In the "Better Late than Never" Category...

Chad did some two wheel burnin'. It seems as though things turned out pretty well too...

Two weekends ago I had my last race of the season. It was in Clearfield PA, a 5 mile up hill TT that saw over 1000ft of elevation gain. This was was like any other TT, riders were sent off every 30 sec. There isn't any grand tactics in a race like this. You just get to your lactic threshold, stay there, and suffer for the 5 miles. That's what I did. One of our new team mates was there for encouragement, and rode beside me feeding me bottles (Thanks Mike!), I was able to keep my pace up. At the awards I found out that I came in 3rd place. Not to bad for a last race. I was 2 min. behind the defending champion Jeff Miller who has was this race 6 or 7 years in a row. Now it is down time for me, with some fun riding. I will start training come Jan. for my first race to be in March.

Chad

All I have to say is, next year you better win Mr. X(tra)S(mall).

Seriously though, it's been a pretty successful first season and Chad has been a big part of that. After a broken $900 wheel on the first race (5 miles in) to a string of podiums to finish the season. Great job Chad!

Click Here.

Ahhh. Dirt Rag. I was reading my e-newsletter when I spotted a picture of Shawn (right) and I think it's Joel (left) in the background. Way to go Shawn! You hold the record for Milkmen in the Dirt Rag archives, 2. Joel only wishes he had two! But that's just how you roll.

Shawn has also been racing 'cross (which I will probably start next weekend). I will pry some results from him next time I talk to him. He also has to help me get my screen door (Thank you Mr. Skellington) from Ace hardware. That probably doesn't mean much to you.

The Race

It turns out that the race at Blue Marsh was a USACycling race. That means you need a license to ride. Who knew it would be worth points?!?!? Had I known I may have left my gears on to race in my age group but being the end of the season it doesn't really matter anyway. Qualifiers are over. Nationals is over too so at this point, points don't really mean anything (unless you want to upgrade to Pro, me, not really).

It was a beautiful day just to be outside. Mid-70's, a slight breeze, and sunny. Wow! It was nice just being there, let alone doing what I love to do. I showed up early, about 9:45, for a 12:30 start. I wanted to see how they laid the course out and when I pre-rode the course I was a little shocked. They ran us backwards from the normal race loop. This actually makes the course easier in my humble opinion. When I got back I watched the Sport riders finishing up. They we truckin' pretty good. The winner came in at something like an hour 10 on the 14 mile course. Not bad. I looked around to see if any more Expert/Pro riders showed up. I noticed a few, my arch nemesis Erick Marklund of Bike Line, the Alieso twins, one Ryan Dewald, and the super fast Harlan Price. This guy won everything at Marysville back in July and he rides the 100 mile NUE races like they are walks in the park. Brother!

I started out ok. I'd say I was about mid-pack just trying to hold on as the start was a negative false flat of 1-2%. Not the greatest for a single speed. Harlan, Erick, Ryan, and the twins took off. I spun. Once we hit the singletrack I started reeling in a few riders here and there. The first climb was about 3 miles in. I was still behind some guys and I couldn't turn my cranks slow enough as they were spinning up the climb. I started walking. Another single speeder caught me and passed me as we walked together. I asked him what gear he was running. He said "a 32x15". On a 29'er! Holy Cow! That's 62 gear inches to my 55. I thought I was running a tall gear! I let him go since he was obviously moving faster. I spun just trying to keep him in sight which I did. About half way on the second lap we hit a climb. He got off and walked so I attacked him. I put a huge gap on him and just keep pushing until when I looked back he was out of sight. I know from personal experience that keeping the rabbit in front of you is huge psychologically. I was hoping he was human and I broke him. I never saw him again. On the third lap I caught up to Erick. We talked a little. He was hurting. I offered him some Honey Stinger and water (in the name of good sportsmanship). Then I rode away from him. I put a nice gap on him and held it to the finish. I ended up 6th or 7th overall (not bad seeing as there were at least 4 Pro's) and 1st in the single speed class. Finally.

Blue Marsh

One more last time for the mountain bike season. I decided to take the gears off and race at Blue Marsh Lake on Sunday. That's right, single speed baby! Back to my roots. Only this time instead of using my usual 34x17 gearing I'll be mashing a 42x20. There are two reasons for this. The first is the added speed (I will probably (definitely) have a hard time on the climbs). It's a taller gear so on the flats I should be able to motor about 1-2mph faster than someone with a more traditional 34x17, 32x16. I figure this more than makes up for the slow grind up hills I will have. The second reason is that it is a magical gear. No chain tensioner required. It just has a super clean look to it. Cross your fingers.

Now I've been testing this gear for oh, two days and so far so good. My overall times are close to riding with gears. That's a good thing.

10-12 Blue Marsh Lake 12:30 at the ski slope (eep, 42x20 up a ski slope am I crazy?)

MASS Finale

September 21st was the last Mass race of the season and it was worth double points. I decided it was worth taking a day off to try and get on the overall podium. We had all four of us in the Expert field and we all had a chance to move up in the standings.

