Scott RC Mountain Bike Team

Thanks VeloInk.com

2012-02-20T18:30:00.002-05:00

An evening of stuffing gear bags for the SCOTT PRO MTB Team

2012-02-20T18:28:00.001-05:00

Sufferfest - Hell Hath No Fury - Tour of Sufferlandia

2012-02-17T07:43:00.001-05:00

I finally got trapped indoors yesterday by weather and had to ride my trainer. I've had a good run of luck this winter, riding outside most nights, even in rain because it's been so warm. But, last night, I just didn't want to go outside in 40 degree temps and rain.

So, I loaded up the Sufferfest's Hell Hath No Fury video that I'd downloaded from the Sufferfest site. Holy cow, that was hard!

Usually, cycling videos follow men's classics, but this video follows footage from the women's UCI World Cup to set up 2x20 LT intervals. Plus, the video has a plot! I've never run across that before - you're vying for the overall stage win at the Tour of Sufferlandia under Director Sportif Agony von Grunter...

From the site, here's the description:

"For almost two years, we’ve been asked by Sufferlandrians to do the classic 2×20:00 workout. We resisted. We simply couldn’t figure out how to make it interesting. But then we got our hands on a full year of UCI Pro Women’s racing footage from the World Cup. Emma Pooley, Evelyn Stevens, Marianne Vos…the stars are all there in races like the Tour of Flanders and the GP Plouay. And then we hit on the idea of doing an entire stage race in one single Sufferfest video. Using those 20:00 sessions to do a full race simulation. Now, “it gets interesting.” Cue evil laugh."

Awesome.

I've not run across a training video this good/this hard before. It kicked my ass.

Check it out on the Sufferfest site (www.thesufferfest.com), along with multiple other crushingly hard training sessions.

- Jeff

Fairfax County Epic Round 2 - Full 90+ Mile Loop

2012-02-13T22:11:00.002-05:00

Last Sunday, I met up with Mike and Dylan at 8:00am at Ian Spivak's house in Falls Church to take on the full Fairfax County Epic loop - Difficult Run, Lake Fairfax park, Fountainhead park, Laurel Hill park, Accotink park, Wakefield park, plus the Fairfax Cross Country Trail. About 95 miles total with most of it on gorgeous singletrack linked by some road sections and gravel trail. Perfect for my Scale 29 RC.

The downside was that it was 23degrees F (-5 degrees C) and it had snowed the night before. The high was only going to get a few degrees warmer through the day. Our plan was to meet up with Kevin Carter along the loop and hammer out the loop in 10 hours or less.

Heavily bundled up against the cold

Dylan - ready to rip our legs off for the next 9 hours (with a smile, no less)

We started north and rode through the snow covered Difficult Run trails to Lake Fairfax where we found new singletrack built by the local mountain bike access and trail builders, MORE, last year. Most of the loop we rode was thanks to MORE. I'm constantly amazed at how much good singletrack is located within just a few miles of downtown Washington, DC.

The temperatures were so cold that any water we rode through immediately froze on our bikes, legs, or wherever it landed.

A frozen covering on the feet

While waiting for Kevin to get his tubeless wheels set up with fresh Stan's sealant, we ran into ex-pro and all around good guy, Ryan McKinney, on the trails. He was out for a ride before a possible new house purchase later that morning. In typical fashion Ryan was in high spirits!


Ryan

Kevin

We headed out with Kevin on the loop and I almost immediately had a flat from a sliced tire sidewall on some of the sharp rocks. A quick fix and we were back on the trail, heading south on the Fairfax Cross Country Trail to Route 123 and our 10 mile section of road to Fountainhead.

Fountainhead was fun as usual with some great double jumps and excellently constructed new singletrack.

I used to avoid the park because it was so eroded, but now with the new trails, it's something I'm going to look forward to riding more and more (and I'm donating $$ to the rebuilding effort).

It had been a windy night and the trails had a lot of dead tree limbs on them. A large stick got caught in Mike's rear wheel and immediately snapped his derailleur hangar. Luckily, he brought a spare hangar and in 10 minutes, using a handy tree as a repair stand, he was fixed and we were back on our way.

Dylan and Kevin started drilling through the steep hills and we were all just hanging on - after 4 hours my legs were getting a bit tired! We did one loop of the park just as it was starting to thaw out and headed toward Laurel Hill and a convenience store to get more water and fuel for the next 4-5 hours of riding.

Laurel Hill is another fun trail network built by MORE and its construction looks to be all-weather with gravel lined singletrack. The grass-lined trails were great in the late afternoon sun.

We were all smiling, even after riding for most of the day thus far. It seems as if the multiple weeks of 4-7 hour rides have gotten our endurance levels up fairly high.

From Laurel Hill, we headed north toward Accotink through multiple water crossings. Ian whacked his calf badly on his pedal while crossing one of the streams and his leg locked up on him. He was limping and obviously in pain and unable to pedal smoothly. Not good as we still had 15-20 miles left to go. Once we got near Accotink park, he and Mike decided to skip the singletrack and head straight back to Ian's house on the smoother trails.

Dylan, Kevin and I pushed the pace through the park at a threshold rate and after a regroup for more food and to top off Dylan's food reserves with some Jet Blackberry GU (my favorite flavor), we rolled through Wakefield park, past the dirt jumps and back to Ian's house.

Total distance was around 92 miles total in a bit over 9 hours of ride time. Dylan rode an extra 10 miles to put his total closer to 10 hours and 102 miles. A solid day for mid-20 degree temperatures in February.

I was not initially sure about moving over to a 29er and to a hardtail after racing the past 21 years on a 26er bike and the past 5 years on a full suspension Spark. But, after putting in lots of miles on my new Scale 29er, I'm very happy to have made the move. As John and Ross told me last year, this bike is a rocket. The flat road sections fly by. I find I'm able to keep up speeds close to what I'd normally do on my road bike, and in tight singletrack, the bike shines - it's the best of both worlds. And, the integrated shock dampening on the seatstays and Ritchey seatpost, plus 2.25 width tires take the edge off any roots/rocks and terrain. I can't wait to see what the new full suspension 2012 Spark 29er RC is going to be like.

Next ride is in two weeks. Hope to see you out on the trails!

Here's the Strava map:

- Jeff

Bike swap thank you Felicia!

2012-02-11T11:47:00.001-05:00

Tech support???

2012-02-11T11:08:00.000-05:00

Fairfax County Epic

2012-02-07T13:37:00.004-05:00

This past weekend, Mike, Dylan and I changed up our weekly long ride and did the Fairfax County Epic loop. Apparently, the full loop would take around 10 hours, but we didn't hit one of the parks and came in at a respectable 7-8 hours for the ride. Not bad for early February!

Mike met up with Dylan at his house in McLean and they rode to Falls Church where they met up with me and Ian Spivak from DCMTB. We rode the Fairfax County Parkway in a four man paceline at a speed I don't normally hit on my road bike. My Garmin showed us rarely going slower than 25mph

Once at Fountainhead Park, we saw masses of people in the lot wanting to ride the newly constructed trails.

The Fountainhead Project (www.fountainheadproject.org) has developed and built an awesome set of new trails with IMBA's assistance. The redesign transforms the network from non-sustainable, eroded trails, to well constructed, sustainable, fun and flowing singletrack. The opening loop keeps me smiling -- it's worth doing it again and again.

If you have time, check out their site and make a donation to keep the trail work going. I guess I'm somewhat partial as they've used a photo of me in their site image (riding my black Spark 10).

Hopped up from our road ride, we charged into the loop and hit the new Jackrabbit trail at full speed, flying over the new trail features (including a ladder bridge jump) at pretty close to full race-pace. Learning the new sections of trail blind was the way to go - I think I would have hesitated on one or two of the larger jumps had I known what was coming.

After two fast laps at Fountainhead, we got back on the roads and hit up a local store to get some more water and food for the long ride back on the Fairfax Cross Country trail. We rode the trail network at Laurel Hill, the site of a former prison, that has been repurposed into fast and flowing singletrack. (It reminded me of sections of the Sea Otter Classic with rolling hills and grassland.) There was also a small skills park that we had some fun rolling through.

After a loop at Laurel Hill, we headed north on the CCT through some cool looking water crossings to Lake Accotink Park, where we rode yet more short steep hill singletrack.

By this point, we'd been on the bike for 6-7 hours and we all were getting tired (except for Dylan - he never seems to slow down!). After Accotink, we continued on the CCT to Wakefield Park and rode more singletrack and out again on the CCT toward the huge dirt jumps.

By this point, we were all pretty cooked and it was starting to rain. The skies had been threatening all day, and when the rain came, the temperature started to drop from a high of 48 to just about 38 degrees. It was not a good time to be out on the bike. Thankfully, we all made it home OK, though it took me a few hours to warm up afterward.

We skipped riding further north on the the CCT where it goes through Lake Fairfax and to Great Falls, but we could have added another 20+ miles to our ride. As it was, we got in about 70-75 miles (Dylan rode an extra 1.5 hours on top of what we rode), with a good percentage of it on singletrack.

Here's the data from Strava (my GPS didn't get all of the loop):

Next weekend we're going to try for the full loop. Maybe 10 hours and 90-100 miles on Sunday. I hope we get some dry weather!

- Jeff

JA & RA Training Bikes

2012-02-05T13:28:00.001-05:00

Winter Training with Fizik, SRM, KMC chains

2012-02-05T13:27:00.002-05:00

Full-On Winter Training Rides Continued

2012-01-23T20:53:00.003-05:00

This past weekend I headed back to the Frederick watershed to ride with Mike and Dylan on a cold and snowy Sunday morning. We got to the trailhead and it was 25 degrees -- it didn't get any warmer during the 4.5 hours on the trail and snowed off and on throughout the day. The trails were covered with 1-2 inches of snow, plus a hard ice crust. The conditions made for interesting steering; the crust could take your front wheel in an unintended direction and before you'd know it you were headed straight for a rock or a tree.

Mike brought his awesome motorcycle overboots plus a custom helmet cover to keep his head warmer. My two pairs of wool socks worked OK for the first 2 hours, then got quite cold. I did try my new Patagonia R1 gloves. They're polypro and neoprene and made for cold weather fly fishing and kept my hands warm, but they weren't breathable so my fingers got somewhat pruned from the sauna-effect in the gloves. My hands were definitely happy with the new ESI grips on my bike. So much better than the stock grips!

Dylan invited a bunch of other riders from the area and we started out with 7 people, Tony, Darius, Ian and (sorry, missed your name).

Darius, of the Frederick Bicycle Coalition and a key trailbuilder at the 'Shed, almost immediately broke his chain. He was pretty fast at fixing it with a quicklink (it looked like a gold missinglink from KMC), though the stop was cold!

We rode, or tried to ride, a good mix of trails including the rock strewn Iceberg. I think Dylan and Mike cleared most all of it.

We had a few more stops for more chain issues, one slow leaking tire and a chain keeper that wasn't keeping the chain on the rings (it's amazing how many mechanical issues crop up in large group rides), some attempts to ride tricky rock sections and rode for about 3.5 hours over about 4.5 hours.

It was a good day to get outside despite the cold and snowy weather and everyone had a good time. The post-ride meal at the Mountain View Diner was the perfect end to the ride. Next Sunday, hopefully it will be drier and we can ride the MoCo Epic loop from Schaeffer Farms.

- Jeff

Sunday Team Rides Continued - Gambrill/Watershed Park with Mike, Dylan and Jeff

2012-01-09T10:40:00.005-05:00

Continuing on our Sunday team rides of 4+ hours, we decided to mix it up this week and headed to the technical rocks of Gambrill State Park / the Watershed located on the ridge of the Catoctin Mountains just outside Frederick, MD. This park is known for being unrelentingly rocky, technical and unless you are "on" for the whole ride, the rocks will eat you up and spit you out. That's pretty much what happened to me...

My new Scott Scale 29 RC arrived last week and this past weekend was the first real test on 29 wheels after riding a lifetime on 26 wheels. I was impressed at how well the large wheels bridged gaps between rocks, allowed for easier step-downs from rocks and generally rolled faster on downhills and road sections. I still need to relearn gearing and weight distribution as both are slightly different from the 26 wheel size.

We initially rode a 2+ hour loop on the Gambrill side of the park, riding down what's known as the "Death Climb"; a jumble of rocks that's just barely rideable on a good day. I took one good fall, bruising my quads and tearing off a good chunk of skin from my ankle. The sometimes unstable and usually sharp rocks contributed to a few crashes from each of us, but causing no serious damage.

The trails are maintained by the local Frederick Bicycle Coalition. From the number of cars parked at the trail head, many people agree that their trail network is top notch.

After making it back to the car and reloading on water and food, we headed out for another 3 hour loop, riding down one of the most technical downhills I've ever had the pleasure of riding, riding up the "Death March" climb and generally winding our way up, over and through large piles of rocks. We eventually emerged from the woods after the rocks took their toll on Dylan's chain and my tires and we called it a day.

Here are a few shots of Mike and Dylan clearing a section that we'd thought might not be fully rideable:

And, here's the ride data from Strava.com:

Our next team ride will be in two weeks (weather permitting) back on the MoCo Epic loop. Hope to see you out on the trails.

- Jeff

Check it Out!

2011-12-20T19:35:00.005-05:00

The 2012 bikes are here! Below is the Scott Scale 29er RC in Extra Large, coming in at about 21 lbs, with some modifications. Other team members will be racing the redesigned full suspension Spark in 26er and 29er versions.

The Polar Bottles will keep our water from freezing on cold rides this winter.

The ESI Chunky grips will keep our hands happy.

Winter Training with Mike and Dylan

2011-12-20T18:12:00.002-05:00

Mike, new Scott team recruit Dylan Johnson, and I have been riding parts of the Montgomery County Epic Loop in Montgomery County, Maryland the past two Sundays. The MoCo Epic is on IMBA's registry of epic rides and it doesn't disappoint. Just a few miles from DC, you can find a 60 mile circuit of great singletrack.

This past weekend, we got in almost 50 miles and 4.5 hours of nearly all singletrack riding at a solid endurance pace. It's great to be cruising along in the cold weather, keeping up a good endurance pace and flying through the trails that are now mostly cleared of fallen leaves.

We started out from Schaeffer Farms in Germantown, MD and took the new Schaeffer Ridge Trail, a 4-5 mile section of trail the local trail building/advocacy group MORE built over the past year. It's awesome!

The trail also comes with a few skulls to welcome riders, and they're dressed appropriately for this time of the year:

The trail has a few stream crossings and to try and avoid wet feet while riding in 40 degree temps, we all rode the crossings. Here's Mike following Dylan's lead across the water and up the bank on the other side:

The loop crosses through multiple county parks and the terrain varied from flowing and fast to some rocks and roots and steep climbs. Thankfully the sun was out most of the day and while my feet were cold from the water crossings, I stayed generally pretty warm. I think Mike was wearing just about every piece of cycling clothing he owns! Here's Mike's take on the ride

Dylan had already gotten in a 5 hour ride the day before, but we chased him all day - the kid is awesome at climbs and even better in technical sections. The day ended on a fun pump track at the Germantown soccer complex:

I hope the good weather on the weekends holds through January and February. We'll be back out on the loop again after the New Year for some more 4-5 hour Sunday rides through the singletrack of Maryland.

Here are the details from the loop:

- Jeff

Season Closer - Cypress Bend Resort - Louisiana State Championship Series

2011-11-29T17:39:00.000-05:00

Over the past Thanksgiving weekend, I headed to Louisiana to the Cypress Bend Resort in Many, LA for the final stop of the Louisiana State Championship Series.

The Battle at the Bend was a killer 6 mile loop with 1000 ft of climbing per lap -- at three laps equals an epic race. Who knew LA had that type of terrain?!

The race went as smooth as it can go for extending the race season an extra 2 months.

I ended up 2nd and the resort and race promoter, Kerry, were top notch. They really made this kid from the north feel right at home.

Also check out the cool PR release following the race:

http://www.pr.com/press-release/371193

"In fact, The “Battle at the Bend” racetrack, Hercules, features a 6.1-mile loop with 1,000 feet of grueling climbs and downhill elevation changes typically seen in famous mountain bike destinations such as Colorado.

