Northwest Shred-a-thon
With the Cross Country World Cup and Championships behind me, I headed back out to Oregon for a quick few days off the bike then dove right into some alternative cycling pursuits. Fall is always the time we switch it up a bit and this fall will be no exception. To get my horizons expanded properly I used the past two weekends to cruise around the Northwest, taking advantage of exceptional riding conditions and good company. Then going to Vegas, which isn’t really like the Northwest at all…
Fluidride Enduro Downhill
My first order of business in attending the Fluidride Enduro Weekend up on Mount Hood, Oregon was to secure usage of Timmy Evens’ camper van. Having a home on wheels for three days of shredding in questionable weather seemed like the right call. Turns out the weather was awesome and Simon Lawton of Fluidride had a place we could’ve stayed, but Lizzy and I were quite happy parked by a creek (in his condo parking lot) with the top Popped and stove ready for breakfast.
Lizzy driving a napping racer to his race...
The Enduro Downhill weekend was a great one to be the dirt on and around Mount Hood and a bad one to be a super steezy white Fox/Giant jersey. The dirt was soooooo good that I would’ve expected the same lack of cleaning for my outfit as I experienced with my totally awesome Giant Reign X shred-sled. After a weekend of good times and close calls my ride was neither dusty nor muddy, thanks to rain that ended the day before we got up there and sunny skies throughout the weekend. Absolute Soil Perfection creating opportunities to get away with murder left and right. Most of the time…
The Fluidride Enduro format included three days of racing. Each day was to be completed on the same frame and fork as the rest, but changing other bits, like tires and such, was permitted. Day one, Friday, was the longest stage, starting up above treeline at the base of the Palmer Snowfield for some old fashioned fire-road bombing before getting rowdy (dangerous?) on Glade trail and eventually calming down for the last five or so minutes of pedally, flowy, forest floor shredding down the Pioneer Bridle trail. Fun stuff. Day two was a condensed version of the first, starting at Timberline Lodge and shredding Glade Trail down to the town of Government camp. Glade is a benign enough sounding name but I promise you there was danger out there… Day three moved across the street to Mount Hood Ski Bowl for a proper Downhill race from top to bottom. Did I mention the RAD DIRT? Ungh!
The first thing I saw of the course on day one was from the Magic Mile chairlift, which was carrying us up into the clouds cloaking Mount Hood. I heard the unmistakable sound of a bike through the mist and some guy appeared in a “left three” going about forty with a leg out, inscribing a perfect black arc of roost in the pumice road surface. It looked delicious. Five minutes later, that guy was me, making the same arc inside Matthew Slaven for the pass, just so the mood would be set for the weekend… We pinched a couple practice runs and then got our race on. I held it together whilst laughing out loud a few times on the upper road and Glade trail then sat about breathing really, really hard for the last pedal assisted shredding. The combo of laughing and heavy breathing gave me a 35 second advantage over the Nathan Riddle at the finish, who knows how Slaven would’ve fared had he not crossed the line with both kneepads around his ankles, his shorts unbuttoned and, somehow, through his (mandatory for this event, thanks) full-face Giro Remedy helmet and goggles, an impressive amount of grass stuck to his face… As it was, he was two minutes down and, fortunately, not dead. But in a dead heat with two Oregon Proper Downhill Shredders, Jared Hobbs and Joel the ageless. Lizzy, Riddle and I ended the day with a run down the rest of the Bridle Trail to the valley floor, such good dirt should not be wasted while it’s still light out…
Day two was the beginning of focus time. Focusing on riding a little-ish bike through nasty rocks at sorta irresponsible speeds. It was also when I would get to find out if my 35-second advantage would hold up against the gravity guys. Turns out it was my rear tire that needed to hold up. I had declined to put a Michelin Downhill tire on, partly because the course was high speed and the decreased rolling resistance of the Mountain Dry 3 was an asset, but mostly because Slaven wanted to ride the backcountry epic of Boulder Lakes loop in the afternoon and I didn’t want to lug around a four-pound tire all day… I guess I should have. Normally when you flat, you notice one certain impact and then a hissing of precious air escaping from it’s pressurized home. No suck luck, as race runs go, I was hauling ass and found a new (air) line from one rock section to the next. This put me in the next waaaay faster and waaaaay right. Which meant than instead of one impact there were thousands and my first signal that I’d punctured was the sound of my rim SMASHING rocks and tire flapping lifelessly behind… Oops. My 35 second advantage turned a 6 minute deficit by the time I tore the tire off, looped it (in all it’s muddy, latex-ey, gooey glory) over my shoulders (thus ruining jersey #1) and rode the rim the rest of the way down. Slaven nuked by and shouted “I flatted too” but his was a slow leak and he somehow still won the stage over the DH boys. Proud.
