A few races

Its been a while, again...

So, a bit has been going on. Lets roll back a little.

Bike racing:

Hermann Cross Under the Lights. Was a wash, literally. Everyone knows what happened, so I won't recap here since it has been talked about before. Super cool race, though, so hopefully it will happen next year and we will get to race a full race, not 2 laps.

Boss Cross 1 and 2. I went and raced both of these. Did not have a good ride, either day even though the course should have been good for me. Day 1 saw me line up at the very back since I was warming up and didn't realize that we were staging. The mens open was set to stary, then 30 seconds later the mens 2/3 race. Everyone was massed together, and I could not get out from behind the 2/3 field. So, I had to fight my way through when they started the open and was in last place. Large pileup in the first corner and I am trackstanding waiting for people to get up off the ground. bummer. I made up some places, but pretty much all motivation was shot at this point. My back started blowing up about half way through the race. Prolly should have pulled the plug. Day 2, race course was the same, but backwards. Tons of sand. Crappy start again, and immediate back pain. Another bad day, but I finished.

Looking at the above 2 races, I am not sure what went wrong. My fitness is good, blah blah blah. I guess the motivation was not there.

I raced the Show Me State/Midwest Fat Tire MTB race at Rock Bridge a couple of weeks ago, just for grins. I did about 3 hours of gravel the day before, so my expectations were pretty low going into the race. It was pretty cold, and I was concerned that I was too naked. Ah well. Lined up for the marathon race. 3+ hours of riding on a mix of dry dusty dirt, large rock, loose rock, with some climbing and a cold deep creek crossing thrown in. I decided to ride my full suspension since my back doesn't seem to like to be beaten for that long. I knew that I needed to get in the trail in the top 5 because the first sections are pretty technical and I figured that a split would happen right away and I didn't want to sit in traffic. So, no warmup, line up on the front, hit the gas. I got the hole shot and just kept the gas on. Finally looked back after a mile or so and I had Nate Means on my wheel. We rolled together until the creek crossing which I almost went over the bars on, and started the big climb. I pushed the pace a little and got a decent gap on Nate. Pretty much kept on the gas for the next few laps to build up my lead. Last lap I sat up a bit since I was feeling a little crampy, but it was all good. Ended up in first place in the marathon class and also had the fastest lap time of the day overall. Pretty happy with that for sure.

I've been switching between road, cx, and trails for riding...and its been pretty nice for sure. I can;t decide whether or not I am going to hop into any more CX races this season. I think I prolly will, though...even though I am starting to already look forward to next season.

Not a lot else, really.

Velocite Magnus

I've recently been given the opportunity to ride the Velocite Magnus, so I thought I would do a review and provide a little more information to anyone out there since Velocite is not a super well-known company.

I ended up with the Magnus frame with the Velocite Bora fork. The Magnus uses a BB30 bottom bracket shell and an asymmetric 1.5" headtube for added stiffness. I am coming off of riding a Cannondale SuperSix with a full Dura Ace build and Cannondale Hollowgram SI BB30 cranks for comparison. The Cannondale was a great bike, the Magnus is an outstanding bike. Evervthing I liked about the supersix is there on the Magnus, plus a few added things: extra stiffness under

hard acceleration, slightly different geometry that aids handling, and a nice crash

replacement/upgrade policy if needed.

I've seen a lot of broken supersix frames recently, either from crashing or just riding along. Weird.

I built the Magnus with Sram Red components, an FSA SL-K BB30 crankset, Reynolds Carbon Strike 66mm clinchers, Thomson post and stem, Kuota carbon bars, and a WTB Silverado saddle. Total weight with pedals and cages: 15.3 lbs:

Not bad for a bike that rolls on clinchers.

The ride quality of this bike is awesome. I kept my supersix built up just in case I could not get the Magnus dialed in quick, but after one ride I was sure it was the bike for me. My second ride was the Missouri State Criterium and the bike was awesome. The large diameter seat and chain stays coupled with the BB30 absolutely ensure that every pedal stroke goes into propelling the bike forward. There is no flex anywhere when killing it or leaning the bike over in corners. Tracking through corners is spot on too...I originally had a 110mm Ritchey WCS stem installed, I swapped it out for my old trusty 100mm Thomson. I like the shorter, more compact cockpit, it is a little more predictable and stable to me. I have put some decent miles on the Magnus, including a 70 mile fast group ride through a bunch of hills and everything worked very well. I still felt rather fresh at the end of the ride, and the responsiveness of the frame really helped on the rolling hills during the ride.

Honestly, I have no complaints about the Magnus. It has to be the best bike I've ridden so far. The finish of the frame is excellent: the red graphics really look nice, and the matte carbon finish looks nice too. Here are a couple of pics:

For more information, contact DNA Distributing

Long overdue

An update...

So, where to start? Its been since February that I have updated this thing, and a lot has gone on. Lets start with the kids...Dillon and Brodie are doing great. Dillon started Kindergarten today, kind of a sad day for mom and dad. Brodie is growing like crazy and is quite the little tough guy. They have both been swimming a lot over the summer, and Dillon played T-Ball for the Ashland Optimist club too.

I am in paramedic school, and hope to be done with that in August of 2011. Nothing else too new with me, riding bikes, racing a bit here and there, and still editing movies.