“This is something you’d find in northeast Vermont or other locales known for very challenging mountain bike courses. I would never have imagined Louisiana would have this terrain, but I will definitely be back next year to battle Hercules,” said pro rider and World-Cup finisher John Arias of New Jersey."

- John

Cyclocross Season

2011-11-05T09:21:00.000-04:00

Cam has been having a great fall cyclocross season, winning in West Virginia and placing well in the UCI events. John has also gotten into cross this year, making his debut at last weekend's snowy and muddy UCI race in New Jersey. I jumped into the packed DC-area cross racing and have been having fun at the party-like atmosphere of the local races.

We've been riding the Addict CX, a lightweight carbon frame and fork. I have an aluminum Team CX as well, but like the carbon bike so much more.

Here are a few shots of John at last weekend's NJ race:

- Jeff

Iceman Cometh - Michigan - November 5

2011-11-05T08:54:00.000-04:00

Good luck to Ross this weekend at the mtb season closer, the Iceman Cometh, in Michigan. Scottie is also there with the Scott van and is at the trade show, showing off the new bikes. If you're there, make sure to stop by and say hi!

Good Luck to Nathaniel at Collegiate Nationals in New Mexico

2011-10-27T14:03:00.000-04:00

Nathaniel had a stellar first collegiate season this fall, riding for UMass-Amherst, and qualified to race at the national collegiate championships held at Angel Fire Resort in New Mexico on October 28-30

It looks like it could be a snowy race: https://ecccnews.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/snowy-mtb-nationals/

I did a collegiate nationals like this one in 2001 at Plattekill in NY and it was a pure race of attrition that we New Englanders are good at surviving (I ended up third overall in the omnium, even with a broken leg in the downhill).

A few shots of Nathaniel this fall:

Good luck to him in New Mexico!

- Jeff

Shooting with a Pro - Scott Product Launch 2012

2011-09-22T10:54:00.003-04:00

Check out some of the high quality photos Scott Wilson is in from the 2012 Scott product launch in Sun Valley, Idaho from this photo shoot with Adrian Montgomery of Scott and two professional photographers.

Here's a taste of some of the shots:

Photo Credit -

Morgan Taylor and Scott Markewitz

Photo Credit -

Morgan Taylor and Scott Markewitz

Photo Credit -

Morgan Taylor and Scott Markewitz

H2H Chainstretcher - A Win and a Fifth Place

2011-09-22T10:26:00.000-04:00

The Chainstretcher
September 18, 2011
Peekskill, NY

Congratulations to Ross Anderson for his win this past weekend in the master's division of the Chainstretcher at the H2H series held in Peekskill, NY. Ross holds a commanding lead in the season series.

John also picked up a 5th place finish in the Pro/Open category and is in 4th overall for the season series, close behind 3rd place, with three races left to go this season.

MASS Series Finals - A Win, a Second and a Third, Plus an Overall Series Win

2011-09-22T10:15:00.001-04:00

Mid Atlantic Super Series Finals
Bear Creek Resort, PA
September 17, 18

This past weekend was the finals of the MASS series, the premier mountain bike series in the Mid-Atlantic region.

(credit to Joe Liston for photos)

Aaron had a screamingly fast day, taking the lead from the start and never looking back for the win, avenging last weekend's close second place to Brandon Draugelis in the Coal Cracker Classic.

Cam also was flying, coming in a close third in the open/pro category and Jay was second in the Master's race in a tight finish.

Aaron also had time to help out with the kids race.

A great way to finish off the season!

Results are available here: http://www.midatlantictiming.com/resultsdetail.php?did=84

For the season, Aaron won the overall Pro/Open series and Cam was 7th in the Pro/Open category. The team also ended up 4th overall for small teams (10 or fewer riders). Congratulations to all on a fine season!

Coal Cracker Classic

2011-09-12T16:11:00.002-04:00

September 11, 2011
Tamaqua, PA
Conditions: drying out after 10 inches of rain the week before
Riders: Aaron, Mike, Jeff

Following a 4am wakeup, I headed to Maryland to pick up Mike and we drove the 3.5 hours to central PA to race in the Coal Cracker Classic, a race on private land near (or maybe on?) abandoned coal mines. The race had some of the hardest and most challenging singletrack I've encountered in the MASS series and reminded me of the trails I grew up riding in New Hampshire.

The course started with a newly cut singletrack trail up the side of a mountain. It was loose, rooty and wet. After that initial 1 mile climb, it flattened out onto a long fireroad along a ridgeline and dropped back into tough rocky singletrack that seemed to go forever. Finally, the course dropped back down the ridgeline and into some cool singletrack that followed the natural terrain features. While advertised as 22 miles, I recorded about 17 miles of riding (or in my case, riding and hiking).

After a 25 minute delay at the start due to local kids removing or re-routing trail signs, we got started. On the first climb I realized I hadn't warmed up very well and was in a world of hurt while trying to follow Aaron, Brandon Draguelis and Kevin Carter. I hit my rear derailleur on a rock and lost the upper three gears on my cassette; the two gears I really needed for that climb. About a half mile into the climb, I passed Aaron who was working to remove his chain from where it had gotten jammed between his spokes and cassette. It was really wedged and took him 2 minutes to free. From there, the course went up a newly cut trail that was loose and wet. I've been riding too much easy singletrack as of late and had some trouble keeping my momentum on the trail (I finally got back into the swing of things after 30 minutes).

Aaron passed me at the top of the climb, just before an unridable section of trail that went throught the middle of a "V" shaped tree.

Immediately thereafter, I hit a rock that tore a 3 inch hole in the sidewall of my tires (I was running some older tires with bigger knobs today, not my normal tires with good sidewall protection). The flat took me nearly 10 minutes to fix after sealing the hole with a GU wrapper. I watched the whole elite field pass me, then the senior expert field, then the masters expert field and just as I was finishing the repair, the singlespeed class passed me.

I passed a bunch of people on the ridgeline fireroad, but not enough before the turn-off to a long section of rocky, muddy singletrack. I ended up running up most of the climbs to pass people as I couldn't use my low gears. The trail was definitely tough and offered little opportunities to get something to eat or drink.

After a seemingly endless series of challenging rocks, the trail opened back up into another fireroad that led back down the mountain via some crazy steep descents and onto some smoother singletrack that included lots of steep drops and short climbs. I got into a good rhythm and saw a few people ahead of me. I caught one, but the race ended as I was getting close to passing some more. Despite the delay for missing trail signage, the course was well marked and easy to follow.

Aaron nearly won the race, finishing second while clawing back all but 57 seconds on Brandon. Mike rode a great race to finish 5th and was closing in on 4th when he ran out of trail at the finish.

Aaron 2nd, Mike 5th

I ended up 14th out of 18. Not bad considering my mechanical failure. Results are available here. This is a race I'd like to do again next year, but I'll bring some bigger tires with stouter sidewalls...

Here's my file from the race from www.strava.com:

- Jeff

Shenandoah Mountain 100

2011-09-08T14:42:00.001-04:00

September 5, 2011
Rider: Jeff Dickey
Conditions: Hot, humid, and slightly muddy
Place: 26th (24th in the open men's category)

I returned to the SM100 this year after getting worked over last year (double flat and bonking, resulting in a 15 minute aid-station stop to eat a bunch of pizza) and hoped that knowing the course layout would serve me well. At least this year I knew that the "Death Climb" truly did end. I also did some research on www.strava.com to see what other riders had done on the various climbs, how long and steep the climbs were and thought about what I needed to do to get over them.

I haven't been doing any structured training since early June and have been relying on racing and hard training rides to maintain fitness. That kind of fell apart after traveling a lot for work (along with eating while on the road) and other work-related pressures, as well as the cancellation of various races due to weather problems. So, I was a bit nervous coming into this race as I hadn't done anything to really prepare for it and I was hoping to just survive and enjoy myself. My race strategy was not to go out too hard and ride an easy tempo on each of the climbs to avoid going too far into the red.

I've done a few 100 mile events, but Shenandoah is the most fun one I've attended. The pre-race pasta/beer feed makes for a great atmosphere and fits right in with seeing many friends over the holiday weekend. Camping Saturday before the race and Sunday after the race limits travel time and also adds to the sense of community at the event, something I missed at other events like the Leadville 100.

I'd replaced most of the wear-and-tear parts prior to the Breckenridge 100 in July and so my bike was ready to go. Also, I've been running Maxxis Ikon tires since the Breck 100 and invested in the extra-heavy EXO sidewall version (worth the extra gram weight penalty). They fit incredibly well on a set of Stan's Crest rims and inflate easily with just a floor pump (all tires should work this well!). Plus, they hold air unlike any other tire I've used. I last inflated the tires in July and they held nearly the same pressure through September.

At 5:00am on the morning of the race, the SM100 campgrounds were awoken by Chris Scott, the organizer, riding through the tent city banging on a gong. A unique way to wake up! After gulping some exceptionally strong coffee (thanks to some retired Marines I was camping with), the race started around 6:30 just as it was getting light. The pack of 700 or so riders headed off for a long day of riding in the George Washington National Forest

The start at sunrise (photo thanks to Shenandoah Mountain Touring)

On the first climb of the day, a fire road with a steadily increasing grade, I had to back off the leaders as my legs hadn't yet warmed up (and I had a few moments of throwing up - not a good way to start the day...). At the top of the climb, I found myself in a group of 5-6 awesome riders, including Garth Prosser, Patrick Miller and Ryan McKinney. We rolled along to the first section of fireroad and Ryan set off on a blistering 29mph pace, stringing us out behind him. The group worked well and after a few rotations at the front to keep the pace up, we picked up 5-8 more riders, including Ian Spivak and his DCMTB teammate.

We motored along to the start of the Briery Branch ascent, a great singletrack climb, but with so many riders, it turned into a game of follow the wheel in front of you. At least this kept my pace slow and measured. After the long ascent, we flew down the awesome Wolf Ridge trail. The descent was as good as riding the Colorado Trail out west with nicely constructed singletrack winding through the woods.

Once back to the main fireroad, I found myself alone with Garth Prosser, who proceeded to set a wicked tempo that quickly ramped up my HR. I didn't want to follow his wheel because I was having flashbacks to 2010 where I'd blown myself up on the same stretch of road, trying to catch up to the leaders after a double flat tire. So, I backed off and rode along at my own tempo to the base of the Hankey Mountain climb. I knew from Strava that it should take about 45 minutes from the base to the summit of the climb (a 5 mile, 1,600 vertical foot ascent) and settled in to an easy tempo on the muddy road. Before I knew it, I was at the summit and catching some riders.

The descent down Dowell's Draft to aid station #3 was fast and fun and made up for the long grind up the mountain. I stopped at the aid station to say hello to Laura (she was volunteering at the aid station - great to see her there!) fill up on more nuun, grab some more GU and gummi worms and get some more water.

Filling up for the next sections of trail

It took me a little bit to get my food and water together and some riders passed me. Unfortunately, I headed out on the next section of paved road without any other riders to work with, so I took it easy, ate a bunch of food and waited until I was caught shortly before the next climb.

Despite eating a lot, I started to bonk on the steep and rocky ascent of Braley's. I was having trouble keeping my HR up at a tempo pace and my focus was drifting. A few riders passed me and I had to walk a few short sections of rocks. Luckily, I started to feel better on the descent and caught and passed Ian Spivak again (he went by me on the next climb) and cruised along to aid station #4. I filled up with a lot of Coke and more nuun and ate a sandwich as reinforcements for the upcoming 2+ hours of climbing up the Death Climb. I would be climbing from about mile 57 of the race to mile 83 of the race and the day was getting hot.

As I was exiting the aid station, one of the Trek 29er Crew, Dan Atkins, caught up with me on the paved road section of the Death Climb and we worked together for a bit until I bonked (again) and had to let him ride away. After recovering for a few minutes, Pat Miller and another of the Trek 29er Crew caught up to me and I had recovered enough to start working with them.

We eventually formed a group of four, me and the three Trek riders, and we worked well to get up the never-ending road climb. As we made the hard right turn to the steep Reddish Knob climb, I could feel another bonk coming on (yet again) and hoped to make it to the next aid station before I cracked completely, so I maintained a constant HR up the climb and rode a pace that wasn't too hard, but would get me to the summit.

Unfortunately, I ran out of water with 3 miles remaining of the climb. The day had turned hot and I was starting to get some dehydration-related cramps and so I had to back off my pace and a bunch of riders passed me. I could feel the sun burning me through my helmet and my face was getting sunburned too, all leading to a feeling of fatigue. I thought I was much closer to the aid station than I really was and kept looking for it around each bend in the road. Mentally, that took a toll on me and I slowed down even more.

I finally got to aid station #5, I inhaled a lot of food and water and refilled my pockets with more GU. I was pretty cooked by this point and it showed. When heading up a small hill to exit the aid station, one of the spectators encouraged me not to get off my bike and walk that section because I would have been the first to do so all day. Ouch. I really wanted to walk that section, too...

After the aid station, the climb ground on indefinitely. I had heard that there were 16 or 17 meadows on the next section and that they screwed with your head as they all looked the same. Upon entering each meadow, you thought you were at the summit, only to be disappointed. I decided to count down the meadows, and I'm glad I did as it gave me something to focus on other than the cramping in my hamstrings. I counted off: 1 meadow down, 15 to go; 2 meadows down, 14 to go; etc. At 16 (or maybe it was 17, I wasn't thinking very clearly) meadows, the entrance appeared to the 7 mile single track descent down Chestnut Ridge.

The downhill was scary fast and I slowly started to lose my front brake due to overheating. Thankfully, I was able to retain just enough braking to get me to the bottom. Along the way, I passed several EMTs assisting Michael Simonson, who had crashed heavily on the descent while in the top 5 of the race. A full-blown rescue was under way to get him out of the woods with more EMTs and paramedics hiking up the trail to assist him.

After the descent, I met up with Laura who was waiting for me at aid station #6. So good to see her just before the finish! She'd run 12 miles that morning to aid station #3 and was planning to run back to the finish (another 4 miles). Her words of encouragement got me to the finish as I kept repeating them over and over in my head.

Still smiling after 90 miles and lots of bonking

After a quick photo and some more Coke and Swedish Fish, I headed out for the final 8 miles to the finish, up and over two last climbs and a long descent/fireroad to the finish.

I kept a steady pace up the first part of Hankey Mountain and passed one rider. I was hurting even more at this point, but he was in a similar state. We were both so cooked we could only grunt at each other in passing, but I think we knew what the other was going through.

The never-ending fireroad after the Hankey climb was just about the end of me, but I hung on for dear life and eventually got to the finishing singletrack. I was happy to get to the finish and beat last year's time by over 30 minutes for 26th place overall. Not bad for bonking at 3-4 times, throwing up, and coming into the race without much training!

Relaxing at the finish - happy to be done!

Here's my ride on Strava (I screwed up at the start and hit the wrong button - I was 8 miles into the race before I realized I hadn't started recording):

Other local riders did very well. Kevin Carter, who I'd raced with a bunch this past summer, caught the lead group at the beginning of the race and hung on strong through the Death Climb to finish 4th. Dylan Johnson, 15 years old, finished 2nd in the singlespeed race (and was only a few minutes behind me, despite flatting). 10 year old Adam Croft beat many other riders and looked fresh at the finish; he reported that he had a much better time on the downhills than last year!

The post-race party following a swim in the river was lots of fun with tons of food, very good beer from race sponsor Heavy Seas (they make a great porter), homemade limoncello and far too much wine and bourbon. I'll be back next year.

Results can be found here: http://www.mountaintouring.com/htm/home/page_home.htm along with more photos.

Next up for me is the east coast adventure racing championships.

