Should have brought singlespeed...

The Rattling Creek 50, presented by VisitPA.com and the fine folks at Fast Forward Racing Productions (a.k.a. us...) I arrived two hours early at the scheduled time of 8:00AM. At 11:30 the rain started. At 12:30 I left my car to start marking course towards Zach's car at the other end. It poured and thundered until about 2:30. This gave me the opportunity to

A) Test the effectiveness of my rain gear (very effective)

B) Ride the course in the worst possible conditions (not very bad at all)

The rain eventually let up and I pulled into Zach's car at around 5:30ish. T'was a fun time...

The race started at 10 AM the next day. A nice break from 8AM races at US Cup stuff. About 60 of us rolled out and jetted up the first climb. I dropped back out of the top 10 on the climb and began to pace myself up the 25min climb. Then we ripped some singletrack with some rocks. Then more road. Then more singletrack. Then my leg of the race...

About two thirds of the way through the leg, my fork stuck all the way down. I had to ride Wolf's Pond, Rim trail, and the ensuing descent to CP#2 with no fork. It sucked. Nancy Adams saved the day with a shock pump, which brought my fork back to full travel. Then about 2/3 of the way through the next leg of the race, on my way down Rattling Creek Trail, it happenned again. I just love rocky descents with no fork. If I had wanted to ride a rigid bike I would have brought my freaking singlespeed with its plush steel tubes. I now see why I ride steel on my rigid bike. This gave me the opportunity to:

A) Test the durability of the Lefty fork to effectively direct impacts (very durable)

B) Decide if riding non-steel rigid bikes was good or not (not good at all)

At CP#3 Randy helped me fix my fork and we pumped it to about 250psi so it wouldn't compress and stick down too much, It stayed that way for the rest of the race, which sucked a lot. A lot. Finished 20th overall in 6:22. It hurt lots, but I felt basically good all day.

Now to get pumped for 7 Springs solo...

Mt. Snow dreamin'

Ahh the simple pleasures of migrating north in the summer. Slightly cooler temperatures, lots of biting bugs, time alone in a tent, and some damn good bike racing. That's right folks, Last weekend after picking Ms. Geology up at her home in the wilds of New York, we headed north to the land of big time ski resorts and big time racing. Mt. Snow, that is.

This year, being a Kenda Cup East and Pro XCT race, the newly renamed Mt. Snow Shootout showcased the fastest racers North America has to offer. The pro fields were stocked with names like Canadian National Champs Kabush and Pendrel (both fresh of World Cup wins in Bromont), US National Champs JHK and Irmiger, and pretty much everyone else who's fast. So it made for an interesting weekend of spectating. Watching Kabush ride away to back-to-back XC and STXC wins was amazing. JHK's national championship kit and matching bikes were amazing. Probably the best national champ kit I've seen yet, excepting maybe Tim Johnson's CX kit from last year. In fact, even though I raced myself into the top 10 (well into 10th at least) in the Cat. 1 races, I had much more fun tromping around the woods and the short track course spectating with Ms. Geology. Oh, and Jeff Lenosky's trials show was pretty damn cool as well.

Waiting


Rolling through to start lap 2


JHK and his sick new kit and matching Superfly 100 (drool... want... want... drool...)

Press

Some one had the good idea to put my picture on their website...

http://www.granbyranch.com/mtnbike.asp

101 from the other side

Seeing things from the other side is always interesting. For interest, not racing the Wilderness 101 but instead heading up with my dad and working Aid #3. Spent all day pretty much lubing chains and making sure people where mechanically ready to continue to race. Pretty uneventful, but actually a lot of fun. Then I swept the leg from Aid 3 to Aid 4 with Tim and Raymond. It took us 3.5hrs with pulling arrows and riding slowly behind any stragglers. It was a lot of fun. That leg of the race contains all the best singletrack, so I was greeted with a chance to slowly ride some of the trails that I have only ridden in an oxygen deprived, mentally deficient racing state. Beautiful trail is exactly that. I am happy about this. But next year I want to race.

Off to Mt. Snow on thursday. Should be fun.

ER sampling

Nationals in Colorado went fairly well. 13th in the XC and 11th in the STXC. Both courses were fun and stupid hard. The short track was basically a mini xc, just climb, descend, and repeat over and over. Attacking up that climb to grab one more place was just about the hardest thing I have done on a bike.

Watching the Pro Men's and Women's short track races was amazing. Georgia Gould just walked away with the win in the Women's race. The men's race, though was much more hotly contested. Wells and JHK put on a good show until Adam Craig took them to grade school and taught them how to ride their bikes. An attack from 5th or 6th position to win the race? Phenomenal. Good job to Adam.

The drive home was just about as interesting as well. Just before we were about to leave I started reacting to some peanut butter that contaminated the jelly that I put on my bagel for breakfast. Zach's GPS directed us to the ER in Granby, where they hooked me up to the usual IV and gave me some steroid that set me straight. Then off to driving. Time we planned on leaving: 8:00AM. Time we actually left the Fraser Valley: 12:30PM.

About half way through Kansas we hit the mother of all thunderstorms. We pulled off for gas and dinner and were greeted by tornado warnings from the National Weather Service over the radio at the Subway. We grabbed a hotel for the night. Next morning, up and driving home. Arrived back in Carlisle at about 2:00AM.

Next day we went down to Brett's for our first ride back in PA. It was raining. I messed myself up. Slid my rear wheel out on a log, planted my face firmly on a mossy rock, gouged my knee through a sharp pointy rock. So one visit to the Carlisle Regional Medical Center ER and 5 stitches later I'm sitting in West Chester teaching my own mountain biking camp. I can ride again. That's all I care about.

Rocky Mountain High

I started to write something but it sounded like crap so here are things you really care about:

Some kids... what they're experiencing is one of a kind

From the top of Trail Ridge Rd. in Rocky Mountain N.P.

Tom likes alpine flowers

Mmmmm high strain rocks...

Bike likes Colorado

Team shot at the top of Heil Valley

Team recovery rdes

First above tree line excursion... snow in July

Mule Deer in a clearing

Bottle Peak View... I hiked this

Lots of things have happenned

The first thing that happenned was the usual Marysville Stage Race. This year's format was different: Night Team Time Trial, 12 hr team or 9 hr solo, short track.

Rode the NTTT solo, finished something in the solo class. Don't exactly remember. Maybe 12th or 15th. Saturday I was the usual stupid solo. 9hrs, 9 laps, finished 7th in the Open's Men class. I'm pretty happy with that. It should put me in better position in the series. Which I am going in for the win this year. I don't want just to podium anymore. I want the win. Thanks for all your encouragement Rob.

Congrats go out to all the kids on their two teams, who did a fantastic job showing up a lot of older more experienced racers. Also to Bacon, Tofu, Jerk, and Monkey for being awesome and helpful for everyone, especially the kids.

Chillin' with good friends

Best way to start a race

Jake hates running

Jake loves riding

The next weekend was our race, the Long Pine Classic. Ms. Geology came out and did a bang-up job running registration. And my mom and sister held down a checkpoint, making sure all racers got around the course safely. Thanks for the help. I did some setup in the morning, then raced the Expert Race. Ended up in the dick spot, just off the podium in 4th. Everyone had a good day. Congrats to Forest who won his first MASS race, absolutely crushing the Sport junior field. No pictures from this yet, too busy.

The next morning we lodaed up and headed out west. 34 some hours later we arrived at our house in Tabernash, Colorado. I broke the dishwasher, Fernando fixed the hot water heater, the fridge got a short, but other than that everything is amazing. Colorado is awesome.