If you ride your bike for while you will hungry. Now supplying athletes with nutrition is big money business. You can pretty much get yourself 500$ worth of supplement to keep yourself going, and for the most part they do work pretty good. However at some point you got to wonder, how healthy is all that sugar in your body. It seems pretty silly for me for people to work so hard to eliminate carbs from their diet but having no issue popping gels like they are diabetics.
One of the goals for this year is to rely a bit less on those supplements ( minus the electrolites) thus far it has been going pretty good. If you rode with me you probably will see me eating beef jerky and drinking a soda. That’s about it.
Weekend was pretty good.
Saturday was windy but the tail wind made it for fairly nice and quick ride back. That night MK and I visited new middle eastern restaurant in midtown and saw descendents. Good food good movie.
Sunday I watched CX words and rode a MTB for about 4 hours. The new XTR 2×10 is pretty nice for sure, it really shines in place like Jewell there you can run pretty much all the gears in matter of 5 miles…

So here we are last weekend of January.  For most part is has been pretty uneventful,  I went to couple of swim meets and some team functions. Yeah teenagers are weird. I have been on a solid riding grove. Getting some good 12-15 hours  weeks or about 200 miles +/- 20. That’s the plan for February as well, then trying to get some solid 300 mile weeks in March and April before T.I.  The riding has been pretty good and we finally getting everyone back on the same page for bigger groups. Bigger groups can mean either fast moving or slug fest depending on mechanical. But it is a lot more fun than riding by yourself which  still like as it lets me listen to all the sound opinions I want…

The race registrations are getting up there with couple more to go… Looks like Wassua 24, Breck 100 and Dakota-50 will all be on the list. We will see what happens. I’m fairly sure that there might be Arkansas river basin vacation this year. It should be good time.

Looks like the Ponca ride is out for me, the race is that Saturday… Ponca State park Is my favorite race on Nebraska Mtb schedule and with the race being 4 hours it just adds 3 more laps to that sweet track…
I’m also very excited to build this little fella for my wife.

It will get all my 9 spd sram stuff as I have went to the 2×10 xtr… It will look nicely for most part. Hopefully Megan will get to “shred” some single track in 2012.  The frame size is ubber small it looked comical when i loaded the box in my back seat..

More about  equipment choices for T.I.  some winter/spring riding.

Gravel Magic Happens you just need to look hard.

BTW the SOPA is a big deal.

If there is one way to sum up my experience on a bike this year it would be rain.  Every big event I went to had some sort of precipitation. In way I felt like Forrest Gump the rain was constant. There was drizzle, summer storms, mud coldness mud bike cleaning triumph, failure, self-doubt, self-pity, anger, relaxation, exhaustion but most importantly happiness. I rode around 7500 miles this year some with old friends, some with new. I spend just as much time on road bike as I did on cross with MTB taking a back seat. There were memorable moments this year but sitting in the Kansas tool shed in middle of summer storm with TK takes the cake, that was a first.
I learned a lot from various people, MOD, RF an Shim took it to me whole year and made me a better cyclist. Thank for all  your help this year.

I did experience some new things couple of new states. I rode in first national event and watched the pros, a stark contrast to AGRC.  Guess what all those people love to bike  and for them what they do is what they think is awesome about biking.  The awesome part  about cycling there is room for everyone.

The most exciting thing  about this year is getting MK into biking, she got a little cx bike and has been riding some with some of the new found lady friends.

On non-biking front

Megan and I went to Poland, that was great. If you never taken 3-4 weeks off,  you should do so that is the way to vacation. MK was super excited about meeting the rest of the family and Poland in general.  It was awesome…

I will leave you with this. See you in 2012

Originally I was going to  do this whole racing thing all the way to Nationals, but man that’s another month or racing, training now being  home.   My reasons for calling it a season are 3 folds. One I needed a break, since October I spend many weekends on the road,  and I’m sorry this stuff get takes toll on your body,mind and your wallet. Second reason is  MK, she became a head coach for swimming I would like to go to some of her meets and see her toughing some kids up. Third reason was I like holidays and as much fun as CX is I like to enjoy my holidays and not trying to stay in shape for Nationals.

