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I last raced in Bromont, Quebec in September of 1998. It was my first event as a member of the US National Team and my first World Cup competition, albeit as a seventeen-year-old junior. I remember starting hard, riding fast against the “Euros” on super fun trails and eventually getting a flat tire to finish lucky thirteenth or so. I was hoping for the same thing this year, minus the overindulgent riding resulting in a puncture… The trails, upon initial inspection, weren’t as super fun this year, but they ended up being entertaining in a kind of sadistic way during the race. It must have been the morning rain and resulting shit-storm conditions… I’m glad I wasn’t a bike in said conditions, they got THRASHED! Mine somehow worked mint though. Thanks, Neb… Everyone started hard, like always, but I decided to take a page from the (recently successful) Carl Decker playbook and ease into things. I reckoned it was going to be a hard day at the office and there’d be a Euro or forty struggling later in the race. Turned out it only took me a lap to ride from 15th into 4th, then a couple more to climb up to Jose Antonio Hermida’s wheel before passing him in the most challenging kilometer of a world cup race this season, maybe ever… Kilometer 3-4 of the race traversed a hillside in classic ad-lib east coast style. A trail that’s been there for ages yet never really was “built”, just kind of cut and ridden in. The kind of trail I grew up riding, although with a little more mud and a little more hilariously bad line selections the norm… My shiny new Anthem X gave me the strength to put this section together with less wasted energy than the average fellow, but I was surprised to dispatch Hermida here, that guy knows how to ride. After that it was a solo TT with Absalon up front riding away and Lukas Flukinginger dangling a minute or two up, depending on who’d screwed up less recently. Geoff Kabush was gaining on me with two to go but instead of getting caught by him I actually turned the tables and opened the gap, surprising and definitely a good sign of things to come. Third place for me. Actually ON the World Cup Podium with an oversized medal to boot! And, thanks to Carl and Hannes Metzler’s 13th and 18th place finishes, an overall victory in the World Cup Team competition for the Giant MTB team. Even though Athleticum went up on the podium for it due to a clerical error… Good moral victory for us, and Elke was spared standing in the “Triage Room” while two more skinny bike riders cleaned an amazing amount of mud off in an attempt to be presentable on the podium… Maybe we’ll make a habit of this someday. And maybe Kelli will make a habit of parking the van in appropriate locations someday too… You never know what might happen down the road, or driveway… Now, onto new frontiers. The kind on the other side of the Date Line. I’m in Korea. On the Island of Jeju, off the Southern Coast, to be specific. It’s HOT! Which is the whole point, get to this side of the planet and into some sticky climate to prepare for the aspects of Beijing we have the ability to target and avoid riding our bikes in a fairly huge city for ten days before the biggest race of our lives. The entire US MTB Team is here, Mary Mac, Georgia Gould and T Wells, complimented by South African stowaway Burry Stander and our favorite hardman Mike Broderick. We’ve rented a few condos at the “Jazz Village” (where they play BB King on the projector every evening) about two kilometers from the southern coast of the Island and 20k from the central volcano. It’s working out pretty awesome. Relaxing and riding bikes. To the beach. With some delicious Elke-prepared and Gully-grilled food in between… We’re all pretty pumped to be here with all the tools we need to get rested up for success at the Big Race in China next Friday and Saturday. We’ll head over to Beijing a few days before our event to check out the course and have some Olympic experience, then race our faces off at 3pm on the 22nd for the ladies and 23rd for us boys. After that it’s the Closing Ceremonies and some proper taking it all in. Can’t wait. Brick too this photo of me on the future of scooter technology during our (sweet) ride up onto the flanks of the Volcano today. This advancement in technology allows you to implement unheard of amounts body English without ever having to leave the parking lot. It appears that cornering at a speed above about seven m.p.h. would result in an entirely different kind of body English though… Scary. Here’s some homework I found on the internet, an article in the local Maine newspaper, a Mountain Bike mag web article, with some Video of the Bromont race embedded, the Giant Bicycles Olympic website and a PBS news hour piece with yours truly commenting on the Beijing situation. Check it out… Thanks for reading, hopefully you’ll be reading about more surprisingly good stuff next weekend. Things are right on track… http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=168134&zoneid=500 http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s1-6-12-17695-1,00.html http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-US/beijing_olympics/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/share.html?s=news01ne87q31c
As I write this I’m neither in a hotel room nor on a plane. I’m in a location that is quite the opposite of those I’ve frequented for the last five months, a location quite the opposite of most locations, in fact. Beside Lake Chesuncook in Maine’s Great North Woods sits a small camp belonging to two very close friends of mine. John and Carol Frachella. I’ve been coming to this camp for almost ten years now to have breakfast or just meet up with the boys for a run down the West Branch of the Penobscot River. Tomorrow morning will be just like so many others, HI and Peter will show up at 9ish to chat and get ready for a day on the river. We’ll head down to Big Eddy and set shuttle before walking down into the Ripogenous Gorge and floating off into classic whitewater. I’ll have earned this run down the Gorge and Crib by floating the two upstream whitewater stretches of the Penobscot (Canada Falls and Seboomok) today on my way down from Quebec. Sometimes it’s good to do things in sequence… This kind of familiarity and order of things was embraced this weekend at the annual Mont Saint Anne World Cup as well. It’s really nice to have this time of the summer to get back to my roots in the midst of all the excitement. It’s also really nice to have legs and mind in good working order twenty-six days before the big race in China. After a nice, albeit brief, week spent at home in Maine catching up with friends, family, trails and the local media, I did the once a year solo drive up through Jackman to Quebec on Friday. Normally a bit more than a day’s prep is preferred for a World Cup race but I feel like I’ve got the drill down at this point in the season… Immediately upon my arrival our DH mechanic, Joe, told me that Carl reckons they’d “smartened up” the sections of the great old course that had been “dumbed down” in recent years. And it rained. Perfect. A glorious massage and some Smartened Up riding on Saturday was all I needed to be ready to roll on Sunday at 2pm. Carl and Kelli were ready too, mostly so they had something to do after hanging out in Quebexico all week… We were going to have the Fun Team Challenge again this weekend. Them on hardtails and mud tires hoping to climb fast and take chances and