The Queen Weekend

Those of you from the area know it well. Granogue and Wiss. Two of the most storied cross races on the Right Coast. Those that were there this year know how much of a suffer-fest they were.

Granogue:

Up at 5:00. Standing in the mud and rain parking cars from 6:30-9:00. Raced at noon. It was still raining and hovering around a balmy forty degrees. Hazy, hot, and humid as we westtown Wrestlers might say. Marc and Tom gave me a 3rd row call up because I stood in the rain all morning. Trashed another dérailleur. Let this be a lesson to all those wanting to race cross: buy two bikes. It will save you money in repairs.

The rain made the course a suffer-fest, much like Granogue MTB this past spring. The area is especially ripe for muddy races due to the thin layer of soil overlaying a bedrock with very low porosity and permeability. The mica schist which underlies the area (most likely of the Glenarm Wissahickon Formation) is a high grade metamorphic rock most likely from the Lower Paleozoic Era. It formed during the Acadian Orogen and underlies much of the lower part of the Delaware River Basin, including the type locality, the Wissahickon Creek area of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. The mica schist produces splendidly shiny specimens due to the high concentration of mica (a sheet silicate mineral with one plane of cleavage). The sheen you see in hand sample is due to light reflecting off the single cleavage plane of the micas. This mica schist is most easily visible at the base of the tower (see first picture). Good enough Tom?

Tom's off camber switchbacks of death

Suffer face... take notes Matt

Bike post race

What is missing from this dérailleur?

Wissahickon:

Got to sleep in. Showed up to watch one of my high school

teachers do his first cross race at 9:00AM. He had fun, but suffered much on his mountain bike. I raced at noon again. Got a bit caught up in the pile up at the start. Came out of it clean, but I never recovered and ended up finishing 65th or something. More accurately I won my first sprint ever... for 65th place. Only in 'cross is sprinting for 65th place so cool. I was able to race thanks to C3-Athletes Serving Athletes team director Chris Auer who lent me a dérailleur that I butchered a pulley off of. It worked fine in the stand, but once I got on the pedals, I found that the whole cage was bent. My shifting was crap the entire race, but I survived. I'm still excited that I won a sprint. I had tried to gap the guy in front of me when I jumped him in the off camber drop off right hander after the barriers, and when I hit the road I thought I had enough of a gap that I wouldn't have to sprint super hard. I had just shifted into my big ring when I saw a wheel inching up on my right side. I jumped as hard as I could and won 65th place. I assume the guy I beat was a roadie because he was quite unhappy looking at the finish.

Leading a pack early in the race

Run up action

This is what it looks like when I win a sprint

Wes had a great race today, finishing 8th

Congrats to Sam the Hammer, who killed it and won both Cat. 2/3/4 races this weekend

Picture by Dennis Smith.

Iron Cross in Pictures

Mid IC Lite

Sand Pit

He^b fixing the sand pit for us

Getting good at heckling

Iron Cross VII start, as seen by Don and Donna from the plane

Happy to be done with my lesson in brute-force method navigation in Michaux

Yeah...

Jody gets his hops on at the end of the race

So... took the holeshot in the 3/4 race on saturday only to drop my chain in the first corner. Chased back for 5th. Rode all of Lippencote hitting rim on my front tire with no flats on Sunday and flatted coming down ridge just before Milesburn. Then my crank bolt came loose coming up Hogshead. Finished 77th overall (41st in the Men <40>

See ya'll at Granogue and Wiss!!!

Pics by Don

The Perfect Weekend

This past weekend was just about as perfect as it gets. Nice and relaxing for all parties involved; a much needed break from the hectic lesson-plan writing and geology expeditions of the week. The desire for some relaxation coupled with the amazing weather seemed to just beg one to hit the trail. Since I decided to not to race any cross last weekend (much to Coaches dismay I think), Ms. Geology and I went for a short hike on some AT out to some rocks. Two hours in the woods was all it took.

"Look!" says I, "Rocks ahead!"

Mission #1: Find top of said rocks

Mission #2: Relax... ahhh

Sunday brought some biking-type adventures with the Weiser folk. Eastward was the chosen direction, and some tasty trail was in store for the day. Small crowd, just the three of us, but a rather heavy traffic day on the trails, saw two hikers (yes that's right 2) people on Hail Mary. That's practically a traffic jam in Michaux...

Today's ride brought to you by: 29-inch wheels! See Brett's bike says so!

El Bretto maximizes his rock time...

