This year was good one I like this event very much so …. riding these is a lot cooler than walking them

That was the explosion from my riding this weekend. I don’t know what happened for my body to shut down so quickly. It might have been 50+ degree swing in 6 days. Let just say I dehydrated at way faster rate than I normally do  which made for pretty big epic blowout .  The good news my cx mounting is still good as shown here

I started looking  at past notes and results from how temps and the only two times i remember feeling like that was in 2010 during dirty Kanza and 2009 tranquility race… both very similar conditions.  Back to drawing board  for some answers for sure.. i also managed to pull off almost a perfect face plant in the rock garden…. awesome . As someone said all the face plants start off as great nose wheelies sometimes you just cant’s save them.

. other than that it was fun weekend.

I love platte and I love hanging out afterwords I think NE will have a great crew for CX season and thank god there will be no rock gardens….

Tour of Dirt roads  this weekend i might extend it a bit and leave from Lincoln  with Gammel for some more miles .

This was my first attempt at this freaking thing and overall is was great experience .. for the busy kind my ride stopped around mile 107-109 when i couldn’t get my ss conversion to work and started binding up the chain.

The weekend started well enough the NE chapter left for IOWA Friday mid day stopped for lunch and had about 3 hours of lounging and watching double survival which is a pretty dumb show… (On side note I’m glad we don’t have cable… as matter of fact i think we only watch movie anymore)

The talk of the day was wind, rain and mud. All of those happened being on 3rd floor in room facing east we got to hear the wind and the rain for whole night. Who needs white noise when you have that.  The 2 am came early and we were getting ready to roll.    IT was still windy but the rain stopped and consensus was the weather might cooperate.

The race started with group of about 15  people splitting off from rest of the field.  I was with  the front guys in to the head wind and  almost first b-road. Then I just couldn’t make up time for  the time after b-road.  I made the  decision of waiting  on the chase group instead of trying to chase hard it was like mile 25 in 300 mile race i didn’t see the benefit.

Sure enough I hooked up Charles Parson  and we agreed to wait for rest of the guys who were behind us. Charles is a multi-time TI  finisher and I was stocked to ride with someone who possessed so much grit which is a must for this event.  Regardless we  waited and sure enough we sure had pretty good group for 6 going going including Corey, Dennis Grelk, Mike Johnson and one other group. This was sweet all experience guys and with big number we could actually take pulls into  the wind. It doesn’t hurt to have a vast knowledge of the guys you are with to keep you from doing stupid things.

Just Standing around.

Things were going well until I blew up my der at mile 100ish

Crapp…

It looks like it’s working but it wasn’t…. it was binding up pretty bad as matter of fact it was bind to point of my crank bolts getting loose.  I looked at my wheel and it was a bit out of true after being pulled by the tight chain for about 5-6 miles. I think minus the der everything leading to the event and my gear selection was right on time… I probably wouldn’t change much if anything. It might seem prudent to get bigger frame bad but that means having more weight on the bike … it’s  double edge sword really.

Well that was it for me for TIv8 I set in ditch for about 20 minutes until mr. gammel picked me up. I was bummed but  that’s a life. I think everything leading  to this was good… I was with the right people and top 10 would probably be attainable with the group as people in front of us were in groups for 2 and we had group of 6.

Super stocked for my bud Troy for running 42-18 and getting second. Congrats to mr. brunt. It’s nice to see rest of the NE crew to finish. Two thumbs up on dedication.

Than for Guitar Ted for putting the event, Volunteers  and Steve Fuller for talking pictures.   Rest of the day/night I was  a supper fan support guy with Gammel. There might be another post about what we talked about for 12 hours but that’s another day.

p.s. pics take by Corey

p.p.s time to stay closer to home and race local race providing i can put my MTB together between now and Saturday and it doesn’t rain

Nothing left to do but wait until Saturday morning . The worst part.  Weather looks like a doozy…

This weekend Cornbread, Good MD Scott and I headed to Arkansas for some great single track riding that was Ouachita Challenge.  This was my first time in the state of  Arkansas it was pretty interesting. Ouachita area reminds me of Slovakia and Czech republic… people not so much. I can say this much dudes can sport some serious upper lip fur… Like civil war picture good.