Bear Creek is a tough course. It's one of those courses where you go up faster than you descent and I was starting with a head cold looming. The gun went off. I took the hole shot and was feeling pretty good. I love the uphill starts. They suit me well. About halfway up the first climb I looked back and saw Joel about 40-50 yards back in second. "Did I start off too fast?" I thought to myself. I was still feeling good but I decided to back off a hair. Joel, TJ, and Shawn quickly caught up to me in the singletrack. I've been having lots of problems in singletrack this year. I've been picking bad lines, pressing too hard, or just losing focus at the wrong times. Bear Creek was no exception. I bobbled and Joel got around. I quickly got on his wheel and we flew up the hill trying to break TJ (US National Expert Champion). It was not to be as I bobble in a technical rocky section and Joel, TJ, and Shawn hammered on. I put it in full pursuit mode trying to keep in contact with them only to see them getting farther and farther away. I backed off as I felt my lungs starting to get a burning, wheezy feeling. Tim Collins caught me on a climb. He's a super rider and does really well at solo endurance races.

After he passed me I was completely out of it. My lungs were fried. My head was out of it and my butt was, well, raw. I told you Bear Creek was rough. I pulled out after one lap and spent the remaining laps handing water bottle to those guys and tripping the other riders (just kidding).

Final results...1st TJ (duh) 2nd one Mr. Tim Collins and 3rd (drum roll please) Tom Fenush of Allied Milk Cycling. His previous best finish of the season was 10th. Nice ride Tom. Joel 5th, and Shawn 6th.

That put Tom in 7th (9 points from 6th), Me in 5th (99 points from 4th), Shawn in 4th (15 points from 3rd) and Joel in 3rd (21 points from 2nd) for the season in the Senior I Expert field. The team was 7th overall (223 points away from 6th) but not too bad since we only have 6 riders on the MASS roster and one did 3 races while the other did one.

Our sponsors will be back for next season and we are looking for a few more riders. The mountain team will max out at 10 riders so e-mail me if you are interested. The road team is looking for 3 or 4 riders as well (prefer cat. 3 or 4's so we can race in the same field). If you can do both mountain and road, cha-ching.

Next...'Cross is boss...

Back to the Races...

Chad had a road race a few weeks ago but since I was inside a 36" pipe I didn't have time to post it. Now I have all the time in the world. Here's what he had to say...

Saturday was my local bike race (Milton Bike Race). It is a 28 mile race with 3 climbs in it. Within the first 2 miles, there's a grade up to 21% that is over a mile long and one with less then a mile to go that has a grade at the top of about 22%. Over these 3 climbs the field will dwindle to about 10 to 20 riders. The last half mile is through the streets of Milton with 4 turns right be for the finish. I was not hoping for that good of a finish, just because it is flat at the end and I wrecked in a training ride on Tuesday which I was still sore from. I did not ride since that day to tried and recover. As I was waiting at the start line, I am informed that there are 2 or 3 pros that are doing this race this year. But that's not all -- they are wearing different jerseys and they all help each other. Not that promising for a Cat 3 racer. At the start, one pro attacks within the first half mile and stays until about mile 13. After we go over the mile climb, I am sitting in 3rd place with a buddy of mine and a good rider. There are a few other riders and of course the 3 pros. As we are riding, they do all the pulling. Hey, if you have 3 pros in a citizens race that are all on the same team, you are going to make them do all the work. So we all did. Since my buddy and I were the strongest in the group other then the pros and we wanted to try and win this, we worked together and took turns covering the attacks that the pros threw at us. We formed a breakaway of about 15 riders, a little bigger than what we were hoping for. Up the last climb, the strongest riders took off to narrow down the field. As we were going through the corners, I was trying to move up but I could not since the corners are so close together. As we were getting ready for the spring, the pros pushed the sprint and led each other out. The pros got 1st and 2nd and my buddy got 3rd with me coming in at 5th. Not bad for what we went through. After the race, I looked at our average speed and it was an amazing 25mph. Next weekend I'll be heading to Smethport for a 53 mile race.

Good job Mr. Chad.

Tick Tock

It's been a few weeks since I last updated. Hey, I've been busy as these photos show. Working an outage at a nuclear power plant can be fun...annoying...frustrating...and fun again. There are several reasons for the range of emotions that you go through.

First the annoying. There are many different personalities you come across in an outage. You have your "I don't care" people, your "What are we waiting for?" people, your "find any excuse I can not to work people" and people like me the "please don't make me sick" type. Which ultimately happens anyway. To be honest I fall in all of the other categories too.

Next is frustrating. It seems that everyday there is mass confusion for everyone. It seems when you are ready to go, the plant stops you for one reason or another. When they want you to get something done, you want to take a lunch break. Or when you are dressed out (anti-contamination clothing) with all your safety gear on it many times seems unsafe. Your anti-c's are way too big (so they come off easier) and then you top it off with an air sampler, a safety harness, gloves that are the equivalent of boxing gloves and so on. You get the idea. Safety to the utmost. Not to mention the 7 days a week, 12 hours a day part.

Then there is the fun. There a ton of different things to do in a nuke. There is ISI which basically we remove paint (this can also be frustrating/annoying) from pipe and welds so they can ultrasound the pipe to get an accurate pipe wall thickness. Pretty easy stuff. Then there is the super technical pipefitting. This year we did 3" schedule 160 (.499" wall thickness) and a 36" weld repair inside the pipe. This is what the pictures are from. I hope you enjoy as I cut this short since this is suppose to be about Allied Milk Cycling.