Verge Cycle-Smart International
Northampton, MA

To a perpetually sleep deprived insomniac like myself daylight savings makes about as much difference as shooting a squirt gun at a California wildfire. I woke up feeling like death over hard, despite the “extra” hour of sleep. The IPAs from the night before haunting me, the fact that I’d stayed up watching Wilco on Austin City Limits at The Holiday Inn instead of counting sheep jumping over UCI regulation size barriers now seemed like a mistake. We called in room service and got ourselves some Friendly’s egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches. Butter was not one of the listed ingredients, but as I gripped the soggy, yellow bread and grease ran down my arm I was pretty sure that one of Elvis’ old chefs had found his way into the kitchen over there. When I’m racing mountain bikes I wouldn’t dream of eating any dairy in the AM, but since ‘Cross, for me is entirely about having fun and suffering immensely while doing it I wolfed down this cheese and butter bomb and it was GOOD. As if this wasn’t a dumb enough thing to do I followed it with home fries, fried food…not something I usually eat anywhere near a race. Each piece of deep-fried goodness a seed of regret being planted in my stomach.
We were only about fifteen minutes from Look Park, so I was there nice and early to warm up for my “12 O’clock start”. Miriam took off for a road ride, as I pre-rode the course and chatted to too many people as usual. The warm up was spot on, I rode into Northampton with a ripping tailwind, spinning madly, getting nice and loose, then I hammered back against the wind, getting my heart rate nice and high. I showed up to the line sweaty and breathless and ready to go…only there were women and small boys on the line, this was not my race, had my race already happened while I was out warming up? For the sake of my sanity I hoped otherwise, if I’d thrown a bike the day before during that tantrum there was no telling how I’d react to missing my race. I went up to the tent where Jon Lewis had his Cycle-Ops trainer demo set up, there were bunch of IBCers there, I asked what was going on, was there a delay again? Everyone else was clear on the One O’clock start time for the 2/3’s…I am, apparently a raging lunkhead. Could have been worse, I could have thought my race was later and missed it. So I went off and dorked around for a while then reinitiated warm up procedures, wasn’t sure what my body was going to say to all this.
Despite the fact that I was incredibly early, then my race was an hour later than anticipated I was at the car drinking the last of my Starbucks Redeye and taking off my leg warmers as the final call up occurred. I’d registered early for this one so if I couldn’t claim my spot at the line I was going to be an unhappy camper, I dashed through the course, up the ride-up/run-up dealy, hurdling the course tape with bike in hand. When I got to the line I dropped my bike against the hurricane fencing and ran off in the woods to have a piss, two of my teammates standing behind the group shouted “Thom what ARE you doing?”. Hey, pee weighs a pound or more, I don’t want to be carrying around a pound of pee, people pay over a dollar per gram to get a bike down from 18 to 17lbs and I’m going to carry a pound of something I can get rid of for free? No way Hans Rey. I settled into the back, asked someone what my number was, looked ahead to where I should be, but didn’t deserve to be after my shenanigans, then I said “F that, I’m getting up there”. I squeezed up, no one gave me any crap except for Big Sean Cavanaugh but he was just messing with me, and about two seconds after that we were off.
Things went well initially, we hit the first corner, there was some clatter to my right, I stayed clear, getting good lines through the first few tricky curves leading up the first of three mini-railroad track jumps. My method for the track wasn’t to be all Mt. Biker on them, skying out, or table topping, I stayed grounded, letting my super-over-glued tubulars (I wasn’t faffing about after Canton) just suck it up, beginning to corner while still on the tracks. The field section was windy as all hell, I tried to stay out of it as much as possible, trying not to ride like a bonehead. Things were fast, I haven’t spun this much during any race all year, I was pinned, then we hit the sand pit which unlike last year was absolutely unrideable, the running killed me, I was sucking wind and eating sand. Getting on top of the gear and catching back on after the pit was brutal. My stomach and chest started to ache, I’m sure it had nothing to do with the mass of butter, eggs, and cheese in my distended gut,
I wanted to puke. I think I was about half way back at this point, I had to just settle in and recover, try to work this stuff out, bide my time hoping that a late surge might be salvageable.

I think I'm going to be sick

The ooky feeling subsided and I began to close gaps and jump from group to group, I knew I wasn’t that far off the front, about a minute or so, I could see Peterson and the other super fast dudes on the pavement as I exited the barriers, this seemed like a good sign. One funny thing about ‘Cross is that from one day to the next riders can perform in entirely different fashions, you have to have a combination of fitness, perfect preparation, and luck to get over on the rest of the field on any given day. Finally I bridge up to the group being driven by a brutal task master by the name of Colin Reuter, he was having a break out ride, just killing it. I rode with that group for a while then tried to bridge to the next, details are foggy, I think I left that crew, but Colin held on, maybe check his blog for his side of the story.

This is the corner that took me out

I found myself in a group of three with Brian Keegan and Steve Roszko, I knew Keegan was fast so this I thought was good. Up ahead was a group containing Todd Rowell and Ryan Rumsey, I wanted to get up there but it wasn’t happening. Maybe one lap to go we three came into the run up Roszko bobbled allowing me to come around, then Keegan dropped a chain or had some type of mechanical, I took advantage, attacking into the rooty corner past the gazebo…and ate it, big time. It was like I hit a patch of ice, my tire slid out so fast on those pine needles, I didn’t even know what hit me. Roszko passed me back, I never did close the gap to him and rolled in safely in fifteenth place, scoring my first and only Verge point which I think at this point in the season is virtually useless.

The "ride up" hurt bad on the S.S.

To continue the theme of my bike racing/culinary blog…M and I stopped off at La Veracruzana in Northampton for the best burritos this side of Valencia St. then grabbed an exceptionally good cup of coffee and a mini pumpkin pie at Haymarket and the weekend was complete. Haven’t decided on Plymouth or Putney next week, I know I love the Putney course but Plymouth is so damn close, maybe I’ll stay home and eat all day, we’ll see.

