Alpine Super D and Czech WC

After not nearly long enough at home following the big swing of racing around the East Coast and Rockies, I headed down to SoCal for Giant’s annual product launch to their top retailers, The Link.  While I was suspicious of doing something that wasn’t training or racing this time of year, it ended up being super productive and entertaining.  Giant’s dealers are inevitably bike riders at heart and we got to do a bunch of that with them while they tried out 2012 product.  There were also a whole bunch of presentations on everything from sales trends to getting more women on bikes with the launch of Liv/Giant.  And, we obviously spent plenty of time hanging out BSing about sweet new road bikes (they’re pretty rad) and the inevitable 26 vs. 29 discussions, both with our Product department and dealers.  Sean from Knoxville sorted me out on the setup for the Pisgah Stage Race, which, as any properly good trail deserves, will be Maestro Suspension and 26” wheels.  It all ended with a pretty rad evening ride down to the beach for burgers, beers and a classic Pacific sunset.  Nice.  And, Carl and I took turns pounding each other into the ground on the plethora of big road climbs in the Santa Monica Mountains, so we got our legit training in too.  All in all, a nice way to earn your keep as a bike rider, other than the usual racing and making up stories about it…

I made it home from The Link in time to do some housekeeping around town and load up the car for the Oakridge Super D.  Since the inception of the Oregon Super D Series in 2010, I’ve been wanting, almost needing to make it to one of their events.  Held on some of my favorite trails in Oregon, it’s Mountain Bike racing like it should be.  The queen stop, in my opinion, is held on the Alpine Trail in Oakridge.  4700’ of descent in 14 miles starting in an alpine meadow and finishing on the banks of the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River.  I figured since it was a “local” race, I’d keep the spirit of that in mind and hitched a ride with good buddies James Williams and Laura Winberry. James ended up riding his road bike over there (dang) and Laura and I arrived in plenty of time for a couple practice laps (AKA- having a damn good time) on Alpine before a campfire prepared dinner and early night to bed.  Going to bed early is important when you’re camped with the Bend family crew.  Kids love to wake up early and get a head start on playing the day away.  I suppose bike riders should too. 

I've been at a lot of scenic start lines in my day, but this one is right up there...  These flowers bloom every seven years, and normally in June.  Here's to crazy Northwest winters!

Oregon Super D organizers know that nobody likes hurtling themselves through the woods first thing in the morning, so they smartly have the Pros go off first at 11:00.  It wasn’t until we had all piled into Randy’s Mountain Bike Oregon school bus fleet for the shuttle up 1912 road and pedaled up Kate’s connector to Sourgrass Meadow that the legitimacy of the field was confirmed.  Mark Weir, Jason Moeschler and Kenny Burt had made the trip up from NorCal to race some of Oregon’s finest.  Good thing I didn’t know this until start time, I totally would’ve been nervous about getting smoked.  And it’s a good thing I’m in shape and ready for the final European XC racing, because the 900 feet of climbing sprinkled (liberally) throughout the 14 miles should have presented enough of a chance to distance myself from those guys. 

Jason Moeschler is a pretty awesome, easy-going, hard-riding guy.  His competitive side came out in fine form as the times were posted though:  “Goddamn it Adam, you put a MINUTE into me?  I had a PERFECT run, and I’m having a baby this week, my last chance to win one of these things was today!”  Sorry buddy, I’d like to see you win too, but my run was also perfect, and a whole hell of a lot of fun.  I look forward to taking my fitness down and beer intake up a notch or ten sometime in the future and racing you NorCal punks on the downhills!  Weir was third, another 20 seconds down, with Kenny Burt and Aaron Bradford rounding out the podium.  Good thing I made it out to represent the Northwest and keep these Cali sallys from stealing our show.  I’m stoked they came out though, Alpine ended up being the most stacked Enduro race we’ve had in the States this year.  The new Downieville?  At 42:47 from top to bottom, it’s plenty long enough, and doesn’t have any of that pesky “fire road” or “pavement”, just bench cut beauty.  As maintained by Derrik Bell and the rest of the Oakridge trail crew.  Thanks, guys. 

Moeschler isn't afraid of a little air-hump.  Must be what got his wife knocked up...

One more interval session on the road bike Monday morning and I was on a flight to the Czech Republic for the next World Cup XC.  I’d have sore legs for the rest of the week…  Good thing there was nothing to do but relax and recover from the last couple weeks of training and working.  I’d been looking forward to getting across the pond and catching up on rest for a few weeks now, and it was everything I thought it could be! 

