Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Robbie Project

CLICKY THE SCROLLING IMAGE ABOVE TO GET TO PURCHASE PAGE

Robbie Squire is one of the top U23 Mountain Bike Racers in the USA, he is the former Junior National Champion and took 2nd in this years U23 championship, he is a nice kid and the future of the sport in the USA. As a result of his excellent results, USA Cycling has Named him the the World Championship team. This year the world championships are in Canberra, Australia September 1-6.

However, USA Cycling does not pay his way, as a result, this makes it difficult for a 19 year old to afford.

The Tour De Park City has generously donated some nice swag to raffle off to get Robbie to Australia without gong into debt.

Reynolds Solitude Wheelset
Garmin 605
Rudy Project Helmet/glasses combo
3 energy packages including hammer heed, pro bars, sportslegs, and gels

5 dollars a ticket and the raffle will be held in 2 weeks

Monday, August 24, 2009

Mt. Ogden 50k weekend

Lyna and I took the puppies up to Huntsville for the weekend, I was signed up for the Mt. Ogden 50k race and wanted to have a relaxing weekend as well. The condo was comfy and clean and about 15 minutes from Snowbasin.

I headed up early Saturday morning to pick up my packet and set up the Dirt Coalition Pop Up tent. Went back to the condo to get Lyna and the pups and headed back up, Discovered soon after arrival tha my GPS had no battery charge, oh well, no problem, I warmed up with BZ and headed to the start. I originally signed up as Pro, but then was going to downgrade to amateur, but then realized that with 2 categories, I should race the upper one, only fair.


I think there were around 25 'Pro' men at the start, I was in the top ten at first, and surrendered a few spots on the first DH, as I had not pre-ridden the course. There were several spots on the DH that I had "OH $hit!" moments, but all in all i did well enough, Nate Stowers got around me towards the bottom of the first long DH and I stayed with him as much as I could till the long pavement climb to the lap area. I motored up this climb, putting distance on several riders and grabbed my bottles from Lyna. On the exposed start area climbs I was feeling a bit dizzy, luckily that went away, about 5 minutes later on the rough climb my left knee started to ache, drat, I maybe should have thrown in the towel there, but I kept pushing.

I did better on the DH and then any climb would come and I wanted to go hard, as my legs had it in them, but the knees did not. I was getting passed left and right and was very hot and frustrated, still I pushed on. Finally I made it to the long paved climb to the finish, KC, Adam and a few others passed me here and I was wanting to go with them, the legs said yes, but the knees said no. So I finished, 3 hours 3 minutes 34 seconds. 19th 'Pro' men 24th Male over all, 27th over all male and female.

1st lap 1:25:20
2nd lap 1:38:14

I believe I may have Patellar Tendonitis, need to go see a PT to be sure. The legs, lungs and heart wanna go, but the knees say no.

The rest of the weekend was grand, post race BBQ and awards were fun, I am sure I was one of the few that did not win a raffle prize:). Lyna and I ate dinner on 25th street in Ogden and then hot tubbed it, woke up Sunday and had breakfast at the Jackson Fork Inn, then drove home and hung out at the Tour of Utah crit with the Day's.





Thursday, August 20, 2009

Back

Been out having fun, not riding much to speak of, Lyna is back on the bike and hitting dirt regular like, which is awesome. We hit up the Tour of Utah Prologue Tuesday, that was a scary DH finish and corner, missed the Pie feed as a result, which I am bummed about. Wednesday I was gonna attempt the Clarks TT but decided racing in PC would be more fun, we started at Silver Lake down Mid Mountain, up Team Big Bear, Counter Clockwise on Flagstaff, up Deer Camp and Down Nail Driver. 6.5 miles of fun in the cool mountain temps. I took the W in a small field and got a 12 pack of Pro-Bars, mmmmmmm good. Several people took wrong turns, but fun was had by all.

Lyna finished spray painting all the PCPP arrow signs yesterday, even though Ellie chewed up the stencil.

This weekend I head up to Snowbasin to race the Mt. Ogden 50k, which seems to be only slightly longer than a XC race, so should be fun, I have heard great things bout the trails up there.

Thursday, August 06, 2009


Sunday, August 02, 2009

2009 Laramie Enduro

I have not done anything but XC races since 2005, and that was the Brian Head 50, taking less than 4 hours, I registered for Laramie in February, since it was only 60 bucks and would be easy to walk away from if I decided to pass on it. Well Team Revolution had about 25 register, then we got a block of rooms at the Fairfield, so I became more committed. Having done that, I was convinced that I would have no chance of an overall Expert series win, however, circumstances proved other wise.

Friday morning after breakfast at Eggs in the CIy with Lyna, We loaded up the Wedge mobile with Jim, Steve, Alison and my self and headed to Laramie. We registered and as we were getting ready to go spin on the wild roads of town, the storm started, so we went to feed on pasta with 15 of us, The rain kept up and we hit the sack early.