me on the bike with full shocks and dry tires hoping to sag the climbs and get all freaky on some euros in the thought provoking bits. I’m always interested to see how these little ideological challenges turn out… Turns out mud tires and hardtails are a good combo for punctures… Shoot. Dry tires and shocks are a good combo for biding your time somewhere in the top 10 until two laps to go, then watching your rabbits (on the same setup as Decker and Emmett) crack, crash and flat their way out of contention. At least a few of them. Three guys still were faster and kept it together… I ended up riding faster laps as the race progressed and finished fourth, a long ways behind a resurgent Julien Absalon but still in front of some legit fellows. It’s always good to ride fast, even more so when it happens to be such fun and such proper mountain biking. Post race and post podium I took Paul Thomasberg out for a “cool down” on some of St. Anne’s finest singletrack. We got muddy (again) and had a real good time (again)… Have I mentioned I like it here on the east coast? All the finer things in summer life, including Whoopie Pies… Next week, more right coast glory in Bromont, Quebec, bringing things full circle to the first World Cup of my career in 1998. It usually takes things ten years to fully mature, right? I suppose it was ten years ago this summer that I first floated through Big Eddy rapid with Josh too… Hmmm, could a good sign of things to come. Thanks to Colin Maegher over at www.inmotionphoto.com for proof of what really happens on World Cup Podiums… And in the deep, dark forests of Quebexico…
Over the last year I’ve been working on a variety of bike development projects for Giant. One in particular had a definite (personal) goal from day one. Ultimate Vermont Domination. The Anthem X is an updated Anthem frame utilizing the Co-Pivot design, rendered in good ol’ aluminum, to provide four inches of Maestro suspension. With the combination of extra travel and a touch slacker angles than those found on the razor sharp Anthem Advanced, you can take the irresponsibility of your (cross country race) riding to a whole new level. We were able to commandeer one of the recently arrived Anthem X demo bikes, strip it and have a suberb last minute build courtesy of our head mechanic, Tom Neb. Thanks, Tom. Now it’s time for UVD… There was a bit of contention as riders went out on their respective Recce missions over the course of the week. The course was a bit, um, different. In the same spirit, but, well, just not the same. Gone was a super fun opening loop singletrack, replaced by a (gasp) fire road descent… Also gone was the first five minutes of super techy steep proper east coast singletrack climbing to get the big loop party started. Fortunately, a whole bunch of other all-time trails remained and it would still be a good proper mountain bike race. Albeit one that your average 50+ Sport Class rider could survive. I guess that’s OK, we want everyone to have a good time, and my idea of a good time is a big skewed… Some of the Right Coast purists were a bit miffed though… The lack of a proper singletrack on the start loop meant I got to ride the first climb with Ryan Trebron instead of him crashing out in the first few minutes… We had figured out that Ryan would need at least a minute gap over the top to keep me from running over (under?) him on the descent… I decided not to find out and had a small gap on him as we crested. ProPedal off and time to roost things. After some UVD bike railing of perfect singletrack and a few steep intermediate climbs I finished lap one. The look back didn’t produce any chaser sightings so I put my head down and rode fast. A lap later still no chasers. More riding fast. Then I saw Carl starting the first loop as I started the second. We tried to high five across the tape and fortunately failed, sparing us both crashing into the tape and losing our races… He was sticking to his guns and passing guys on the climbs between surviving the awesome bits on the XTC SL hardtail… Boring, but effective. Carl ended up fourth on the day and I kept things fast enough for a comfortable win. Good thing I didn’t get beat, keeping the Jersey at the Best Race Ever feels way better than losing it… Now I can comfortably give the local Maine boys some hilarious Captain America skinsuits so our Wednesday Night Bog rides can be hilarious in addition to fast and shockingly fun. I love those Maine trails… Somehow I convinced myself that riding my TenSpeed as a cooldown wasn’t the antithesis of proper Vermont racing (and good training for that Chinese race), but I was nervous for the Karma ramifications in Sunday morning’s Super D contest. If my Reign found out that I’d been tenspeeding the night before it might buck me off on the first pitch… Fortunately, we have photographic proof of this not happening. And of me at least being in front of a few guys after the 100m uphill run at the start… Once I got around Harlan Price, who was riding impressively fast (LOOSE) on his 29er hardtail I had the pleasure of being on the wheel of Rad Ross Schnell (recent Downieville Downhill winner and course record setter). Ross is, for lack of a less cheesy phrase, the Sultan of Smooth. We kept things smooth and fun until they had to get really hard. There was a 30 second fireroad climb where we’d have to pass a couple guys to get into the lead. We pedaled REALLY hard and just barely made it happen. Some ski slope bombing, some awesome proper woods trail riding and more bombing brought Rad and I into the finish, 1-2. So, if I had a GPS on my bike I could plot my Vermont race on Ross’ (nonexistent because he’s not a whiny NorCal chach) Downieville GPS and both of us would have beaten Weir there… Even though he flatted. Which is his fault and therefore irrelevant. But enough of that, we rode fast and had fun, high fives at the finish for everyone. Ross will have to wait till next year and home (Colorado) turf to end my SD Title streak at Five… I can’t wait. Carl and Kelli are kind of smart. Instead of getting up at seven to race the funnest race of the weekend they slept in so they could ride fast in arguably the least fun race of the weekend. Too bad everyone takes Short Track so seriously. I guess I do too… Carl and I thought our 1-4 in the XC made us the team to beat in the Short Race. On paper, we were right. Too bad we’re way too retarded to actually capitalize on that. When Bishop rolled off the front with 4 laps to go we didn’t think much of it. I drove the chase for a couple laps and didn’t accomplish much but keeping him dangling at about 8 seconds. I did accomplish making my fellow chasers tired enough so they couldn’t help. Oh well, Jeremiah won and I totally set Carl up to get 3rd, flawless last lap leadout… Not really, but hey… So, with my paltry 5th and Kelli's solid fourth in the ladies race we could have some kind of cheesy Giant Mountain Bike Team pep rally cheer, "Fifth, Fourth, Third, we're moving on up..." Good thing there aren't pep rallies a bike races... Some fun trail riding in the Sherwood Forest eased the pain on missing out on the triple, on account of the Short Track, for the second year in a row. I’ll take the fun races… A week in Maine and a race in Quebec coming right up. This is why I keep coming back… Thanks for reading, and to everyone who made another year of wearing obnoxious skinsuits possible… Tom Moran really does take the best Finish Line Wheelie shots… Thanks, Tom, here’s to another year in Vermont.