- Jeff

Devil's Backbone Mountain Cross

2011-08-29T14:49:00.002-04:00

August 27, 2011
Devil's Backbone Mountain Cross
Conditions: In the midst of a tropical storm
Place: 5th

After a week of work travel in 109 degree temperatures and returning Friday night to face the possibility of Hurricane Irene and the cancellation of the D&Q Summer Sizzler, I decided to get up at 3am on Saturday morning to drive to Wintergreen Resort to race/ride in the Devil's Backbone Mountain Cross as preparation for next week's Shenandoah 100 mountain bike race. I used to live near the location of the race while I was in law school and had ridden some of the roads the race was going over, including one of my favorite climbs up Irish Creek Gap. I have a vivid recollection of riding one of the roads (Cub Creek) while hallucinating from dehydration during a 120+ mile ride in 100+ degree heat. I wanted to see if the road was as bad as I remembered (it was worse).

Per the race description, "Any bike will do. A Cyclocross bike is the best tool for the job. However, a road bike will also work, but mount up some puncture resistant tires! Mountain bikes would be comfortable, especially on the dirt road descents. Whatever bike you choose make sure you have some low gears for the 6600 ft. of elevation gain and some 17+% grades!" I figured I'd give my Scott Addict RC a try for this ride as it was 50% dirt roads, 50% paved roads and mounted some 23c Continental Gator Hardshell tires with Spin Skin tire liners and tubes filled with Stan's sealant and put on a 12x25 cassette. Definitely not the right equipment for the job...

After a long, early morning drive, I arrived to fairly good weather. But, as soon as I got out on the bike, it started to pour and rained off and on for the rest of the day. On the first climb of the day, an 11% wall, I felt the 1,000 miles of driving I did the week before and had to fall off the pace of the 12-15 person lead groups. After a hair-raising descent on the first dirt road section (two wheel drifts through each of the corners on loose gravel), and a fast climb up the second dirt road section, I caught back on to the lead group just as we were about to turn onto a 9-12 mile dirt road climb.

My narrow tires dug into the dirt on the roads and I couldn't follow the pace of the leaders again and settled into a comfortable tempo pace for the climb as it got steeper and rockier. At one point, I thought I took a wrong turn as the road turned into a narrow, rocky jeep track that I could barely climb with my road gearing (39x25), but I didn't have much choice as I'd also forgotten to swap out my road shoes and pedals (waking at 3am isn't the best for remembering everything).

After a short section on the Blue Ridge Parkway and a well stocked rest-stop, I had a fast downhill on Irish Creek road and a never-ending climb up Nettle Creek and back onto the Parkway. for a stretch back to the rest-stop. By this point, Irene had kicked into full force, with strong winds and blinding rain. Tree limbs were falling on the road and I was hit on the head/back with one (another good reason to wear a helmet!).

I caught up with a few riders in front of me when I hit the rest-stop and teamed up with a fellow from the Haymarket team.

We flew down the dirt North Fork Road descent, hitting 35+ mph in the rain and mud, jumping over rocks and drifting through corners while passing other riders who had flatted or were taking the downhill at a safer (and more sane) pace.

I hit the final climb of the day, Cub Creek, where I'd had a meltdown 10 years ago while on a ride to escape law school. The ascent was every bit as bad as I remembered. Just before the start of the uphill, I fell off the pace of my two riding companions when I came around a blind corner, slid through 2-inch deep gravel, nearly hit a parked car and just I just got things straightened out to squeak by an oncoming truck.

With my heart in my throat, I hit the final climb. The road surface was soft due to the rain and I couldn't stand up (or get off and run because of my road shoes) and had to pedal while seated with a very low RPM (like at 25rpm). Thankfully my knees survived and I caught up to the two riders who were ascending just in front of me. I outsprinted them at the finish for 5th place for a satisfying finish and a good training day.

Jeremiah Bishop won the ride/race easily; it seems as if this was his last day of training before heading to Switzerland for the World Championships this week.

You can see my ride on Strava here (though I think my GPS was off - the total climbing was more like 6,600 feet):

While my bike choice was not the best for muddy roads and jeep trails (I really need to get a cross bike), the tire choice was awesome for flat prevention. A lot of riders got flats during this ride and the flat-resistant Continental tires, plus Stan's filled tubes and tire liners were indestructible and something I'll probably use for the rest of the fall and winter with a set of MKS fenders.

- Jeff

Keeping Busy...

2011-08-15T15:08:00.003-04:00

Great Race today Ross and I went 1 and 2 today at a local race where we call it the Monmouth County World Championships. Ross and I crushed it and I won with Ross in a planned 2nd place, thanks Ross. We had a 4 min gap ahead of 3rd place. Great warm up for for Kenda Cup.

John

Finally

2011-06-26T21:21:00.002-04:00

Last weekend I finally had a respectable finish in an Elite field, 14th out of 25 starters. EFTA's "The Pinnacle" is a race I've wanted to do for a while, but I always had final exams get in the way. This year I got to race and everything was perfect. The weather (sunny, 70s, low humidity) was great and my bike and body cooperated. The big climb was over before I knew it and the decent was AWESOME. When you are having fun, you forget how much pain you are in and just keep going. No pictures have surfaced, however, I did pass Colin Reuter at the start and he got it on video.

Pinnacle Bar Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo.

Look to the right while still in the field. I passed him just so I could be famous on the internet. Colin, if you didn't know, is King of the Internet.

Results

Guy's Neshaminy Classic 2011

2011-06-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

Overall a great race for Scott RC mountain bike team... We had 3 riders in the top 5 (in the elite category)... Jeff Dickey was 5th, Cam Dodge 3rd and Aron Snyder 2nd.

My First Road Race (sort of)

2011-06-08T21:16:00.005-04:00

EFTA's Big Ring Rumpus is a crit on dirt. 100% fire road, almost no elevation change, 7 4 mile laps...it is a road crit...but it's on dirt.

I figured this race would be good exercise, it is a pure fitness course - there is no hiding.

I was the only Junior and I was staged with my two friends, Nate and Fred, who were the only 19-29'ers. I dropped both of them by the end of the first lap. The 30-39 group started 2 minutes back, but there were a lot of them and they were working together. They split into two main groups. The first group went right through me. They went by so fast, I did not even consider joining. Rick Nelson was in that group, but got dropped. We rode alone together for maybe two laps. I pulled him, he was tired. I was cool with that, I was pretty honored to race with him. He thanked me for my help.

And then the second group caught us. I didn't think I would be able to hang on, but Rick went with the group, so I figured I had better as well if I wanted any chance of doing well at the race. Group riding was absolutely critical since speeds were 18 mph average for Cat.1 and 20 mph for the Elites. It was a struggle at times, but the group was pretty well matched for me.

The group (why am I not in the picture???) Photo credit: Rick Nelson.

I was pretty happy to be able to ride in this group. At the end of a lap with this group, a rider in front of me stacked it in a tight, CX style turn. I was right on his wheel, I couldn't stop quickly enough, so I kind of sort of rode over his front wheel. This person very likely was Chandler Delinks. He kept racing, and from what I heard, his stem was out of alignment slightly but his wheel was okay. We had a 5 or 6 person group and most people took helpful pulls. I took a few long pulls and even broke away from the group on the last lap, but I decided to wait for everyone because I knew I would be caught and I would not be able to make up the two minute difference (from the start) in a 12 minute lap. On the last lap, everyone was going balls to the wall. Out of the saddle attacks were launched, tires were rubbed, swears could be heard, etc...basically it got sketchy. To make matters worse, just as we were coming into the finishing chicanes with the aforementioned CX style single file turns, the Elites caught our group and so did another Cat.1 group. At this point, there were 20 guys fighting for a 90 degree left turn at 20+ mph. The Elites were fighting for cash, and the fastest Cat.1 got $200. Money was on the line and everyone was caught up in the heat of the moment. I survived the madness, but people did go down. Since I was the only Junior and everyone in all three groups was technically ahead of me, I didn't go crazy. If someone wanted to get by, I was more than willing to give an inch more so than some others.

I finished 17th overall, but times were very tight, given the nature of the course. A few madmen finished an astounding six minutes up from me, but most who finished ahead of me were
I enjoyed this race. It was completely different than anything I have ever done before and it caters to my strengths. I work well when I can keep momentum and don't have to do crazy climbs. I got a good workout and got to see what road tactics are like. Thanks to the promoters, it was fun!

I saw a bunch of people with cameras, but no pictures of me just yet. So, here is a picture of my dusty bike.

Catching Up

2011-05-30T19:08:00.017-04:00

How about some race summaries??? Sure!

King of Burlingame MTB Time Trial: This was the first race of the season. It was short (30 min) and technical. I was the only junior in the Expert / Po class, but overall I was about midpack. Pre-riding the course would have been helpful, but doing it blind was fun. It was a good way to start the season. My bike stayed together and so did I!

Fat Tire Classic: Well, it was going really well until I randomly flatted. On the start of my second lap, on a smooth section, I managed to slice a sidewall. How, I have no clue. Wizards??? I ran light tires because Winding Trails is smooth and fast, but there was nothing on the trail that should have caused me to flat. I didn't panic too much because I had already built a 4+ minute gap on second and I had an awesome CO2 inflator. The cut eventually sealed, so I started riding again, but the hole ruptured. Ehhh, that was a bummer, especially since it is a 3 hour drive each way, but at least I got a really good lap in.

Massasoit Lung Opener: Based on how well I WAS doing at the FTC, I decided to do the Pro/Open race. Guess what? There were at least three fellow racers in the Open race who had been to either the CX or MTB Word Championships. One of those guys was...Jeremy Powers!

JPow!, Seamus Powell, Johnny Bold, Justin Lindine, the usual...

It was pouring and 40 degrees at the start. My first lap was decent, not too far back from the lower 50%. Then, halfway through the second lap my rear brake stopped working. Not having a rear brake kind of stinks because you can't stop (duh)...so I crashed into a tree on a downhill...which stopped me better than my failed rear brake did. I snapped the trunk of the tree in the process (it was LOUD!) and banged my head into something. The crash broke my front shifter's barrel adjuster, which forced me into the 26t chainring for the last lap.That was okay, though, because I really couldn't pedal at that point anyway. My head was okay thanks to my Limar helmet. I'm pretty sure I saw SNOW sometime during the race, maybe it was hail. Either way, there was stuff falling from the sky, and it was cold. My vision was horrible because of the mud being flung into my eyes. AND THEN I FINISHED! I was delirious towards the end of the last lap. I was totally trashed. It took me several hours to get warm again and I kept shoving food in my mouth until it was time to sleep. It was HARD. Was it fun? Maybe...

Weeping Willow: This is my "home course." I can ride to it in 45 minutes and I enjoy the trails. I wanted to do well this year. Last year was great and I wanted to repeat that success. I decided to stick with Cat.1 in hopes of having a stellar race. The pros were doing an extra 8 miles, which just seemed like too much. The juniors were staged with the 19-29 group.

I led for the first mile, which was entirely fireroad. One junior and an "adult" squeezed in front right before the singletrack - no big deal though. We quickly caught the HUGE singlespeed field and passing was nearly impossible. The guy behind me was having a temper tantrum, swearing and rubbing my wheel, but I had nowhere to go and neither did he. I ignored him and luckily I never saw him again. I passed the junior and once I had some open trails to work with, I drilled it to get a gap. I began to cramp halfway through the race, not because of dehydration; I was just pushing myself to go fast.

I went full gas until the finish. I won by 14 minutes and got 25th out of 108 Cat.1 men. I'm pretty happy about that result. I had fun and it sounds like everyone else did too.

Coyote Hill Classic: This was my third time doing Coyote Hill. It is a small race in the middle of nowhere. Mapquest doesn't recognize the town as existing, GPS units don't work and cell phones don't always work either. Welcome to Vermont! I have fond memories of the venue, but the course itself doesn't really suit me...soft loam, tight turns, muddy grass, short steep climbs with wet roots and some slick rock gardens. Each six mile lap has a decent amount of climbing. It is always wet for whatever reason. The course got changed since the last time I raced it (2009) and more loam and more rain made it slower than ever. Keeping momentum is not easy on this course. My legs were sore before the race even started, it was a long drive and, honestly, I wasn't too excited about racing my bike. This was also the first warm, summerlike race...80 degrees, 70% humidity! The other juniors were both Vermont-ers who knew the course better than I did, so I told them I'd hang out behind them on the first lap. Zeb led Matt and I through the first lap at a casual race pace. He got something in his derailleur, and as nice a kid as he is, this is bike racing, so I gunned it. Sorry! Matt hung on for a while, but eventually faded. Zeb came back on the last lap, casually saying "Hey Nathaniel!" through the switchbacks. I freaked out because I thought he was right behind me. Turns out he was actually about 5 minutes back. Those switchbacks are deceptive! So, I won, but it was not easy at all. I struggled. I could not ride my bike for the life of me. Chain suck was a persistent problem with everyone. I ran probably a quarter of the race (no joke).

The mud left three options: 1) Cross chain big-big, no chain suck, but say hello to CRAMPS!, 2) Spin in the small chainring and get chainsuck every 4 pedal strokes (also no joke), 3) RUN! (or walk...).

This was definitely the hardest race of the season so far and the hardest race I can remember from last year. Talking with others led me to the conclusion that EVERYONE basically had the same problems I did. Chainsuck was the name of the game. It is no wonder why the singlespeeders absolutely destroyed everyone. No opportunities for chain issues and no place for mud to accumulate.

Yay bike racing!

Rude Awakenings....

2011-05-04T19:28:00.005-04:00

Alright, lets see, the last time I posted on the site it was the middle of a winter I couldn't forget about fast enough. Now it's the beginning of May and the harsh reality of what I thought was "intensity" training over the winter is starting to show it true side. There is no training like racing. This adage has been said to me over the years more than I can recall. How true it is. So now with three races into 2011 I am starting to see how the guys in the rest of the Elite field spent their winter.

The first race of the season was the M.A.S.S opener at Fairhill. It's a race that has become an early season institution. The start is a who's who of East Coast's finest racers. Pro road riders show up as well as the course itself isn't super technical or hilly. This year we had Aaron Snyder, Brandon Draugelis, Weston Schemp, Nick Waite, Chris Beck and Jeff Shalk towing the line with the rest of us. As you can probably surmise by now that was your front group of the race. I was not so lucky to make that group or the chase group, but followed up in the third group chasing them down. I can thank that to an absolutely horrible start where I could not get into my pedal. Once in though it was a chasing game for the 3 lap race. I moved into the top 20 and just tried to steadly make my way foward. After all was said and done I finished with a 19th place. Not bad considering the start and my goal was to finish in the top 20. I felt strong the whole race and when it was over I felt I could go another lap or two. Objective one down. Objective two practice my starts.

Race two saw me skip the Tour De Tykes due to scheduling conflict with a duathalon I had promised a friend I would do with him. The duathalon was a run-bike-run affair with the run being a 2 mile trail run followed by a 10 mile mountain bike race followed up by another 2 mile run. After showing up late and by late I mean the run had already started when we pulled into the parking log my teamate came through in about 12 position. I made my way through the transition zone and it was game on. Not knowing who I was racing and already being in 12th place on the bike I just tried to pass as many people as I could. When I came through the first lap I was with two other riders. I heard the announcer say "here is your 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place riders." Thinking I was in one of the top 3 positions I knew I had to try and catch the first place rider. Just out of the start/finish area I saw a rider twisting through the singletrack. I put in a massive effort and pulled him in in no time. After passing him I kept the gas on. When I finished and my runner started his second lap I knew we were in good position to maybe win this thing. With less than half a mile to go in the run my friend was passed by the guy I had beat in the bike leg. Damn. We lost the overall by 25 seconds, but did win the team classification by about 3 minutes. Not bad for my first duathalon.

Race number 3 was just this past weekend and it was the third race in the M.A.S.S series. Escape from Gragonue is definately a classic. The race itself is going on 10 years old (if not older). There is a Cyclocross race at the same location in December that attracts a huge crowd as well. The course is on private land owned by one of the Dupont's. It's completely closed off to riding throughout the year except for the 2 days they allow the races to run. The course is best described as a mix of classic East Coast riding conditions. A mix of mud, roots, rocks and everything else you can imagine in a 7 mile lap. We did 3 laps and couldn't ask for better weather. Adding to the fun of this course was having Jeff and Mike from the team come up from Virginia and Maryland to take part.

