USGP Louisville

This past weekend Grman and I headed out to Louisville for the USGP race. We both opted to do the 2/3's race as opposed to the U23 race, instead of buying a UCI license and shelling out $45 per race to maybe finish. The course was awesome with a lot of muddy sections. A pit bike would have been real nice. I'm scratching any thoughts of a time trial bike for next year, and instead going to get a pit bike. We have a pretty interesting story from the Saturday race. First, we were staying with the SEMO guys who got in at about 12:30am. Grman and I were asleep and got woken up, and stayed up while they shuffled around for another half hour or so, and went back to bed at like 1:15. They got up at 6, and were really loud. And turned on all the lights. And yelled. And left the door open when they left. So it was a pretty bad pre-race night. We got to the race at like 9:30, rode over and got our chips, came back and started to get ready. These two masters came over and started talking to us, and the conversation eventually turned to us thinking we started at 11, and them thinking they started at 11:15. We both knew our races couldnt start that close together, so one of them rode over to check. He came back and told us our race was called to stageing and they were lining up. I was changing brake pads and Grman was pinning his number. Shit. I dropped my pants and changed in the middle of the parking lot and the two masters helped us pin our numbers and pump our tires while we embrocated and grabbed anything we needed. We sprinted to the start line right as our numbers were getting called. Mistake #1. Mistake #2 was registering a week ago. I was starting 104th spot, ten rows back. I didnt see the leaders. The race was pretty raw for the first lap. Throwing elbows, dismounting and running past dudes. I raced pretty ok, but didnt feel great on laps 2-4 I think due to lack of warmup. Grman, who started in 87th I think, ended up 10th, and I ended up 24th passing a solid 80 guys.
We ran into Richard at his Specialized booth and he invited us to crash with him that night. I worked the pit for Logan and it was pretty sweet, then we headed out and had a nice dinner and had a lot of fun hanging with Richard. Sunday we came to the race with Richard at 7am. Prepared and on time. The course appeared to have dried out so I declined to set up a pit bike with Richard. Mistake. The course was still wet and muddy. On the first lap, I dismounted a minute in and ran for about 200m, it was easier to just run past the people that were trying to ride. Then, later in the first lap, on a downhill/uphill U-Turn that had a section of pavement right at the bottom, I washed out my rear tire, and ate it hard on my right side. The little pin that holds the shift and brake lever to the shifter body popped out but not all the way. I couldnt really use my rear brake and my shifting was unreliable, but after I finished and actually got a good look at what happened, it was an easy fix. I started 99th and got all the way up to 27th. Grman I think started in 83rd and finished a very respectable 6th. All in all it was a really good weekend. We had a lot of fun, raced pretty well considering our start spots, and got to ride some real courses. The courses out there were legit. There were 3 mandatory dismounts the first day(stairs, barriers, green monster), and 4 the second day(stairs, stairs, barriers, green monster)(one stair set was possibly rideable both days). Thats a lot more than the one dismount in STL. There were also 2 or 3 sandpits, that got really packed down so they were easily rideable, but had they not been that would be a few more. Also the mud made for a lot more dismounts, especially on the first lap. People around here need to HTFU and quit whining about cross being hard, or cross courses being hard. The only bad thing around here is that the courses arent hard enough, or they just plain suck like the Ronde Course. No pics from the weekend found yet, but there must have been 20 photographers snapping during our race.

Bubba Cross Weekend Numero Uno

So this past weekend was the first weekend for Bubba Cross races here in the STL. Cross season has now officially started, not just silly preseason races. Both races were at Faust Park this weekend, Saturday being a night race, and Sunday during the day. The saturday course was pretty fun and somewhat tacky. The weeks rain had left the ground soft, but not wet like I had hoped for. I started the race pretty conservatively, but jumped around about ten guys mid first lap. I ended up being with Mark Nagy and Jeff Yielding battling for 6th. We dropped Yielding but he kept clawing back. I was way faster than them both through the barriers and the climb that immediately followed. Coming through the start/finish into the last lap I was following Nagy, and hit the first turn super hot. I slid out/somersaulted and ended up about 5 feet past my bike. I hopped back on, but my shifting was out of wack. I only had my 12 in the back. I noticed my cable had popped out by the headtube, I kept going until the barriers where i stopped and asked the Lindenwood boys for some help. Nagy and Yielding had gotten away, and Pence, who had been in hot pursuit of our trio, had passed me. In their drunken confusion they just started hitting my rear deraileur. I took off and was able to hold off whoever else was chasing, and took 9th. Kinda bummed because I was pretty sure I could have had 6th or at least 7th, but thats bike racin. I was more upset by the large dent I found on my downtube when I took my bike off the roof back at campus. I put the dent, and my horribly sore knee together, and deduced that my knee is what did the damage during the crash. Pretty bummed, but the frame's still functional. I have an excuse for a pit bike for next year now. Grbeans took 2nd to Butthead, which was rad.

Saturday came and again another race. I started pretty conservatively again, but was eager to move up. I was with Kurt Fletcher and Yielding, and saw Grbeans, butthead and nate slipping away. I was hesitant but I jumped up to buttheads wheel and off we rode. Us 4 rode together for about 3-4 laps or so. It wasnt really hard to stay with them, but then nate started attacking. I kind of blew up trying to follow at a bad time up a steep climb. I lost contact with them but stayed about 50 yards off of them for another lap or so. I made this attempt to make a few bucks right after losing contact with them, perhaps not the smartest idea.



I held off the chasing group of 5 to take 4th place. I was very happy with my ride. Grbeans and I are going to make a good attempt to dethrone the local nys/albert duo and show that there are some new kids on the block. on a side note, I rode my EC90 Aeros with Challenge Fangos, 34 up front and 32 in the rear. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.

great movie, great scene

orbea

the process to create the most euro training bike has begun.