I don’t usually talk about racing proper in this little forum. I’m going to have to make an exception here, sorry… Pretty much from the moment the freshly constructed Cross Country course used it’s awesomeness to trick Carl into riding an unintentional lap in the dark on Thursday evening we knew it was going to be a good weekend. Even if we were both a little puffed out from doing a bunch of Oxygen Assisted intervals at the Rebound Sports Performance Lab earlier in the week at home… The XC race started with the usual fervor, which I deserved for taking the piss night before on the topic of National Series start intensity. I got gapped on “Alpe d’ Huez” (that’s right, whichever stoked local built each trail section got to name it) as punishment for saying domestic starts are nothing compared to world cups… Eventually I caught Carl and the leaders as we wound our way up the (perfectly broken up by fun little descents and traverses) slopes of Windham Mountain. Somehow the fact that we ended up climbing fireroads sometimes in there wasn’t a problem at all since we were so entertained otherwise. And we knew that there was a pretty perfect descent awaiting our undivided attention. I was able to use the big ring challenge to simultaneously pass the remainders of the lead group and build huge muscles for that Chinese race coming up. This also meant I got to roost the pleasantly long descent alone and off the front. Full Suspension bikes are awesome. Lap two I continued to ride alone, but at the start of the third a Trek Team rider joined me and pushed the pace. I let him. After more downhill awesomeness we came back together at the start of the fourth and final lap, thinking it would be a two-man battle. But then, out of the dust came Mathieu Toulouse. I actually said out loud, upon noticing him a switchback below “holy crap, its Matt Toulouse!” Jeremiah and I upped the pace a bit but he kept coming, joining us on the last climb of the day and opening a small gap with a solid surge. Impressive. I did my best to respond and started the descent about 50 meters back. I like riding downhill fast, but Matt is from Canada, so he does too. We took chances and pedaled wherever we could as I slowly closed the gap. Contact was made with about 500m to go. The finish chute wasn’t exactly sprint worthy, but was exactly lined with rabid fans. Toulouse kind of slid out in the last sweeping turn, giving me the inside which I accepted and charged up but the finish was just too close, he stayed ahead by approximately the width of three tires. Not wheels, tires… Carl had the foresight to remove himself from the race early due to the aforementioned puffed-out-edness and so that he could observe his teammate getting yet another sprinting lesson. Whew, that was a lot of race description. I’m glad it was such an exciting race though, the local crew that put this thing on deserved a good show for their kick-off party. Windham Mountain has long been a New York City skiing destination and last summer the local mountain bike community convinced them that it could be a summer Mountain Bike hot spot as well, with a little work, of course… The resort was selected in the fall of 07 to host the “East Coast National” this summer and the GM immediately gave the local crew permission to flag out the courses before the snow started to fly. Ground was broken after the snow had flown all winter and melted off, sometime in April. This “not enough time” scenario plays out all the time with race venues, usually resulting in courses that seem to be an afterthought, just thrown together. Not so here. Every inch of each and every course, Super D, Slalom, Downhilll, Cross Country was manicured in some way or another. Beautifully benched in rolling grade singletrack with problem solving ladder bridges and hand placed rocks to link sections that would be unridable was the norm on the XC track. The gravity courses weren’t the usual fall line skid, they had great flow and were built with an eye toward sustainability. Good stuff overall, thanks, people who live and ride in the Catskills. OK, more racing action. The short track was a barn-burner as well. Carl held things down for Team Giant at the front until I could get myself together and up into the mix. Once that happened Carl started riding on the front and trying to break things apart on a course where they just weren’t going to. I played the “smart guy” card and sat on. Smart guy looks a lot like “tired guy”… The fireworks started with two laps to go. Bishop and Wells rode off the front while Ryan Trebron uncharacteristically open a gap to them. This put him and Carl in trouble while I set off to pedal down some bumpy ski slope on the Anthem and try to close the three second gap. It didn’t happen, Wells won, I was third, Decker fifth. We like to flank the podium rather than stand on top of it all the time… Here at Team Giant we try to give back to the local bike riding community here and there. Usually this just involves doing wheelies up to the start line. Sometimes, though, we go above and beyond the call of duty… Windham Mountain Outfitters, the local Giant Dealer, set up a “Night with Team Giant” at their store on Friday night. Sometimes these types of shop visits are sparsely attended. Whoever is there is always stoked, but sometimes it’s just the guy on the clock… Nick, the owner of WMO, and general Windham MTB crew ringleader, had the foresight to place a local radio ad in addition to telling all his buddies. This meant that after we were done tuning up our race bikes we got to spend a couple hours eating delicious hors’d’oveurs from the local Italian Deli and bench racing with about 75 enthusiastic locals. It was a very impressive welcome to the valley and very indicative of the stoke level we would continue to encounter all weekend. Tons of kids, tons of parents, tons of random bike riders who just wanted to hang out. This is the kind of thing that gives me faith in Mountain Biking. People like those who came out for this event will keep this sport going the small towns that make up the soul of our sport forever. Thanks. And a bunch of those people were fired up to race Super D. That’s because it’s the most fun racing you can fit into ten minutes. Once again, the course was SPOT ON! The LeMans start wasn’t even that long a run, I totally got on my bike in front of Carl and soon passed the holeshot king downhillers in the first minute of false flat traversing. I had a little lead on some people who were making very “people-like” noises behind me as we dropped into the first rocky doubletrack descent. I would have liked to look back and see who they were and if they were gaining, but I would have crashed and died. More traversing took us to another steep rocky track, this one pretty much pinballing over perfectly moistened flagstone. More noise behind me, this time more like a bull in a china shop. Then out onto a ski run for a quick game of “who will brake latest into this huge dreamy berm?”… Dreamy berm flung us into the woods (where I ATE SHIT about 30 minutes prior in practice, funny how rain makes rocks slick…) and the ensuing seven minutes of railing absolutely perfect singletrack. Steep at times, flowing at times, always awesome. A couple little climbs to work on my Beijing Punch and we were railing Super G radius turns on the ski slopes toward the finish. I’d finally identified the infamous Sam Koerber about five seconds behind me, still making noise. We crossed the line like that. Always good to get a win on the weekend, especially if it’s in the “mountain biking” event. Carl was 5th on a Trance X we stole from a gracious Team Devo member, Greg… Well, that’s all the racing and local stoke that’s fit to dish, but there is one more notable event that happened this weekend… My usual M.O. on the East Coast, where I grew up and have driven around A LOT, is to just kind of put it on autopilot when we’re driving around. Deep down, I know where to go. Well, somehow, Albany, New York isn’t one of the places I’ve driven through enough to know how to stay on I 87 North… About an hour after passing Albany, something just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was the fact that we were on I 90 going west towards Buffalo. Oops. We exited immediately in Little Falls where a Gas Station Attendant told us the “back way” to Saratoga Springs, where I had spent some time hanging out. After looking at a map to confirm this we determined that there was a much spicier route through the southern end of the Adirondick Park. Instead of buying said $4.00 map we just memorized the route and proceeded into the hills… Directly onto one of the top five Rally roads we’ve ever encountered. It was all time. Rain packed sand over endless flowing crests and bends. For about twenty miles. Another 45 min of driving nice north country pavement had us back on course at the Crown Point bridge over Lake Champlain and back into Vermont. Carl didn’t see Champ, Vermont’s version of the Loch Ness Monster, though. So far he’s 0 for 2 on lake monster sightings… Next up, the Best Race Ever. US National Champs at Mount Snow Vermont. Awesome.
