning, my average lap times were around 1 hour and 17 minutes. The first 6 or so hours went really well, I was riding good, eating food and putting down enough fluids to keep me hydrated in the mid-80 degree heat. After the halfway point in the race I was having a harder time keeping my pace up. My feet were starting to go numb and my arms were really sore from the relentless jarring of the rocky single track, not to mention my butt was starting to feel the effects of sitting for over 6 hours in the saddle. My lap times started slowing a bit the second have of the race but still managed to keep them around 1:20.

After 6:30pm every rider had to have lights on their bike when they went out for another lap. I managed to start my 6th lap around 6:00 and avoided hooking up my lights until later in the evening. When I did put my lights on my lap times started to slow down. I am not used to riding at night with lights on, obstacles came up much faster than I was used to and I was reacting much slower, making me more tense and I was not riding as smooth as I was during the day. Plus, I was becoming exhausted and my body had reached that point I mentioned earlier where I didn’t want to eat and I was getting deprived of fuel.

During my night laps I started adding my lap times up in my head and I started to realize I would be finish my 8th lap well before 10pm. At this point I didn’t want to go out and do another lap. I wanted to do more than 8 laps but I was really starting to hit the wall and I wanted to stop riding. I finished my 8th lap around 9:30. When I reach my tent Katie and our friend Johnny Mohawk presented me with my options. There were other riders who just started their 9th lap, I could go and try to catch them and move up in the standings, or I could sit at camp for half an hour and hope that no riders behind my would start another lap before 10. If they did they would move a head of me in the standings.

At that point it seemed like I didn’t have much of a choice. So, I gingerly got back on my bike and pedaled off into the dark. That is when everything took a dramatic change for the worse. Not more than a ¼ mile into my last lap my legs started crapping up. I tried to pedal nice and easy and try and ride through the cramps. This was technique was working until I got into the single track and I crashed on a rock I didn’t see in time. I fell over the handlebars and landed on a pile of rocks, bike on top of me, with cramps shooting up my legs. I was able to rub out the cramps and slowly get going again, only to crash again. This time I taco’d my rear wheel to the point that it was rubbing on my frame as it turned. At this point I was completely worked and demoralized. I was walking my bike through the rock gardens and I was starting to get cold. All I wanted to do was finish this lap. I did everything I could to stop myself from sitting down and taking a nap. Finally around 11pm I finished my 9 lap, it took my over 2 hours, I scrapped up my arms and legs and wrecked my rear wheel, but I was ecstatic to be done with the race. I finished 7 out of 57 riders and moved up one place by going out for a 9th lap. If I didn’t go out I would have lost 2 places, or something like that.

In the end the race was a lot of fun. I am proud of my accomplishments; I am glad I did an extra lap at the end and am happy to have a solo 12 hour race crossed off my list of rides to do.

Congratulations "Zacca"

This past weekend Katie and I attended the wedding of Zach Fink and Becca Styba. The new super duo now known as "Zacca" will be a power house and will let nothing step between them. The ceremony was a beautiful and Katie and I had a great time. Congratulations!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you, Zacca!

As for me, I got all dressed up in my Big Boy clothes and was accompanied by Katie in her fabulous black evening gown.

No it's not a rental, the suit is part of my personal collection.