Friday

Friday I lined up  in back of the field, about row 6-7 and proceeded to donate my 32$ to ride for 45 minutes.  Big field make starting position very important. If you not in first 3 rows it’s pretty much just riding around with bunch of dudes. It was forgettable day. Everything that could of went wrong did I moved up 15 spots  at the end… Awesome… I know. Mark continued his redemption  tour or 2011, if you ever wronged him in the past he will challenge you to some sort of competition make you look like an idiot and think about what have you done to him…. So there, I guess what I’m saying is be nice to Mark. He will let you draft for a bit longer…

Saturday

I knew I was going to rain  rest of the weekend.  The ground was all ready soft on Friday.  Knowing that I opted out for 40-18 and set of Limus  tires.   Sure enough it rained, sure enough it was muddy.  For one reason or another my sweet second row starting position got moved to 4th row? (Dudes who registered day of were in front of us, planning is over rated) That wasn’t cool oh well. that was even less cool was only 45 second gap to the 2/3 ladies. That resulted in less then desired riding. Having the back position with small  gap and mud equals craziness. I muddled my way through the field and was sitting 3rd when dude came out of nowhere and attacked with 2 laps to go. I was staying with those guys pretty well until the run up section. I slipped running up the mud and that was pretty much the race. I couldn’t maintain my footing lost about 20 seconds and was the race.   I realized that the gearing those guys were running was at lot smaller as they were spinning crazy mad cadence. Make a mental note and hammer down every straight away the next day.

looking fresh as Butchie said.

BTW if you ever in Iowa city and you like Indian food check  out this place good food for sure.

Sunday

Sunday was  crappy, muddy and a lot colder.  I finally got second row start. This made all the difference in the world. After getting an okay start I high banked all the goobers who didn’t pre-ride the course and got stuck in the mud and I was in fourth place. Plan was stay smooth on the muddy bits, run up the muddy hill descent  like MTBer not a Roadie and hammer on each straight away to take advantage of my larger gear.  With one lap to go I had 2nd and 3rd in my sight. I caught the guy in 3rd on the decent and was just matching his moves. I pulled even in the spiral and go past him and was ready to lay my polish hammer down when I slipped on the last possible corner.  Foot down and everything. He got by me and I knew I would have to ogre the last 500 meters to get the 3rd. That’s what I did. Pass him with about 30 meters to go.  Got 3rd on the day.  As it turns out it was all Twin Six metal podium. I’ve got a picture somewhere to prove it.

I had awesome time. Ne crew did really well. Mark went 3 for 3.  Liz went 2 for 3 o. Matt had 2 podiums, and Noah rode himself into 7th place in the masters… Great job all..

So that is 2011. Thanks for all the sponsors cool people I met. Trek stores of Midwest, TWIN SIX, War-axe.  I will probably ride my separate man crush post thanking all the people for the past year.

What on docket for 2012? Sorry can’t spill it all but I need to get get my post card ready for this Friday.

First of all I must say John Lefler and Sean Craig, put on hell of show for everyone. The course was nice and technical, spectator friendly  and hooligan hill was of the hook… as always.  Last year I spend both day watching various people ride away from you me in SS race. I was determined to make amends  for that this year.   I signed up for SS party cause of the reasons mentioned above partly because I will be riding  SS  for Midwest CX championships also known as  Jingle Cross cx…

Saturday

We were lined up behind the 3/4 guys we had 30 second gap.    The whistle blew and we were off, it wasn’t the best of starts and I found myself  following Ryan and Skip into hole shot. However after the prime, they sat up and I was left loose.  I started to see 3/4 riders pretty much instantly  I decided to ride through as much of the field as possible.  Eventually i worked myself into 3rd spot overall.  I stayed  there for most of the race, until 3 laps to go when my front wheel out from underneath me on one of the turns and I went down. Jeremy and Aaron caught up to me and I kind of lost my motivation to catch the other two guys.  I eased into a pace and actually stopped for beverage  at top of the hooligan hill. That was the race  I rolled in first.  After the race  I rolled home… MK sister is 40th so high five on that. I had some scotch and some swedish meatballs  rolled home and went to bed

Sunday

I was a bit nervous on Sunday, the course was the same but we had addition of Clarke Dolton and  Johnathan Neve. It was going to be a battle of Nature Boys  as it seems. After less than spectacular start I had to work myself  chasing Clarke. Worst of all I was so mesmerized by him jumping barriers that I forgot to get off my bike on lap one…. Duh!!!! I did manage to close the gap on him and his spill before the run-up pulled me in right to his wheel.  I soon found that I’m stupid  enough to ogre the giant climb after the run up. I was forcing the pace and trying to use the MTB section in the woods to get my heart rate down. It  worked I got good 30 second gap and I was working on keeping it steady  for rest of the race.   2 for 2…  Congrats to Jeremy on his championship and Mod for back to back wins as well as second straight year for NE State champ…. I will be the rogue lantern on that train next year

Jingle is next and after that long deserved break…. And some race registrations. Looks like I might dip my toes in more regional races at cost of the local series … alas part of  human experience is about new moments in life. But for now it’s all about jingle and winter base miles on gravel…

Happy Thanksgiving  to you all

My Sweet metal skin suit kept me nice and cozy in cold windy weekend