A very important part of my preparation took place on Friday… I’ve been out of the country on Independence Day for about nine years in a row now. But not this year… Fortunately, there was the impromptu “Freedom Ride” through downtown Bend in the afternoon to provide that group ride atmosphere that is so valuable for precise training efforts. The “group” was oddly clad and four or five hundred strong. The workout I was focused on for the afternoon was balancing the esteemed Hailey Foster’s Tandem Cruiser whilst traveling at 0.5mph, very important practice for the inevitable first turn bottlenecks… Eventually the ride made its way to Columbia park where all kinds of bridge jumping, music listening, river floating, socializing and refreshing beverage consumption was taking place... From there things are a bit of a blur, but I can definitely say that it’s good to be home on the Fourth… People with fireworks in the desert (tinder box) didn’t even start any fires… Anyway, here’s hoping everyone had a quality holiday weekend and it has you as refreshed and ready for the remainder of summer as me… Some photos from the (extremely safe) afternoon are below, in addition to this link to a story the local news station did about going to the Olympics and riding bikes on the trails down the street from my house… http://www.ktvz.com/Global/category.asp?C=98358&nav=menu578_1 Here’s Carl’s report on the Park City NMBS race from last weekend, good reading… The jig is up. I've been enjoying unprecedented time at home this June, and crappy weather notwithstanding, it's been really nice. While the rest of the Giant team has been in europe, dealing with the inevitable Grade A struggling that that involves, I've been here in Bend, with lots of time between naps and bike rides to do whatever I please. Since napping pleases me, I've been doing a lot of that, in particular. While awake, I've been learning how to jump my STP at the "Lair" (a jump park near my house that sounds like "the layer" when the little jump grommets pronounce it). And I've been to Oarkridge and Hood River to do shuttle runs with my new Reign X fro-riding bike. I've finally worn out the rear Michelin on my KTM street bike, exploring parts of Oregon I've never seen. And I've spent some quality time in the garage, tearing apart a prematurely totalled Subaru STI, so that it's heart and lungs might live again in the trusty Wheels of Teal. It's been kinda nice having a June at home. But now it's time to get racing. Sunday was the usual double-header with an afternoon short-track followed by the last event of the weekend, the Super D. I felt good about my chances in the ST. The course had a few tricky corners and my legs were feeling good. The Super D was looking to be a little more than I'd bargained for though. Amiel (who just came 19th at the DH World Champs) said he might ride his full-tilt DH Team for the Super D race, and that a bunch of other fast buggers were joining the fray, as the course was "more fun" than the proper DH course.
I remembered that half of the Foster Family, arguably the Funnest Family in Bend, was going to be on a loosely planned European Vacation in June. I dropped them a line to see what they were up to, figuring that Hailey and Judy would make an ideal “Wife” and “Mother-in-law” to get in on a free trip to Prague from Italy and take in some culture… I met up with them at the Worlds and after a very lame attempt at a Super Worlds After Party we set off in a generally Northeast direction… This meant taking the train south out of the mountains to Trento first. I figured we’d take the train to the German Border, hire a car, then tour through the Austrian Alps before heading up to Czech. We got our train tickets and some ice cream to battle the 100-degree heat and loaded the High Speed train to Rosenheim. Or did we? Nope, we didn’t, you see, you can’t take a bike on the high-speed train. And the greasy Italian train pimp wouldn’t budge on the company line. I couldn’t put it in the back car (as I’ve done before) or take the wheels off and stow it above our cabin. Nope, we weren’t getting on that train. To get to Germany any other way we would have to take a series of local trains, which are all slow and would take a lot of ice cream and Lemoncello to make the hot transfers tolerable… And would leave us in Germany after Europcar closed… So we just grabbed a car in Trento (for a hefty international drop-off fee) and headed for the Grossglockner. Bingo, immediate Automotive freedom, which I still hold close to heart, even in this day and age… I’ve always wanted to drive over the Grossglockner. Constructed by the Austrains before the Wars as a state labor project and with a projected use as an auto-racing course, it’s intrigued me ever since Carl and I got turned back by early snow on our bikes about five years ago. A pleasant evening in a small Austrian hotel on the edge of the Dolomites, during which I got to watch both a fantastic lightning storm over the craggy peaks and the Foster Family work through a classic Austrian dish of Weinerschnitzel had us rested up and (at least me) stoked to tackle the Grossglockner in our Fiat Punto… We drove to the Franz Joseph Haus, which overlooks one of the largest Glaciers in the Alps. It used to be a lot bigger. Like ice up to where we were standing just 150 years ago. Impressive receding amidst a still very impressive landscape. Starting up the pass proper I heard the unmistakable crack and pop of high-RPM V8 Supercar throttle being blipped on a downshift. I looked around the bend in time to see a Ferrari F-430 being driven at full tilt with a Lambroghini Gallardo hot on it’s heels. It was an assaulting experience. I immediately started givin’ the Punto the Corn… Judy was amused in the back seat and Hailey giggled up front as we did our best to wring the little Punto’s neck and get rid of some tire sidewall the rest of the way up the pass… More beautiful vistas and a very entertaining descent into the Zell am See valley hot on the heels of a couple on a Motorcycle. A day of motoring off to a good start. We had a quick, nutritious, delicious lunch in the most beautiful truck stop I’ve ever been to and continued north toward Czech on the Autobahn. A few hours and a whole bunch of quaint rolling hills later we were following the river through downtown Prague with a pair of tourist maps looking for our Hotel Questenberk. We got to its address, just up the hill from The Castle, on the first try, but couldn’t find the place. It wouldn’t have occurred to us to look upstairs at a building that looked like an old church… Which we parked 100 meters from. Eventually a local barman pointed us across the street and we were there… Which happens to be where we already were. Nice place. Nice view. Even nicer at night after a thunderstorm with a rising half moon. A nice dinner with the race organizer, Robert, and some of the other World Cup riders who were attending and we hit the sack. Long, great, day. Wednesday morning we woke earlyish, as we had an appoinment to meet the Mayor of Prague at the Old Town Hall. Turns out the fellow is a bike rider, and his mom lives in Seattle. We got a tour of the original Town Hall chambers that were used in the 17th through 19th centuries and the Astrological Clock tower. Interesting stuff. Eventually the six o-clock race rolled around and we moseyed down to the course to check out these stairs. Turns out there are a lot and you can go scarily fast down them. And the climb back up isn’t exactly a road climb… All ancient cobbles and STEEP in places, this race would be no hour in the park. Us World Cup guys figured we’d ease into things and let the local boys have a go for the first bit of the race, then set about seeing who the fastest guy up the hill and down the stairs was. Turns out the local guys were making a good case for that title overall… I rode just off the leaders for most of the race, keen too keep it clean (by that I mean I’m scared of riding fast down stairs with a bunch of random dudes). The skies had been threatening rain, but Romans and Robert promised it would hold off. It did. Until about 40 minutes in when all hell broke loose. I haven’t seen a cloudburst like that in a while, crazy winds, flooded streets, almost complete darkness. Awesome. Except there are few surfaces slicker than stones worn by hundreds of years of foot traffic. Ice. On Stairs and in Alley. They gave us the “One to Go” sign as soon at the skies opened and we all tiptoed around another circuit. I saw the group sprint it out, someone won, nobody died. Perfect. We all huddled in the VIP tent and imbibed some delicious Czech Pilsner while the rain pounded down. The sun came back out for our walk to dinner, casting a perfect twilight glow over the Golden City. Not a bad end to a sweet afterglow trip… Time to go home. For real this time, and do some proper resting up for that race in China…
