I’ve been telling myself for a couple months now that when proper summer finally rolled around things would start working out. All things being relative, they seem to be, at least for the time being.
The last three weekends (and upcoming two) have been occupied with races of my favorite flavor- Sea level and east of the Mississippi. It was sunny and clear when our Denver-Madison flight crossed the river that drains our heartland. Carl wasn’t convinced that we’d have such luck for long. My childhood memories wouldn’t be dissuaded though, east coast summer kicks ass. Fortunately, it’s impossible to rent a place to stay in Wisconsin that’s NOT on a lake. We ended up with our own dock and wharf for the second year in a row. Keeping with the repeat theme, the WORS crew dished up an action packed weekend yet again at the Mount Morris Subaru Cup.
Wisconsin likes it's bike racing. We like it too. Thanks to local Gerrard Abrams for the pic.
There was a little too much action for me, as I ended up sprawled on the lawn for an hour, immobile on account of a severely cramped back immediately after the XC race finished. Evidently I’d gotten a little ahead of myself chasing people down over the course of the race. Which was on the same super fun course as last year. In an attempt to be well-liked and able to converse in the language of the Midwestern racer of today, I’d chosen the XTC Composite 29 for the race. I was kind of bummed to not be on my trusty Anthem X but could tell that the 29er was faster, something everyone around these parts already knows. It felt super quick all day and helped with the last pass of the day, on Pro XC podium virgin and U23 World Cup shredder Stephen Ettinger. Unfortunately, I never made it to the box to help spray him with champagne. On the way there it became apparent that the back cramp wasn’t subsiding and the 1% grassy hill that I was trying to “paperboy” up en route to the awards would be insurmountable. I fell/crawled/collapsed/got to the ground as safely as possible about 100 yards shy of my goal. Whoa. Troy from the Subaru/Trek helped Felice implement a cramp management program while I tried not to do anything to make it worse, like moving. After and hour and a bunch of confused passers-by, they forced me to my feet amidst serious protest (yelling in pain). Walking it off had to happen at some point. The 75 yards back to the trailer took a solid half-hour of baby steps and resting. Wow. It was pretty scary to be that incapacitated but AMAZGING to be able to walk sort of normally after a while. Kelli cranked up the seat heater in the rental and drove me back to the lake, minding the bumps…
I'm just going to rest a minute...
I participated in the short track, not really able to “race” but happy to ride and get a workout. Figuring that saying “yes” to every race I’m presented with isn’t ultra-sustainable, I left the Super D to Carl, he’s the one with a National series Super D win streak anyway. He delivered on a surprisingly fun, sort of legit track, given the 250 vertical feet that Mount Morris has to work with. Kelli pulled through with a win as well, I bet she treated herself to the seat heater on the way home too…
From Wisconsin Felice and I flew to Maine for some R n R before the Mont Saint Anne World Cup. Carl and Kelli flew home, missing the east coast world cup swing for the first time in years in favor of the Downieville Classic. I was a little bit jealous. That jealousy didn’t last long though, it only took a couple of turns down the Mount Waldo trails with Sparky and Justin to remind me why I love the right coast. It’s really fun to ride bikes in the woods there. We made a video, and my back didn’t give out, pretty sure laughter-inducing shredding with Sparky and Qualey is good to work out the kinks…
Sparky cut these trails wearing this skinsuit. Unorthodox, but totally worth it.
Following Justin down the last bit. Freshly raked. mmmm.
We arrived in Quebec on Thursday to ominous skies and steady rain. Perfect. I rode a lap in proper mud and it felt great. But the hardtail just wouldn’t do for me on the rough and tumble trails of MSA. Still a bit scarred from the back incident, and a little edgy on the prospect of not feeling fully recovered from it, I pulled a classic crazy bike rider trick. Completely change your setup the day before the race. Oh yeah, I can do high maintenance too! The reasoning was (other than wasting energy on possibly pointless complications) that the AMAZING ride quality and grip of the Dugast Tubulars (ahem, Vredestein Prototypes) I had the pleasure of riding on the wagon wheeled bike would combine quite nicely with an Anthem X 29er, creating a bike that would eat the nasty bits of St. Anne alive. Familiar with the AX 29 from riding Carl’s Ol’ Blackie in Bend lately, I was just one piece shy of making the silly swap happen- the bike. Turns out our favorite Giant Canada tech guy and ex-downhill honch Luke had one in his van for demonstrating the radness that is Maestro suspension action. I promised to be a mobile billboard for said action after he loaned me the bike for the weekend. Our Rabobank team mechanics, Ed and Marcel were hugely relieved to learn of my unreasonable plan- swap the XTC 29 parts to the Anthem, immediately, on Friday morning, at 11:00… Otherwise they would have just sipped coffee and waited for us to finish training. I’m here to help… They did the swap lickety-split while I played parts gopher (Thanks to Nick at Shimano for the new low-clamp front deraiuler and brake line) and took a nap. The course was drying out anyway, so all this wasting time made total sense from a practice standpoint. Right…
It was worth it though, the new whip felt awesome out there. All of the tech climbs flowed under like the water that was running down them and descents were an afterthought. The thing basically rode itself. Which was great, because I was still feeling a little beat down. Ah well, residual fatigue is the best pre-race Governor anyway.
