So I'll go all the way back to the Friday Night fish fry in Hillpoint. We experienced the Villa's fine cuisine and the plethora of Packer decor that was The Villa. Small town Wisconsin and fried food at it's finest. Saturday started out ok and I actually got more house projects on their way to done. I was just going up the steps to go on the ride I had set up when the phone rings. Never good when it's your weekend to be on call. So the ride left without me and I left for the American Family Childrens Hospital to help keep the kiddies comfortable. Back home a few hours later and still cranky from actually having to go on a call. So I went out and did 2x20's which proved to be a bad move as I find out the next day when the Pearisos showed up for the Brefixt ride. The Brefixt ride portion was ok, it was the 3 hours after with Chris and Spencer that became the problem.
So I'm definitely not the fastest guy around and I'm well aware of this fact. That being said, I got my ass handed to me on a "tempo" ride by both of those guys. It was the first time I'd been dropped on a road ride in a loooong time. It was awesome!!! Very motivating for me. So we followed the ride up with beer and pizza at La Rue Tavern. A great day.
Reforestation on Sunday. Should be awesome.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
The flu
really sucks. Didn't get to race at River Falls due to better judgement. I probably could have showed up and dug my hole deeper, instead I stayed home and worked around the house and rested. It's amazing how much I can get done if I don't ride my bike. I really don't like not riding my bike, though. It is nice to be able to use the dishwasher without plugging it into an extension cord though.
Monday, August 10, 2009
O2S
What a great weekend. Amazingly enough I finished yet another race without a mechanical and I felt pretty good to boot! It had to be the chocolate rocks Michelle bought for me Friday on the way up. I had the pleasure of road tripping to the UP with her. Good thing she was there and paying attention to where we were going. I had no map and didn't even know how to get to Marquette. We got registered and met up with our respective people at our hotels at a reasonable hour so I actually got some sleep for once. Woke up and pounded the complimentary breakfast and headed to the start Saturday morning.
I really suck at race starts. I chased all the way to Ishpeming before I latched back on, passing a flatted TJ on the way. He fixed it and caught back up amazingly fast. Chris P. was on the front at this point after 3 weeks off the bike. Freak. The group was about 50 strong at this point. I managed to move up, somehow and got a huge boost when Marko went by. I latched on to him as long as I could. He got chainsuck, fixed it and then got taken out by another dude (not me for once). So I hit Misery Hill in 14th place or so. Holy crap! How does this happen? Where do all those people go? Over the top, I could see 2 guys 15 seconds in front of me. I decided to chase as hard as I could for 10 minutes and see what would happen. At 10 minutes I sat up and waited for the group behind. It had the guy with the Golden Bike in it and he was pretty strong. The group was pretty much letting him do all the work. I sat in to recover and took a few pulls but it was evident nobody else wanted to help. Bitches. I would put in a pull and pick up the pace but no one would pull through but they would all stay on. I could put in a harder effort and create a gap but with 25 miles to go I knew they could shut it down and drop me at the finish. So I waited and towards the end there are a few big sandy areas. These created some separation and my group was down to 4. So with 4 mi to go some guy who was never at the front (we'll call him smart) attacked and I couldn't go. With 2 mi to go another guy went. I chased him and he stayed 10 seconds or so up on me to the finish. I could see 9th place in front of me in the parking lot but couldn't close that gap for sure. I ended up 13th and pretty happy. Not as happy as Lisa, though. She sat in for the 1st 20 miles of the race, moving up the whole time but not killing herself. Then drilled it the last half and ended up in 5th place overall! Sweet cash and finish. It was funny because Bryan and Meat had both finished and I was commenting on how slow she was when I looked up and saw her in the finish chute. Then I looked at the results board and saw she was 5th. More crow please.
Got to hang with the 212 crew at the Bells Brewery after party. Had 1 too many, molested Chris P., annoyed everyone else and called it a night.
Got the invite on the way home Sunday to ride with the Team Pedal Moraine crew at the Reforestation Camp. Nice recovery ride. Yeah, right.
I also got to see Louis and Paco from GT again on Saturday. Nice guys. I was looking forward to riding with Louis and Jesse Bell on Sunday but some storms came through Saturday night and put a stop to that. All in all a really good weekend. Congrats to Mr. Matter on his win, the first jewel in the triple crown.
I really suck at race starts. I chased all the way to Ishpeming before I latched back on, passing a flatted TJ on the way. He fixed it and caught back up amazingly fast. Chris P. was on the front at this point after 3 weeks off the bike. Freak. The group was about 50 strong at this point. I managed to move up, somehow and got a huge boost when Marko went by. I latched on to him as long as I could. He got chainsuck, fixed it and then got taken out by another dude (not me for once). So I hit Misery Hill in 14th place or so. Holy crap! How does this happen? Where do all those people go? Over the top, I could see 2 guys 15 seconds in front of me. I decided to chase as hard as I could for 10 minutes and see what would happen. At 10 minutes I sat up and waited for the group behind. It had the guy with the Golden Bike in it and he was pretty strong. The group was pretty much letting him do all the work. I sat in to recover and took a few pulls but it was evident nobody else wanted to help. Bitches. I would put in a pull and pick up the pace but no one would pull through but they would all stay on. I could put in a harder effort and create a gap but with 25 miles to go I knew they could shut it down and drop me at the finish. So I waited and towards the end there are a few big sandy areas. These created some separation and my group was down to 4. So with 4 mi to go some guy who was never at the front (we'll call him smart) attacked and I couldn't go. With 2 mi to go another guy went. I chased him and he stayed 10 seconds or so up on me to the finish. I could see 9th place in front of me in the parking lot but couldn't close that gap for sure. I ended up 13th and pretty happy. Not as happy as Lisa, though. She sat in for the 1st 20 miles of the race, moving up the whole time but not killing herself. Then drilled it the last half and ended up in 5th place overall! Sweet cash and finish. It was funny because Bryan and Meat had both finished and I was commenting on how slow she was when I looked up and saw her in the finish chute. Then I looked at the results board and saw she was 5th. More crow please.
Got to hang with the 212 crew at the Bells Brewery after party. Had 1 too many, molested Chris P., annoyed everyone else and called it a night.
Got the invite on the way home Sunday to ride with the Team Pedal Moraine crew at the Reforestation Camp. Nice recovery ride. Yeah, right.
I also got to see Louis and Paco from GT again on Saturday. Nice guys. I was looking forward to riding with Louis and Jesse Bell on Sunday but some storms came through Saturday night and put a stop to that. All in all a really good weekend. Congrats to Mr. Matter on his win, the first jewel in the triple crown.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
It's a start...
And a finish. Hooray for me. That was my main goal, just finishing. The trails at Crystal Ridge are great to ride and make for a true mountain bike race with a bunch of singletrack. Not a stellar showing on my part but it's nice to get more than 1 point for the series. Baby steps. Looking forward to the Ore to Shore this Saturday. Is this the year for someone to claim the triple crown? We've got a pretty big crew headed up there this year to play in the sand. It should be interesting.
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