I had ridden pathetically slow enough over the course of seven laps to have a variety of humiliations (hilarious). These included riding across the finish line to start my last lap about four minutes before the winner (Christoph Sauser) finished, with the photographers already blocking the course for “The” photo, having both a Chinese guy and Meirhaege pass me shortly after, and, finally, hearing the unmistakable sound of a two-stroke Trials Dirt Bike behind me. This meant I was the last guy on the last lap. Sweet. In the theme of making lemonade that I’ve implemented this last few weeks of being stranded in Europe, I figured I’d talk the guy (who was wearing easily the awesomest moto suit you could ever fathom) into indulging one of my long lost fantasies. The Bicycle versus Moto downhill challenge. I waved buddy guy up alongside me on the last climb, making my plan quite obvious with gestures and Italian/Spanish/English. He was smiling and laughing and seemed amused with the prospect of our little race. I soft pedaled up the rest of the climb, you know, to rest up, gave one last smile and a suggestive nod before pinning it into the woods. I used my clever inside lines, gapped some roots and figured I had a gap. I MUST have. Then I realized that he’d stopped at the top. No race. Sissy moto guy couldn’t take a little challenge… Oh well, I guess Josh or Carl and I will get around to it sometime. Other than that, the race was pretty horrible, I finished 45th. Not exactly the way I wanted to end spending 1/5 of the year in Europe… But hey, the extra training I’ve done in the last couple weeks with a casual eye toward Beijing might pay off in a couple months… Things still look good for me to make the Olympic team, but nothing is set in stone as I write this. I hear things will be announced next week, as they’re waiting for a new month to start for this one to go on the books… Till then, here’s to a week off the bike and some reintegration into Americanisms… Thanks for all the support this spring. Couldn’t have done it without y’all…
We’ve been in the “Val di Sole” for about a week and a half now, relaxing and getting ready for the Intergalactic Mountain Bike Championships. The relaxing has mostly involved pizza, kayaks and haircuts. The getting ready has mostly involved doing sweet rides around the valley and over some passos. Like the storied Gavia, which Sam Schultz, his Fisher team Soignieur and I rode to the top of last Friday, with our Swanny Elke volunteering to drive support. This enabled Sam and I to stash snacks and Dee to get a ride home instead of doing the full 150k… Good solid team effort. As a very important part of resting up for the Worlds Team Relay I somehow ended up networking into a borrowed kayak. After getting told at most of the rafting companies in the valley (of which there are about a dozen) that I would have to take a “class” or hire a “guide” to get ahold of a proper whitewater kayak, I rocked up to Euro Rafting, off the beaten track at the confluence of the Torrentes Vermiglio and Noce. There was a Chilean chap there by the name of Rodrigo who knew some of my buddies from Oregon. A half hour of shooting the breeze later I was floating down the river in his personal boat, with my Giant Helmet on for good measure… Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon in the Valley of Sun… The other day I talked with my Mom via Skype (anyone who doesn’t have Skype needs to get on the program) and she mentioned that it looked like I needed a haircut. So I got one. Boredom rose to a fever pitch a few nights ago and resulted in the Aussies instructing a surprisingly competent Dee in the implementation of a Right Angle Steve/Roo Boy/Mullet combo being carved onto my head. Sorry, Mom, it’ll be gone soon… Another good way to spend the afternoon in the supposed sunny valley is racing your bike in perfect mud. Well it was perfect for descending at least… Climbing on the snotty grass they had routed us on as part of some kind of Alps region pact to include at least 2k of freshly mowed field in every course was another story. One that involved pseudo-running… Our US team of Georgia Gould, John Bennett and Sam Jurekovic decided to stick with the approach that rewarded us with a Bronze Medal last year. The reverse of pretty much everyone else, this being Girl, Junior, U23, Elite. When I took the tag for the fourth and final lap we were in about 13th place or so. And things were SPREAD OUT… A bunch of running and crashing will do that to a race. I rode a solo TT for most of the lap, picking off a lady or flailing fellow every few minutes and having a pretty good time putting the legendary (in Carl and I’s mind) Michelin Green Meanies to good use on the steep slick awesome descents. I must have made up a bunch of time on those, since my lap was the second fastest of the day and I’m pretty sure my climbing was nothing to write home about… It’s good to be from Maine sometimes. I ended up getting in a “Sprint” with a Dutch guy for 7th place. Fortunately, I had grass wound up in my gears from some creative line choices, which meant my sprint looked like I was at the finish of the SingleSpeed Worlds… We got 8th. Sorry, team. Then the sun came out. And it still is. Proper Worlds race on Sunday afternoon, then it’s off to Prague for the “Prague Stairs” race in the old city before heading HOME on the 26th. After that it’s all burritos, kayaking and extremely focused, motivated preparation for a big race on August 23rd…
We flew up to Scotland from rainy Spain on Tuesday and checked into our delightful B and B under sunny skies. After flogging the minivan for the three hour drive up into the highlands, of course. A nice week of eating delicious breakfast and doing some quality lying around being “professional” had me pretty well rested up for race day, I thought. Oli also was appreciating a couple days of life away from fatherhood and the ensuing ability to sleep past “half five” as well. After two laps of racing around the strangely dusty Fort William XC track, Oli and I were hanging out in the lead group of a dozen or so, resting up and trying to digest the yellow egginess… I decided my initial move through the group would have to be over the “skinny” option at the start of lap 3. In order to overtake Seamus Mcgrath, who’d chosen the nancy route around the long way, I had to sprint across the 6” wide log. This made negotiating the 90 degree turn at the junction a bit challenging. So I decided to do it on my face. I think my look of disgust was actually milder than Seamo’s who had to stop and throw my bike out of the way… No matter, I watched Oli and the rest of the lead group ride away from my vantage point on my back in a peat bog. Perfect. And my bars twisted on impact… Oops. Joe had a tool for me in the tech zone though (this was the first race I’ve ever done with no allen keys, as I lost them last week) and I got it sorted in short order. Settling back in I found myself in an epic battle with Jeremy H-K for our nations final virtual Olympic spot. Actually, it was more like we were just riding together for a lap. Then he unluckily hit one of the 487,000 rocks imbedded in the course, this one in the “Berminator” section, immediately causing his rear tire to surrender it’s captive air and sealant. Well, I guess that’s that then. I settled into feeling totally average and maintaining my mid-teens position. Which I did all the way to the finish. 16th, to be exact, for the second weekend in a row. Oli did much better, leading the sixth place group up the climb the last lap and paring it down to four. Who all ended up punking him in the last kilometer. 9th on the day, good thing, finishing anywhere outside the top 10 with a beard like that at his home race on his birthday would have been unacceptable… Overall, it was sunny and it looks like we’ll both be going to the Olympics in a couple months, so we’ve pretty much accomplished what we set out to do a couple years ago. It’s nice to have that sorted out. Of course, anyone on the US Olympic Long Team could get a top three at next weekend’s World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy and punch their ticket, but that’s not super likely. I’d like to see it though… In the meantime, I’m gonna take the Highlands Topo Map that our buddy and SSWC07 Organizer Marty just handed off and go do some singletrack exploring to celebrate. Then we head to Italy on Monday to eat proper delicious PIZZA! Yes. Thanks to everyone who’s made this whole Olympic thing come together in the last couple years. Especially Tom and Elke for the mint support in the last two months of world cuppin’… Cheers, Here’s a photo each of Oli and I roosting the same turn, courtesy of Colin Maegher (In Motion Photography). The beard makes him look way faster, eh?
