Blue Marsh Recap

Ok so this is a picture of Staci tearing it up in Sonoma Valley and not one of the Blue Marsh Race. What of it?!?!

Sunday was about as perfect of a day to race as you could ask for. Sunny, slight breeze, and highs in the low 60's. The course was beautiful (with the exception of a spot here and there that was a complete mud hole).

James rode in the Sport race. I was there in time to see him finish his first lap. He was in a group of three about 4 minutes back of the leaders and only seconds behind the lead chase. I told him to get on it or he was off the team. He did. Coming around to the finish he had moved up. 5th overall and 3rd in his class. Not too shabby old man.

Next was my race. It was a small turn out but that doesn't really make it any easier. Especially when you have guys like Ryan DeWald (Battely Harley-Davidson) and the Alesio twins (Fuji Bikes) at the start line with you.

The start felt pretty slow and I jumped into 4th in the paceline. The Alesio's were 1 and 2. DeWald 3rd. No one behind me. "Huh?" I thought to myself. I was fully expecting the group to be on my wheel but they weren't. We hammered on. I hung with them until we hit the big climbs. They never slowed down. I'm not really sure what happened but I just couldn't get into a good climbing rhythm all day. Over the second big climb a rider from Gretna Bikes caught up to me. He was climbing really well but I was faster on the flats and descents. I took a spill. ***My excuse is that my contacts dried out and I didn't see the huge slop hole I ran into. I'm not that big of an idiot.*** Gretna guy gets around me. "Crap!" (This may or may not have been the actual word used.) We were still on the first lap.

Gretna guy gaps me pretty good. Finally I relied on experience. I put my head down, focused, and got into a nice threshold zone. The second lap was uneventful.

On the third time around I could see I was gaining on the Gretna guy but I was still climbing like crap. It was a yo-yo for most of the third lap until we got over the second big climb on the course. On the descent I stuck on his wheel. When we hit the short steep climb I punched it. I put a gap on him and took it to the line. 4th place in 1:48 which I felt could've been faster had I been able to climb.

DeWald smoked the course in 1:24. That's over 14mph.

Going to Blue Marsh with an achin' in my Heart

So James and I will be making the journey to the Blue Marsh Lake for some good old fashioned fall mountain biking. Pre-Reg for the race was a bit light probably because of Iron Cross (Americas longest 'cross race at 62 miles). A lot of heavy hitters will also be saving themselves for MAC #3, Granogue next weekend. Past and current National Champions will be in attendance...

Back to Blue Marsh...Last year some really good riders showed up the day of so there may be some tough competition that hasn't signed up yet but as it stands now I'm the only Expert/Pro signed up. James has a few more riders to worry about but I think that he will do just fine.

Pet a Luma

Well, Staci and I are back from California. Wow, what a great time...We were in San Francisco, Yosemite, and Sonoma/Napa Valley region. Back to the grind. Pics will pop up soon.

My Blue/Green Eyed Friend

For those of you that do not know, this is Grand Paw. He got his name for two reasons. The first being that when he was brought to the Humane League he was accidentally aged at something ridiculous like 20 years old. He had been starved and left to die (we still aren't sure if it was intentional or not). The second reason is his floppy feet. The were like a diver's flippers. They made some very interesting noises while walking.

Grand Paw also had some crazy eyes. One was blue, the other green. When he was happy he looked at you with his blue eye. Upset him and well, the green eye was what you got.

Like I said before, Grand Paw arrived at our house nearly starved to death. He weighed 3.5 lbs. This probably caused his irreversible kidney and liver problems. We decided that he could live here for the rest of his days (which by best estimates was a couple weeks) and officially adopted him. We were assured he wasn't in any pain and that eventually he would slip into a coma when his time had come.

Grand Paw went to sleep last night and never woke up. He survived over a year and was a great friend the whole time. We will never forget the tiny ball he could tuck himself into, his never ending quest to be warm (and we do not have A/C), his cackle of a meow, and his ability to climb ladders. We love you GP.

The Spaceman

Shawn is officially in Boston. The Northeast Extension of the Allied Milk Cycling Team if you will. To the best of my knowledge he will be back to visit family and if there happens to be a race that weekend we'll probably see him.