Favorites... the Vista

So this weekend (a.k.a. tomorrow cause I'm busy and it's already thursday night/friday morning) is going to bring some Meesnow biking action of a cyclocrossy variety with Iron Cross VII on Sunday and IC Lite on Saturday. Looks to be the funness...

New Things

I had not thought about cyclocross season much before 7 Springs so last Friday found me frantically building up my bike for the weekends races. Last minute as usual. I don't really have much to say about the individual races. Found myself mid-pack again both days, 41st at Puma Cross on Saturday and 45th at Charm City Cross on Sunday. Charm City was by far my favorite. A great race run by great people. Congrats to Auer and all the C3 folks who made that possible. You guys rock.

Start Line

Pain face

Gunnar is freakin killing it so far

I love doing this

Last lap charge

Next thing on the menu is not bike related at all. Heading off to do some camping in NJ and CT with some geologically interesting stops on the way as part of the Geology Department Field Trip. Should be a most fun time. Oh and next time you see my CX bike it will be different, but how?

The Springs Seven... Part II

The beginning of the thing... BA always beats me in runs

Ms. Geology does a bang up job of dealing with my sorry ass for 24 hrs

Singlespeed sees some face time :-(

I found this bike hanging from our EZup... thanks Don

And the Best Pit Crew award goes to...

The fatal beginning-of-the-lap corner, early in the race

My lights (Thank you Rob) made everything seem like day... or maybe it actually was day...

My name is Kit... if you get this joke I'm sorry

What is this?

The Springs Seven... Part I

7 Springs is a race I have been thinking about all year. It has been lurking in the back of my mind whenever I felt my worst during a 4,6,9 hr or 50 mile race. I kept wondering, if I can't keep this up for this many hours, how can I keep it up for 24 hrs? Well I did, and I still have no idea how.

The run was the worst part. I hate running. A lot. The most running I like is whatever happens during a cross race. That is ok running. It has a purpose. The only purpose of the Le Mans start in a 24hr race is to jack your heart rate up and give a good show for the crowds. The only thing worse would be if we swam across the lake instead of running around it. I rode the first few laps and settled into a rhythm. It was slow. For some reason I couldn't motivate my self out of the middle of zone 2. I guess that was good in hind sight, because it kept me from loading my legs with crap.

So I rode on. The course, by the way, was awesome. It opened with a ripping singletrack descent, fast and flowy with rocks. It was basically perfect for me. So I continued ripped off the first lap in my fastest time, a 1:33. About 2/3 of the way through the lap guess what happenned? My fork had no travel any more. Yeah. I rode cautiously, and traded for my fully steel, fully rigid singlespeed in the pits. Mmmmmm funness. I had visions of riding the rest of the race out on my SS because my fork was a no go. I did get my main rig back the next time through transition, and I rode out the lap with decreasing amounts of fork. When I came through the pits the next time I was given Don's bike (thanks a lot Don). I did the next lap on that while my bike was being fixed. His not necessarily new bike was very nice.

A lap or so later I was given back my bike, but fixed. The mechanic from the Pro Bikes team across the way had diagnosed the problem, pulled the required part off a spare Lefty he had, and installed it on mine. Apparently there was no bottom seal on the air spring. Boo.

So on I rode. Nothing really happenned until about 3:00AM. I was starting to spiral downhill, but pressed on for another lap anyway. It was slow going, with lots of walking. Around 4:30 I completly lost it and decided that the only way I would make it back to the pit in one piece was to walk. So I walked for about an hour, got back to the pits and slept for an hour. After much pressuring from Ms. Geology I got back on my bike and continued on with Don trailing me. It was nice to have someone riding with me. It really kept me going. Thanks Don.

At the end of the lap I found out I was in 3rd place, and that 2nd wasn't too far ahead. More laps. Two laps later the guy I thought was ahead of me came walking up a short steep climb behind me. I took off hard, with Don following me. I came through the pit, picked up the National Forrest and went out on my last leg of my last lap. We ripped though the 3 miles like butter, arriving to the finish after 24 hrs 7 min to take 2nd place with 11 laps. Stoked.

I could barely walk, I could barely sit, but man was I happy. Big props go to my parents and Ms. Geology, who stayed up all night to keep me fed. Thanks to the Chas at Pro Bikes for the mechanical support, and Matt, Don, Zach, and Megan/Jen for the encouragement. Also thanks to everyone who gave me 24hr racing advice: Brandon and his parents, Vegan Rob, Chris Scott, and anyone else out there. Especially to Vegan Rob for lending me that Lupine Tesla that led me through the night. Also thanks to Ergon USA, Crank Brothers, and Cannondale for making great products. More pictures later.

Money