Alicia is doing good too, she has been running a lot and riding bikes here and there. We went to Cancun again this summer and had an excellent time down there with friends.

Really, so much has actually happened that it is hard to update this. Nothing of a whole lot of consequence, though...I will try to update more.

Winter training

Tadow...how you like me now?

I am just going to do an undate from this past weekend...Friday, Alicia and I took the boys to Pirates Cove for some swimming. Pirates Cove is down in the Twin Lakes area in Columbia, and is a great place for kids. It is basically a giand wading pool about 18 inches deep with some slides, and sprinklers. Highly recomended if you have kids. Tooled around on bikes with Jonathan before that. Saturday morning I headed out to cosmo to see how dry the trails were. They were dry, but there were a TON of spiders and webs, so I cut the ride short and went home. We had Dillons 4th birthday party at the park in Ashland in the afternoon. Good times, all of his buddies were there. Thanks to everyone for coming, especially Jasen and Meg for helping out and setting up the dope obstacle course. We had Mexican for dinner with Jasen and Meg and Stella, a little pre-race loading of spices. Sunday was the Rock Bridge MTB race. I decided to do the marathon race for 3+ hours. The trails were in good condition, rough in some spots, but dry. I am glad I rode the suspension bike. I missed a pedal at the start, and got caught up in traffic going into the singletrack around 7th place. There were 2 guys immediately in front of me going thru the first set of hills and they were just going hard enough that if I would try to pass them it would cause me to red-line. So, the leaders got away...finally I made the pass at the top of a climb and led for a while. They would get dropped and then catch back on to me. Finally I gassed it a little at the top of the climb after the creek and rolled away. I concentrated on keeping a good pace without totally going into the red too much. I never had to get off the bike, and I managed to stay crash free. Needless to say, I caught a few guys, and ended up 4th on the day. I was pretty happy with that, my 4th lap was a total suck fest. I was having some issues with cramps, and had drained my hydration pack. And, I was starting to get hungry. I rolled ghetto on this race and had my water bottles filled with Dillon's apple juice.

Really not a lot else going on. Dillon has soccer camp all this week. State TT and Crit are this weekend. So, busy for sure...

Streps Run and other races

The past few weeks have been interesting...I've been riding a little, both on and off road, and having a good time doing it.  Nothing huge, just rolling.  Occasionally hitting up the Tuesday night ride to get some intensity, and did the Wildwood TT in St. Louis.  Had a less then stellar result there, not really sure why.  Not that I expected big things, but I felt like I was going pretty decent.  I made a few mistakes, I miss-judged how far out I was from the finish and hit the gas too early and blew up a little and had to recover so I could hit the gas again.  Miss judged where the turn around was.  Dumb little mistakes like that.  Even though, in the grand scheme of things, for the most part I felt good and was pushing what I needed to, and I felt like I handled the course and the gear selection I was using pretty well.  So, on paper results wise, I sucked.  But, I felt mostly good, so I can be happy with that.  Few weeks before that was the Tour of St Louis.  I did the Delmar crit, which I felt pretty good there, too.  It was a nice, wide open, safe course, which is something I need just so I can get a feel for riding in a race situation again.  Pretty much tried to just sit in and not panic, and stay comfortable there.  Which I did.  Did the TT later that day, too, and man did that suck.  It was windier then anything, and I had a really poopy ride.  But, ah well, I really didn't mind...This past week I rolled out with Trevor on Tuesday night to preview the Rhetts Run course for this weekend.  We got caught in a torrential downpour that made riding very tricky.  Not a lot of fun, for sure.  I felt pretty decent, though, so I had a few hopes for the race this weekend.  However, that was all put down when I woke up early Wednesday morning with the worst sore throat I have ever had.  I suffered thru work on Wednesday and Thursday.  I pretty much ate nothing, whenever I would swallow, it was like eating glass and my throat was so swollen closed that I could hardly swallow Advil.  I went to the doctor after work Thursday, and I have strep throat.  Yay.  So, antibiotics, twice a day, forever.  Felt pretty crummy during class on Friday.  Saturday, I started to feel a little better, and started trying to eat solid food again, even though I had to chew it about 30 times to make sure it didn't scrape my throat on the way down.  We had a 1 year birthday party for Brodie on Saturday, which went well.  We had a house full of people and kids, and it was chaotic.  I woke up early on Sunday, thinking I might change my tires on the King since the trails were dry.  I decided not to, and it is a good thing I did.  There were torrential downpours right before the start of the 3 hour marathon race (which I was participating in), and it turned the trails to crap.  My first lap was good, I am usually a slower starter and like to pick up the pace later in the race.  So, the leaders had about 30 seconds on me after the first lap, which was good.  Then things started getting ugly.  The trails seemed like they were slicker, most likely from the rain getting spread out to everything.  And the mud was getting gummy, and my bike was getting packed with slop.  And, I was a little woozy from the lack of food in the previous days.  So, I started running into trees and what not, and taking some really bad lines.  The race kept going down hill for me from there on out, but I still managed to keep it together and did 7 laps, and finished 5th.  And, made some money.  I wanted to quit a bunch of times, but somehow managed to keep going.  






Notice the 2 mtb photos.  The first one is early on in the race, I was still feeling pretty good there.  The second one I was pretty much coming unglued...