The start for me this time was much better that the Fairhill race. I won't lie, I practiced. The start was fast and I got into the top 10 into the single track. Then the dicing began. I had a guy chopping my lines and diving to the inside corners on all turns and I was on the inside already. I figured, after I put a wheel wrong and fell, I had to pass this guy in order to make up some time on the leaders. We came out to a freshly plowed false flat type of field section where I made my move and took care of the line chopper for the rest of the race. I passed 2 more guys and eventually finished up for the day in 7th. Gunnar on our team finished up 8th. Jeff pulled a top 5 finishing in 4th and Mike finished in 15th. A good day all around.

Next up on my agenda will be the Greenbrier Classic in Hagerstown, Md. It's a race I look foward to not just for the great course, but seeing the friends I don't get to see on a regular weekend basis. It's also a qualifer for the National Championships. So hopefully it will be a win-win weekend. So, until that post with stories from the trenches keep the rubber side down and be safe....Scottie

Ready to Go!

2011-03-27T17:07:00.014-04:00

Race season starts next week and my bike is ready! Not much has changed since last year, but below are a few key points I'm excited about.

Cranskins to protect the finish on our Sram XX crank arms.

Maxxis IKON tires. EXO sidewall protection will be great for rocky New England racing. This will be my second year on the Stan's 355 29er rims. They have been holding up great. Together, rotational weight is kept to a minimum.

My clever (I think so) use of two ByKyle straps. I dislike saddle bags; I like to have everything be easily accessible. I don't like putting things into a jersey pocket because it is easy to forget things and whatever might be in a jersey pocket could come out during a crash or a not so smooth bunny-hop. I have a multi-tool and a chain tool held securely in place. The chain tool has a Sram quick link inside. That stuff won't be going anywhere.

Color matching, duh. It makes you go faster...

Genuine Innovations Big Air inflator. I hate flats (who doesn't), but I feel confident that should I rip a sidewall or ride over a bed of thorns, I can get back rolling in no time. GI has the best heads; I've tried a Planet Bike and Bontrager inflator. Both, quite frankly suck (harsh, but true) because they are not controllable and are a lot more fragile. With GI, you twist on the cartridge and push the head onto the valve, it is spring loaded. If you don't need to use your whole cartridge, just take the inflator off the valve (but don't unscrew the cartridge!). It won't keep spitting out the gas, it will stop. It is not rocket science for GI, but for other companies' inflators, it is. The Big Air comes with a sweet seatpost attachment that secures the system in place. Rubber band not included, I just like to be extra safe.

Quality parts means one can focus on riding and racing!

Crankskins Video - 2011 Products

2011-03-22T18:08:00.000-04:00

Here's a video from one of our awesome sponsors, EJ at Crankskins. If you're looking to protect your bike from paint wear, to add some color to your bike (he can turn out custom sticker kits for you in a heartbeat), team banners, or pretty much anything you can think of (he made some cool custom Nalgene bottle samples for us last year), check out his site at:

www.crankskins.com

And, use this discount code to get a special deal on your order:

- Jeff

Shootout on Angler's Ridge - Race Report

2011-03-18T14:28:00.003-04:00

What: Shootout on Angler's Ridge Cross Country; Wicked Witch Time Trial
Where: Danville, VA
When: March 12/13
Who: Aaron and Jeff
Conditions: Perfect spring weather - dry and sunny and in the mid-60s to mid-70s
Results: Time trial - Aaron 2nd, Jeff 5th; Cross-country - Aaron 4th, Jeff 7th

I headed south last weekend to Danville, VA with Laura to the Shootout on Angler's Ridge to meet up with Aaron and Jen (who were driving north from Key West) for a great weekend of racing. The Southern Virginia Mountain Bike Association was hosting a time trial Saturday afternoon, a movie (Ride the Divide with multi-time Divide Race winner Matt Lee in attendance) and a cross-country on Sunday. The weather couldn't have been better and the turnout was enormous. Plus, I haven't seen a prize list like the one offered there in quite a long time (not insignificant cash prizes for the Sport categories, as well as large cash prizes the Expert and Pro categories (male and female))

On Saturday morning the town of Danville held a trail running race on some of the mtb trails (Laura won her age group in the half marathon and was the second woman overall). Laura reported back that the trails had some very steep, but short climbs and the course had no flat sections at all.

A nice warm-up on the trails showed them to be in top condition - it's evident that the local organization has done a tremendous job in upkeep of their trails. They showed almost no sign of the torrential rains earlier in the week. I confirmed Laura's trail info - very short and steep hills.

Time Trial Start

The time trial was one lap around the shortened cross-country course and featured punchy climbs and just about 100% singletrack that was a blast to ride. The time trial was open for all and paid $500 for the winner, with cash back to 10th (or 15th) place. Aaron turned in a fast ride to finish a close second and I came in 5th. That was my first hard effort of the year and it was a rude awakening for my legs. That hurt!

Heading down the road and into the woods on the TT course

Sprinting for the finish in the TT

Saturday night was a pasta dinner put on by the race organizers, and featured Sierra Nevada beer plus a movie on a large screen in the Danville town community center (a converted train depot). A very fun way to spend the evening!
Day two was very warm and the races were delayed for nearly an hour becuase of the high numbers of people registering. The race sold out in full. I haven't seen that happen in years in a mtb race and it speaks well to how much fun this race was - everyone wanted to join in, especially on such a sunny day. After the 6 hour endurance race got under way, the pro race started 30 minutes later (they started the pro field plus all of the multiple expert fields at once).

Before the start

On the starting line

Someone went down in the pro category just after the start, taking down a number of other people and bringing Aaron to a dead stop. A bike flew up and whacked my rear derailleur, throwing it out of alignment. But, I was able to get through the carnage and followed Nick Waite into the singletrack where a group of 6 formed.

Aaron chasing back to the leaders after the start line carnage

About 1/3 of the way through the first lap, I was about to blow up due to the high pace and finally Aaron caught back onto the main group. As soon as that happened, I dropped back to try and recover at my own pace. Boy, was I glad to be riding my Scott Spark RC. Its 110mm of travel smoothed out all of the roots that crossed the trail and helped me speed up on all the downhills and weighing only 21 pounds helped me up any hill in my way.

The trails were tons of fun and all of the other riders were very polite and accommodating given the tight passing areas. Lots of "can I pass on your left" and pleases and thank yous went a long way to getting around slower riders very easily.

On lap #2, I grabbed a bottle of Tri-Berry nuun for some electrolytes. The day was much warmer than I'd anticipated and I was sweating out a lot of salt. Given the short steep hills, it was a recipe for cramping. I started to pick up the pace and felt better and better.

By the end of the second lap, I'd made up some time and was ready to go for lap #3. I grabbed my favorite type of electrolyte drink, nuun's Kona Cola (caffeinated - it tastes somewhat like Coke and gives the energy that Coke gives at the end of a race, but without the carbonation so it's exceptionally easy to drink and doesn't upset my stomach) and roared out for my last lap. I
passed four riders who had been ahead of me for most of the day and just ran out of time to catch two more who were almost in reach by the time I hit the finish to get 7th. The result wasn't the best, but it felt like my form was coming around and I felt better at the finish than at the start - that's a good feeling!

Post-race salt deposits on my face - nuun prevented any cramping from dehydration!

Aaron in 4th - rocking his new SOLE Casual Flips

I was very impressed by one rider, Dylan Johnson, a 16 year old who raced in the 19-29 year old Category 2 race. He rode a singlespeed and beat all of his competitors. If he'd been in the open singlespeed category, he probably would have won that race too. I remember seeing Dylan in the Shenandoah 100 last fall where he finished 4th place in the singlespeed category against some top riders. Watch out for him in the future - this kid is fast!

After a bit of a wait for results - the wait was made much easier by tons of BBQ from Checkered Pig BBQ - we hit the road back to DC to close out on an awesome weekend. A great sunny race weekend - finally warm enough to wear my SOLE Sport Flips - it could be the reason I felt so good this weekend was becuase my feet were happy!

Results are here.

I'd highly recommend this race to anyone next year. The course was tons of fun, the event with its two day format, plus a social event, made for a great time and the prize lists were phenomenal. This was as much fun as I'd had at some great events last summer like the Massanutten Hoo-Ha, the Leadville 100 or Shenandoah 100.

Next up for me are two circuit races in Maryland this weekend, then a crit and the Jefferson Cup road race next weekend in Charlottesville, VA.

- Jeff

new sunglasses!

2011-03-15T11:51:00.002-04:00

Optic nerve sent some shades for 2011...Their otto syte sunglasses are my favorite... I lost the pair i had last year and had been missing them.

California Training

2011-03-10T18:00:00.001-05:00

I went to California recently on my annual pilgrimage to somewhere warm, sunny and green to fight off the end of winter doldrums and to get a solid week of road riding miles into my legs. Like last year, I headed to Los Olivos, CA, just outside of Santa Barbara. Los Olivos is home to the Santa Ynez round of the US Cup mountain bike series, and even more appropriate for a week's vacation, multiple high quality vineyards and lots of climbing on quiet roads.

This year I headed to CA to ride with my girlfriend, Laura, and three teammates from my National Capital Velo Club road team, Tom, Rob and Rob, and Rob girlfriend (and my realtor), Tiffany. As we drove north from LAX to Los Olivos, it started raining and the weather report was for snow in the mountains surrounding the valley. I thought it never snowed in Southern California!

Our first day of riding, we set out for a 100 mile loop that took us up and over two significant climbs. We could see the snow off in the distance on the descent from this 15 kilometer climb:

Heading down the canyon, snowy mountains in the distance

Having been stuck in the snowy and cold East Coast for the winter, a 5+ hour day to start the week was a shock to the system, but I was happy to have finished off the ride not completely bonked. I must still have some residual long-distance endurance left over from my fall of adventure racing. As the test-piece mountain in the area, Mt. Figueroa was still snowed in on our second day of riding, we headed out for another 80+ mile ride through the local canyons. Some viciously steep climbs, but thankfully, they were no longer than 10-15 minutes each (with the exception of the hour+ long drag up Foxen Canyon).

Stopping for a bite to eat after summiting Drum Canyon

Day three brought more clear and warm weather and we headed up Mt. Fig, a mountain that overlooks the Santa Ynez valley and the route climbs almost 4,500 feet in 15 miles. My legs were feeling pretty cooked and I wasn't able to keep up the 350 watt average that I held for the hour long climb last year, and instead enjoyed the scenery on the way up.

Unfortunately, the summit was snowed in still (lucky for me as the guys had to turn back and found me on the way back down - I'd hit a sharp rock and torn my sidewall - I was worried about a very long walk back home, but my Genuine Innovations inflator got me home - I have the Ultrainflate Plus, which is awesome for these trips because I can't always be sure which CO2 cartridges are available and it uses both threaded and unthreaded cartridges).

Heading to Mt. Fig

The start of the climb, proper

Heading up to the mountain summit in the distance

The descent

Day four brought an easy ride and tours of several local vineyards. We bought tons of wine to bring home and really enjoyed our visits to Alma Rosa , Sanford , Dragnonette and several others.

Day five was an epic route - huge climbing (the first one on dirt), crazy descents (one was a 10 mile dirt road descent) and incredible views. Old San Marcos Road into Painted Cave Road hurt me and it took awhile to recover, but hung on to get to the summit of the mountains overlooking Santa Barbara and the crazy descent down Arroyo Burro road to the (suspected) nudist camp and back to Los Olivos. Everyone looked a bit shelled after that 5+ hour loop.

Looking back at Old San Marcos Pass road

The view from the heights of Santa Barbara

Descending Arroyo Burro

We took one day off due to rain and got in an easy ride on day seven before heading to Los Angeles for the night and our flight out on Sunday. We went out to dinner in Santa Monica and it was very cold - the locals were saying that it was the coldest they'd seen in recent memory... Oh well, I guess it's not always warm and sunny in Southern California, but I hope to go back again in 2012.

You can check out GPS routes of our training days here on the Ride with GPS site.

I'm off to my first mountain bike race of 2011 in Danville, VA this weekend - the opener of the Virginia Off Road Series and promoted by the Southern Virginia Mountain Bike Association. It's a two day event, with time trial on day one and a cross country on day two (or an endurance race for those who are so inclined). The event also has a trail running race (Laura's joining me for this trip to do the half marathon to get ready for the Boston Marathon) and a free screening of the Ride the Divide movie about the incredible mountain bike race from Canada, through the US Rocky Mountains to the Mexico border. Ouch. I'm looking forward to seeing it!

- Jeff

Finally Riding on Dirt

2011-03-07T19:34:00.005-05:00

Here in MA, we have had a craaazy winter:

The snow kept coming, then it wouldn't melt. Only one hour away, the Cape is a wonderful place to ride bikes. They get less snow and more rain, so the trails are dry and fast.

Where I am, there is still snow on the ground. It will be a while before my local trails dry out. This was my first real mtb ride of 2011. I can't remember my last mtb ride on dirt, but I know it was back in November / December. The roads have been in horrible shape and simply unsafe - no shoulder (a negative shoulder?) and 10 foot high snow banks. So, needless to say, Nate, Fred and I were ecstatic about getting to ride bikes on trails. The Cape is THE place to ride bikes in the winter.

He had so, so, so much rust on that bike. He had to ride in the 44 the whole ride because not too many gear combos were working...

There was some mud in spots.

...

It was 65 and sunny...wow, just wow!!! I almost got a sunburn. Maybe I shouldn't say where we rode (ehh, doesn't really matter), but we saw 10 National Guard Hummers (hint, hint) on the way down and more Hummers on military trucks once there. Behave yourself there, you could have an F-15 chasing you before you know it. We rode for about three hours and saw maybe fifty other mountain bikers. I'm sure there were more. No one else, just Cabin-fever-ridden mountain bikers. Nate bonked hard about 2 hours into the ride. He enjoyed the Nuun Kona Cola and Raw Revolution bar I offered him. Despite his hallucinations about Alice in Wonderland, he survived and got us home. In other news, I prepared my new Sole custom footbeds in my Mavic shoes and running shoes. I've had some issues relating from shoes lately, so hopefully these will help.

In the oven!

nuun Drink Tablets

2011-02-26T22:19:00.008-05:00

We have another new sponsor to report on, nuun. Noon, none? Pronounce it however you like. They make simple tablets that dissolve in water that help in replenishing electrolytes. nuun comes in many flavors:

Kona Cola (tastes like Coke/Pepsi), Citrus Fruit, Banana, Lemon+Lime, Orange and Tri-Berry. The stuff tastes great, seriously. It is easy to get down and it won't upset your stomach like some other drinks. It's not loaded with sugar, in fact, it has no sugar content.

I think I will really appreciate it on long road rides under the blazing sun, or on the last lap of a long XC race. Eventually I get sick of water and I start to crave soda (I hardly drink it) because the carbonation clears out my mouth and wakes me up a bit. In that way, nuun mimics soda. nuun works for Jeremiah Bishop and Ryan Trebon, these guys like to ride fast and I'm sure nuun helps them out when they need to rehydrate.

Cures for frozen water bottles and chamois issues..

2011-02-02T12:05:00.005-05:00

What a winter it's been. Since the first day of the New Year I have put in about a good solid two weeks worth of riding. It hasn't been a straight through two weeks either. I am talking about pieced together days here and there. Between the two weeks of being sick and the Northeast weather it's been hard to find motivation. I made a new year's resolution that, after one 4 hour session on the rollers with a headwind fan, that I would under no circumstance ride a trainer the rest of this season. Well now that the year is only one month old I am starting to rethink my resolution and see why so many people have a hard time keeping them.

To keep the fire going I've been running a bit when not on the bike. It's been a good diversion and something I haven't done in about 10 years. It's a weird feeling getting back on the bike after spending a good week just running. I don't feel completely jacked, but it takes the legs a few miles to get up to speed. And this running thing might just be what I need when the season starts because I don't see the trails drying out anytime soon with the amount of snow, ice, and rain we've been having.