But I can say this much the single track there is pretty sweet. It’s pretty technical in spaces (okay like a giant  or rocks in places) but it has great flow and there is a lot of  it. We got there Friday afternoon and rode the womble trail.  Pretty sweet. couple nice 800-900 feet in change  climbs creek crossings and spectacular views.

If you don’t blog it,  never happened…. Scott shredded his brand new Racing Ralph on womble. After some gorilla tape and park boot and creative use of 29er tubes we got him rolling.

Saturday we rode the big Brushy descent to blowout mountain.  I broke a chain about .25 miles from the trail head. So I had to get to ogden get chain install it and get back to the trailhead. Big Brushy is 1200 of descending and 700 ft of climbing. I wasn’t going to catch the guys ahead so I just rode to the big brushy as out and back. This is the view of the last climb before single track.

Race Day

Race day was going to be hot 90 degrees, staying on top of hydration in endurance races is key. Eating is almost secondary.. you have to drink drink drink. or you will end up laying in ditch sounding like wookie wincing in cramp agony.  The start was fast, 25 mph up the gravel to the single track. I always make point to be in the chase group after the leaders. Who knows how many people are riding over their heads to get to the single track. Let them pass and pick them off one by one. I got the singletrack about mid 20′s and proceeded try to pick off people.  This is when two things happened,one I proceeded to lay it down on some loose leaves and I lost one of my water bottles.   The crash wasn’t that big of deal but loosing my 2nd water bottle was.  This changed the plan a bit. I had to stop pretty much at every aid station and fill out my bottle and drink extra to compensate for the lost bottle.

chicks dig scars… er… wait MK digs scars

Up the blowout mountain

Blowout mountain sounds bad, and it is bad.  The climbs are okay  nothing crazy about them.  The rocky descends… oh i don’t mean like Clinton lake rocky… i mean like steps for Mordor rocky sections.  During one  the descends junior ran into my my rear wheel and promptly bend my der hanger. I only realized this after the ankle bitter left. SO i could mope and walk to the aid station or say  f-it and try to make it work.

Something is not right.

Well I had to stop readjust the cable and  go ahead. That worked for while but i realized this was not going to last and I had just my high gears, crap that’s not good. 40 minutes into it  made decision to take as much slack out the cable and limit myself to 4-5  low gears. Reasoning was ,Womble only has 2 manageable climbs and hey I know how to ride a SS.  I still had 38-26 front to change my gearing and I knew there was some gravel sections.  That worked well enough. I only managed to walk 2 sections of womble two switchbacks and i could still put solid tempo on gravel.

I did manage to pick a lot of people on gravel, womble sections.  I think I could have done the womble  faster if I could use all of my gearing but it worked out okay.  I rolled in at 5:49. Corey rolled in at 5:13

Flying the Omaha colors

Loosing one bottle and the derailuer cost me good 20-30 minutes I was shooting for 5:20-5:25 and I think i could have gotten that time minus those issues.  The nutrition and pacing was right on time hammer gels and fizz were right on time.  PLUS the checkpoints had pickles how awesome is that.   After the race we had some beers and long conversation about DK with Peat. I would say watch out DK SS he might be the dark horse for that category.

Thanks to Corey and Scott  for being awesome travel companions.  My capo kit kept me nice and comfy whole day so thank you Trek Stores for that.  I would say that Ouachita race is good one to attend great volunteers great prizes great vibe.  MK scored a sweet new bike-pack  for when we go to Colorado this summer .

p.s. Pictures arkansas outside

Saturday we got up and went to PCL T-rex ride. It’s a good piece of Americana put giant piece of stuff in middle of nowhere. MK loaded up her bike and was set to go. It was nice ride with some good rollers right before. MK went on to crush it with almost 50 mile ride i think her longest thus far. Stocked.

RWARR!!!

Lemmy!!!!

Hey it’s MOD

MK Crushing it