All Photos and video Taken by Miriam Kornitzer

Verge Chainbiter 9.0
Farmington, CT

Alright, let’s get this one over with, not my finest hour…er, more like ten minutes. This’ll be over quick, just like a swift kick in the nuts and just about as fun. It was a whacky weather day with the hurricane passing through New England, never did really do anything spectacular, except for nearly blowing my Ridley off the roof rack on 91 after the race. Caught a glimpse of it flopping out at a 45° angle through the sun roof A.K.A. “The Bike Viewing Window”. My old Thule trays are clapped out as all hell, this is not the first time this has happened. Thankfully this time the drop out didn’t break off the fork, I moved the bike to one of the Yakima trays and we were good.
There was a huge IBC presence at the event, I won’t try to name everyone because I’ll forget someone and then they’ll hate me forever. The start was delayed due to a medical emergency, turned out that Lea Papas-Barnes had gone down in a bad crash during the women’s 4 race. Her boyfriend Peter Bradshaw (wicked fast Cambridge Bike rider) left the start line to be with her, he is a stand up guy, class act all the way. I’d pre-ridden the course and I was psyched, it was a rollercoaster, incredibly fun stuff, there was even a legitimate climb in there, a single speeder’s dream. Unfortunately, after what seemed like a not-total-crap start my right cleat decided to loosen and then give out completely at the most inopportune of moments. There was this ride/run up, the way I was going at it I’d stay clipped in to the last possible second then unclip and run the last little bit to the top. First lap I hit it hard, went to unclip, my foot pivoted as I twisted my body weight to the left, resulting in me hurling myself to the ground like John Belushi doing a Joe Cocker impression, then I got run over. The best part of it was that my bars became entangled in the other rider’s bars like two Elk trying to assert their dominance over one another, only I didn’t want to assert my dominance, I just wanted to not completely screw up this guy’s day as well, I was sunk, he didn’t have to be. I apologized up and down as we detangled the bars and got going again. I clipped in, knowing that if I had to unclip my right foot the same situation would ensue.
Just after passing through the start/finish the cleat let go completely, preferable to being locked to my bike like a kitten super-glued to a ceiling fan but still sucky nonetheless. I hobbled on, riders passing me left and right, me actually waving them past, I was hating life. I made it through most of the second lap then as we were about to descend down toward the tennis courts, a pretty rough little chute, I bailed, I decided that my result was guaranteed to be total shite and I was quite likely going to get maimed trying to finish. Here’s the part I’m not real proud of…I went prima donna, hurling my bike over the tape, catching the tape and ripping it. It took me exactly two nano-seconds to begin regretting my behavior , maybe the regret began as the bike was still hurtling through the air. Ass. I helped fix the tape, then hopped on my bike and rode down an uninhabited corridor between two hedge rows back to the parking lot , stopping to cheer people on as I went, trying to get my head back on straight. As if I didn’t feel like a complete and utter dick already I then noticed that my bars were cocked to one side by about 5°. I had bent my brand new, not cheap bars, now my self-loathing was off the Prick-ter scale. But wait…under closer inspection I discovered that it was not my bars but my stem that was twisted, torsionally twisted by 5°, truly bizarre, I have never seen anything like it. The funny thing is that I had brought a back up stem because the carbon face plate on my Deda Newton stem was developing hairline fissures, yes it was unbelievably sketchy for me to be using this stem in the state it was in, I’m lucky I didn’t take a steerer tube to the sternum.
Eventually I cheered up, had some cocoa and some veggie chili and after a stop at Competitive Edge Bike and Ski in Northampton for some new cleats I’d be ready to roll the next day at Cycle-Smart International. The latter part of the day and evening went much better than the earlier part. Dinner at The Sierra Grill in Northampton was really good, killer spot there. I prepped for the morrow with Belgian fries complete with Aioli and although I prefer west coast IPAs to Belgians I did sip on Miriam’s Chimay between my several pints of Bear Republic Racer 5. During dinner we were trying to remember the name of the bar an ex-local had given us, we could only come up with the first part of the name. We asked the couple next to us if they knew where a place called “the Dirty, er something” was. This got a laugh, in some towns you might end up at an entirely different type of place than “The Dirty Truth” which turned out to be one of the finest pubs I’ve ever been to, the draft selection was frickin’ overwhelming. Bike racing is dumb, I’m just going to drink beer and eat food and write about that from here on out, how about that?

Canton Cup Cyclocross – Doing The Double

Since I was volunteering for this event which gave me a free entry and NAV owed me an entry for a race I couldn’t make it to earlier in the season, and because of the way the categories worked out (2/3 and Pro 1,2,3) I could conceivably do two races at this event. I’ve been meaning to petition to get into the women’s Elite races. I figure if Lyne Bessette can sand bag the men’s B races I can do the same with the Women’s Elite races, and I promise not to use the term “retard” even in the French sense of the word while I’m doing it. In reality I’ll turn 35 (I move in geological time) before I get around to that so I’ll be able to take my beating from the Scary Masters’s before I do the Elite race at local events if I so choose.
Woke up early, grabbed myself a “Venti” “Red Eye” at the Starbuck’s on the way to the highway (yes I patronize Starbucks, but only when it’s nowhere near a Café worth a damn),
promptly got on 93 going in the wrong direction. Pretty much all Mt. Bike events are to the north, I was on auto-pilot so that’s where I headed, then I turned around and went back in the direction of Canton. It was a lovely morning, the inclement weather of the day before had blown away, leaving the world a bit damp, but otherwise quite pleasant. There was no real hope for mud seeing as it has been dry for longer than I can remember. First it was global warming, now it’s global drying. Showed up to the venue a good five hours early…I require a very thorough warm up, that and I was volunteering at registration. I got to register a whole bunch of Cat 4’s then watch them come back all bloodied and battered a while later, telling tales of slick corners onto bike paths and other treacherousness.

Photo Courtesy of Jason Girouard

Around eleven I threw on my kit and went out to warm up. On the back side of the course there were these miniature barriers, I thought I should, on principal, hop them, I am a Mt. Biker after all, it would be expected of me. First attempt I clean the first one, Rock Star! Come into the second a bit slow, give the pedal a kick to give me some more height, come down all askew in the front end, skidding laterally on the front tire, front tire rolls off, jams in fork, I vault off the bike looking as graceful as a pig running on a wet tile floor (they have cloven hooves, they don’t run on wet tile floors too well, trust me). So I run off to borrow a wheel, I explore a few options before winding up with Tal Ingram’s wheel, thanks to Rachel and Greg for the offer of theirs, I’m lucky to have so many generous teammates.
At the start the host teams get call ups, I’ve never had a call up before, I usually start in back and work my way up. I was up there with five other teammates, it was pretty cool. The start was uphill which gave me some hope, Tal, Mike, and I ended up in good position after the hole shot, I think I was about 9th, I could see the front of the race for once which was odd and nice at the same time. The difference between starting at the back and working your way up and starting at the front is that when you do the latter the guys around you are generally as strong as you or stronger and often have decent skills which makes it an entirely different experience than what I’m used to. The course was excellent, three sets of barriers, one run up, a track section, lots of turns, a high speed winding bike path section on the back side, and plenty of spots to lose it.

At the end of the first lap a Bike Barn rider came by like a rocket monkey, I hopped on his wheel for about two seconds, realized I couldn’t hold it to save my life, and hopped off. This was John Peterson, the guy that had won both days of Gloucester in the 2/3’s. If I remember correctly I held onto third place for about a minute, then faded and let a few guys past. I could see Peterson ahead through the marsh, closing on Auerbuch at an alarmingly fast rate. Peterson’s victory was a much of a foregone conclusion as the victory of that group of guys that aren’t from Boston but who get paid a lot of money to live in (gated communities outside) Boston and call themselves “The Red Sox” over that other group of high paid guys who aren’t from Colorado but call themselves “The Rockies” in that thing so inaccurately called “The World Series”. For you super fans, I’m kidding, now don’t come to my house and turn over my car during a joyous riot.

Writing ‘Cross reports is way harder than writing mountain bike reports. Mountain bike races are usually four laps tops, they are slightly slower paced, there are fewer riders in them, each eventful thing that happens sticks in your mind. ‘Cross, it’s a bunch of panting, drooling, riders passing, riders falling back, it’s harder to keep track of what went on and when. All I know is that I need to go out and do some more ‘Cross practice. Last season I made light of my ignorance pretty regularly in my write ups, then I learned some of the ropes, but by now I have forgotten almost all of it…I am a complete spazz out there, a total mess on two wheels. Every time there was something that was Cyclocross technical I would freak out and lose countless bike lengths. I think I’ve said it before, the saying goes “It’s just like riding a bike” not “It’s just like riding a bike WELL”.
The 2/3 race ended with me getting gapped on the pavement by a hard charging Cambridge Bike rider to finish 6th out of forty something, I was happy with that. I wasn’t really sure what to do during the hour interim between that race and the Elite race. I kind of pedaled around, had an Accel Gel and some drink, chatted to some folks, then prerode the course once again before lining up to for the kick in the pants party. It was nice lining up for that race, I was way more relaxed, just ready to go out and ride hard for an hour, I knew that flagellation and humiliation were imminent, but I didn’t care so much. We went, I was third to last into the hole shot, geez, I thought I was going faster than that, I guess Elite guys go fast, who knew? I’d thrown a bit more pressure in my (Tal’s) front tire, it made all the difference, I was able rail the corners way better than during the previous race. My legs were shredded but I felt like I was going faster, I felt like I was riding my bike better, and most importantly I was having more fun.