If there is a positive to the slow miles on the bike this time of year it's getting to try out the new sponsor product. The most prefered method to test new stuff is to do it in a way where you can think about it when you're using it. This way if there are any problems it can all be worked out before the race season starts. Nothing worse than getting two hours into a race using a new product your all jazzed on just to find out it doesn't work as mentioned. You are literally stuck. The sport is tough enough when all goes well now add to the frustration of components, clothing or any other accessories not working as planned, and, well, you get the idea.

This brings me to two new products we are using for 2011. One is the Polar Insulated Water Bottles. I've never used an insulated bottle before, but that's all changed. Usually when I ride in the cold (note: below freezing tempatures) I would dump a couple of spoonfulls of salt in the water to keep it from freezing. It would work most of the time, but not always. I got a couple of the Polar Insulated bottles filled them with water, sans salt, and headed out with a couple of friends for a lovely 3 hour tour in 19 degree weather. About an hour into the ride one of the guys reached down to take a drink only to find a one pound block of ice in his bottle cage. My bottle never froze. It got cold, really really cold, but did not freeze. We stopped about mid-ride to warm up and, for the other guys, rehydrate. I did fill the one bottle with coffee and enjoyed a nice hot/ warm beverage on the ride home. Now when the race season comes around and the temps reach 99 degrees I know which bottle I'll have in my cage to keep the core tempature cool.

Product number two is Enzo's Button Hole Chamios Cream. The last time I used chamios cream was way back in the day. It was not the most pleasant experience and like riding the trainer inside I vowed to never use it again. The past few rides have been in super cold weather so wearing a couple of layers of tights is not out of the question. With all those layers sometimes the chamios do not sit right causing chaffing issues. I've had this happen on several occasions and it usually means a quick end to a ride. I got the Enzo's, applied as directed, and headed out for a good multi-hour epic. No issues. No chaffing. All around comfort. With all the snow melt on the roads the water finds its way through everything and still no chaffing issues. After 4 hours of riding through snow melt, dirt roads and lots of climbing I ended as refreshed as I felt (except for the legs). Enzo's has a great smell, like the old Assos cream, so nothing offensive there either.

What a great way to start a new year. Two new sponsors with products that make the riding in this weather actually enjoyable or at the very least more tolerant. As the saying goes "There are no bad days just bad equipment". So, until the next post, fill your Polar bottle with some espresso, lather your chamois with some Enzo's Button Hole and go drop your friends on the next hill. They will appreciate the cool minty smell as you go by........

Mid-Winter Training

2011-01-03T14:25:00.003-05:00

After a long season and a break in November, I finally got back to training again in December. It feels good to be back on the bike! But, the weather hasn't been all that great for riding the trails, so I've been on the roads or my trainer in the basement for the past several weeks.

As Nathaniel mentioned, we're now sponsored by Buttonhole chamois cream. I've been using it for the past month and been very happy with it, especially because it's prevented any saddle sores (always an early season problem when I start to ride again after taking time off the bike). The cream has a nice mint chocolaty smell and a pleasant tingle like the old Assos chamois cream.

I was especially happy to have it yesterday when I went out for the Haymarket Winter Bike League's 60 mile ride/race in 40-50 degree temps and rain. Riding in weather is made much better when shared with others - and about 70+ people showed up to burn off some holiday calories and ring in the new year.

The ride was up and over short, steep hills covered in road salt and grime and the last 9 miles or so were on dirt roads (that was fun). I ended up with a ton of the road grit on my face (but my photochromatic glasses from Optic Nerve let me see where I was going!)...

A bit grimy after a January 2 road ride in the rain

A good way to start 2011!

- Jeff

Update

2011-01-02T15:47:00.003-05:00

This year we have two new sponsors, Polar insulated water bottles and Enzo's ButtonHole chamois cream. Although I personally have not really started training for this year, I have had a little bit of time with each and I'm excited to start using them more frequently. Last year over the winter, I had a problem with water freezing on long rides, so Polar bottles should be helpful this winter. Over the summer they will be useful for keeping water cold! One thing that is unique about them is their removable mouthpiece / valve, to clean out any dirt that may get trapped in there. I only have one sub-32 degree ride on a Polar bottle, but the water didn't freeze!

Also, chamois cream is something you may not realize you need until you try it. Last year I got some bad saddle sores, so hopefully this year will be different. The cream has a nice scent and texture. Plus, it isn't made up of artificial chemicals.

Press Release

2010-12-17T20:58:00.001-05:00

From BikeWorldNews.com
"The SCOTT RC Mountain Bike Team is once again poised for a big year. Coming off the 2010 season where the team won three state championships, three regional championships, finished first in 30 races and placed riders in the top five 65 times, the team has officially unveiled its 2011 roster. The SCOTT team is comprised of 11 riders based in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Aaron Snyder, Pennsylvania state champion and Mid-Atlantic regional champion, Scott Wilson, MASS series champion, and endurance racing phenom Jeff Dickey will all be returning to the team along with pro riders Mike Joos and John Arias. Elite amateur riders returning for 2011 are Jay Dodge, Cam Dodge, Ross Anderson, Ernesto Calderin and Nathaniel Williams, Massachusetts junior state champion,.

The new addition to the team is Gunnar Bergey, Pennsylvania junior state champion.

“The 2011 roster is strong and well rounded with some of the Mid-Atlantic’s best riders” said Bart Passanante, the teams managing director for 2011. “This year we will look to build on 2010’s success with additional team members and sponsors. The teams title sponsors SCOTT USA and ????? have ensured that these athletes will continue to perform at the highest level in 2011 and we thank them for their continued support of the team. Additionally, we are very excited about the teams foundation of seasoned and up and coming riders who will allow us to be strong well into the future.”

For 2011 The SCOTT RC Mountain Bike Team will compete in a broad range of regional mountain bike races in the Mid Atlantic as well as national calendar events throughout the United States.

Team Roster

■Aaron Snyder (pro)
■Jeff Dickey (pro)
■John Arias (pro)
■Mike Joos (pro)
■Cam Dodge (elite amateur)
■Ernesto Caldarin (elite amateur)
■Gunnar Bergey (elite amateur)
■Jay Dodge (elite amateur)
■Nathaniel Williams (elite amateur)
■Ross Anderson (elite amateur)
■Scott Wilson (elite amateur)"

Gunnar!!!

2010-12-17T20:49:00.002-05:00

If you haven't heard, our newest edition to the team, Gunnar Bergey has been getting pretty famous lately. He was selected by USA Cycling to participate in the Euro 'Cross Camp in Belgium. More recently, he earned a fifth place finish at the Cyclocross National Championships.

(He is so new, he doesn't have a Scott bike yet)

Pretty cool.

2010 Iceman Cometh Race Report

2010-11-18T07:30:00.011-05:00

I have been looking forward to racing in Iceman for a few years now and was very excited for the opportunity to race this year. Since Michigan is my home state I am very familiar with the race and crowds that it can bring. The race certainly delivered on all fronts; crowds, participants, cold, snow, mud and tons of fun.

Since this was my first time racing Iceman and the promoters dropped racing class as a definition for starting order, I was in the 28th start wave. The 28th wave was an "unseeded" start wave which included only riders who had not raced Iceman in previous years. All previous years starters were seeded by their prior finish times. Coming into the race I had no idea how this was to eventually effect my result.

I knew this race was shaping up to be fun when the snow began on the Friday drive up to Traverse City. The temperature had dropped to just about freezing and then got below 32 overnight. I awoke to frozen earth, cold temps, and a clear sun filled sky. My start time was 10:28am Saturday morning. When I arrived at the start there were hundreds of people milling around in the start zone and everyone was doing their best to keep warm. I followed my normal warmup routine but shortened it up by about ten minutes due to cold toes. Before the start I added 3 sets of toe warmers to my riding shoes which made for a bit of a tight fit but fairly warm toes.

Off the start I set the pace in the front of my wave and easily made the it first into the single track which was a mile and half from the start line. Immediately I knew what I was going to be in for as I came up behind the previous wave that had started 3 minutes earlier. This set the tone for the remainder of the race, "passing left", "passing right". Since close to 1900 riders had started in 27 waves in front of mine it was going to be a day of passing. The course was incredibly fast with all double track and singletrack which made for safe and fairly quick passing. The major slow downs took place in the singletrack where hundreds of riders were getting jammed up all together in a long line of wheel to wheel bicycles as far as I could see. In the spirit of the event no one was complaining only enjoying!

As the race progressed the ground softened up and exposed the normal Michigan riding conditions which consists almost exclusively of sand. At this time I was totally stoked to have Pro Gold lubricants on my drivetrain. Pro Gold http://www.progoldmfr.com/ kept my Scott 29er running smooth and fast for the entire race.

I rode a very strong race feeling good the entire time despite the slow downs, stops and starts, I ended up finishing first in my wave and 13th in my group. However, I was not able to compete against the seeded riders in my group who started in waves 2 through 5. I am already looking forward to next year and a Seeded start time.

Velonews posted a great video of the race recorded by a rider in same start wave.

(VeloEpic.com) Iceman Cometh 2010 from VeloEpic on Vimeo.

Last Podium of 2010

2010-11-15T21:04:00.002-05:00

After a long season of 20 plus races it was nice to close this season down at the Campmor H2H Awards Dinner. It was nice to get on the box for the last time this season getting 2nd overall for the series. I think this will be a nice send off to Pro for next season.

~John

fun ride in the watershed (frederick MD)

2010-11-15T16:01:00.005-05:00

Jeff and a couple of his friends made a trip up from DC to ride some more challenging terrain in Frederick... they got the double whammy, more technical and a ton of leaves to make the terrain even more demanding.

it was a fun ride about 3-4 hours long... i had two flats... Colby was kind enough to give me a spare tube... then we all ate at the mountain view diner... great place... large selection, big helpings and great price... The best after ride restaurant in the area (in my opinion)

took a few pics... modeling are self's with a beautiful autumn background.

-mike

Checkpoint Tracker Adventure Race National Championship - Fruita/Moab Vacation Recap

2010-11-05T16:50:00.006-04:00

Checkpoint Tracker Adventure Race National Championship
Moab, UT
October 29-30, 2010
Conditions: Started in the Colorado River, headed onto slickrock and cliff areas for multiple hours, followed by a few hours on dirt and paved roads - water temp in the Colorado was 50 degrees, during the race air temperatures ranged from 60 to the low 30s
In attendance: Jeff

After finally getting my longtime co-ed endurance racing teammate, Terri Spanogle, to do some adventure racing, we headed to Colorado and Utah last week for several days of riding in Fruita, CO and for the Checkpoint Tracker Series Adventure Race National Championship. This year, there have been two national championships due to a split in promotion of adventure racing. I got to do both of them! This time, the race was in Moab, Utah and was to have 2-3 miles of riverboarding (think boogie boarding down rapids) and 15-25 miles of kayaking on the Colorado, 20-30 miles of running/trekking, 35-45 miles of mountain biking, a 300 foot long Tyrolean traverse over a 200 foot deep canyon and a 100 foot rappel, all while orienteering using a map and compass. We had just about 28 hours to finish the course with our 4-person co-ed team.

After Terri's luggage finally arrived in Grand Junction (a day after we arrived), it was too muddy to go out and ride given the recent torrential rain and snow, so we headed out for a fun four hour hike in Colorado National Monument. I'd never been to the high desert canyonlands area before, and the views were spectacular. The red rocks, green undergrowth and snow made for a great hike.

Colorado National Monument - Looking down valley to Grand Junction

Cool rock formations as we hiked down into the canyons from the upper rim

We eventually made our way to Fruita to ride and picked a quart of Stan's Tire Sealant at Over the Edge Sports to get our tires protected from the cactus and other spiny things the high desert had to offer. We spent the first day exploring Kokopelli's trails. They were perfectly built to take advantage of the terrain and wound in and around the canyons. Just as you thought you'd ridden all of the trail, it headed uphill for another loop. Because we had such a long race coming up that weekend, it was a mellow 4 hour ride. We rocked out on Rustler's Loop, Horsethief Bench Loop, Mary's Trail, Steve's Loop and Mack Ridge. Each one brought a smile to my face.

It was a good day to be a mountain biker.

Steve's Loop

Looking down from Mack Ridge onto Steve's Loop

On top of Mack Ridge, looking back at the trails we'd ridden

Kokopelli Trailhead

On our second day of riding, we didn't have much time left before needing to get to Moab and the race venue, so we went to the 18 Road area of Fruita to ride the awesomely fun Kessel Run and Joes Ridge downhills. I'm glad I brought my Scott Spark with me to Colorado - the blend of fast downhills and power uphills suited the multi-travel shock.

The trail head was awash in mountain bikers who had also traveled to Fruita to ride. We met a bunch of guys in their 60s who had traveled by Sprinter van all the way from Michigan just to ride in Fruita/Moab. Very cool.

Joe's Ridge

Joe's Ridge heading off into the distance

After riding Joe's Ridge, we left with a smile and headed further west to Utah to head to the Red Cliffs Lodge for the start of the race. On the way there, we noticed that the La Salle mountains were snow-covered. Knowing that adventure race directors sometimes like to add even more adventure into their races, I figured we'd probably be getting into the snow at some point. Anyway, it was an awesome drive to Moab down the Colorado River canyon.

The white capped La Salle mountains in the distance, Fisher Towers in the foreground

We got to the race venue and started trying to deal with gear selections. I'd brought clothes and equipment for all sorts of eventualities - from cold rain and snow to hot temperatures - and gear for a whole bunch of different events - swim fins, a wetsuit, dry top, and neoprene booties for for riverboarding, kayak paddles, multiple running shoes, my Scott Spark, bike parts and repair tools, rock climbing gear, orienteering gear and lots and lots of food. I'm surprised I made it on the airplane with so much stuff.

Terri and I met up with our other teammates - our marathoner, Timm Phillips from North Carolina, and our uber-navigator, Phil Nichols, from Nebraska - later that evening and tried to get ourselves sorted out for the race. After some frantic gear packing, reviewing maps and driving an hour to the gear-drop off point (we had to drive nearly an hour away to a transition area to drop off equipment for rock climbing, trekking and mountain biking, along with food and water for 24 hours of exercise), we finally got to bed around midnight.

The race started bright and early the next morning with a jump into the Colorado River and a swim/riverboard downriver for 2 miles. We got caught up in the masses of racers wearing swim fins (they don't run very well) and got a delayed start. After picking up a few places on the riverboard section, we climbed up onto a beach to get into 2-person inflatable kayaks for a 4+ hour kayak leg down the river.

Geared up for a very cold dunk in the Colorado River and riverboarding down though some rapids

I'm not a fan of kayaking. I enjoy going through fast water, but the flat water paddling is murder. And there was a lot of flat water paddling. Our team stayed together fairly well in our two boats (me and Timm in one boat and Terri and Phil in the other) and we made it to the transition area where we picked up an aerial map for an orienteering and ropes course.

We set out on our trek and almost immediately had to wait in a line to ascend fixed ropes up and over some of Moab's picturesque arches. Ian Adamson, the world's most successful adventure racer of all time, was at the arch and we got to talk with him for a few minutes. That was a good way to spend the wait in line.

You can see a bunch of photos of the course, including the arches here: http://prints.williamlsnyder.com/Adventure-Racing/Checkpoint-Tracker-National/Race-Course-Photos/14494795_bDWDT#1076821743_GJiyQ

And here: http://checkpointtracker.zenfolio.com/p457241745

After ascending the ropes, we accessed Poison Spider Mesa and had a 5-6 hour trek to obtain 5 checkpoints and make it to the Tyrolean Traverse by 6pm and rappel down from the mesa by 6:30. Each checkpoint we missed was a 2 hour penalty and if we did not make the 6pm or 6:30 cut-offs that was another hour penalty.

Phil navigated our team phenomenally across the moonscape-like rocks and we quickly collected two points. Checkpoint #5, however, took us forever to find. It was the furthest point on a long cliff and the furthest distance away from the Tyrolean Traverse. After we ran out of options (ie, the cliffs were almost surrounding us) and had searched the area for a long time, Timm found a tiny slot in the cliff wall that we climbed up to get the checkpoint. Unfortunately, two or three other teams spotted us and took advantage of our 20 minutes of searching to easily get the checkpoint.

