Snake Alley and Melon City Crit in Iowa, plus the Free Wheels For Kids KC Crits

Snake alley ( Burlington, IA)

Had an amazing first 3 laps and was in the lead group. Faded hard after that and finished pretty much right in the middle of the 40 person field. 

I'm the definition of an average cat 4.

Melon City Crit (Muscatine, IA):

Felt better than I realized and should have attacked instead of waiting to for someone else to do the same thing at the bottom of the final climb. I had no problem responding and could have done better that my 9th place finish. 

I was a little gun shy due to my disappointing performance they day before but I'm terrible at taking chances.

Not the recipe for good bike race results.

Free Wheels for Kids Crits, day 1 (KC, KS)

Doubled up. 4/5 race was first and after weathering the initial Micah Effect (which dominated both days if racing, both 5's and 4/5's) found myself in the chase group. A flat approaching one lap to go ended what could have been a good result. Did the 3/4 race and got dropped with 3 to go. Satisfied with that. 

Free Wheels for Kids Crits, day 2

Felt tired during the races. Micah again got off the front immediately in the 4/5, then Matt and two other guys. So I followed wheels until a dude yelled at me for not pulling. We kissed and made up and I pulled when it became apparent we wouldn't catch either Matt or Micah. I knew nobody was catching Micah. 

It's probably a good thing he yelled at me because the next big chase group almost caught us at the line. I pulled the last half lap to ensure we stayed away but finished one or two places lower because of it, but I cared more about being a nice bike rider than a getting a slightly less mediocre result. 

Felt like crap in the 3/4 race and quit after about 10 min.

Micah blew up both 4/5 races this weekend and racing thru the carnage was pretty fun. Bodies were falling left and right.

Tulsa Tough this weekend. I'm going down there with big ambitions. 

Wednesday evening Swope ride.

It's been a month but let's just pretend I've been here all along. 

I've raced a bunch lately, Sheehan road race sucked, velotek Grand Prix stage race was pretty good, Salina road race was very good but my worst result of all three of those. 

But tonight... Tonight we mountain biked!

Life is glorious. 

So here it is in pictures, from the commute home to the culmination at bier station. 

Ride on. 

Bone Bender

Last Saturday i found myself on the front row at the start line of the Bone Bender mountain bike race.

Racing was a somewhat last minute decision and that same casual attitude carried me thru pre-race bike maintenance (adjust tire pressure, stair at bike) and course recon (warm up on the road). I'm not a bike maintenance guy so if it's running i usually leave it alone, and i didn't want to remind myself how rusty my singletrack skills are until i had no choice and was forced to face the music during the actual race.

Ignorance turned out to be bliss because i ended up having a pretty good day.

Besides my ignorance I did have two things other working in my favor, well three if you count the fact that i've done this race several times and know he trails pretty well. One: my fitness is pretty good, and two: almost all the fast folks were doing the marathon distance and im doing the XC.

All in all it was the perfect mix of attitude and conditions to allow self delusion resulting in me believing im much faster than i actually am. Success!

As soon as the horn blew i knew the legs were good. We turned onto the grass after the long pavement start and i was 4th or 5th, which was perfect. The trails at Clinton Lake are full of big rocks, which im not particularly fond of, and the opening section was pretty brutal. I killed myself to try and keep pace with the leaders and along the way was comforted to see that a few people were having more trouble with the terrain than i was.

I had to dismount a couple times in this opening section, once of my own doing and another time due to someone in front of me, but luckily by that point everyone behind me was fairly spread out so nobody was breathing down my neck.

Up next was a substantial amount of smooth dirt roads, smooth fields, and even a little paved road (full disclosure, i loved the pavement!) and i used all of this to recover from the initial effort, which was very taxing. Karen (of House Brocket) and another dude caught me on the road and i gladly sat on them while commenting about my approval of said road, Karen shook her head.

The memory is a bit hazy after this but i do know there were lots of big rocks. I remember Clay coming around me and seeming to float over the same rocks that were giving me fits. Afterwards he said something about me being on a hard tail, ahhh, i thought, he has a full suspension. probably makes a huge difference. Then again i saw someone riding fully rigid and he looked fast... and young.

I remember looking out at the lake several times and thinking, what a beautiful day.

I remember repeating in my head, "race, race, race, race" as i got more comfortable and motivated.

I remember being extremely thankful that i had a Aldi's fruit strip in my pocket and that i had opened it before the race for easier consumption.

I remember crossing the finish line and heading strait for the donuts while "let the good times roll" by the cars blared from the speakers.

I remember looking at the results on line and seeing how slow my times were compared to guys in the marathon, and they were doing two more laps! Damn.

Still, it was a great day. Big thanks to everyone who made it happen!

I've looked at the race calendar and see a few more mountain bike races i can hopefully attend, Bone Bender got my blood pumping.

Roller Derby and Bicycles in Colorado

X and I made it out to Colorado last weekend. She had two Derby games in Denver and then we spent two extra nights in Boulder. It was pretty sweet. 

I drove out a day early and hit up the Lake Wilson mountain bike trails. After two hours of blissful hammering I hauled ass to Denver and went to bed early. 

Spent most of the next day riding around south west of Denver. Rode a lot of bike paths and then lucked into some sweet roads including a 45 minute climb. That was a first, and so was the 10 + minute descent. I took it easy for the first few minutes of the downward portion but by the end I was all in. Waaaay fun. 

Picked up the derby girls from the airport that night and from then on I squeezed in whatever riding I could. This included snowy urban mountain biking in Denver (totally awesome) a freezing cold descent of a sand covered flagstaff road, with snow (not awesome but not terrible, okay, it was kind of terrible), and a hangover ride, complete with coffee shop stop, to get the car on Tuesday morning (which was the plan all along, especially after the forth 7 and 7).

Bike vacations are the best vacations

Xcelerator and the rest of the Kansas City Roller Warriors didn't play as well as they wanted, but everyone seemed to have fun and I for one was grateful for the nudge out the door and into the great state if Colorado.

Hopefully more bike vacations to come!