Photo Courtesy of Jason Girouard

Eventually I caught up to Jon Bruno who was going mighty fast considering he hasn’t ridden a bike in months, he lost a leg in a shaving accident, and all he’s eaten in weeks are Cheetos and mayonnaise. Jon could have beaten me with a thought, but he just didn’t feel like it so I carried on, gapping up to some other dudes. Then I saw the pink and blue CCB kit ahead, it was Bernhard, it was time to redline, time to die. Not sure when Todd Rowell came into the picture, if I caught him or he caught me, but I spent a lot of time riding with him, trading off, I think I used him to reel in Bernhard. Once I got Bernhard he wouldn’t say die, I finally gapped him with an uncharacteristically smooth ‘Cross Ninja maneuver, remounting after the uphill barriers my right pedal was right where I wanted it, I landed on it with all my weight, clipping in the left foot nicely as well and powering up the small rise after. He didn’t let up for a couple laps after that, always lurking, clawing back to me.
During the last lap I tried to rid myself of Rowell (I didn’t know who he was at the time, now I know he’s a wicked fast roadie) by attacking on the one straight away in the series of corners before the run up to the track. I got around him and lead into a corner where he had gone down earlier, hoping he would over cook it again, no dice. The gaps were small, but they were there, he ate them back up for the most part on the track, leaving me with almost nothing going onto the pavement after the last set of barriers. I think he actually apologized as he blasted away up the finishing straight. “That’s the problem with single speeds” he said as I high fived him after crossing the line. Nope, that’s the problem with this guy right here trying to outsprint anybody, nevermind a legitimately fast Cat 2 Roadie.
It was a fun day, a long ass day, and I can’t tell you how pissed my body is right now. I’m an arthritic three toed sloth on Dilaudid. Still, I wish I could do the double again, but the way the categories work, I usually can’t. Oh well, guess it’s no holds barred ass whuppings for me from here on out.
Thanks to C Todd of IBC and Todd C. of NAV for putting this thing together, altogether a great event, can’t wait to do it all again next year.

"He's 33 Years of Age Now...

so time's beginning to run out for him."

Thanks Phil. That quote has nothing to do with the following post. I'm just sitting here half-watching the Vs. coverage of The Giro Di Lombardia and Phil just uttered that statement about Bettini. I'm 33 as well, I don't feel old, every year I get faster (it helps that I was really slow when I was young), and better at what I do. The age thing is relative, look at Steve Tilford and Ned Overend. When you hang around with a bunch of healthy, active people your preconceived ideas about age go right out the window. When I was a kid I looked at people in their fifties and thought they were ancient...they were. They spent their lives eating crap food, drinking, and smoking. The only exercise they got was pulling the lever on their recliners as they watched Jeopardy. My perception has changed since then.
It's like Chris Rock said:
"People tell you life is short.....no it's not. Life is LONG.
Especially if you make the wrong decisions."
I might have gotten a late start in the sport, but I'll be damned if I'm not still racing when I'm sixty.

The above photo is of John Allis, he is the man. Last I checked he was pushing 65 and still coaching and riding with The Harvard team four days a week.

Now what was this post about? Oh yes, flats, more on flats and flatting and tubes pinching with the air gushing out and the suck of it all. Just before yesterday's Fells ride I chucked my Switchblade back on. Still haven't hooked up the tubeless on the training wheels and once again I paid for it. I was on my way out, late for a movie date, hammering at close to race pace in the fading light, WHAM! Bottomed out the front tire on a root or a rock. The air escaped within seconds. I got to it, fastest flat fix ever go! What the? You have got to be frickin' kidding me. I had grabbed a 26" tube for my 29" tires, no problem I had a back up as well...it was a 700c road tube, wouldn't cut it. Plan C, stretch 26" tube like a tubular onto the rim, then install tire. What a pain, it eventually worked but what a huge pain in the ass. Then my pump blew a gasket, luckily another rider happened by on his giant dually. He hooked me up with a working pump and I was finally on my way out.
No more tubes.

Just Riding Around

Took the weekend off from 'Crossing. There was nothing going on too close to home and most weeks I get but the one day off. Makes things tough if that day off is a race day. Went out for a little ride in the Fells with friend Matt, just out messing around. I've spoken of Matt before, he's one of the guy's who's riding style I try to emulate as best I can. It's a combination of fluidity, playfullness, and weightlessness. It makes the woods feel like a playground, almost like snowboarding,
always a good thing to sit on his wheel and get a refresher course.
I started riding a mountain bike in the fall so the season has positive associations for me, and now with the racing all the frickin' time it's the season when I get to go on group rides and generally spend more time on the mountain bike,
which is where I like to be really, not out on the road riding up some god damn hill next to Route 2 ten times on my way to work. It's also a nice time because the woods transform, you can read the lay of the land better, trails which were hidden by dense brush all summer are suddenly unveiled. Fall just smells good too.

I'm not running tubeless on my training wheels which is apparently something I must change. I double flatted on this ride, once on the way to meet Matt and once after. I was only carrying one tube because "I don't flat". Which is entirely true, I didn't have one flat or mechanical all season long. I ran non-UST wire-beaded WTB Nano-Raptors with Stan's sealant, they worked out great. For anyone who is still not running tubeless, have your care taker or helper monkey go out and get you some Stan's while they're out getting your adult diapers. There is absolutely no point in not running tubeless, it's just as easy to throw a tube into a tubeless tire as it is on a conventional tire. You are just WAY less likely to get a flat in the first place, especially if you run Stan's sealant even in a well sealed UST tire. Just ignore this rant if you are one of hold outs who likes running 45psi in your tires so you don't flat or if you just really enjoy that down time which fixing a flat provides you. It's true, with tubeless you have way less opportunity to take in nature and feed the mosquitoes.
Sweet Tubeless!

Gloucester Gran Prix Verge #2 Day Two

What, you mean I have to wake up tomorrow and do that thing again? There are some mountain bike races I’d like to do two days in a row, this was more akin to going back to the dentist the day after you got an impacted molar pulled for more of the same. When I woke up in the morning I felt better about the whole thing, I’d slept well, my “Oh my god, my head is full of cement” feeling had subsided for the first time in weeks. I was ready to do this thing called a Cyclocross race which was, in reality a road crit on a badly maintained lawn.
Got there nice and early, hopped on the course for a lap, saw nothing had changed,
I overheard someone saying they had changed the apex of the corners…made up…or I’m on crack…probably the latter. Either way the changes were too subtle for my untrained eye to pick up on. I went out for a warm up with Tal Ingram, he just about killed me on an uphill sprint, if my heart didn’t eject via my mouth during that effort, it likely wouldn’t during the race.
Miriam had secured a very special outfit for me to wear for this event, I had concerns about it though, would my leg-warmers catch in my chain? Would my leotard obscure my number? You know, real serious stuff. The leotard did, in fact cause problems, after I “merged with my bike” at the top of the run up, it hooked around the bottom of my saddle, preventing me from standing up. I had to pick it out like a wedgie. God forbid I crash due to a wardrobe malfunction…now that would be
embarrassing.

"I'm bringing my A-war!"

