What I did on Saturday

I went and paid a visit to The Bike Hub of course. Finally pulled the trigger on a cross bike for training/racing. Not sure how serious I will be about racing cross but, I am willing to give it a try. When the bike comes in I plan on getting some fenders on it for early season riding. I also bought Some better Neoprene knee warmers and shoe covers to keep me warm. I wasn't sure how much I wanted to race this year but, I am riding like I want to be competitive. So I guess thats where my head is at. Thanks to Tom and Rebecca at The Bike Hub for answering all my questions.

Happy MLK jr Day

Had the day off from work. No compliants here, I felt like I needed a break after the last few weeks. I decided to go skiing today which quickly turned to a bike ride after realizing how nice it was outside. I headed down to Wrightstown and felt so good. I decided to ride all the way to Kaukauna. The sun was gently wapping me in the face thru the hazy January sky. It was a good day for a ride. The headwind was a little tougher than I thought it'd be but it wasn't bad. Toes and fingers started getting really cold. FYI if your toes go completely numb just get off and walk for 2 minutes. They perk right up. Got some good saddle time and more importantly outside enjoying the spring like weather. I have no complaints about the winter so far. I would like to ski more but, I haven't had to shovel much. Took the skiis up to Marquette last week for work and I might do so again next week. Lately just been spending more time with my Family. More than I would usually but, things have been a blessing in disguise. I have really enjoyed some of my visits. So what do you do if a Muskrat crosses the road in front of you? Take pictures of course! Thought those things hibernated? Hope life is treating everyone well.

Stump Farm Duathalon

This the Third year of this event and every year it seems to get a little bigger. It serves as a fundraiser for the local cross county ski club. It also has a little bit for everyone as there is also 5k run and a 10 mile run. The 5k run to start the duathalon is mostly flat with some pretty steep kickers in there. It follows a part of The Maples skiing loop. It just serves a warmup and some burning in your legs before you start the bike portion. It took me 22:30 for the run and felt ok at the Transition. For me it always seems to take a few minutes to sort out how hard I can push the peddles after the run. My legs just want to take it easy for awhile. Eventually I convinced them to start moving and started catching people. The nice thing about a Duathalon is even if a runner kicks your butt in the run, you will almost always catch them on the bike. Especially a mountain bike race where I know the trails pretty well. I managed to catch 3 or 4 people before the first section of singletrack. For some reason I went into the singletrack and just felt like I was on fire. Carving the corners better than I usually do. It was a good thing too because my legs really didn't have the power today. I was ok but, I was passed by at least two elite guys and I knew I wasn't going to be pulling them back In. The first lap went well and I was feeling ok starting the second lap. By about the middle of the second lap I was getting tired and my low back was almost shot. I rode with a guy to the last section of the singletrack and jumped into it just before him. i was able to ride away from him in the twisty stuff after that but, didn't get much of a gap. I kept pushing it in the the corners trying to increase my lead. I noticed that another rider had caught the guy I had passed and they both were about 75yards back. The very last section of singletrack had some wide sweeping turns I couldn't really make any time there, so the gap stayed the same. I knew as soon as I got out of the single track I had to go as hard as I could. It was about a mile to the finish and I went as fast as I thought I could maintain. I looked back and the new guy was catching me. I just put my head down and kept pounding. I got on the finishing straight and the guy was getting closer and closer. There was a short hill the finish line was on and I just stood up on the peddles and cranked as hard as I could. I felt like I was going turtle speed. I crossed the line and he came flying by me. I beat him by 5 feet or so, whatever .5 seconds is. I literally had gray lines at the corner of my eyes. That was the hardest I went on a bike this year. So I ended up with 6th place overall and 2nd in my age group. Pretty happy with the result since there was some pretty tough competition there. Won a sweet Bottle of Maple syrup and enjoyed a great post race baked potato. Results are here. So thats it for bike races this year. Next up is the Turkey Trot and off season cross training. My Teammate Tyson Schwiesow did great taking 2nd in the Team Division with his Daughter. Results for them are here. Some other Members of Bike Hub/Specialized were off doing Cross Races in other parts of the State. Shoemaker continued his domination of the Cat 4s with back to back races wins. Good luck to everyone doing the Iceman. See ya outside...