We woke up at 5:00, headed down for the free breakfast fixins and headed out to the race site. I think I got about a 10 minute warm up in, not that it mattered. My goal was to stick with Brad Pilling as long as possible, We lined up on the 2nd row and when he start went, I took off at a sub XC start pace, there was less than 1/2 mile of service road to one track and I wanted to avoid as much craziness as possible, Brad says 'That was unnecessary!' A quote that would bug me for a while. So for the first 10 miles or so I was in the first chase group, I think about 5 or so were off the front. Brad catches me at about mile 8 and I ask him if I cut him off, he says no, whew. I then get on his wheel, he motors ahead on some flats and I catch back on on the rises. Then he gets a 20 second gap and we hit the Mile 10-20ish headwind fire road section, I get in with a group of 15 or so, Brad is 20 seconds up in a group of 4, In my group it is me and 2 Chipotle Titus riders doing all the work, finally I Jump across to Brads group and we get more people doing work. I felt like I was going a bit too hard, but knew being in this group was pushing me down the road a whole lot faster and would pay off in the end. We broke up as we hit the Singletrack when we looped back to the start singletrack area, I still had Brad about 10-20 seconds up and we were keeping a steady pace. Right before aid station 2 I saw SHannon on the side finishing up a flat fix, I stopped at the aid station to fill up a bottle and Got back on as Shannon went by, I held onto his wheel on doubletrack, rough cow trail and one track for about 4 miles or so, Miles 36-47 or so were the hardest part of my day. I dropped off of Shannon, and started feeding, I wanted to back down because I knew the last 20-25 miles were the hardest. I passed Ryan Ashbridge right before Aid 3 fixing a flat and he blew by me a bit later, as I came into aid 3 he was still there, Aid 3 was where our drop bags were, so I swapped bottles, grabbed my food, grabbed a handful of animal crackers and headed out, Ryan came up on me and I said I was in recovery mode and to get around me, he did, and took off (for a top 10 overall finish). I got passed by probably 15 people in this 11 mile section. I just let them go. Finally, hitting a doubletrack climb at mile 48, my legs came around and I stepped it up, my HR track shows about a 10 BPM drop in those 11 miles, the rest off the race, before and after was right around the same average. Of course, this started the last 20 miles of the race, which was the hardest. The doubletrack climbing was great, I was able to sustain power and go steady, not getting passed by anyone, but, my knees were aching, quads, fine, knees burning, so single track climbing was bad, technical singletrack climbing, worse. Aid stations 4 and 5 included me grabbing boiled potatoes and chips, filled up with water and heading out, at aid 5 I asked when the next downhill was, there was nervous laughter, well there was like 2 screaming fast downhills on service roads, about a miles worth, top speed 40mph, followed by, oh 800 feet of technical, rocky, rooty one track climbing in 2.5 miles, My legs felt great, but my knees were not feeling great, I walked a lot of this section, The decent off the top was a blast and took less than 9 minutes, done, race time 6:02:59. 34th place in the overall Open-Pro. Only 20 minutes behind Ryan who finished 10th, Brad finished 12th and Shannon 15th. The Mile 35-48 lull likely cost me a top 20, but that is how endurance racing goes, good spots and bad spots. My actual moving time was 5:52. I stopped for 4 pee breaks and stopped at 4 aid stations for a total of 11 minutes. But, I never bonked, was well fed and hydrated and had no issues, the Carbo Rocket made the day, 6 bottles of it plus 2 of water. My Fly socks kept me warm in the early am temps and kept my feet happy regardless of mud, water and cowpie. The Zaskar was fast, smooth and flawless.

The course was fun and challenging, countless un-rideable mud (cow poo) bogs, flowy one track, fast fire road, cow trails, waist deep creek crossings. The course was very well marked, if you kept eyes forward, volunteers were awesome, filling my bottles for me, cheering me on. Fellow riders were kind and encouraging, even if they wheel sucked :) The Registration took seconds, the food post race was awesome and they even had industrial strength action wipes for post race cleaning. Jen took second in her group and won 200 bucks, Brad took 2nd Open 40-49 and also won 200. I guess my name was called for a sweet raffle prize, but we had already left.

Everyone on Team Revolution finished and we only had a few flats, the weather was good, sunny skies and the post race dinner at the Chop house successfully put us in a Coma. I'll be back next year.

Now to decide whether or not my knees are willing to do the PCPP race.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

2009 I-Cup 40+ Overalll Champ

2009 Icup Expert 40+ Series podium
Thanks Erika!

Meanwhile, I was sufferin with 400 others in the Laramie Enduro, hung with Brad Pilling and recently flat tire sufferers Shannon B and Ryan A till mile 40, when I remembered the last 25 miles of the 67 mile race were the hardest. Ended up finishing at 6:03 34th overall.

More later.....