Here's me following Nathan Riddle
http://contour.com/node/112770
Here's me following Nathan Riddle
http://contour.com/node/112770
The irony of the tire choice was that we, instead of doing an eipc ride in the middle of nowhere that afternoon, were instead given tickets to ride the lift at Ski Bowl, so, after much rim straightening and filing and the mounting of a DH tire, we did just that. It was really fun. Then we went and rode the new Sandy Ridge trail system in the valley before dark, also really, really fun. See video…
I claimed it on the third and final day. That’s right, I stood up in the parking lot and said I was going to win. The guys on DH bikes looked unconvinced. I was just having such a good time shredding on the Reign X that it seemed like a possibility. And guys 6:00 down have little to lose. Except the whiteness of their jerseys. Mine was still gleaming white after I shredded down Cannonball, it made it across Fire Hydrant just fine but was dealt a nasty blow when, about to enter the woods, I got crossed up on a rock gap and turfed it. Oops. My bike was right there and still running so I hopped back on and kept givin’ ‘er, unaware that another jersey was now ruined, this time with blood stains... My 4:50 was 8 seconds slower than stage and overall winner Nathan Riddle’s 4:42. Oh well, that’s the kind of karmic kick in the nuts that you can expect when Claiming a victory…
All in all a damn fun weekend of racing fun bikes on fun trails. Pity more folks didn’t come out. Where were you? Training for cyclocross? Gimme a break…
Lizzy and I finished off the weekend with an afternoon ride down Gunsight ridge, enjoying high speed old growth after an hour spent taking in the views of Mt Hood along the ridge. Mmmm, I like it here…
Nice recap with photos on PinkBike.com
Now, on to the serious business of Cyclocross…
Thursday night Thrillah!
Bend’s weekly ‘cross series just keeps growing, this year a couple hundred people are showing up to roost around in the vacant lot next to Summit High Schoool. It’s got a real run-up (real tall and hard) and a bunch of fast stuff, even a “downhill” section. Sounds like good exercise and good fun. Which it was for the people standing at the barriers. They got to watch me, in my first confrontation with barriers since knee surgery, step directly into the first one with my left leg and fling myself (and my PIMP new TCX Advanced SL with Di2) onto the ground before even making it to the second barrier. Nothing like having gloves full of gravel three minutes into a race… After resisting the overwhelming urge to unleash a stream of expletives and throw my bike I straightened the bars and shifter and continued on, taking advantage of the opportunity to get a good workout after someone said “GO!” Thanks, Kevin and the Webcyclery boys, for putting on a fun weekly event and saying just that.
Does that look like it hurt? Or was just hilarious?
Starcrossed!
As fun as racing around in a gravel pit is, that’s best left for dirt bikes, in my opinion. Cyclocross should be on grass, wet grass at that, and preferably while it’s raining. This, and racing under the lights with a beer garden, is the recipe that has made Seattle’s StarCrossed such a success. What, for last minute arrival artists like Carl and myself, nearly makes StarCrossed a missed appointment, is Seattle Traffic… Somehow leaving Portland, Oregon at 12:45 for the three-hour drive to an 8:00 race we nearly missed it. Gas stop, swinging by Spencer Paxson’s place in the University District for lunch, and a bunch of gridlock in between put us there just barely in time to set up our Giant tent and ride a few laps in the rain before it got dark.
After we watched Katerina Nash calmly ride away from the women’s field in ever-intensifying rain, getting quite dirty in the process, we knew it was going to be an entertaining evening. And, according to the business cards that French National Champ Francios Mourey was handing out wishing his competitors “good luck”, it was going to be a hard race… After Thursday nights struggling I eased into things, assuming I was going to suck at ‘cross again. But just like always, the knee is a quick learner and I totally made it over the barriers, albeit slowly, without a trip ‘n fall… For some reason I felt super good when “riding” my “bicycle” the rest of the lap and worked up through the field into third by mid-race, leading a guy called Christian by his fans. I thought he was an east coaster that I could dispatch easily. Turns out his last name was Heule and he’s a 5-Time Swiss Champion. No wonder he was hard to drop. We worked together to keep Ryan Trebron’s train (pulling French guy around) at a steady 30-second gap but came no closer. French guy did Ryan for the win and my goddamn ridiculously archaic Mafac-style cantilever brakes picked the last lap, when I had the pressure on Swiss guy, as a good time to take their impressively poor slowing performance to a new level, simply disconnecting during a kind of loose powerslide. Super cool. I’m DONE with these dangerously shitty brakes, that don’t work even then they’re “working”, regardless of the fact that these ones are “rabobank” edition and totally match my kit. Swiss guy didn’t wait for me to reconnect my brake for some reason and I had to settle for fourth. Saved me from the podium in the rain I guess… Although a 65 degree warm rain in Seattle is something to be appreciated for sure… Some bike washing in Spencer’s garage and we still made it to the Taco Truck in before midnight, just in time to score its coveted seating area under a tarp. Mmmm, Tamales…
There's waaaay more grip in the grass than the mud strip... Thanks, Mike Hone for the photo. And for driving expensive german automobiles...