End of Season Shout Out

As my Season winds down, I just wanted to say Thank you to the Bike Hub/Specialized sponsors. The Bike Hub for all the Parts when I break my stuff. And especially Tom for being the best Mechanic in Wisconsin. Specialized for all the great parts that help me go fast and not crash. Tower Clock Eye Center for giving 20/20 vision. I visited them this season and the hooked me up with LASIK in September. Other than a little discomfort the first day, I think it was the best decision I ever made. Dr. Matt Thompson was very Professional and gave me all the facts to make my decision. The camp duathalon is coming up on Oct. 30th and that is probably the last bike race of the year for me. Lastly I have to say thanks to Don for putting on another great season of WORS. See ya outside...

Sheboygan

Fun race fun singeltrack. Lost my chain on the third lap. Broke the quicklink. Vogels and I had a draw on our blizzard bet.

Holy Schnikes! WORs #11 Bear Paw

Wow that was my muddiest race ever. It rained pretty much all night getting the course into perfect condition for a mudbath. Cold wasn't a factor during the race even though it rained the whole time. I trashed my legs jogging the day before so I wasn't expecting much from this race. Sure enough I managed to be dead last up the start climb. Things started going better and I picked off a few people in the first doubletrack. Felt real confident in the singletrack with my Specialized Captains mounted front and rear. I was glad I had them too. Eventually things got so muddy I just started running the steep parts. I passed quite a few people that way the first lap. But after that my body started giving out and I started getting caught. The third lap was so bad I couldn't even keep a straight line on the doubletrack. Just got sucked all over the place. Managed to lay it down twice. Its so fun to just slide on your side and not be able to stop yourself. It was still fun and I love this race course. They really stepped up the course with some new singletrack. This is a Legit mtb race. Better than racing on mowed grass any day. My daughter also came and did her first official kids race. She did great and avoided two crashes. Just glad to share the things I care about with the people I care about. Hopefully I can get body to start enjoying jogging trying to get ready for this. Other than that hope to see everybody at Sheboygan. Looking forward to refreshments afterwards thats for sure. See ya outside...

Cheq 40 2011

Well the 29th addition of this race is in the books. And I feel like I still have some unfinished business. I stayed in a cabin with with a mixed squad of Performa and Bike Hub riders and a few others. We got up to HAyward around noon on friday and prerode the finish before picking up our numbers. We had an awesome Ziti pasta feed the night before and headed to bed. We got up at 4:20 and went and staged our bikes. We had decent position around 250 riders back. We then chilled out before getting ready for the 10am start. The race started before the cannon went off which was a little anticlimactic, but funny. It was pretty mellow down Hayward's main street. Then it started getting faster, it was a little hairy going onto 77 but I was following Shoemaker in the gutter so it worked alright. Going up 77 was fast I was almost spun out in 1x9 but managed to keep up with Vogels and Shoemaker. By Rosies Field I was getting gassed and I let them ride away from me. Preferring to ride my own race. I had a fairly uneventful first half of the race. I was just trying to take care of myself and save my legs for after fire tower. I saw a water bottle get dislodged in go flying 10' into the air on one descent. I saw at least 3 tandem crashes. One of the in that huge Martels mudhole. They seemed to think it was funny though. Somebody crashed in front of me in the Lake Helane sand trap and i had to go into the pickers. My leg looked a little like Hoogerland's after that. I caught Shoemaker right before Firetower he said he was cramping. I made it up Firetower, but Shoe passed me back. I popped another gel and got ready to hammer to the finish. I was feeling pretty good. The guy around mile 28 said I came thru 161st which made me pretty happy. On the second rocky descent after fire tower I heard a loud ping and then my rear end got squishy. Flat! Crap! Oh well first flat in awhile. Got off and hit it with my CO2. Found the hole and flipped the bike to seal it with my stans. It sealed right up and away I went. Lost about 50 spots and the tire was still pretty low. The worst part was as soon as I got off my bike my legs locked right up. I went from feeling great to being barely able to pedal. And that was at the start of last part of the Berkie. Happiness was seeing the end of the Berkie. The rear tire was still low so I took it easy on all the corners so I didn't roll the bead. I ended up 360th. Not super happy with that but congrats to everybody who raced. Vogels won the Blizzard bet finishing 191. Kurt Schwiesow finished 62ish and Justin Piontek finished 33rd with a mechanical issue. We topped the day off with a visit to the original Famous Daves BBQ and a fire. See ya outside...