interbike madness

I'm at the airport now waiting on the red-eye back to c-land.It's been a busy, crazy, 4 nights, three days. I've been bust'n butt for SBR and Fast Track.
On the plus side; Anna & I get to meet Bob Roll, Tom Ritchey and other industry leaders/personalities.
Saw some tasty bikes, Crank Bros new MTB wheelset....
Ernie chasing Trebon, guys drinking beers on the run up....yes all that and more at the UCI cyclocross. I wouldn't have lasted a lap with those guys.
I did get out and ride the Ritchey Ti to the Crit race; pre-rode the course with the Pro women (Cheerwine did the coolest lead-out with two laps to go)and watched some great racing that night too. Chipo was there, Neal Brown from RIDER raced...spoke with Neal the next day; he said the pace was unreal. The Pros finished the night.
After the last day at the convention I had some of my favorite beverages at The Hofbrahaus.......
:-)

Ciao,
Rick

The Kirland Park 'Cross Race

Or how to screw things up.....
A great showing of SBR (and that former one, the defector, Ray) folks; Ian, Gary, David S, the Miranda's kids (in SBR kits) and their parents in Orrville kits. Anna was watching my boy for me, taking pictures and keeping Cookie occupied.
I'm lost in space and almost miss the start....squeeze in the 2nd row, drink as much from my bottle and drop it...then take a shot of gu (stupid thing to do without washing it down) and then we are off! I'm about 6-8 wheel entering the first tight turn, someone falls and the group stacks up; I'm abl;e to get around it and go. Tony is so far off the front he needs a seperat zip code and everyone else is chasing him. I'm wanting to go hard, but not blow up. Things are looking pretty good and soon Ray joins me and I'm thinking to try to stay on his wheel in the straights and I should be able to catch up on the technical stuff. That works for like 1/4 of a lap and on the flat section b/f the BB field, he pulls away....
At about the 2-3 lap my mental game totally falls apart and I feel like getting off the bike....oh, lookie, here comes Gary....looks like this is the race he gets the best of me, DAMN. I try to stick on his wheel and hope for something good to happen (PLEASE). There are a couple of times he gaps me and I get back on. Anna gets me some water to take on two of my laps and that helps big-time. Finally, with 2 laps to go, I decide to quit being a head case and give it the gas...I'm hoping Gary can stay with me. If it weren't for him dragging me around I'm sure I would have fallen off. The bell lap finds new life for me and I start picking off a few people again and see two guys from the Columbus race that I had beaten and chase them like mad. I ended up falling down on the off camber at the ball field and dang it......well maybe I can still get them. The guys held me off at the finish by a bike length. Gary finished right behind me. A top ten finish for the B group for him and a 2nd in the B Masters for me. Seems like Ed thinks that the Masters B race is catting up from being the B group winner last year. Ok, sure. :-)
Not a great race for me, but a real gut check and I'll hopefully do better at the next race.

Thanks to Gary for dragging my stupid carcass around the course.

Thanks, Anna, for taking the pictures, watching Aaron....you're the best.

Thanks for Reading,
Rick

Olentangy Indian Caverns CycloCross Race

So it took the evil one to talk me into getting off my lazy butt and doing this. David S drove, so all I had to do was to show up. John E was already there (as always) setting up. So the three of us sign up for the B Group (Masters 45+ for me, damn am I old) race that went at the same time. The track was nice, not much pavement at all, but had some single track through the woods a tricky bridge crossing, no run ups, but lots of ruts.