Shawn filled his role as a teammate (we were on two teams together) over the years perfectly. He was a great motivator when I was feeling lazy. Getting me to those training rides when I really didn't want to go. He also drove me to just about every race since this team started two seasons ago. That has easily added up to thousands of miles. He was a great training partner. We were both at the same level but we both had separate strengths that helped us push each other. The thing I will miss the most though is my friend. I know he is still just a phone call away but it's not the same.

I wish him (Katie, Lilly, Sergio, and Filipe) the best while they are in Boston and wherever they go from there. I hope that someday our paths cross again.

YUM! With a capital YUM!

The new Gin and Trombones. Please allow the drooling to begin.

The Dog Days.

So here we are in August. Chris is a cat. 2. I am stalled halfway to my 3. Shawn is moving to Boston by the end of the month if not sooner. The economy has some of us choosing work over riding (can you blame them?). The mountain team is doing well despite the total lack of flow to the series. Two race postponements really disrupts things. We press on.



Shawn raced the Tour of Lancaster and had some bad luck in the form of a broken fork. I've finally gotten back on the bike after about 3 weeks of intestinal infects and overtime. There are two possible races tomorrow but I'm still undecided if I am really ready for the intensity. I've had a solid week but before that I was hurting.



The Dream Weaver did a downhill race and here's his side of the story...

Link to website of Series;
http://www.verticalearthpa.com/blue_mountain_cup

I
drove up to Blue Mountain friday night. I met up Todd and some others
friday evening. They had practiced friday. I worked. Sat
morning at the breakfast table they were filling my in on the Saturdays Super-D
course; same as last time, and also the totally different DH course for
Sunday. The DH course sounded gnarly,lots of chutes spilling into
rockgardens which would become "yard-sales"(bike parts strewn about from bicycle
dismemberment), drops, jumps, step-downs, rocky-rooty-offcamber, typical east
coast terrain we have all grown fond of, or, at least accustom too. I did
two practice runs on the Super-D course, good enough for me. This time I
left my hardtail at home and brought the full-suspension for the Super-D
race. The previous Super-D race, May 30, I rode my On-One 456 hard
tail. It is a 1X9 with a 34tooth Chainring, and a 160mm fork up
front. The course was very difficult to get up to speed. All the
rocks were pointy, and are aimed at the riders with intentions of
inflicting cruel and unusual punishment. There are only one climb, and it
was a doozy of a steep, loose fire road, but other than, that one could use
a DH bike for the course if they were willing to run their bike to the top
of that hill. Many actually did just that. Like I
said earlier, I brought the dually, I took a minute fifteen off of my
May run. The rain came in hard and heavy early sunday morning. We
awoke to pouring rain. Packed our gear to leave the motel and set off to
the mountain to do what we seem to have been doing all season in DH this
year; ride in the rain and muck. Hey, whatever, beggars can't be choosers,
I ride in the rain all the time anyways, just that this time, there is a
stopwatch running. The ride up the chairlift was a wet one, I forgot
my rain jacket, and I don't wear goggles. About 300feet from the top of
the lift, lightning started. The lift sped up to warp factor 9 to get us
off the lift. We did a practice run, surprisingly awesome conditions,
better than the day before. At the bottom we took note that the lift
was shut down due to the lightning. We went back to our EZ-UP to
wait. An hour past and lift was running again. We were able to
squeeze in one more practice run, it was my best run of the weekend! I was
pinning every corner, skipping ever so lightly across the rocks, and roots,
floating the off-camber-ness(it's not a word, I know) and drifting
magnificently(in my minds eye) through the loamy corners. Too bad it
wasn't my race run. At the top we were informed the that there
were a lot of "DNS"'s(Did Not Show). Competition was going to be tight,
Everyone there, were the serious, of serious regional racers. The official
began my count down, I sprinted out of the gate into the darkness of the
course. For some reason I was making stupid mistakes with my lines.
That's DH racing though, you only have a few minutes to make your best run
count, and each "little" mistake adds up to be a lot of seconds. I made it
to the finish line, stayed upright the whole time, and had a blast!

Ben will be racing a 5k downhill at the end of August in Wilmington, NY.