To be honest with you, and myself, I was feeling a bit lemons all week in Andorra. The combo of a whole bunch of training in the last couple weeks, a fairly hard (even though I tried to go easy) race last weekend and reintegration into proper team and race life after utopian nothingness for a while just kind of had me a bit run down. Lemons. But once I got out on the race course on Wednesday to check it out for the first time, as part of a tire testing session with Michelin, I knew I had to get out the juicer and add some sugar… Top notch track. Tons of fun fast rooty rocky proper singletrack, a bunch of thought provoking climbing up reasonable grades, and the obligatory grassy ski slope grunt climb for good measure, and to keep the UCI happy… Although it had been raining a continually impressive amount for the first half of the week, the track was still pretty firm and everything still rode really well, just a bit more interesting… Lemonade. The skies would continue to clear the rest of the week, giving us a chance to marvel in the solidly spectacular scenery available in the Andorran Pyrenees Mountains. The race site was perched on a ridge about 700 meters above the valley floor, sitting at just about two grand. So we had the interesting prospect of racing a punchy, power oriented world cup course in all it’s splendor at fairly high altitude (6500 feet). We’ll see how that goes… We’re going to stretch our analogy a bit here. You see, to make lemonade, you have to squeeze the juice out of the lemons. Well, to enhance my (and my trusty East Coast compatriot Lea Davison) chances of lemonade on Saturday, I resorted to a really brutally cold version of the ice bath. All this rain had the local rivers still swollen, mostly with recent snowmelt at this point, so we climbed down the retaining wall of a bridge and dunked our lower extremities for a few. Very refreshing. A good dinner, one of Elke’s award winning massages and another twilight ice bath and pretty much every step toward lemonade had been taken. The only thing that could have helped more did. It rained all morning. Mint. Unfortunately, when the gun went off at 2pm under clearing skies, I still had lemons for legs. Fortunately, my wise choice to run the Anthem Advanced let me play a fairly fun game for most of the race, that being staying just ahead of whoever was around on the climbs, then riding the (awesome) descents a bit irresponsibly fast to reestablish my gap. This plan worked to get the lemon legs into the top 10 for the first half of the race. Lemonade? Perfect. But then the lemon juice got a bit acidic, or was that lactic acid? Either way, it got harder to keep from getting overtaken on the climbs and I eventually fell back to 16th. Oh well, not too bad for lemons I guess. Our fellow American Todd Wells turned in a solid ride for 6th, and his young South African teammate Burry Stander almost win the thing, Christoph Sauser just barely caught him on the last lap for the win. Our Australian Downhill boys were in the house this weekend, providing entertainment in the evening and some serious rut roosting during the day. They would finish on the same 2:46 second, Amiel in 30th and Rando in 38th. 20th through 60th was all on that same second. World Cup DH racing is TIGHT these days… Good work boys, hopefully some road riding on our infamous Team Giant folding bike, the Halfway, this week in Scotland will sort them out another second or three. I’m planning on resting up and being professional this week, as I’m pretty sure I’ve got a good race in me somewhere these days… Another step closer to making the Olympic Team though, so that’s always good. I’ve got a sum of 38 from three races with Todd just ahead with 34, I think. The next Gringo is a ways off that, so hopefully luck and health holds out for a couple more weeks. We’ll see… Here’s some self explanatory photos.
Two things conspired this lazy Friday to trick me into cooking an absolutely delicious feast. One, instead of using my “rest day” to network through the outdoor adventure brotherhood and hook up some scary skiing in Chamonix or (probably) sweet kayaking down on the Durance River, I used it to sleep in, go for a proper easy recovery ride (which happened to take in a bit of fairly awesome singletrack) and make myself Brunch. Two, the reason brunch had even occurred to me is that Oli brought a few tidbits of English literature with him to France, namely a copy of his local Bristol Sunday Telegraph and it’s “Housewives Anonymous” glossy mag insert. Within this insert was a bit on the institution of Brunch, which they give us Yanks full credit for the creation of. Good work, us. One of the Brunch dishes presented was called Spanish Sausages with Migas, which is proportioned to serve “two greedy people”. I had already read all through this bit a day or two before, letting my imagination run wild with the prospect of having the ingredients to cook this little nugget up. As I got back from my bike ride, did my responsible stretching and showered, I wondered what kind of Brunch I could create for myself. It being almost two o’clock and all… I had a cheesy baguette that was a few days old and needed using. Cheeesy French toast? Nope, I’m not about to make French toast in France, fuck the French. Let’s see, I’ve gotta toast that bread at least to make it palatable. Hmmm. Oh, wait, that Spanish-style brunch actually said “375g stale white country bread” PAYDIRT. Since Elke is a culinary genius, I had a stash of cumin, which would prove to be the key ingredient, obviously. Peppers, onions, garlic (with a press even), milk, salt, pepper, olive oil, eggs, no white grapes, but raisins noir. All I was missing was chorizo and pancetta. Oh well, I guess a vegetarian version was in order. All the bits went together perfectly. The stale bread slowly absorbing it’s milk, water and salt mixture before slowly cooking to soft, crispy perfection. The veggies, complemented by tomato and sweet corn, obviously, sautéing up nicely. Some fried eggs and raisins on top, and, for good measure, the remains of our previous night’s Guacamole for “garnish”, whatever that is. Anyway, since there was a photo in the magazine I decided to take a photo too. And, I’m obviously pretty bored. Either way, it was flippin’ delicious, I didn’t even miss the chorizo, although I can only imagine… The perfect solo brunch compliment obviously being VICE magazine and my day is already complete. Let’s do brunch sometime. Cheers,
The last thing I expected when I traveled back down to Spain on Friday afternoon for a round of the Copa Catalan series was to observe some tip-top flooding carnage. I expected it to be hot enough that I would be wishing for a haircut midrace… Instead I found top-notch hospitality from the organizers and top-notch flooding carnage for the drive home, capped off by a damn classic course made all the better by the biblical weather… Before we get into the nitty-gritty (and it was gritty) of the racing and flooding action, let’s take a moment to appreciate the European National race series model. At least in the case of the Copa Catalan, a UCI series based in the Catalonian region of Spain, the northeast to be precise… In the interest of both maintaining and expanding the stature of the series, the promoter is happy to provide food and lodging for any respectable World Cup riders who want to attend their events. I was fortunate to have Kashi Leuchs suggest this race as good prep for the upcoming World Cup in Andorra (about 50k from St. Llorenc de Monruys), he forwarded me the promoter, Albert’s email . I dropped him a line and he immediately set things up. A mint apartment overlooking the course is a nice way to say “yeah, we’d love to have you”, dinner on top of that is, well, the flamed crust on a Crème de Catalan, I suppose… Thanks, guys and girls, for putting on a good show on a course that happened to be good proper classic mountain biking. If, of course, you consider that to be perfectly flowing sidehill singletrack of all types for about 7k. With a few Spainish-speaker approved WALL climbs and a bit of grassy field thrown in for good measure… The gore-tex jacket and pants were put to good use in the downpour conditions available for warmup, I haven’t had to do that in a while… Hope I didn’t ruin those pieces, I might need them again someday… After a (welcome) rushed line-up we fired off in Spanish style, fast and loose… A bit of ROOSTING (thanks Giant Anthem and custom siped Michelin XC A/T rubber) the first awesome descent found me in second place and having a grand old time. There was even a jump, right after a pass… Our early leader, local boy Marti Gispert (who’s ECP/Tau Ceramica team had fixed my brutalized wheel yesterday) had a puncture and I settled into the lead, rallying the descents and riding as slow as possible on the climbs. This system drew out another local, Sergio, who climbed and ran impressively quickly, and was nice enough to move over and let me charge the down bits. Perfect. Unfortunately, this type of racing usually sees the guy who’s climbing faster eventually ride away, 75% of your time spent doing that and all… Oh well, I was happy to feel decent and not gutter myself before the impending World Cupness… 2nd place, a handful of Euros (no ATM trip for me) and a completely trashed skinsuit to show for my casual efforts. Now, to the good stuff. I wish I hadn’t been distracted with the multitude of tasks at hand driving home (eating stuff, tring to heel-and-toe effectively on the brake and gas pedals with the Luke Pennington Addition Adidas’) to snap a POV photo of the amazing amount of debris that fell into the (awesome) mountain roads we had to drive back up to the Pyrenees proper. At one point there was a 15 foot tall pine tree sluffed into 2/3 of the road, rootwad and all. Impressive. Fortunately the little rental Toyota hatchback did just fine, traction control switched off and all… I did, however, do a serious amount of making Kashi nervous as I would crane my neck every minute or two to check out the rivers we drove along, which were all out of their banks and solidly in the bushes. Turns out it hasn’t really rained in this area for about two years, so they’re loving it, reservoirs we passed the day before on the way down were visibly more full, mostly of logs and various other flotsam and jetsam. Good scenery for climb back into the clouds. Which, as of sunset, appeared to be breaking a bit, it sure would be nice to have a clear day to check out the hills around here, I bet they’re nice… And might just have fresh May snow, it being 6 degrees Celsius here and all… Anyway, here’s to flooding and racing in the mud, it’s a good thing to do once in a while.