Don’t know what happened with the start order, thought I was about half way back, nope, down in 80th, right where I belong. I was right on Sean Cavanaugh’s wheel and I knew he was going good, all I had to do was stay with him. Fast forward a few minutes, he’s gone, there are fifty guys between us, I’m screwed from the start once again. Oh but passing half a dozen people at a time is so gratifying, if only I were like Tim Johnson…able to leap through entire fields of riders and get back within striking distance of the win in a single bound.
My body was feeling better, respiratory system was more cooperative than the day prior, the legs didn’t even seem too shredded from pushing the 71” gear on dirt. Most importantly I was having fun. It got real fun when John Bernhard showed up in front of me, I battled up to him and then it was on like King Kong vs. Mecha-Single Speed-Kong.

Let's get it on, c'mon!

As far as I know everyone I passed besides Bernhard didn’t come back to get me, this guy has no give up in him, he rides like a Pit Bull on Red Bull, he’d attack me and pass me back, I’d do the same, add kerosene, light a match, switch and reverse it. Oops, I’ve lost myself there. Thing was as we were myopically slugging it out, we were passing lots of other dudes, this was a good thing. Before I knew it we’d caught up to Cavanaugh, then I was pretty sure we were doing well. Then I saw James Newton, another IBC rider, also a good sign, Kurt Schmid was up there too, having a much better ride than the day before.
I was able to make a few last minute passes before the pavement, recovering and blocking through the corners before the sandpit, gapping up to Kurt by the pits. When we hit the pavement I clawed for Kurt’s wheel, knowing I wasn’t going to beat the guy that wins Wells Ave A race sprints on the asphalt, also knowing that he would carry me away from my chasers to the safety of the line where I could finally throw up and die. And that’s what happened, didn’t get Kurt, held off the dogs behind, finished 18th, in the top twenty, but out of the points. Still I felt good about it, and more importantly, I looked good, oh, and I didn’t really throw up or die.
Serious thanks to everyone who cheered me on, and supported me I really appreciate it.

Looking so good and so bad simultaneously

Some excellent shots from Jason G

Gloucester ‘Cross Verge #1 Day One

Short race, sort of short report

It’s official, Mr. Pink is now retired, he was kind of a fat ass, weighing in at nearly 22 lbs.. He would have made a light mountain bike but as a ‘cross bike, especially a single speed one…not so good. He will now be my fixed gear commuter, I will ride him with a front brake, in lycra, with a 65 inch gear (i.e., very low). I am not, nor have I ever been a cool kid. But let’s talk about the new bike, no obvious name for this one yet. It’s a Ridley Crossbow, set up as a single speed with a White Industries Eric’s Eno Eccentric hub, it is five pounds lighter than Pink, has tubulars, and no crosstop levers, it is an entirely different beast.
I rode this bike around IBC Newton on the carpet, to dial in my position (don’t tell Joe the owner), other than that the first ride was my warm up on the Gloucester course. Felt pretty good, the tires hooked up nicely and I felt comfortable on the hoods…an hour later I was lining up to race. Oh ya, my gearing. Last year I pushed, actually I can’t really say “pushed”, I spun like mad a 34 X 17 for the first day, then a 34 X 16 for the second day, it was ridiculous. So this year I brought out the big guns, 42 X 16…I was not, and I say not getting spun out this time around.

"Crap, I think that rock is gapping up to me"

My start position was total crap, my start itself…total crap, my ability to deal with the mad throngs of riders…pretty much total crap. “No, no you go ahead, after you, be my guest”. Then I got stuck behind a few guys that rode bikes like Britney Spears makes a comeback, got frustrated and began the battle to finish in a semi-respectable fashion.

42-Frickin'-16

Alright I’m just going to say it, Gloucester sucks, it’s a way better race to watch than to ride. It’s boring, it’s uninteresting, it’s great for roadies, it’s bad for Mt. Bikers, I’m a Mt. Biker, therefore I hate it. I hope it snows again next year, or a tsunami washes over Stage Fort Park, or tanker carrying 8 million tons of Belgian mud beaches on the shore, anything to make this thing suck less. Maybe I just hate it because I lack the most vital of ‘cross skills, the skill to sit down at my computer and register early so I don’t start in 80th position.

My posse's got velocity

Wow, glad I got that off my chest, OK so moving right along…there I was riding around in circles in a park by the ocean with 120 guys, most of them in front of me, the only thought going through my oxygen deprived brain was “man, I can’t wait to eat some chowder”. Somewhere in there I killed myself up the paved hill through the start/finish to pass five guys, then one passed me back on the downhill going into the uphill hairpin, freakin’ brilliant place to pass, you Stephen Hawking of Cyclocross you, he washed out, I tried to salvage my line, going further inside, I washed out as well but ate it hard, twisting my bars around. I stopped to correct them, got going again, something was rubbing, uh-oh, I ignored it, and like all my problems, it went away…back in business, alright then.
And then, just like that, it was over, I stopped pedaling my bike, grabbed a beer, and got situated to watch the women’s Elite race. That’s the nice part about racing the 2/3’s you get to see how it’s really done just after you’ve finished making an ass of yourself out there. Lovely.
My result:
22nd out of 95 finishers, twice as good as last year and way more fun despite my whining.

Miriam rode up from Somerville after zombies ate half her leg two months ago and she still looked pretty damn good

Photo courtesy of Ride Junkie

The 2007 Vermont 50

This race is as popular as David Hasselhoff in Germany, and the reason why is probably just as inexplicable. Why do 800 bikers (never mind the totally psychotic trail runners) sit, glued to their computers in late may, waiting to sign up for this grueling grind through the hills of Vermont? It’s hard to get in, it fills up in minutes, it’s not cheap, the start time is downright sadistic, and whether you finish in four and a half hours or eight hours it is a brutal race.
Andy Sanidas and I drove up Saturday afternoon, got our packets, and did a little pre-ride of the first few miles. Trying to figure out how to stay in contact with the front group on our silly one speeded machines during the three mile downhill mass start . After that I set out for Waitsfield to crash at my buddies Jeff and Jen’s house. It’s another hour and a half north of Ascutney, I realized that this was a pretty boneheaded plan…I’d be getting up at 3:30 at the latest, excellent. Getting up…that’s what you do when you actually fall asleep at all, I did not sleep, I maybe got a couple winks in, not sure what my problem was. At 3Am I couldn’t take it anymore so I got out of bed and made coffee and breakfast. Much like last year I decided that if sleep were total crap at the very least I would get a good meal in and digest before the start.
The forecast called for 32° which would have made the start interesting but when I went out to load the car it already in the forties, not a crystal of frost on the grass. Three cups of coffee and two rice and egg burritos later and Jeff and I were on out on the pitch black rural Vermont roads, me doing the best to follow the taillights of Jeff’s SAAB through the morning fog. When we got down to Ascutney I found some alterations had been made to my Rig. Andy, Greg, and Brad had adorned it with some accessories, including a hammer which fell off as I moved the bike. It was 5AM and I’d already dropped the hammer…great.
Preparation went smooth, stomach was good, newspaper down the front of the jersey seemed adequate for the weather, arm warmers on, warm up balm laid on thick for the legs, a few bags of Clif Blocks and eight Gus in the pocket, two tubes, two C02s, a pump for good measure, a multi tool, and two bottles full of Accelarade.

I meandered down to check in and line up in the second of the first two waves. The Single Speeds would be going with the Senior I’s, not a group I’m familiar with. All the guys I knew were up in the first wave of Senior II’s and Vets. Although starting in the back wave was good in a way, you wouldn’t have guys behind you didn’t know about beating you on time. The disadvantage was that you wouldn’t be able to pace off the guys you were used to riding with. Also when the race went off I didn’t know which of these young guns would take off, would I be able to stay with them? All I could do was go out and hit it and see what happened.