Rad Racing GP
After a seriously over-caffeinated attempt at sleeping it was a rainy Sunday morning in Seattle. I was suddenly envious of Spencer’s east coast mafia roommates, they were in sweatpants, cooking up a storm in anticipation of a day spent lounging and reading. Stew was on, last night’s steak turned into a brunch-winning omlette and some pumpkin cookies going in the oven…
But, we had racing to do. The Rad Racing GP, still my only proper elite cross race win about five years ago, had moved from it’s longtime home in Steilacoom Park with and the signature “Knapp Time” huge run-up to a new spot on Lake Sammamish, east of The City. This also had a monster run, although it was down a beach this time and could sorta be ridden. There were also lots of roots and lots of mud on the otherwise pan flat track. I was kind of into it, other than the run, which fortunately, was right in front of the beer garden. Heckling commence!
Since we didn’t have a pit crew I pre-rode on my new magic gear singlespeed cross bike. Last year’s TCX Advanced SL prototype got converted and is fifteen pounds of pure acceleration and simplicity. Plus it works great when covered in a mud/sand/grass/gravel cocktail. I figured I might even swap to it if the wonderbike stopped working with above cocktail. If only I’d switched sooner… With three laps to go, after being passed every lap on the beach run by the guys I’d just passed on the roots, I felt like a change and grabbed the singlespeed. It was rad. Light bikes that you’re forced to pedal hard rule. I caught a few guys and finished up in sixth, which I thankfully didn’t have to sprint for… Mourey and Katerina won their races going away again. We quickly went for a swim in the lake (singlespeeds are OK to dunk, right?) and were driving toward home, unimpeded by traffic on account of some good co-driving, totally making it to Bend before Midnight. Two minutes before to be exact…
Carl is running 2x as fast as I was right here. Pimp wheels, eh? We've ARRIVED!
CrossVegas, or, The Last Interbike in Vegas, Ever!
I really wanted to uphold my end of the bargain proposed by our team manager, Frank. Instead of sending us to Vegas for the Interbike tradeshow week, he asked what the ideal scenario for us to ride well at the Crossvegas race on Wednesday night was. We arrived Tuesday evening, checked out the LifeCycles movie premier and got a decent night’s rest before a nice morning ride and short stint at the show for some business (like finally getting to touch Fox Shox’s beautiful new forged Titanium crown/steerer that we’ll be shredding next year and trying out Honey Stinger’s new “stinger waffles”) before heading out to CrossVegas to lay it down. I had a couple partners in crime, Rabobank teammates Gerben de Knect and Lars Van der Haar had come over from Holland and Belgium for the occasion and would add some muscle to the Giant presence for sure. Did I mention we have rad new bikes?
Things started fast and furious as usual thanks to Ryan Trebron’s surges off the front. I clawed my way from the 20’s to the lead group of a dozen by lap three and stayed glued to the tail end, recovering and assessing whilst doing some barrier bunnyhopping and skidding with my brand new TRP CX-9 “Mini-V” brakes that actually stop your friggin bike when you want them to. The crowd seemed to appreciate some skills by the guy barely hanging on… Utah high country shred partner Jamie Driscoll attacked early on and built a solid solo lead while the group kind of looked at each other. I was glad the Rabo guys weren’t looking at me, as I didn’t have a whole lot to give in the chase. They didn’t seem to either. I figured that Geoff Kabush was tailgunning too, so it must be smart to sit in and wait for an opportunity. With three to go it looked like Jamie was gonna make it and I started moving up the group in hopes of springing free and onto the podium. Then it became apparent that he was indeed in danger of being caught and I was indeed getting on the wrong side of guys popping and blowing corners. Kabush and I were the last two in the final lap kick, during which Jamie got passed just on the finish line by half a wheel by that cagey Frenchmen Mourey. Turns out last two in the group were ninth and tenth. Not bad but not good enough for kisses from the cartoonishly hot Vegas podium girls.
I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge that business must me done somewhere, but I’m pretty stoked about the move from Vegas to Anaheim, California in 2011, mostly because it’s not Vegas. That place stands for everything that’s wrong. Not that I’m an overly moral guy, but it just ain’t right there… Fortunately, my awesome cousin Jen is getting married this weekend in Maine and I’m on a plane with Sin City squarely behind me right now, possibly never to return. Unless it’s after a trip down the Grand Canyon or something…
From Maine it’s across the pond to Amsterdam, a fall racing trip to Europe seems to be a good way to make up for missing the spring swing. And my form seems to be swinging back into the green so I’m pumped for some new events and make-up opportunities. Stay tuned for “Adam borrows a car and races around Europe for October”…