Corona Arch - we climbed up the backside of this arch on fixed ropes to get to the upper mesa area

On our way back to the Tyrolean Traverse, we somehow got turned around and missed checkpoint #6 and as we got to area with checkpoint #8, the fifth and last checkpoint, with only 15 minutes left to spare before 6pm, we saw 10+ teams traversing the slickrock also looking in vain for the point.

As most of the other teams did not find checkpoint #8, we had no luck either. We decided to skip the Tyrolean Traverse (we could not get across the canyon before 6pm) and head straight for the rappel. This was a hard choice, but a good one, as the rappel closed at 6:30. After fording an icy cold, waist-deep pool of water, we were one of the last teams permitted down the ropes.

We heard that one or two teams were lost on the mesa all night, in the dark....

After the descent down the ropes, we headed out a slot canyon and back to the transition area to pick up our bikes. By the time we got riding, it was pitch black. I was happy to have along my Lupine Edison 10 (this light and battery has worked flawlessly for nearly 10 years) and my Lupine Tesla 5 - tons of light for the pitch black Moab night!

We rode through the night and through Moab's streets to the world famous Slickrock Trail. The organizers gave us a choice to either ride or run the trail to obtain 8 or so checkpoints. Pass up riding the slickrock trail in the dark? Never!

The ride took almost 4 hours, but we had a great time, swooping up and down the sandstone rock. I've never encountered trails where I've had so much grip. And, thankfully, I couldn't see where some of the drop-offs were - I'm sure there were some - because we were going pretty fast. Everywhere we looked, we could see other teams - four sets of lights ascending or descending rocks. It was quite a spectacle, almost as if the stars had gotten very close to us (it was pitch black) and we were in and among them.

At 2am we finished our ride and faced a very long uphill leg on gravel and paved roads to the final checkpoint of the race, which was located around 8,500 feet (3-4,000 feet of climbing from where we were setting out from). Some of our team was getting tired out, so I used a bungee cord to pull them up the road. Some of the sections were incredibly steep and I was glad for my 28x36 gearing on my Sram XX. Even puling a tired teammate up a 18% grade, I was still able to motor right along.

Timm was starting to show the signs of real fatigue and possible illness - e.g., slurred speech, refusing to eat or drink - which worried me and Phil. Plus, he had damaged the B-Tab on his bike, only leaving him with three gears, none of which were very useful. So, we took a possibly easier route to the checkpoint instead of riding on the Kokopelli Trail.

The route choice turned out to be a good move, but we only after the fact, as our ATV trail turned into first a cow-path, then a deer-path and then nothing... Phil was confident he knew where he was (even though, I'm sure I was giving him a look of death, i.e., "we're going the wrong way"), but he successfully led us up and over a ridgeline and nearly right on top of the checkpoint. We also made up time on other teams. Awesome!

After chatting briefly with the very cold volunteers manning the checkpoint, we headed out for a 4,5000 foot vertical drop down a paved road and back to the finish. The temperatures were in the low 30s and snow was on the ground. After riding up that far, we were all covered in sweat and it quickly froze on us and we got colder and colder as we dropped into the valley far below. At one point, I was shivering so badly, I thought I was going to crash my bike because I couldn't hold the handlebars straight. But, none of us wanted to stop with just a few miles left to go.

We finished just at sunrise, 24 hours after we started.

I got cleaned up and headed to the hotel restaurant where I polished off plate after plate of food, took a nap, and then came back for more.

Our team ended up in 15th place after being assessed 5 hours of penalties for missing checkpoints 6 and 8 and the Tyrolean Traverse. Those were tough penalties to get, but the time-cutoffs were very difficult to achieve (and there was some controversy regarding the top few team's interpretation of the rules and route choices; our placing, I think, was not affected by that controversy). We were all very happy with our accomplishments and finishing together as a team. We all came together to help each other out when the going became tough and finished strong.

But, what a race! I'll always keep memories of riding the slickrock trail at night - that was a really fun experience and one that I don't think many people get to have. A week after the race, though, and I'm still pretty tired out and ravenously hungry. I guess one or two Raw Rev bars, 18 GUs, Zebra Cakes and some assorted gummi worms isn't enough for 24 hours!

So, this race closes out my season. Back to rebuild and get ready for 2011. I'm looking forward to getting my new Scale 29er Carbon and taking it out for a spin. After seeing the bike at the World Cup Finals in Windham, NY, I'm really eager to race on it next year!

- Jeff

USARA Adventure Racing National Championships

2010-10-21T16:17:00.006-04:00

USARA Adventure Racing National Championships
Hidden Valley, PA
October 15-16, 2010
Weather: Cold and wet to start, sunny through the day, cold and windy during the night

In attendance: Jeff

To close out my season, I've been doing some long distance racing - the Shenandoah 100, an 18 hour adventure race at the end of September, and most recently, the USARA Adventure Race National Championships in and around Hidden Valley, PA. The national championship race is a 30 hour co-ed event for teams of 3 that included something like 150k of mountain biking, 3-4 hours of kayaking, and a whole lot of running/trekking and orienteering.

I was racing with my adventure racing team, Team Remington-Mountain Khakis/Trakkers, a team I've been with for a few years, who had fielded two co-ed and one masters teams for the event. Going into the race, the R-MK/T team was the #1 ranked team in the US.

At the pre-race meeting - left to right, are Michelle Thompson, Phil Nicholas, Sheila Torres-Blank, Dave Ashley, Mark Harris, Todd Jansson and Veronica Ivey (back row) - front row are Michael Spiller and Jeff Dickey

Unfortunately, the pro mountain bike woman who I was to race with broke her foot a few weeks before the race and we were just able to find a sub for her before the event started.

The race started off cold and early with a short orienteering course around the Hidden Valley ski area (this was after we had less than an hour to plot out all of our checkpoints on two huge maps and try to determine the best route). We ran to the top of the ski area to get our orienteering maps and got all of the first checkpoints in quick order and back to the finish to begin the first bike leg of the race.

We got out to a good start (perhaps 12th out of 35+ teams) and eventually made our way to the top of Seven Springs ski area, a few miles away. From there, we bombed down some fast roads, onto some trails and found our next checkpoint. After that point, I began towing Sheila, our substitute teammate who is from Texas and not used to hills or wet rocky trails or roads. I hooked up a bungee cord from my backpack to her bike and motored along (probably all-told, I rode this way for 50 or so miles - talk about a power workout!).

After an hour or two of riding, we caught up to the leading teams on a huge paved climb, but we missed a turn and got lost on the top of a mountain that was covered in ropy thorns. By this point, the second of our co-ed teams caught up to us, and after 30 minutes of bushwhacking through deep thorns, we found our way again. On the next descent, Sheila crashed heavily and I think she lost some of her nerve for east-coast riding. But, she soldiered on with us and we made it to the start of the paddling leg of the race at around 1pm - a 4 hour ride.... I was eating GU packets like mad - trying to keep up my energy for the day and into the night (my favorite flavor is Mint Chocolate - I think I ate 17 of those during the course of the race).

We had to get 3 paddling points, but the Ohiopyle river reservoir was so low, paddling was difficult. While we were on the water, a fierce squall blew in and we could see canoes blowing up into the air and rolling over and over. It was hard to paddle and we had zero visibility.We decided to ditch our boat on the shore after the first checkpoint and trek 20k to the next two points and back to our boat. I really dislike paddling, but it was tough to carry a kayak paddle in my pack for almost 15 hours and only use it for an hour of paddling...

After the paddle, we determined that we'd made up 40 minutes with our route choice and we rode to the next transition area - nighttime orienteering. When we arrived at the orienteering start at 7:30pm, it was dark and cold. We had also caught up to the third of the Trakkers teams and all 9 of us went out into the night. I was using my Lupine Tesla 5 headlamp (thanks Bill of Gretna Bikes!) which put out a huge amount of light - so much so that it was easier finding checkpoints at night than during the day. It's always nice to be able to spot a checkpoint in the dark that is 1/4 of a mile away!

Heading out to the nighttime orienteering course

After getting some of the points easily, and others not so easily (one tough one involved a 1,500+ vertical descent and return down a river valley), we headed back to the bikes at 2am for a long ride back to Hidden Valley.

Our teams were getting really tired out and I was wishing I had some more chamois cream, if you know what I mean (I'm glad we have Enzo's ButtonHole Chamois Cream on board as a sponsor for 2011 - no saddle sores for me next year). After a long ride with some missed turns and a lot of hills, we got back to Hidden Valley at 9am. It was kind of a tough ride. I started drifting off to sleep while riding uphill and pulling another rider. Not good at all...

When we got back to the ski area, we grabbed some breakfast and I drained a lot of coffee and headed out to get 2 of the 9 possible optional orienteering points on the final leg of the race - we were too cooked to get any more than that.

We finished up at 10:30, 27.5 hours after we started. My Polar watch said that we'd climbed 16,000+ vertical feet and I'd burned something like 14,000 calories. I'm still tired out almost a week later...

At the finish line - cold, dirty and tired, but happy!

We placed second overall for the season and 17th in the race. Not the finish we had hoped, but it gave everyone motivation for next year.

Next up for me is another 30 hour race - this time in Moab, UT on October 29 for the Checkpoint Tracker National Championships. This one involves a bunch of kayaking, riverboarding, mountain biking, a huge Tyrolean traverse/rappel and a bunch of trekking and orienteering. I'm already shivering, anticipating the 2-3 mile swim (probably in the Colorado River). Hopefully, it doesn't snow!

- Jeff

IronCross IX

2010-10-21T15:36:00.001-04:00

Iron Cross IX
October 10, 2010

In attendance: Jay, Cam, Aaron

In the longest cross race in the US, Jay placed 16th in 4 hours, 30 minutes, Cam was just behind in 22nd and Aaron was in 46th.

Results are here.

Last Race of the H2H Series - Ringwood Race Recap

2010-10-21T15:28:00.001-04:00

The Leaf Blower
October 3, 2010
H2H Series 2010 Finals
Ringwood, NJ

In attendance: John, Aaron and Ross

The team had some great results at the final race in the H2H series. Aaron crushed the pro class with a win, I took 2nd in the race and 2nd for the series and Ross was 4th on the day and 4th in the series. The course was super rocky and technical but it didn't stop us, we hammered!

Podium shot:

John in 2nd, Ross in 4th

This was a great race for us to finish out our MTB season.

Full results are here.

Now some of the team racers have moved onto cyclocross!

Cameron shattered the B field at Wirly Bird Cross winning by a long breakaway, and Jay had an impressive ride in the Elite master field cracking the 25.

- John

H2H Chainstretcher Race Recap - September 12

2010-09-18T14:34:00.005-04:00

The Chainstretcher is hosted by WMBA at Blue Mountain Reservation in Peekskill, NY. The trail system at Blue is probably some of the best riding in NJ/NY. The course has some good technical sections but is primarily all connected by very smooth and fast single track. This year much of the climbing was cut from the course, however as is standard for H2H race courses the climbs are short, fast and technical. The race started out at a good pace, not too fast and certainly not too slow. My teammate John Arias pulled off the front for much of the first lap setting a strong pace for the initial lap. I was doing my best to sit in behind a couple of our primary competitors from Team Bulldog. The pace never let up and I found myself 30-40 seconds back of the leaders on lap one. I came into this race with a set strategy of riding strong consistent laps so I was not that worried about the gap. I was feeling good going into lap 2 and 3 and knew that I would be able to bring the gap down.

As the the race progressed this is exactly what happened. On lap 3 I moved into second place and was only able to hold this position for a quarter lap before Jason Clark of Cannondale Factory Racing passed me back with a strong attack. The remainder of the last lap continued in this manner to the finish. After creating a small gap, I was able to crawl back to Jason and finish two seconds back for an overall third place. John Arias also finished strong in fifth place.

Best wishes go out to Mike Kucharski of Team Bulldog. After falling early in the race Mike was evac'd with a cracked pelvis and severe laceration to his hip.

Shenandoah 100 Race Recap

2010-09-10T16:29:00.002-04:00

Shenandoah Mountain 100 - Final event in the National Ultra Endurance mountain bike series
September 5, 2010
Stokesville, VA
In attendance: Jeff Dickey
Weather: Perfect early fall - cool in the morning, but warming through the day with bright sunshine and very dry

After slogging through the Leadville 100 less than a month ago, I decided I wasn't done with long distance mountain bike racing and I was able to get an entry into the sold out Shenandoah Mountain 100 about a week before the race (unlike Leadville, which doesn't permit entry transfers).

Laura and I headed to the SM100 campground in Stokesville, VA on Saturday afternoon after her weekly 20+ mile Saturday morning run. There, we met up with Colby and a bunch of the folks from Gripped Racing. If you haven't seen Gripped Films' HD film "Chasing Legends" about the HTC-Columbia team and the 2009 Tour de France (in which Scott bikes feature prominently), I'd highly recommend either buying the DVD or catching a showing. Gripped has also made some cool films about the fight to race in the Atlanta Olympic mountain bike race (Off Road to Athens) and a film about 24-hour racer Chris Eatough - good viewing for those winter-time training sessions on the trainer in the basement...

Unlike Leadville, the SM100 is one big loop and features a number of shorter climbs, leading up to the "Death Climb," a 20+ mile fire-road monster.

SM100 Elevation Profile

Also, unlike Leadville, the SM100 never cracks 10,000 feet (my lungs were really happy about that fact), "only" 600 people start the event (compared to the 1400+ at Leadville), and most of the descents are on very fun, but rocky singletrack.

Gorgeous morning for a race!

I almost missed my 6:30 start after long lines developed for the port-a-potties.

Frantically trying to get myself ready for the start

But, I was able to start in the front group.

Starting up at the front

On the first climb with eventual winner Christian Tanguy stringing out the field behind him, the main separation occurred and 5 guys got away. I crested the first climb in about 8th place and immediately happened on Jeremiah Bishop who had torn his sidewall in some sharp rocks and was fixing his tire. On the first road section to climb #2, a group of 5 of us formed and pacelined to the base of the climb. Very cool to be riding with Chris Eatough, who has (mostly) retired from a pro cycling and now runs BikeArlington, which develops cycling opportunities in my hometown.

A small split opened up on the second climb and I found myself riding with two other guys. We set a solid pace up some steep singletrack and after cresting the top, headed down through some rocky terrain. Unfortunately, on the descent, I flatted on a sharp rock and ripped a hole in my tire - too big for my Stan's to seal. I kept hoping the hole was a small one, but it was not to be. I had to pull out my tube and use my last CO2 to inflate it.

By the time I'd finished playing around with my tire, about 40 guys had passed me. I hate riding with a tube and was afraid I'd pinch-flat, so I rode down the descent very gingerly and started to try and chase on the next section of fire-road. I caught up to 10-15 guys who had passed me, but I used a ton of energy chasing without anyone to work with. On climb #3, I kept up a solid pace until the series of false flats at the summit until I cracked. I guess I wasn't eating or drinking enough because I was trying to chase back to my position, but I really fell apart.

After the descent down mountain #3, I had a long stop at aid station #3, got my tires re-inflated and took on a lot of food. Also, the aid station had ProGold ProLink chain lube, so I used a bunch on my chain to fight off the dusty and dry conditions.

I rode out fairly slowly after aid station #3 and rode some fun uphill and downhill singletrack with eventual female winner, Amanda Carey. At aid station #4 (57 miles into the race) where Laura was volunteering, I was ready to throw in the towel. I just didn't have it that day, but the conditions and weather were so nice, I decided to keep going up the Death Climb and finish the race.

I don't think my heart rate really got above slow walking pace on the 1.5 hour Death Climb from mile 60 up to aid station #5 at mile 75. Once there, I stopped for 10-15 minutes, drank a lot of Coke, ate some pizza and chatted with a friend who was volunteering at the aid station. After my extended stop, I still had another 30 minutes of climbing left to go up to mile 80 before a rippingly fast and rocky 7-mile singletrack descent to aid station #6 and the psychologically difficult climb back up Hankey Mountain (where I'd initially cracked on the day).

I got a bunch more food at aid station #6 and dragged my still-bonking self up and over the mountain and down to the finish.