Read on about how Decker and Emmett held things down at this past weekend’s NMBS Race in Los Olivios, California in grand style while I was on holiday in France… Then continue reading on about what I’ve been up to over here… Big Props to Kelli for winning her first National XC in convincing style amongst a stacked field. Quite impressive, must have been the new KTM dirt bike she just picked up egging her on… Contents: Team Giant race report for the Los Olivios/Firestone/Solvang/Santa Ynez/Stumpgrinder NORBA/NMBS race This weekend, while Adam Craig was maxing and relaxing in the French countryside, It would be up to my teammate Kelli Emmett and I to fly the flag at the 3rd National Series race of the year, north of Santa Barbara, CA. This race is known by many names, but none suggest how hot and hard the racing here can be (okay, maybe firestone kinda does). Last year I was shocked by the heat; the race boiled down to who could absorb the most water, and who could stay strong in the face of blast-furnace-like breezes. Since I am a nancyboy (and it's been a long and cold spring in Oregon, where there was frost in the yard 5 days ago), I even considered staying home and doing something easier. Like gardening or road racing. Kelli was committed to racing though, and I finally relented. Good thing, too. It was an action packed weekend. Saturday dawned warm and warming. Kelli took off for the venue at 8:00 and I fell back asleep. A couple of hours and a bowl of cereal or two later, I was at the venue, just moments after the women's XC finish. A friend said hi and said that Kelli was ripping. I asked how she did and from behind me she yelled "I won!". I said "holy crap" and gave her a hug. That's Kelli's first NMBS XC win, and her second big victory in a row. In 100 degree heat, Kelli rode a smart race and kept herself under the redline. Georgia Gould had a commanding lead for most of the race, but collapsed from heat stroke 15 minutes from the line. From there it was Kelli and Catherine Pendral. In the flat and open final mile, Emmett made a strong pass for the lead and Pendral couldn't respond. Kelli rode clear and won by a margin of 10 seconds. Another career ride for KE. My race started with me in the weeds from the gun. Turns out they cut a lap from our course after Georgia's hospitalization. Meanwhile, I was staring at the ground and focusing on not melting or vaporizing (Spontaneous Human Combustion happens.) when the organizers (repeatedly, I hear) told us of the course change (from 3 to 2 laps) on the start line. So I started off kinda slow and was surprised at how fast those top 4 guys were riding, for a (I thought) 2:30 race. After half of the race was over, I asked an official (who probably thought I was suffering Heat Stroke) how many laps were left in (it turns out) a two lap race. So then I rode a little faster and tried to catch the hind-most of the lead group. JHK was within striking distance with 10 minutes to go, so I dug deep and gained absolutely no time on him. I finished 6th, 3 minutes behind the winner, Aussie Sid Taberlay. After a night of celebrating KE's win with some good food (and smooth jazz?), we awoke this morning ready for some Short Track punishment (taking) and some Super D punishment (hopefully giving). Again, Kelli raced first, and again, Kelli raced well. The course was flat and long (over 3 minutes), and Kelli spent nearly half of the race working at the front. Katerina Nash got away with a couple laps to go and stayed away. Emmett lead the chase and then held off the freeloaders in the final sprint finish to take second. My Short Track ended up being a rehash of the XC; 5 fast dudes (and me) at the front. I even got my nose in the wind a little when I lead for a lap or two. Then the attacks got a little faster and I went the same speed and was left in 5th place, playing cat and mouse with Aussie Sid. In the finish sprint, Sid was the cat. I ended up sixth for the sixth time this year or so. Drat. Super D: Mostly the same as the first big XC descent with a little jog through the weeds and back to the finish. With it still hot, and even more extra windy, Kelli and I felt like we'd been at the beach all day and were feeling more ready for a nap than a downhill timetrial. Kelli rode accordingly. She said she couldn't ride her bike to save her life, and ended up just of the podium in (my favorite place!) 6th. My SD was uneventful, which was a pleasant change from last year, when I blew the first turn and ended up hiking while within view of the start shack. Had a clean run and rode hard, just not hard enough to beat Kabush. Dispatched Wicks though. 2nd place. Four places better than 6th. Our favorite oversized Giant cubicle dweller, Andrew Juskaitis, won his class, and his wife won hers too, to finish off the weekend of racing. Now it's back home for a week or two, and then Kelli and Carl's Team for Fun without Adam is headed to the Teva Mountain Games in Vail for some deep breathing and bike racing at 10,000 feet. Thanks for reading, Carl and Kelli With that bit of info to digest, here’s a random update on the daily happenings here in Villard de Lans… I’m holed up here with Oli Beckingsale doing a proper training camp between world cups. This pretty much means doing a whole lot of sleeping, riding, eating and reading books. Being “professional”, I guess, whatever that means. I suppose what it means is that you can train your face off on huge climbs everyday and still be rested up enough after ten hours of sleeping to do it all over again. Awesome. We pretty much roll out mid-morning with a map, raincoat and a bunch of snacks for a day of exploring around the Vercors region with its gorges and high plateaus. It’s a pretty nice way to work things, in the name of training, of course… Although we do spend a lot of time consulting the map (reminiscing about navigating in the Rally Car), we also spend a lot of time ripping pretty amazing trails, made all the better by the fact that we found ‘em. In between ripping these trails we also do some hike-a-biking up and down unrideable bits that we have no business being on, as evidenced by the red signs saying something to the effect of “don’t even try to VTT (Velo Toutes Terrain?) on this here trail, it’s not happening”. Ah, you’ve got to find out for yourself, right? After a few days of off road abuse and awesomeness we generally do a big road ride, putting slicks on our hardtails to ensure we don’t get distracted from pedaling by trails dropping off into unknown gorges… The roads are seemingly unused by vehicles and happen to wind up and down the Cols at a perfect pitch for getting in shape and feeling good about yourself (read: big ring). So, basically, it’s ideal here. Except for the one day it rained and I had to do morning efforts in a “sucker hole” (stops raining long enough to trick you into going out) followed by evening intervals on the trainer, which