We shot off the line, Andy and I were able to stay close to the front, then Montello came up and got on second wheel, I got on him and tried to survive the downhill trip to the first climb. No one really pushed the pace so as we hit the climb the single speeders took to the front, the only person from the group that had an answer was Trek Pro Lea Davison (she would come in under five hours in 22nd overall) but then Monty went to the front and put in a ferocious attack, out of the saddle, hammering until he pulled off to the side and said “I can’t see!”. I made sure he wasn’t in need of medical attention (he’d finish the race in good time with his eyesight intact) and took the lead up the climb, feeling good, my freshly massaged legs (thanks Tiffany Mann!) firing nicely.
Despite the 5 minute gap, we began picking up riders from the Senior II/ Vet group on the first climb, it was going to be tough to keep track of who we were racing against. The first single track climb didn’t have too much traffic on it though and I was able to ride all but the steepest bits. Rode more than I ever had before even on gears. The 32 X 18 was feeling good, can’t imagine that you’d want a bigger gear on this course. By the time I met up with super-fast-racer-turned-bottle-feeder Jeff W. at Aid #1 I’d hardly touched my single water bottle, I loaded up the three full ones which had to last me until mile 35 and took off.

On the next climb another single speeder Brian Lyster caught up to me and made the pass, I tried to hold his wheel but instantly redlined, I let him go, hoping I’d reel him in later on. Then Andy caught up to me, riding strong, seated on the climbs, mashing away on his new Igleheart 29 SS. I thought about letting him go as well but decided to dig and stay with him, sometimes holding a friend’s wheel can be easier than holding a stranger’s…but in this case, not that easy. I rode with Andy for a while then continued on into no man’s land, I didn’t see anyone for an eternity. I was in kind of a funny spot out there, between Andy and Lyster I had no one to battle with. The only guys out there were in the group ahead of me so they were already five minutes behind, all there was to do was keep plugging away, looking for Lyster ahead and Andy in the rearview.
When I finally got to the decent singletrack just past the middle of this thing I was truly shocked at how great the Bontager Switchblade rigid fork was feeling. You can just whip up the front end, put it wherever you want it, steering is instantaneous and satisfying. Given it made the world a wild blur on every high speed decent, but that’s not where you get time in this race. During previous editions of this race I was sapped by this time so it was no fun at all, but this year I was having a blast, ripping it up.
I’d caught up to Ryan Larocque from Bike Alley and he tacked on my wheel and stayed on until just past the red barn which demarcates the beginning of the end, the final hellacious three miles up Ascutney mountain. I asked Ryan if he’d done the race before, he told me no, so I tried to prep him for what was to come. “This is where the suck starts” I said. It’s the part of the race that throws all your prior, delusional finish time estimates off by a longshot. This is because the last three miles of this race takes three hours to ride. You may not have seen anyone for miles but here you see dudes by the side of the trail, renouncing their gods, cursing their mothers for bringing them into this cruel world, and defecating on the implements of torture which had brought them to this horrible state…their bicycles.
The traverse across the mountain is like drinking a margarita with salt…with a paper cut on your lip…if you hate Tequila. You just want to stop tasting that Tequila, you want the drink to be over, but then a grain of salt works it’s way into the cut, like the little, nasty rollers on the traverse, adding real pain to the unpleasantness of the overall experience. C’mon stretch that analogy like Akebono (now why does spell check flag “Ascutney”, and not “Akebono”, weirdness) the Sumo wrestler squeezing into a pair of Spiderman Underoos. I was happy to find that the bizarrely treacherous wet, slimy, steeply-angled bridge obstacle had been removed. In it’s place was a nice new bridge with a singletrack ascent cut into a ledge. Much less daunting to deal with at this stage of the race. The final decent down the finish line on the grassy slopes of the ski mountain is kind of a formality. Unless you try to air it out over the grassy knoll, lose it, and go rolling under the tape, your bike ghost riding away without you like I saw one poor bloke do. Mile 49.9 of a 50 miler is no time for shenanigans.

So it was a good Vermont 50, the weather was gorgeous, the trails were quick, and I ended up knocking sixteen minutes off my best time, geared or no, finishing in 6th overall in 4:36:46. Brian Lyster took first single speed by a couple minutes which beats the hell out of last year’s margin of thirteen minutes, I’m just happy to be in the same ballpark as that guy for once.
It’s funny, you finish this race and start talking about how silly it is that you subject yourself to this thing year after year, but then your thoughts slide right over to next year’s registration. You know I’ll be setting my alarm for 6:50 on some day in late may 2008, ready to drop whatever I’m doing and run straight to the computer to get signed up for yet another VT 50.

Sweet Fixie

Just got this sweet, sweet Fixie together, nothing I love more than a sweet, sweet Fixie. I've cut the bars down hella narrow, I guess the cool kids call them "Traffic Busters". I also heard something about "Crash Biking" becoming the next big thing after "Tricking" and "Krumping". That's where you just ride a totally rickety piece of crap bike with no brakes and get into unavoidable (only because you don't have brakes or an iota of skill) accidents resulting in almost intentional bodily harm. It's awesome!
Problem is, I can't go out and ride my Fixie (into a parked car) because I'm still waiting on my Sweet-Fixie-Rider-Kid outfit to show up in the mail. There's no way I can be seen walking my Sweet Fixie down the sidewalk (holding it by it's too high, nose-diving saddle), or stand around posing as a messenger by Winthrop Square, leaning against my top tube pad without my oddly tight jeans, sagging (sagging despite the oversize, white, studded, rocker belt) just below my hairy ass crack, tapering down to my worn vans. How can I see where I'm going without mirrored, state trooper shades? And what will hold my brains in when I inevitably collide with some inanimate object besides a flat-brimmed, slightly askew, high-riding trucker hat?
Sweet Fixie!

Rode to work today, felt like it was 100°, the fire was in my head, I was running a fever, trying to do my taper for The 50, don't know if it was really the best thing to do. Got to the top of a slight rise, at the end of a short interval, guy in an SUV yelled "Lance cheated!". Buddy, get with the program, it's Landis or Vino or Tyler's greasy, greasy Granny. Lance? That's WAY too obvious. "Ya, well you're driving a car" I replied. Damn! What a stupid comeback I thought. I thought again, nah it was pretty good, what else could I say in that short span of time before I dropped out of earshot besides "Ya, suck it!"? My Lance didn't cheat rant is one for another time, don't get me started, I gotta sleep this evil bug out of my system.

Sick Boy

No racing for me this weekend. I was planning on doing the Bedford 'Cross race just because it was so close to home, would have been nice just to ride out, but I am home not feeling so swell, trying to get well before The Vermont 50 next week. I did do some exciting stuff to the bike though in anticipation of the upcoming event. Decided to go rigid, got myself a Bontrager Switchblade carbon fork, dropped a good two pounds off the bike. The VT 50 is way more about the climbing than the descending (at least from what I remember) so I hope this choice serves me well. The bike's weighing pretty light at 21.5 lbs. My Rig does have a little secret, it's EBB was modified by Pete Verdone, a huge amount of material was removed, lightening it up significantly. Check it:
PVD Wiki


Still haven't decided on the gearing, I though single speeds were supposed to be simple...amazing how much thought I put into gear selection. It makes sense though, if you're going to be stuck with one gear for a whole race, you better be sure it's the right one. I think it's best to change as many things as possible just before a race, don't do anything the same way twice. Unless you're riding like Adam Craig, then you stop and say "hey, what am I doing so right? I should keep doing that thing". Otherwise, to hell with it, eat weird stuff, change your saddle height, get drunk and go cow-tipping the night before the race, who cares, you'll find what works eventually...hopefully.