Finishing up the race and collecting my beer mug!

An awesome day for a long ride in the George Washington forest

The party before and after the race made the SM100 far better than many other races - the organizers had a full dinner for racers on Saturday night as well as another full dinner on Sunday night after the race. The large number of DogFish Head beer helped make the dinners into a big social occasion.

A well deserved beer after the race

Also, the volunteers at the SM100 were awesome - tons of energetic and cheerful folks to help out at each aid station to fill bottles, food and have drop bags ready before your wheels stopped turning. Also very cool was every racer had their name prominently on their name plate. So there were no shortage of folks yelling "Go Jeff" at every turn. And, even better was the number plate had the elevation profile of the race printed on it - very helpful.

I finished in 8 hours 48 minutes, good for 62 place out of 500+ finishers (results are here).. Not a good day for me, but I'll be back for 2011 and hopefully break the 8 hour mark. And, even though I thought I had a hard day, my race didn't compare to a number of people who took nearly the full 16 allotted hours to finish the event. As I was going to sleep in the campground at 9:45pm, people were still finishing in complete darkness. Those folks' perseverance is amazing.

And, I had a really good conversation after the race. A fellow racer came up to me after the race and thanked me for recommending that he ride with ESI Grips. Earlier in the summer, I'd told him about how much I liked the silicone grips for their comfort, shock absorption, light weight and tackiness even in wet conditions. He'd raced the SM100 a few times before and had problems with hand numbness on such a long ride. This year, riding with a set of ESI's Chunky Grips, no problems at all! (and he knocked a good amount of time off his prior best finish time). I've been using ESI's thinner Racer's Edge grips all season this year, and I'm totally hooked. Nothing else works as well as these grips - check out the photos of any US national or any world level mountain bike race and you'll see most of the top pros riding with them with good reason.

Next up for me is adventure racing season (followed by cross season). I'm doing an 18 hour race near Williamsburg, VA in late September and racing the 30-hour USARA National Championships in Pennsylvania and the 30-hour Checkpoint Zero National Championships in Moab, Utah. Those races are going to make the SM100 seem like a short training ride!

- Jeff

Windham Worlds Weekend

2010-09-08T19:26:00.003-04:00

Well the Windham World Cup weekend has come and gone. I've waited to write something about this weekend because I wanted to see how Mount St. Anne played out. Well as of this writing Nino Shurter and the Swiss Power Mountain Bike Team have sealed the 2010 race season. I mention this because being a Regional powerhouse team I can't help but feel inspired and motivated by the international guys.

I arrived at Windham on Friday the 27th swung by the house we had rented and since no one was there yet figured I would stop by the race sight, pick up the packet, stop by the Scott tent and just wander around to see what was going down. After getting the packet I swung over to the Scott tent and ran into teammates Jay Dodge, Cam Dodge, Nathaniel Williams, Ginny (Jay's wife). Also to my surprise, just coming in from a ride, was Nino Shurter, Florian Vogel, Patrik Galleti and Thomas Frischknecht.

I quickly caught up with everyone to find out what the course was all about. Very Euro in layout. Short laps with a bit of climbing and some quick descending. Keeping with the theme of the 2010 World Cup venues anyone spectating had some pretty good vantage points. After the quick introductions to the Swiss Power team I made my way out on to the course for a couple of pre-rides. The course overall wasn't bad.

Windham had, from what I was told, about 7 inches of rain over Monday, Tues and Wed, but was pretty dried out on Fri. I found the dirt to be Superman dirt where you can really lean the bike and not slide the tires. As for climbing the rear wheel sticks like velcro with every pedal stroke just throwing you forward. It's the kind of soil, course where you want to ride at race pace because you never feel this good in an actual race. After a couple of laps I headed back to the Scott tent and wound down from the euphoric feeling that is a World Cup. After all we are riding the same course and tenting with the number one team in the world.

When dusk started to roll in we headed back to the house showered up and headed into Windham to check out the Block Party they had going on. Everyone was in attendance including Aaron Snyder and his girlfriend Jen, who made it up for the two days and a couple of the Scott reps who happened to drop by for the festivities. The block party was pretty chill with what is basically a sleepy town until winter trying their best to pull off the winter skiing vibe in August. It was fun to watch, but the Roller Derby was by far the coolest thing I've seen in a while. The girls wanted to throw down on each other, but were behaving themselves. After a couple of beers at the local brewery it was back home and to bed.

Saturday was a fun, cool, low key day. Everything spectating was going on. I hooked up with Aaron, Jen and all around good guy Bart Passanante (team mgr, northeast sales manager for Scott and legendary drinker) and headed up to watch the Pro Womens XC and Mens XC. We had rockstar parking on one of the technical descents and dug our feet in. It's very telling watching the Elite racers. As for the climbs and flat sections there isn't a whole lot of hierarchy. If you have a good day you're up there, but on the descents it's a whole different story. You can definitely tell the Elites from the Continental and Regional Pros. They seem to go down as flawlessly as water. It's almost magical to watch. The Mens race the same thing, but at a faster pace and for the first couple of laps it seems they were all together. Ants marching, but at a Neil Pert pace. Super fast. Leading out the procession was local hero and motorcycle mad man Jay De Jesus (sp?). He looked good and at one point I thought he was losing to the Elite men. After 4 hours of being perched on the hillside Catherine Pendrel and Jaroslav Kulhavy took the win with Nino Shurter securing the World Cup overall. Mission one accomplished..

Nino Schurter flying into the spectator friendly woods

Ripping through the rock garden

Frischy's "loaner" Scale 899 - Florian Vogel's super fast and light bike

Frischy out taking photos of his riders

Mission two....Sunday 8am. This is the Race the World for the category racers and one which I was training specifically for. The Cat 1 30-39 race started at 8am. Teammates John Arias, Ross Anderson and myself were on the start sitting in the first two rows. John and Ross had a better start then I did.

Ross dropping into Kabush Falls

With about 50 starters in the field things got hectic quick. I flubbed getting into the pedal and with that many guys aiming for the same thing I got pushed to the back quick. After finding the pedal and the holeshots I started to find my rhythm and pull back the field that got away. I moved up rather quickly and found myself sitting in what I thought was 10th through the first single track section. I felt good on the second set of climbs and found myself moving up even more. At this point I started to pick off the classes that started before me.

John focused on the descent

John heading into the sunlight and toward the finish line after a technical descent

Cam taking the direct line through Kabush Falls

Not sure of where I was and who was actually in my field I got into a good flow on the descents and the climbs.

Scottie heading into Kabush Falls

On lap 2 of 4 I found myself battling with the same 4 guys. I would drop them on the climbs and they would pass me on the descents. It went on like this for the next 2 laps.

John heading through Kabush Falls

Cam exiting Kabush Falls and toward the win

When everything shook out I would finish in 6th being bested by the 4 guys that I had gone back and forth with. Ross took 9th and John took 19th.

Scottie, John and Ross post-race

Ross and Scottie

Teamates Jay Dodge and his son Cam rocked in their categories. Cam won his field and Jay finished 3rd.

Jay heading to 3d place

Jeff Dickey raced the Pro (non-UCI) field and finished 5th. It was a good race and weekend for the team. The highlight of the weekend would have to be getting to tent and hangout with the Swiss Power Team. Watching the race set up, the way the mechanic works on and cleans the bikes, and just the overall level of professionalism is overwhelming. Keeping in mind that they are on the other side of the ocean of what they are used to is surreal. Everyone was super cool. Nino, Patrik, Florian and Thomas were overly helpful, friendly and approachable. Great guys in a great sport.

The team before the start

As someone who started riding/ racing in the mid 90's I have always followed Thomas Frischknecht his career and his races. It was very cool to have him sign my Ritchey jersey and ask me if my jersey turned purple on the sleeves (which it did). We discussed the old Ritchey days the bikes the man and tubed tires. His English is great and my Laden (Swiss/ German combination) is horrible, but we seem to understand each other in only the way one cyclist to another can.

One last point in mentioning. I want to send a heart felt thanks to everyone on the Scott RC Mountain Bike Team and especially Bart Passanante for making this whole trip and year as successful and fun as it has been. With the Mountain Bike season coming to a close and Cyclocross ramping up I couldn't think of a better group of guys to suffer with on multiple Sundays. I have one more race in my series and a few of the guys have two or three more. There will be more posts and judging by the way 2010 is playing out more fun and successes to write about.

Stay Healthy and keep the rubber side down, Scottie

Windham in Words

2010-09-02T21:04:00.009-04:00

So much happened this past weekend that I will not be able to cover it all. It really was an amazing experience though and my race was just a small part of it all. I submitted a petition to race the Windham World Cup Junior XCO in July, thinking I had a few good results, but not much of a chance of actually getting to race. Each country only has a few discretionary slots available and I knew that I was far from being one of the 5-10 best kids in the country, so when I got the e-mail from Gully saying I was in, I was shocked, but definitely excited. I got over to the mountain on Wednesday and stayed until Sunday. The week leading up to the race was odd, my mind wasn't nervous, but my body was. I got three pre-ride laps in before the race and on one of them, I was passed by Julian Absalon on a muddy, technical uphill. The Frenchman said "hi" in English and didn't give me any attitude about being associated with Scott, the sponsor of his main rival, Nino Schurter.

When race morning came, I was relaxed and excited - ready to go. Warming up, there was a fantastic camaraderie between all the USA and Whole Athlete guys. For most of us, this was our first World Cup, or international race and we all knew what we were in for. I had my first ever call-up and got a sweet last row spot (I wouldn't want to hold anyone up!). Everyone was amazingly relaxed at the start. We had pre-race instructions read to us in three languages (one of them was French...but there were no French riders).

Okay, so on to the bike race: The gun went off and we were at the singletrack in no time.

On the startline


Heading up the first climb

An unlucky Whole Athlete racer broke his chain right off the gun. That is just a testament to how quick the acceleration was. Despite having only 19 starters, there was a bottleneck in the first woods section. I was surprised how long I was able to keep sight of the main group, I thought for sure they'd be gone after five minutes. The sweep moto (or lead moto for the girls) rode behind me for the first lap or two so I couldn't just give up and stop. I felt like I was holding him up, so I tried to ride fast. Eventually the main group did disappear ahead, but a Hungarian was riding steadily 15 seconds ahead of me. My plan was to keep that gap until the last lap or two and catch him. On the third lap, I'd pass him walking his bike with a mechanical. Earlier on lap two, as I had feared, a Junior Woman caught up to me. The Chinese rider was a steady climber and a decent descender. I had seen her coming up on me for a while and when she finally got close enough, I just pulled over and avoided any chance of sketchy passing. I rode with her the entire decent and she slowly rode away on the third lap's climb.

Headed down through the fun singletrack

The fourth lap was tough, but easy knowing the end would come soon. Cramps were coming on. I had many friends, teammates, people I didn't know and course marshals (USA, USA!) cheering me on, which was pretty cool. I crested the hill, excited to pin the downhill and finish. About a third of the way down was a fast rock section. The preceding laps I went a little slow through it, but this was the last lap, so pin it I did...and slice my sidewall I also did.

Flying through Kabush Falls

It was unbelievable how many Pro's flatted on that course. Nothing is crazy technical, but there are some fast sections. Going fast is good, but being smooth is also helpful. No problem, I brought a handy-dandy CO2 inflator. I loosened the valve...the whole valve - the valve core. At that point I just decided to run the technical sections and ride the rim on the grass sections. I didn't get passed since I was the last rider on the course (two kids were pulled with mechanicals). UCI records lap times and it looks like I only lost 3-4 minutes on the fourth lap, based on my other lap times. So, that was the race. 17th out of 19 starters. I will probably talk about the other happenings later. See my last post for some pictures.

Thanks for reading,

Nathaniel

Windham Mini-Report

2010-08-31T20:08:00.005-04:00

Not much time to talk, but the Windham World Cup will not soon be forgotten. For now, just some pictures:

From Whole Athlete

Kenda Cup - Bear Creek / Windham UCI World Cup

2010-08-21T10:14:00.007-04:00

Kenda Cup at Bear Creek
August 1, 2010

This was the finale of USA Cycling's Mid Atlantic Regional Championship Series that consisted of the:

1) 7th Annual Greenbrier Challenge AMBC/ MD State Championships/ Junior Olympics (April 25) – Hagerstown, MD

2) 22nd Annual Massanutten HOO HA!/ U.S. Cup/ Triple Crown All Mountain Pro (Jun 20) – Harrisonburg, VA

3) 15th Annual Bulldog Rump AMBC/ NJ State Championships (July 11) – Andover, NJ

4) 1st Annual Bear Creek Challenge AMBC/ PA State Championships/ U.S. Cup/ MARC Finals (August 1) – Allentown, PA

Aaron, John and Ross went to the finals this year. Aaron won Bear Creek, and in the process, also won the PA State Championship and the MARC Series.

Ross picked up 2nd at Bear Creek.

John was in one of the top places in the Cat 1 category MARC Series through the season, and held onto 2nd place overall in the series after suffering two flats at the Bear Creek Challenge (this just after some hard crashes in the prior few weeks).

Up next for us is the Windham UCI World Cup Finals on from August 25-29, which is the first US World Cup race in the United States in 5 years.

The Scott Swisspower Team, with Nino Schurter (current World Champion/Swiss National Champion), Florian Vogel and a team of top elite, U23 and junior riders (managed by Thomas Frischknecht - one of my mountain bike heroes when I was growing up), will be racing.

The Scott11 Downhill Team, currently one of the top teams in the world in in the downhill World Cup team competition, is also flying over to the US to race the event.

Also, our superstar junior, Nathaniel Williams, was granted a starting place with the US National Team for Windham, based upon his stellar results this past season. So, look for him flying the Stars and Stripes on his jersey at Windham.

Windham has a slew of events on its schedule for amateurs and also includes lots of things for the family, like a block party, a free concert, fireworks, a "Big Wheel" race and an indoor/outdoor mountain bike expo. I'm especially looking forward to watching the Scott guys rip through some New York singletrack (check out the video of some of the courses used last year).

Look for the big Scott tent to check out the feather light NEW 2011 Scott Scale 899, the lightest 29er frame out there, the 2011 Scale 949, and a slew of other 2011 models.

This weekend should be a ton of fun for everyone - hope to see you there!

- Jeff

Aaron Snyder on the top spot at H2H ESP 909 race

2010-08-20T13:15:00.001-04:00

Results are available here.

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Leadville Trail 100

2010-08-17T22:15:00.014-04:00

Leadville Trail 100
Leadville, Colorado
August 14, 2010

Conditions: 35 degrees at the start, mid-70s by the finish
Course: 100 miles starting at 10,000 feet and topping out at 12,600 feet
In Attendance: Jeff Dickey
Result: 36th out of ~1600 registered

In early August, I headed out West for my third Leadville Trail 100 mile race in the high Colorado Rockies. Living at nearly zero altitude in Arlington, Virginia, I entered the LT100 at a significant disadvantage - the race starts in downtown Leadville at 10,200 feet and and mostly goes up from there (to a high point of 12,600 feet). So, I was going from flat, hot, humid and low to mountainous, cool, dry and high. Luckily, I was able to get some vacation time between the end of a two work trip to the Gulf Coast and the start of the LT100 and I stayed in Golden, CO with my brother and his wife for three days and in Breckenridge, CO for another five days. In the two years past, the LT100 has been more of a vehicle to ride on awesome Colorado trails, culminating in a huge bike race. This year was no different.

The first few days, I rode in and around Golden at Chimney Gulch and Apex. The third day in CO, I rode with some fast single speeders (one who runs/works for Spot Brand bikes in Golden) from Kenosha Pass to the top of Georgia Pass (almost all above 10,000 feet). I was climbing well, and the SRAM XX gearing was perfect. I rode the entire ride in my big chainring and used the wide range of gears in on the cassette to roll to the top of the pass. On the way back down the mountain, we got in nearly an hour long singletrack descent. Those CO guys and girls can ride! I relearned my descending skills by following them back down the mountain.

It's odd that despite going pretty fast up the mountain, my heart rate never really got above 130 beats per minute. That's a recovery ride pace for me!