Ah, Hotel Medlov.  How very eastern european.  I didn't have the heart to photograph the food.  It was meaty...

Not to get too sedentary though, Emil, Nils and I got decently disoriented on Thursday riding through the Czech countryside and ended up our for quite a while…  It was beautiful, once we figured out where we were and how to get back to the Hotel Medlov.  Friday I kept the fight against bedsores going by participating in the XC Eliminator race in the evening.  We each did a time trail qualifier around a 1:40ish course that wound out of the Biathlon stadium over some logs and through the woods before looping back into the stadium for the sprint finish.  I just barely snuck into the finals with the 30^th qualifying position.  Work smart, not hard.  Evidently I worked too hard in my first round though, sprinting with enough panicked aggression to pull out of my pedal and effectively hand first and second to the fast qualifiers, ending my evening.  Oh well, great crowd and fun warm-up made it way better than more hotel lounge lurking.  I guy I’ve never heard of won.  Nice work, guy.

Katerina Nash has ski raced in this stadium since she was a kid.  Finishing up an Eliminator round on "bikes" was a nice change of pace...

The legs came around just in time, on Sunday’s morning workout.  Lately, at coach Bowen’s direction, I’ve been taking it easy the day before big races then doing an abbreviated opener effort session on race morning, followed by eating, sleeping and warming up short and easy for the race.  It’s been working pretty well.  Henk-Jaap let me (not that he’ll get them back) 150mg worth of caffeine pills and I was feeling READY for the start.  So was the GIGANTIC crowd.  Dang, these Eastern European countries sure love their mountain biking these days.  Having a hometown ringer in the form of Jaroslav Kulhavy doesn’t hurt either…  He didn’t disappoint.  Maybe I got so dropped on the start lap because he was attacking off the front with such fervor that everyone was forced into an impressively unsustainable pace in response.  I felt warmed up and strong, but just couldn’t respond to the pace and got shuffled from 48^th to nearly last.  100^th or so.  Fortunately, as Kulhavy kept his charge going, everyone else was forced to accept reality and I started working through the field with good legs and mindset on the first proper lap around the pretty amazingly rad circuit.  Beautifully dark Czech forest laced with rooty trail that was taped WIDE for artistic interpretation of each and every section, in addition to countless clever passing opportunities.  I liked.  For a few laps, then I got sort of tired too and settled into the 40’s with two to go.  Kulhavy stayed off the front, much to the delight of the crowd and live TV audience.  It was easy to tell when he crossed the finish line.  The crowd stuck around for us backmarkers too, I got nearly as big a cheer rolling in for 41^st with a below-average wheelie.  Thanks for having us, Nova Mesto na Morave.  We’ll be back next year and I’ll be in shape, ready to properly shred your woodsy perfection. 

One of the only places on the track with one line and no spectators.  Credit- In Motion Photography.

The young Americans made us proud in Czech, Stephen Ettinger got off the plane and into a test-drive with the BMC Factory Team in time to bust a top 5 in the U-23 race.  Solid.  Sam Schultz had his best world cup yet in 15^th place.  He must’ve been fired up after getting his stolen bike back…  East Coast master Lea Davison also had a career best- she was 7^th in the Elite Women’s race, mixing it up all day with some of the sport’s biggest names.  At least one of us “2010 Surgery Club” members is riding decent in ’11…  Solid work, Nugget. 

I really enjoyed our time in Czech, apart from yet another missed opportunity to race like myself, but we were all pretty pumped to get to Italy for the next round and a serious upgrade in hotel menu.  Since I was turning 30 on Monday, the rest of the English-speakers let me drive a few hours of beautiful backroads as we made our way to Austria, Germany and, eventually, the Sud-Tirol region of Italy.  Driving in Europe is such a pleasure, in our Rabo team VW Transporter van we cruised little roads and The Autobahn quickly and smoothly, with 5 people and 8 bikes, only using less 3/4 of a tank of Diesel for 800+km.  Where's my sweet, efficient, manual transmission, high capacity vehicle, American Car Companies?


Regardless of recent racing struggles, I’ve been pretty lucky to have done and seen a lifetime’s worth in the first three decades of my life and am looking forward to the next third.  You never know what’s around the corner.  Even WITH a GPS on the dash…