Oh, in more exciting news, I found another great SSWC 2007 gallery by
Single Speed Widow
I like how she captured my jaw clenching weirdly, I am a creature.

EFTA NECS #9 Grillz Memorial
Georgetown, ME

“I have seen old Israel's arid plain.
It's magnificent, but so's Maine”

-Jonathan Richman

Last night I had the strangest dream…in the dream I woke up at five in the morning and drove my car up to Maine, out on the peninsula past Bath to Reid State Park, there was mist on the highway , like you’d expect there to be in a dream. It was a beautiful day, I mean absolutely perfect, not beach weather mind you, but sunny and clear about 65° or so, good dream weather. I was driving to a bike race, when I had said good bye to my girlfriend I told her I was going to win (I don’t win many bike races so this was ridiculous) she humored me.
The parking lot for the race was right by the beach, Half Mile Beach and Mile Beach, these were some nice beaches. One reason I knew this was a dream was that I arrived early enough to ride the entire course and warm up, even checking out the hole shot a couple extra times, it was tricky, I’d probably be off the bike doing some ‘cross practice. The course, dream course, dream conditions…sorry, but it’s true. The roots were wet, the mud was rideable, there were lots of tricky moves to make, real mountain biking type stuff, up over slimy rocks, down rooty drops, slippery bridges, then you’d get a slight respite as you spun out (on a single speed anyway) down this nicely graded path before you hit the real craziness along a raised pipeline. A slip and you could easily gore your leg on one of the many pipe fittings. This section was pure upper body and balance, all rocks and roots, with a couple forced run-ups (crossin’ it up baby!) .

This is the way to roll

This dream wasn’t perfect, I’d run out of accelerade, just the type of thing which messes with a geeky racer’s head, I’d be running on Gatorade and flat coke. I balmed up my legs with some mace ointment and went to line up at the start. There were maybe six guys there, then they told us we’d be let out in waves with Open Elite going first, everyone but three other dudes backed up. So it was me CCB Pro (15th at Nats) Matt O’keefe, Andrew Freye (also Pro), and some other guy who looked strong but from what I saw on the warm up lacked the technical skills necessary to really do well at this race. I was gunning for third, the highest spot on the podium I’ve ever reached at one of these things.
Then with thirty seconds to go, Michael Patrick (Pro, 8th at Master’s Worlds, no joke either) comes screaming down the course at us and wips his bike in line. Now it was five of us and I would have to fight for that podium spot, this dream was turning into a nightmare.
The start was slightly uphill so I was able to hang, hopping on Freye’s wheel, they sent us out into the parking lot to break things up before the hole shot, we basically went out and around a barrel and back to where we came, O’keefe’s up there asking us which way to go, I’m not usually at the front of the race, so this banter was surprising, things seemed pretty relaxed. We came blasting into the woods, a gap already opening up behind us. I couldn’t believe the speed O’keefe was going into this stuff at, one minute in and he was opening the gap, Freye was just ten seconds ahead, I was trying to stay locked on him. He’d bobble, I’d gap up, then I’d bobble, he’d gap away, then we hit the dirt road/path section and he opened it right up, this was what I had feared, that section would be my undoing.

I've made a few changes in the latter part of the season, something seems to be working, don't know if it's the Multi-Vitamins or the new Deodorant

There were a couple minutes of light climbing just before the pipeline section, there I was able to close it down on Freye, conscious Thom P. could never do this, but dreamland Thom P. was able to pull it off. A ways into the gnarliness (look it up in your Laird Hamilton dictionary) I was right on Freye’s wheel when he got stopped by something in his path, he let me come around and I was able to open a small gap and extend it to maybe ten seconds by the time we came through the start finish. The roles were reversed but the situation was the same as lap one, gaps opening and closing all the while, there were a couple small, rooty power climbs before the anti-singlespeedy dirt road bit, I drilled them, I wanted to get some air between me and Freye before I got there. But even still just a minute into the pipeline Freye was breathing down my neck, but then I heard the words of Mike Ramponi’s brother in his thick Boston accent “why can’t you just go HAAA-DER!?!”, so I did, dream legs responding very well. So I alternated riding like a Ninja and a Jedi, maybe even using some of my “Gymkata” skills through this section and by the end the gap was bigger than the previous lap.
Lap three I spent alone, just trying to figure some stuff out, real deep stuff like “if there’s tree in the forest and a rider going twenty miles per hour comes by riding in a straight line and whacks the ever-living beejesus out of his shoulder on it, did the tree move or did the rider miscalculate the corner?” This being a dream (yes, we’re still going with that premise, bear with me) it is quite possible that it was an Enchanted Tree or an Ent or something so we may never know, it’s tough when you mix mathematical calculations that sound like lame philosophical questions with delusion and fantasy.
Spectators kept giving me weird gap estimations to O’keefe, “oh ya, like a minute, maybe forty seconds, you’re closing it down”. I thought that he must just be riding as fast as he needed to and not any faster, but as soon as he caught a glimpse of me he’d drop it into warp speed and be gone again, if the gap info was accurate at all. O’keefe has beaten me in the past by as much as fifteen or twenty minutes so I was psyched just to be this close, one flat or mechanical and I’d be on him. I still had the typically late surging Michael Patrick to worry about as well, I expected to see him hauling ass up the dirt road behind me, and Freye was out of sight but still a major threat.
Going into the fourth and final lap, not too far into the first technical part, I can’t believe my eyes, there’s O’keefe sidelined with a flat, he was just pulling the wheel off, I had moved into the the lead, yikes, now what? During the Tour coverage Phil and Paul always talk about how the yellow jersey changes a rider, I felt it in my microcosm of bike racing up in Maine. O’keefe could still catch me, I could flat, crash, or an Asian drug lord could have hidden venomous snakes in my seat tube and spiked my water bottles with pheromones to infuriate them so they’d bite me, anything, and I mean anything I could happen.
But nothing did happen, I did ride myself into the ground by the very end of lap, I was bouncing off everything in my path, breathing like a fat kid running from a serial killer that specializes in killing fat kids exclusively. I came across the line and did what I’d meant to do last Saturday at the end of the short track “BYAAH!”. Then I probably swore, so I apologize if I taught any children something they haven’t already heard from Kanye West or Grand Theft Auto.
Then I pinched myself and woke up, went over to the officials and asked them if I had actually just won the Open Elite race, they told me I had. As I stood there Freye came across the line followed shortly thereafter by Patrick, and then O’Keefe, this was going to be one weird looking result.

I try out the new line of IBC swim wear, it works for the Maine coast

Just to make sure I was awake I went down to the Atlantic Ocean and began wading in, the surf was high, maybe four feet, surfers were surfing, I was in up to my knees, cursing the frigid waters when a wave came in, knocked me right on my ass, then proceeded to drag me out twenty yards, filling my bib shorts with sand and sea robbins (OK fine, no sea robbins). Now I was awake, this whole day hadn’t been a dream, I’d won my first EFTA race and although the field had been small it was pretty stacked, I’d take it damnit.