I finished, after procrastinating all day, about 14 minutes before the sun came out… Shoot. At least we had a classic melted cheese French Raclette dinner to ease the trainer pain… Basically this is the best training camp ever. Unfortunately, it’s got to end sometime. Friday I’m heading down to Andorra to get a bit higher altitude (although we’re at about 3400ft here) and try my hand at the Spanish Copa Catalan series on Sunday in Val de Lord. It’ll be good to get in a race before the World Cup picks up again in Andorra on the 31st, and find out if I got in shape the last few weeks, seems like I shouldn’t have to train any more this year after this little chunk of time… As an aside, I spent part of a day hanging out with a couple Aussie blokes filming for a news piece on the HD Net cable station about the Beijing Olympics, specifically the air quality situation. It’s going to air on June 3 if anyone gets cable and has a bunch of spare time… There should be a bit of riding and some scenery here in the Vercors, in addition to a bunch of talking… AC’s French Giant Team Connection
Anyway, we’ve got Ollie for that. Beckinsale was solid today in 19th, if he’d only gotten around Todd in 18th I’d still be second in the USA Olympic team chase with 54 points to Todd’s 51, I think. Good thing two guys go, and I’ve got some time to get in proper shape…
Ten Reasons why World Cup #2 in Offenburg was the bollocks: 10. Turnaround. After driving to the best place in the whole universe, the Nurburgring Nordschlieffe, only to find it closed to Touristenfahrten unexpectedly, then driving through rush hour traffic to get to our bleloved Feirenhaus Woerner in Durbach, Germany, then riding in the rain and dark instead of the Belgian sun team morale wasn’t exactly low, but it sure wasn’t at an all time high. Then, the turnaround, Elke and Tom brought home delicious dinner (not just schnitzel) from the local Winestuba and all was good. 9. The Ferienhaus Worner. This place is awesome. Lots of awesome stuff happens here, like a previously unarable piece of vineyard being swiftly converted into terraced perfection, ready for grapes to take over. The view is nice too… Which works out well, because we were completely enthralled with watching the Excavator operator paint lines on this particular canvas for the better part of an afternoon. In between watching the vineyard cats stalk things… 8. Uncut macaroni. Elke likes to keep us on our toes at the grocery store. This time she found some pasta that was essentially spaghetti length mac. Awesome. A delicious bolognaise sauce covered it’s enhanced surface area quite well… That wasn’t enough through, we had to innovate a bit. The mac snail was born… Roll up your mac, stick a toothpick through it, garnish as desired… Yup, we get pretty bored. 7. Unexpected quality singletrack. After a couple days of R and R, Oli and I headed out for a “few hours steady on the road”. We made it about half of that before we decided we were “lost” and had better follow this trail sign to some town we recognized. Before we knew it we were getting strung along a pretty epic ridgeline singletrack with signs to the Mooskopf, which I vaguely remembered seeing signs to last year. We committed to my memory and wound up doing a sweet ride to the highest point in this corner of the Black Forest, just as the clouds broke. Awesome. 6. A darn good bike track with roughly a ton of people out to watch. There’s a bunch of trails in the Offenburg ‘burb of Rammersweier. Most of ‘em are pretty fun when the dirt is absolutely perfect. Like concrete perfect. With perfect 70 degree sunshine. And proper thousands of people, a LOT of people, most of whom adhered to the German spectator code, that being beer, brats and YELLING… It was rad. 5. Respectable start position and narrow start loops. When you’re on the second and third row, as Oli and I were, you can actually race from the gun. It’s handy. 3. Ill fated “attacks”. I don’t think what I did really qualified as an attack, but on the fifth lap, after sitting in a bunch and thinking I was riding comfortably with the leaders, I figured I’d try my (meager) hand. This hand pretty much involved thinking I could ride 1k of the course faster than the rest. A downhill bit, not surprisingly… To earn this opportunity I pulled the second place group of five around the whole fifth lap. I figured that would get my karma in order for a low-blow singletrack surge. I was foiled. Some swiss guy, Florian Vogel, jumped me into the woods and I had to do what I’d already been doing, ride plenty fast and have a good time. But not get a 1-3 second gap of glory as I’d envisioned. I figured I’d try, a top three result being an automatic Olympic Spot and all… 2. Being Humbled. After a strange uphill root bobble by Flo I led the rest of the lap and was still feeling spry. Then the real guys started playing their (substantial) hands. Sauser surged and blew things to bits. I got dropped. Then I got a bit tired. The big ring challenge was getting to the good legs. Weird… Damage control went into effect and worked out fine, I slid back to 8th, a coupe minutes off the winner. I’ll take it at World Cup #2. I’m not even supposed to be in shape yet… That’s OK though, Oli and I have a good training camp planned in the French Alps so we can get ourselves together. He was wise enough to ride the Anthem today and had a good time ripping around, ending up 30th. We can both build on this week for sure. It’ll be good. 1. Relaxing. We’ve been doing lots this week, and it turns out it’s good for you. Makes you fast, and fresh, and generally promotes good feeling. (but doesn’t completely cure clumsiness, as we broke two glasses and two plates this week…) We ended the week with some nice sunset relaxing with our hosts, Rita and Felix, along with the Slovenian women’s team who stayed downstairs, enjoying some of their fantastic local Weissvein and Rotvein. Overall this week kicked ass.
Let’s see here, it’s been a while since we’ve done an update about anything, it being the “off season” and all. Here’s a few things that have been going on. Carl has been skiing a bunch, and went on an anti-winter vacation to Hawaii. My anti-winter training vacation to Northern California was a bit of a bust, I still got snowed on… But I did ride a bunch, so hopefully I’m in shape. Before that, there was lots of skiing, some dirt bike riding, some relaxing, usual winter stuff. We’ve got a few weeks left to get in shape before the season kicks off with NMBS #1 in California, then it’s down to Venezuela for me to contest the Pan Am Championships. Then back home for a week before heading to Europe for about ten weeks of world cup racing and such. Olympic selection stuff. If I ride fast, I make the team. Carl is going to hold down the fort over here on the domestic racing front. And do some more car racing. Sweet.
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