25 lined up and as always I screwed up and got a bad start....for once it didn't bug me and I just went. The first lap I picked off some folks and was dueling with a group of about 6 guys. At the second time through the woods I was able to gap them and only two-three were close to me. I was "using" David as the rabbit for me and felt that as long as I could keep the gap the same and him in sight, I would do pretty well. I was thinking at lap 3....what the $*^#^$%# am I doing out here? Fortunately, I was able to keep the pace up and keep the "rabbit" in sight and by the time 3 to go showed I was feeling better. There was a guy on a Trek with disc brakes - he's in the front in the picture (I could tell by the squealing sound) that I caught and passed along with the others in the picture, but he kept coming around me and trying to gap me. I kept making up the gap and going by him in the barriers. On the next to last lap, he comes on the inside of me on a tight downhill turn & I think WTF....this is BS and I'll just sit on his wheel for awhile and see what he does. Well, he gaps me in the woods and I start worrying that he's gone and I need to watch the guy behind me. Well I see that at the bell lap he is not getting any further away, Dave & I yell at each other to keep going hard and the guy behind me isn't making up much ground on me. I hit the bell lap hard, tell myself I'm not leaving a damn thing on the course and spot the Trek dude in the woods and he's getting closer. I take it easy through the woods so I don't screw up and lose anything to him and when I get out (and go through "frontier town") I tell myself to hit the gas and reel him back in. I get around a turn and the weirdest thing happens....I can "smell" this guy dying and just know I can get him and pass him at the barriers and get him b/f the finish. I pick it up, and then bury it right before the barriers and fly by him (heck, it seemed that way anyway) through the barriers, gap him and then kick it in HARD for the sprint to the line. I look behind me and I had done it; 8th overall and 2nd in the 45+ Masters. John gets a 4th, David gets 7th (he ate some out of bounds tape on the bell lap). I don't know why this one felt so good, but I'm stoked. Here are the results.
Stats:
miles - 8.8
time - 44:12.3
HR - 165/171 (avg/max)
speed - 11.9/29.5 (avg/max)

Thanks for Reading,
Rick

Last Week's Review

I'm buried, so less talk on these....Dr. John is better at that anyway.

Had an OK week; hours are down along with fewer miles, so I'm going to watch that closely so I don't lose the conditioning that I have during CycloCross season which is what happened last year. Something about eating the same with only half or less of the time/miles/calories burned. Go figure.
No CRIT NATIONALS for me this year; they changed the format of the races, had the stupid sign up at 1:01 AM Saturday morning, so I said the heck with it & I'll travel around the Tri-State area and maybe hit a NE race instead this season.

Anyway, did the Spin Weds night c-cross practice race, the Westlake A Group race (3rd in the chase group sprint - whoo hooo), the Columbus Cross race and then a recovery ride yesterday....more on the 'Cross race and recovery ride on later blogs.....
time - roughly 4 hours (without the recovery ride in)
miles - roughly 64

The good news is most of that time was in "race mode", so I don't feel too cheated as long as I reverse the tread of less time training.

Thanks for Reading,
Rick

Death Ride (shortened)

Well, after all the riding I have done this weekend/Holiday...I was a little worried about the wisdom of doing this ride, but what the heck. Gary, Tom F & Sadie assembled at my house and left for the hills; we soon figured out that we were not going to get the ride done in a timely fashion, so we hacked off the southern most part of the ride.
More later.....

Sunday MTB Ride at WestBranch

Yup....time to take the Bianchi SISS out and take my beating like an adult. Didn't help that I got overserved at Tom's party......yes, that's Gary on my beloved Klein Mantra....don't think it will ever be the same bike....

Met my buddy Bill at the trail and rode with Gary, Sadie, Anna, Kristen & Cookie....big fun on the trail and a nice cookout afterwards....just what we needed. Gary rode my Klein Mantra, Sadie had borrowed a Santa Cruz Ultralight, Anna had her Epic Pro and K had her Stumpjumper. Bill was riding his tasty Ti 29er S/S rig, so he & I were "old schooling it" with full hard rigs....

Stats: (more later)

Saturday "Group" Ride

Went on a group ride with some PDQs (John B, Tom F & Jeff P) along with Gary & Michelle. Suposed to be just a "normal" ride. Well after I finally showed up late, we took off and within minutes some J.A. started attacking....(I hate when I do that stupid s-it). The ride went from Pearl & Valley View to Past the Bedford Hts Reservation and back. Ouch.
Still, it was big fun and the cookout afterwards at Tom's place made it even better.
Stats: (more later)