NORBA Root 66
Landmine Classic Marathon
Hingham, MA

It had cooled down quite a bit since Saturday, it rained during the night, it was now a tolerable 70 or so degrees. On Saturday I’d run a 32 X 16, the biggest gear I’d ever run on the 29, today I was running a 32 X 17, I thought with the virtually flat, technical terrain it might be ideal. Wompatuck completely changes character with the slightest drop of moisture, the roots which you can rail over in the dry become slippery as buttered newts in the wet.
There were a whole lot of folks signed up for the Open Marathon, split into a couple age categories, the toughest guys looked to be Brian Hughes and John Foley, a few other fast dudes opted for the Pro/Semi-Pro race, but with The Vermont 50 looming, I thought this would be an ideal preparation ride at 44 miles, no climbing, but some good saddle time.
From the gun I followed Foley, Hughes, and a Bike Barn rider off the front, by the time we made it to the singletrack we had a decent gap, I was just sitting on Foley’s wheel, waiting to see what moves he would make. I was just happy to be there, like the dude in Breaking Away riding with the Italian riders, I was just waiting for someone to stick a pump in my spokes. The Bike Barn rider pulled away, Hughes right on him, Foley sat tight so I did the same. When we hit the open fire road Foley accelerated away, getting the gap and going clear.
After that I was in no man’s land for a while, trying not to lose motivation on this, the first of two 22 mile laps. There were still all those unknown guys behind me. I’ve been to Wompatuck about five times, all for races, and usually the same race course. People would tell me that there was so much more going on out there than what we got to see on the course. With the 22 mile lap format we were getting to see some of that stuff…and it was good. It had a bunch of whoops, twisty singletrack, super-techy bits, rock gardens, and roots, lots of roots. All that yet surprisingly fast.
I heard someone clacking up behind me, I felt the wind going out of my sails, I was getting caught by a rider from one of the groups that started a minute back. This wasn’t the case, it was Foley, he’d gone slightly off course and he was coming back up to me. This time I was able to hold his pace, even relaxing and recovering in the singletrack a little. We came through the end of the first lap together, grabbed a couple bottle from our coolers and kept on.

As we went up one of the few small “hills” John bobbled on a stone wall, I wrestled my bike past him up and over the top. Now I had the fear, I was running like hell from John, while hopefully chasing down the two ahead. Now I was racing, just riding those trails as hard and fast as I possibly could, it felt good. I’d been fading at some races earlier in the season, this was not my style, I think it had to do with my light miles during July, but after the one-two of the 101 and the 24 I was feeling great. I started hunting the other two, Danzig playing in my head, oh ya kid, you know what I’m talking about! I kept getting weird info on the gaps, three minutes, four minutes, that’s no good. Then I came up on Brian Hughes, he said he was handicapped, and sat up. Still one more ahead… with what I figured was about twenty minutes to go I was still hearing “three minutes”, insurmountable gap for certain.
When I came across the slippery wooden bridge just before the field where the start/finish was I went past my buddy Greg,
he said the leader had just gone through, urgh!
In reality I was a minute down, not sure if I could have closed that down with what little I had left in the tank. The guy who won was John Peterson, he also finished four places ahead of me at Fitchburgh, interesting.
Sorry for the oddly pragmatic report, suppose I’m rushing through it because really wan t to write about the race I did just this morning, check back later for that.

NORBA Root 66 Landmine Classic
Short Track
Hingham, MA

Here I am again, the night before another race and I still have yet to blawg it up about last week’s events, I must break the cycle of procrastination now. Brue and I arrived back in Boston from SSWC, Scotland last Thursday night. Friday we went by Independent Fabrication for a quick tour then shot up to the exotic Middlesex Fells Reservation for a rocky 95° ride. Brue was impressed, the relentless technical was alien to him…I wish he’d been able to ride it in the wet.
Saturday AM we headed down to Wompatuck for the big, crazy short track race and NEMBA Fest. We were running late. The drive into the park dragged on and on, we jumped out of the car, that field was just baking, it had to be a solid 100°, we scrambled to get chamoised up, dashing over to registration, no time for a warm up, crap! The race was delayed…for TWO HOURS. Brue had to be at Logan and on a plane at 6, with the 1 O’clock start time this was doable, now it was looking just plain stupid. I called Miriam my “Rick” (like Magnum’s buddy who always called in one last mob favor, c’mon, you remember) she did some quick calculations, checked flight status, and told me it was just barely reasonable, any contingency and we were sunk.
While we waited we went over and saw Mark And Bill at the Trek/Fisher demo truck, we took out a couple bikes. We’d do a quick loop of the short track course then sit in the shade and pant for a bit. The new 69er geared hard tail is pretty sweet as is the Hi-Fi 29er, that thing is like driving a skidder through the woods, just crush everything in your path, amazing. They didn’t have the new Rig, I’m itching to see what if feels like with the G2 Geometry and Fox F-29, guess I’ll have to wait until I get mine in December, that fleshtone color scheme ain’t too shabby either.
Finally it was time to roll, I was so glad that I’d downed a bottle of pedialyte the night before, it was bound to save my ass. No one was at the start line…the race had been delayed again, this time twenty minutes, contingency number one. We lined up, me and two other Semi-Pros, Brue and Paul Curley making up the Expert Single Speed class, and a bunch of Experts in rows behind us, no head start for the foxes, the hounds would be breathing right down our necks from the gun. Brue didn’t know what it meant that he was racing against Curley, I tried to explain, told him whatever he did not to pass Paul on the outside of a corner, unless he wanted to eat some dirt.
A moment of inattention and the race was off, me with my feet both planted flatly on the ground, Brue took the hole shot! Paul was right on him, like the pit bull he is, I muscled into 3rd as we took the first few pine needly corners. I passed Paul in the field pushing 32 X 16 on the 29” wheels, Paul in a mere 32 X 18 on a 26er. Brue hit the singletrack first, there was no opportunity to pass in there so I just sat on him throwing encouragement forward, when we hit the pavement I shot past telling him to grab my wheel. He was only pushing a 34 X 18 so a gap opened before I got to the one little climb on the course.
For the first couple laps my lead was just a few seconds, but every corner gave me a bit more space. Soon the chase group had changed it’s face, behind me, all I saw was a white goatee bearing down on me, later I realized that this was Stuart Jensen, one of the baddest Masters around. Soon we were ten minutes into a twenty five minute race, fifteen minutes to go…you can do anything for fifteen minutes right? It was hot, my head felt like a tomato and it was all tingly. I kept it floored, trying my best to ride like a ninja, threading through the rocky corners as smoothly as I could.
At the end of the twenty five minutes I had a decent gap, I rolled across the line, performing some lame version of a victory salute, what an ass, the first time I win a race with enough space to do something goofy and I blow it. In retrospect I would have liked to have done a little Chapelle “BYAAH!” across the line.
There was no time to wait around for podiums and kiss girls, I had to get buddy Brue to the plane. It was close (especially when I had to pass a lethargic RV in the ditch while exiting the park) I lied to him the whole way about how golden we were, we made it, but at no time was the pressure off…life imitates bike racing.