Feeling spry the next morning and super confident that I had the right tool for the job, I did a solid, structured pre-race warm-up, wore a heart-rate monitor even. Loch “Chuck” Norris came along and we agreed that we were super ready for the struggle that is a World Cup start. Then we got dropped. Hard. At least Trek Canada rider and my 2011 first lap buddy Adam Morka was within earshot in the first cartoonish woods bottleneck to laugh at my shouting of “RIDER, RIDER, ON THE LEFFFFFT!” in the general direction of our gridlock. Nobody else thinks sarcasm is funny I guess… I sort of got moving with some clever A/B line choices and moved up a bit to finish the first lap in the 50’s somewhere. Then wrecked entering my nemesis, the goofy-ass, contrived rock garden under the Gondola (I refuse to acknowledge it’s super-intimidating name) and lost all the spots I’d gained. And got tired. A mirror image wreck the following lap and escalating fatigue seemed to seal my fate. According to the finish line clock, Jaroslav Kulhavy was off the front and killing it. He was putting 2-3 minutes per lap into me as the race progressed. And the lap was only 16 minutes. God, I suck. The stupid full suspension 29er (which Kulhavy had also wisely chosen) wasn’t even riding itself, with me a mere passenger, as I’d expected. Maybe Matthew Green was right when he rolled by the pits, all east coast core’d out on his rigid Spooky and said: “Why are you riding your mom’s bike?”
Crap, snap out of it, crazy, embattled bike racer. You’ve worked your ass off the last month to catch up and be ready for summertime racing, and you will be, someday. Just not today. I didn’t have it at all, the punch that normally makes the Saint Anne course a pleasure to ride was non-existent and I ended up just surviving around, wondering if Kulhavy would lap me and put me out of my misery. Weird. And good insight as to why some people don’t like racing in Quebec. It sucks when you suck. Ah well, what can you do, rest up and hope to feel better next weekend. Which might enable you to get beaten by less than 14 minutes… Wow.
Got to hang out with the cool downhill kids on sunday. Giant Factory Team's Andrew Neethling in the hot seat. Those guys are really good.
And I did! It just took a quick swap of those parts back onto the Hardtail, riding said HT in the Maine woods all week and a 4th of July rest day on Moosehead Lake to bring my body to it’s senses for the Windham World Cup.
The airplane rides just keep a-comin. This one was a float equipped 182. Ballin...
Going up hill fast doesn't always look fast...
As any self-respecting (depreciating?) bike racer would do given the lackluster previous weekend. Instead of unreasonable setup changes, I stuck with the hillclimbing prowess the XTC 29. Instead of tons of electrolyte drinks and pills I just drank water, instead of a quiet team dinner the night before the race, I attended the Windham World Cup Groups’ VIP dinner, instead of warming up with a heart-rate monitor I rolled around for a few minutes then rode a half lap of the course to get the body AND brain firing. As a result, instead of struggling through the race wishing I was somewhere else I rode like myself. Strong but from the back, thanks to some dicks who couldn’t keep their bar-ends out of each other’s asses for 10 feet at the start. Like last weekend, Kulhavy had 2 minutes on me at the end of the first lap, and I was in the 50’s somewhere. After lap two he had two minutes and change and I was up into the 30’s. Much better. I kept at it, eventually hooking up with Cedric Ravanel for the last couple laps of charging. We cat and moused and ate up whoever we tracked down. It was really fun, especially when the east coast heckling/cheering section was present a couple times per lap. Thanks for the love, folks. I ended up doing Cedric on the last descent and holding him off to the line for 19th place. A couple years ago, 19th at an East Coast World Cup would’ve been sort of lackluster, but after this season I’ll take what I can get. Kulhavy won again. Todd Wells had yet another solid ride in 11th. I could see him though, which will hopefully be the case this weekend at Nationals. The upswing can only continue from here on, right?
Evidently riding fast up hills does take it's toll. It's hard to breathe after sprinting to the line, but good to have needed to sprint...
Sunday morning a chance meeting of a local amateur racer in the parking lot set me off on a sweet little mini-adventure in the Elm Ridge trail network. It’s pretty awesome to see a community with such kick-ass riding also have the passion to go through the process that is putting on a World Cup race. We appreciate your work, Windham World Cup Group, and hope to see you next year, right here!