SSWC 2007 Aviemore Scotland

SSWC 2007 Gallery


Riding in Circles Around Trees

Where to begin, if I begin at the beginning this will just take way too long so I’ll fast forward through to the middle part, the racing part…with only the vaguest of details provided for anything else. In fact I’m going to sum up everything that happened prior to the race weekend in one insanely long run on sentence, here goes.
My buddy Brue flew in from Cali Wednesday AM, lame tour of town was given, got back on plane, flew to Glasgow via Iceland, Glasgow much nicer than we’d both been told, lovely place, spent the night at cousin Pam Hall’s house in Mearnskirk, beautiful place, slept eleven hours, set out for Edinburgh, missed two trains, arrived in Edinburgh, met another cousin Jennifer at her café, very cool (she gave me the title for this post), spent the night in town, amazing place, headed up to Aviemore by train the following day, met some single speeders on the train one turned out to be Jenn Hopkins, one of the fastest ladies in the U.K. (she didn’t let on), arrived in Aviemore with no place to to stay and no plan whatsoever, no worries within ten minutes we had booked rooms at The Bunkhouse for Friday and Sunday, Saturday we’d still have to work out, within twenty minutes we were chamoised up and in our silly suits tagging along on a big group ride…alright I’ll slow down now.
Leading the ride was Deejay Birtch, a familiar face from the states, he’d been out on a ride with some folks the day before and was confident he could find his was around. We ended up getting lost but like Burt Reynolds said in Deliverance “Sometimes you have to lose yourself before you can find anything” and that’s some good screenwriting. It was a nice way to begin meeting people, all that waiting, it also provided an opportunity to take in the scenery and feed the Midges (with our blood). It was also chance to begin using our bad Scottish accents, making American Werewolf in London references; “stay off the moors…stay on the road”. We made it out alive, the trails were looking good, and it was time for our first trip of many to Café Mambo.
The Single Speeders were not the only rabble rousing knuckleheads in town that weekend. When I booked our room at The Bunk House the woman warned that it would be noisy because of the “big event”. “Oh, you mean Single Speed Worlds?” “No The Big Splash”. This was Aviemore’s annual festival, it entails jumping anything from Kayaks, to skis, to shopping carts off a huge wooden ramp into the river while the locals get sotted and rock out to bad cover bands. So when I came out of Mambo two kids from Colorado came up and told me that a group of drunk local kids had tried to carry my bike away, but the wheel was locked to the frame so they had to drag it clumsily down the sidewalk. There were fifty singlespeeders out front of the pub so it didn’t much more than friendly suggestion to dissuade them from their criminal master plan. Shortly after I got back to the Bunk house I got up to use the bathroom, only problem with that was that I wasn’t awake, I didn’t wake up until I was in the stairwell. Took me a second to figure out where I was and get back to my room, Dan from Tucson let me in…he was certain I had used the hall way as a toilette…not this time anyway.
Saturday we did another group ride, saw some of the same stuff, some different, when we got back to Bothy Bikes the Rollapaluza guys were there with their roller race rigs. Brue and Hopped up and up some good times. We knew this had something to do with the venue selection process for next year but we knew it would involve more than what we saw.
Rollapaluza


That night the party started at Café Mambo and eventually moved over to The Vault.
Things started out pretty lame, the music was awful, the place was empty but within a couple hours it was jumpin’. The last thing I remember from the Vault was moshing to Motorhead, next thing I knew I was eating bad gas station sandwiches, listening to sotted locals threaten each other “Aye, c’mere, I’m gonna put yer arse up my FIST!”, and talking to Chris from Ontario about his work as a human shield. After that I met some kids from Aberdeen, they took me to their illegal tent city and we had a few more beers and I learned about “Wiggly Wigs”. I still don’t know what it means, I may never know. The plan was to leave the room key (in actuality a high tech room card) on the ground outside the hotel room window. I made a few passes around the building, nothing, I crawled around the building sifting through the grass with my hands, it was getting cold, the dew was so thick it was like rain, I tried to figure out exactly which room was mine, I though I’d have to pound on the window to get in. As I tried to work this out I saw the room card…stuck to the window with a sticker. But my ordeal was not over, when I got inside it was pitch black, there had been some discussion on reconfiguring the beds to accommodate three (they were two small singles) I wasn’t sure about how Dan and Brue were oriented and to make any lights work you had to insert the room card into the slot…which I couldn’t find to save my life. Ultimately Brue became fed up with my blind crashing and turned the lights on, it was now 4AM, awesome.
Three hours later I woke up, not sober, ate a Clif bar, drank half a cup of instant crap coffee, and looked down at my still full water bottle from the night before, not good. We were down at Bothy bikes shortly, and what would become an hour and a half roll out began. Probably should have eaten more, oops. We came to a stop, and threw or bags and jackets on a large blue tarp and the racer meeting began, all I remember “First rool, eef yew don wan theh tah-tew, don feckin’ win!”. Translation “if you don’t want the tattoo, don’t win”. In case you didn’t know the winner of SSWC gets a mandatory tattoo.
We cruised up the fire road a ways for the Lemans start, I was in mid-conversation with Matt and Jimbo from Nittany Wheelworks when the race went off, I just tried to finish the run without breaking my damn ankles. When I came to the piles of bikes I started yelling “has anyone seen a black Fisher Rig? It’s black and it’s a Fisher, it says Fisher on it” this didn’t help. I was way off the back already, surprisingly so was Adam Craig, he came blazing up behind me in his crazy get up, I drafted up him until the hill, where he pulled away from me with his slow cadence, moving deceptively fast with his enormous gear. I made up some spots on the climb and began to see some familiar people as I got into the singletrack.
My first impression was that this course was way more dangerous than your average XC course, I liked it. There were drops, really technical uphills, wet roots everywhere, all sorts of caziness. I might forget to say it later so I’ll say it now, this was one of the best courses if not the best course I’ve ever seen, absolutely amazing. By the second lap I was already cramping and I was almost out of water, I came through the start finish begging for water, nothing, beer, whiskey, no water. The climb was feeling bad, but I couldn’t wait to get back into those trails, question was, when would I get lapped by Craig?

Go HERE for more photos of SSWC 2007 from Simond Barnes

The whole thing was kind of a blur, at various points I was riding with Shaggy a super-fast Brit, Matt Ferrari, and Deejay Birtch, eventually I was with just Shaggy, he was leading when his bike went Ping! I came around him and I guess he subsequently flatted. After that I saw no one except Matt, a young Welshman, he was pushing a huge gear and somehow not slipping on the root fields. I caught a glimpse of the end of the top ten, but I couldn’t close it down, my legs were freaking out. Third lap I took a beer feed, then a woman handed me a bottle of orange Urn Bru, orange soda I think, I drank it gladly.

On the fifth lap as I came up the last little rise my legs cramped in multiple places simultaneously, I was given a slight push to the line, coming across with my legs locked solid. I had to be helped off my bike and put in a seated position. A second later I was told I had to move because more riders were coming in, I lifted my butt off the ground like a paraplegic and shimmied my way off to the side.
Only the top five spots were really recorded but by all accounts I was 11th (yeah! Top 11) on the bike. Later at the award ceremony I was given the Rockstar Award because of my exploits the night prior to the race and the fact that I wasn’t lapped by Adam Craig. They gave out a separate award fro the dude who simply got the most hammered, that guy was still asleep as the awards went off…he slept through the race, now that’s dedication.
After the race I wolfed a massive amount of Fish And Chips, took a dive while riding down a flight of stairs which nearly put me in the ER, and had a small nap.
That night the Vault went off again then spilled out into a derby, a drunk spectator walked straight into me before it even began so I hopped back in until I got properly knocked off. After that it was on to the skidding contest where it was all fun and games until a guy on a borrowed bike didn’t realize the brakes were set up U.K. style, so he grabbed a fistful of front brake as he threw all his weight over the bars, ending in a terrifying face slide. He walked it off but I have feeling dude must have had to make a trip to the hospital later on.
That’s about it for SSWC 2007 details, I could go on about all the silly tourist stuff, but I’ll just stop here, thanks for reading.
Thanks to Pam and Ian Hall for everything, Jennifer Robertson for dinner and laughs, Dan from Tucson for the Hotel hook up, and to all the folks that put this event together.