My brother and his wife were packing up to move to Half Moon Bay, CA, so I headed to Breckenridge to stay in a rental condo with Colby Waller (a rider for Gripped Racing from D.C. who also raced Leadville with me in 2009), his wife Laura, and Ryan Douglas (a rider for Route 1 Velo, also from D.C. and racing his first Leadville). If you've never ridden in Breckenridge, I'd highly recommend it. My buddy Colby and I went out and rode the Peaks Trail on the first day there. We were laughing like schoolgirls on that ride. The singletrack trail is all fun and little effort as it follows the contours of the mountains and has little climbing, plenty of hero sections (things that look like you shouldn't be able to ride through, but invariably you are able to ride, making you feel like a hero) and swooping, fast singletrack through pine forests.

On day 2 in Breck, we rode a section of the Colorado trail (an even better ride than the day before) and on day 3, we went to Vail to ride to the summit of the ski area through fields of wildflowers and down the Cougar Ridge trail (a hour long singletrack downhill though aspens and with great views).

On day 4, we rode to the top of Georgia Pass for an 18-mile long singletrack descent back into town. Wow. Each day was better than the last.

Finally, I was feeling good about altitude and on the climb up Georgia Pass, I was able to go fairly hard and recover well. I had two days of recovery before the race.

On Friday, we drove to Leadville to sit in a packed gymnasium hear race director Ken Chlober's pre-race admonishments to "Dig Deep!" and "You're better than you think you are, you can do more than you think you can!" followed by a crowd rousing "I commit, I won't quit!"

Due to the "Race Across the Sky" movie that was shown in theaters across the US in 2009 (featuring Lance Armstrong, but also including some little cameo spots by my brother, sister and me), the 2010 LT100 race was packed with riders. Nearly 1650 racers were granted entry spots through the lottery (or otherwise), which would make for some dicey conditions on the course. In 2009, it was freezing cold at the start of the race and started to rain shortly thereafter (with hail on the summit climb), making for some extremely tough conditions. Luckily, in 2010, the weather forecast was for bright sunshine and 70 degrees.

The LT100 starts and finishes in downtown Leadville. It has an initial 3-4 mile paved road section, which leads to dirt and the first pass up the St. Kevin's climb. My first year at LT100, I started towards the back of the pack and was forced to expend a huge amount of effort to get past people on this climb.

After the St. Kevin's climb, the course continues over a longer ascent, the one fun descent (the Powerline section), a long flat road section, a little bit of singletrack and into the half-way Columbine ascent. This last climb starts at a feed zone at about 9,200 feet and goes uphill steadily for 7 miles to the high point in the race at 12,600 feet. The Scott Spark is the perfect bike for this course. It is extremely light, the full suspension softens out the rough spots in the trail, and with the shock at the 1/2 lock-out position, it climbs like a scared cat. I recall seeing at least 30 Sparks in the 2009 race - a very popular bike!

The LT100 starts at 6:30am. It was just 35 degrees and pitch black when I got to town after sleeping out under the stars at a friend's house. Due to my top-100 placing in 2009, I was given a special pass to the front starting area which meant I didn't have to arrive at 4:30am to get a starting position and didn't have to deal with as much traffic on the first climb as those behind me. I lined up right in front of a guy with an awesome looking Scott Spark Limited in black and gold. A very sweet bike.

To my horror, I had a slightly soft front tire at the start, despite having pumped it up to pressure just 30 minutes earlier. I couldn't find a pump in the tangle of riders and used my CO2 cartridge to get it inflated and hoped that the Stan's in the tire would keep me rolling.

Tire issue behind me, I had a great start to the race and was perhaps 15th going over the first climb. The leaders (Levi Leipheimer, Todd Wells, Jeremiah Bishop, Dave Weins, Ned Overend, JHK, etc.) set a pace up the first climb that was smoking fast. My low-altitude lungs couldn't hang with them and I dropped back to the chasing group so I wouldn't smoke myself for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, I think someone had stepped on my bike when I left it in the starting area to use the facilities and my shifting and disc rotors were out of whack. Some quick adjustments on the trail got me riding again smoothly, but I lost the chase pack of riders I was with and got in with a smaller group about 20 seconds back of the chasers.

Up and over the second climb and down the fast and hairy Powerline descent, I passed Ned Overend (distinctive in his World Champion sleeves). He said he had a front wheel issue (I later found out that Overend had given his wheel to Todd Wells after Levi Leipheimer crashed into Wells at the top of the descent). I was really flying on the more technical sections of the course, much faster than most of the riders around me. The Spark let me descend much more confidently and quicker than the guys around me on their hardtail bikes.

I got into a little group of riders and we pushed through the open road sections to the Twin Lakes feed zone. This area was an absolute zoo. For about 1/4 of a mile, it was like riding through a Tour de France climb. People were on both sides of the road, cheering, and so close they could touch you (I almost ran over some lady who didn't seem to realize there was a bike race going on). I pulled into my awesome pit crew area (distinctive by my sister's lobster hat, my girlfriend's Roman Princess dress, and my sister's boyfriend's mu-mu and pink wig), got topped up with energy food and headed back out on the trail for the long slog to the top of the Columbine climb. By this point, I was almost 10 minutes faster than last year's time and was on pace to go under 8 hours for the day.

In both 2008 and 2009, I lost a huge amount of time to the leaders on the Columbine climb. I was determined not to do so again. I kept a steady tempo and was able to push a good gear. I kept thinking back to the advice Tom Coleman of WobbleNaught had given me when he was helping with bike fits for the team earlier in the season - to keep the proper posture on the bike and the correct saddle position to use the right leverage and muscles. Every time I got back into the saddle position Tom had showed me, I instantly relaxed and moved faster up the mountain. (By the way, Tom also fit Levi Leipheimer and Jeremiah Bishop, if that says anything about how good he is at bike fitting for the top riders and who trusts him to help them go faster!)

About 3/4 of the way up the climb, my lungs couldn't handle any more of the rarified air. I started getting black spots in my vision, I was dizzy and I was having some trouble breathing. I talked with one guy who had a video camera, but I was pretty loopy at that point and I don't think I said anything coherent at all - I couldn't even form sentences. Luckily, after a little rest through hike-a-bike, I got back to riding and pushed up and over the summit to the half-way point (despite this trouble, I still cut nearly 12 minutes off the time it took me to climb the mountain in 2009).

Ned Overend had caught back up to me by this point and I followed him down the descent and back to Twin Lakes to the feed zone. I stopped for a little bit to fill up with more drink and food and started the remaining 45 miles back to Leadville. I shadowed Overend for almost 15 miles. Very cool to be riding the same terrain with the guy who was my hero when I first started mountain biking in 1992.

At the next feed zone, I caught up to another rider and the two of us worked together to get across a windy paved road section of the course and to the feared Powerline climb. I started to feel pretty bad by this point. I wasn't able to breathe fully by this point and I was having trouble putting anything into my stomach - it felt like I had too much water in my stomach and it wasn't going anywhere. Not a good combination. I tried a little energy gel and could barely eat the whole thing. I still had about 2 hours left to get back to Leadville before my 8:00 hour cutoff, and I hoped I could make it.

The Powerline climb was tough. The first year I'd done the LT100, I walked nearly the entire climb. Last year, I rode the climb and went about 15 minutes faster. This year, I forced myself to keep riding, despite feeling awful. Eventually, I made it to the summit, but it took a long, painful time.

On the descent, I tried to eat some more, but my body refused to take in any more food or liquids. I felt like I was riding in quicksand. The paved road ascent to the top of St. Kevins was seemingly endless. I had no riders around me at all - one person passed me, but I couldn't see anyone ahead or behind me. The lack of any shade on the course was taking its toll on me too - I could feel my arms and head turning an angry red color. Finally, I got to the top and drank some Coke at a feed zone, hoping the sugar and caffeine would get me to the finish.

I caught up to two riders at the feed zone and rode with them over the top of the climb and across the rolling fire-road to the cow-fields at the base. I had nothing left to push to the finish, knowing that my 8 hour goal had slipped. On the final 2 mile climb back to Leadville, it was all I could do to keep moving. Luckily, some of my friends were out to watch for me and started yelling for me to pick up the pace. On the last section of pavement, I dug deep and out sprinted three guys who were just ahead of me. I don't think they saw it coming...

It took me almost 2 hours of laying on the grass after the finish until I could stop coughing up stuff from my lungs and talk coherently again.

I'd cut 18 minutes off my 2009 time and finished in 8:11 in 36th place overall out of about 1400 who actually started the race. Results are here.

Five days later, and my lungs and body still hurt.

It was a very tough day, but the crowds of spectators and the awesome experience of riding at such high altitudes with phenomenal scenery was well worth it. I'm just happy to be back on my bike and riding again after having to take nearly 6 weeks off earlier this year for recovery of my knee injury. Maybe I'll be back to the LT100 next year to try and get that elusive sub-8 hour time...

- Jeff

Millstone Grind

2010-08-17T20:57:00.006-04:00

I don't really feel like writing a whole lot about this race. It was a great experience, though and I had fun. The course was great, the event was well run and the scenery was fantastic. I finished 3rd; Ben and Zeb had great races. Both were highly motivated. For Ben, this was his last Root 66 race before college and Zeb's entire (seriously) family was there - parents, grandparents, sister, sister's friends, etc, etc...Plenty of pictures this time, thanks to Kim Holtan. Results are here.

Overcast, but no rain!

We all agreed to a slow start since we all thought it would be a 3 hour race...it was more like 2 and change. I look like I'm not complying with said plan, but I did.

Fun high-speed corner. Kim took 15 pictures of this turn.

Nice.

Riding on grass is demoralizing.

It was a Kenda Cup Qualifier.

Drive home.

Tatum Park Race Report

2010-08-11T21:12:00.010-04:00

Tatum Park - Middletown, NJ
8/7/2010

John

Ross

This was a good local race to see how well my injured shoulder and ribs will hold up that I busted up on a ride 4 days earlier and ended up in the ER.

Off the start I pulled the lead into the grass fields and I was flying with Ross on my wheel. I went flying into one of many grass fields turns and ended up on the floor, really tweaking my injured shoulder. All I saw was a bunch of people pass me, got back up on the bike and cranked it and within a few minutes was back up with the front group of two.

Ross and I were able to put some hurt on the other guy. Then while in some super fast single track sitting in 3rd I went too fast into the a turn hitting head on with a tree. Got back on
my bike with the stem and bars twisted and was able to get back into a rhythm cruising my way in for a 3rd place and Ross taking 2nd.

Great race, but I hope this bad week of racing and riding is over.

-John

Midnight at Marsh Creek

2010-08-10T21:15:00.006-04:00

Bike racing can be a fickle lover. After having raced road, mountain and cyclocross over the past thirteen years it never ceases to amaze me just how not in control you are over the outcome. Even the best layed plans are subject to be thrown in complete upheaval when you least suspect it. Given the last race the D&Q Summer Sizzler which I trained, planned and was completely prepared for a certain little something called the "Body" decided to, in the course of the first of three laps, shut down. Completely, utterly and without warning I went from full gas to absolutely nothing in the tank. No tank half-full or getting dangerously close to the bottom warning signs just full power to jets shutting off. Maybe it had something to do with the stiffling heat and the heat index nearing 100 degrees or maybe it was some higher power either way it was not a way to go out. I still feel like these things are my fault. A mechanical on a bike no rider has control over, but with all the liquids consumed and proper foods eaten and sleep had I still feel I should, after all these years, have some control over the gas tank. Well with D&Q race lasting me about a half hour I knew I had to put up some results in the next several races while at the same time using them as super high quality training for the upcoming Windham World Cup. The next race in line was the Fairhill Classic which you can read about in Jeff's blog. His thoughts pretty much sum up mine as well. The course was fun, fast and again super hot. After a pretty rough start I started feeling better around mile twelve and played catch up over the next thirteen miles catching and passing about six riders that were in front of me finishing third by a mere five seconds. Objective number one down.

Objective number two: try and make up some series points in which I lost due to some early season mechanicals and aforementioned "Shut down." What better way to chase these points then by racing at night. The Midnight at Marsh Creek was held on, and I will say this with conviction, the hottest day of the year. The temperature was around 100 degrees without the heat index. I don't know where the temperature was with the heat index and I was way to hot to even move anymore than I had to to find out. I got to the venue around five o'clock and figured a pre-ride followed by three hours of drinking water was all I needed to get a feel of the course and cool down enough for the nine thirty start. Team mate Aaron Snyder and his girlfriend Jen were there to sit and sweat with me before the start. Misery loves company. After two hours of good conversation we suited up (again for me) and, ready for this, started to warm up. Ha. They staged us in a field for the start which was fun trying to get to as none of the riders wanted to turn their lights on before the start. Once there though all was good. I lead the field out up a false flat into the single track. On one of the road sections I fell into second position. Mission semi accomplished. My legs were thoroughly warmed up and I was drinking plenty of fluids. Then the unexpected happened. As we were coming around one of the corners I heard what was the most painful scream I have experienced. Ever. Laying there, in one of the two lines you could take, was a rider from the Single Speed class. I stopped to see if he was ok and by the sounds echoing in the woods I could tell he wasn't. After a little while we agreed that the best way to get him back to the start/finish was to ride the course in reverse. And so the journey began. We were making our way back trying not to blind the other riders with our lights when on the other side of the fields we could see lightning. There wasn't a call for storms nor did they come, but not really what we wanted to see with all that was going on. About fourty five minutes later we arrived at the start/finish. The rider, Brett Wyckoff, made his way to the ambulance and I to the timing trailer to pull both of our numbers. Not finishing a race is not a good feeling, but helping someone who needs it and knowing he is now doing well makes up for it. As it turns out Brett had broken his hip in two places. Now put that in with the traditional cuts and scarring and you have a super bad ass story to tell. (Not to mention the pictures which I've seen. Gnarly)

Aaron did take the win by about a second in a sprint. Overall not a bad night. I would definately recommend doing the Midnight at Marsh Creek to anyone who likes to ride at night. I know I will be there next year and this time hopefully with out incident.
Scottie

Windham Windham Windham

2010-08-09T13:08:00.000-04:00

"Hello,

Just wanted to let you know that your petition to receive a National Team start at the Windham World Cup has been accepted." Marc Gullickson

(speechless)

Root 66 Hodges Village Dam and MA State Championships

2010-08-04T22:00:00.006-04:00

Gold. That's good, right?

My strategy was a little different for this race. I had my Wisdom Teeth removed recently and was told not to ride or run (at all) for a whole week. When that week was up, I wasn't sure where my fitness was. Being the Massachusetts State Championships, I was planning to do just enough work to place well, but not turn myself inside out, ride sloppy and crash or break my bike. I did just that, letting Ryan into the woods first, riding behind him for about the first half a lap. He seemed to slow down so I passed him and turned up the pace a bit. It wasn't very long before I had a gap that would steadily grow to nine (9) minutes. I had a good race, the course suited me well and I wasn't the least bit tired before the start. In fact, I can count on my hand the number of races where I have felt awake at the start. For whatever reason, I wasn't nervous leading up to the race and I slept well, really well. The race was long, over two hours for most mortals (except for Mike Rowell and Alec Petro - Cat.1s with Pro fitness). I don't have a lot to say, so this is nice and concise.

Hey look, a dam!

Cat.2 start

I was tired. The course was insanely dusty and it stuck to me and my bike.

Where's Waldo?

2010-08-03T22:28:00.008-04:00

(click)

Where is Waldo? I'm not sure, but what I am sure of is that I actually raced Harding Hill. I found a few pictures from the race, so you know I'm not just making all this up in my head. I'm not sure why photographers are so good at hiding their work in hidden nooks and crannies of the www, but for whatever reason, they are. Finding race pictures is like playing Where's Waldow, only more difficult and it takes 2 weeks (or two months in the case of Weeping Willow), not 2 minutes. Race report of Hodges Village Dam coming soon (and there were actually zero photographers, so you'll just have to take my word for it).

Long Pine Classic

2010-07-25T18:05:00.005-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted to the site so I figured I would start with the Long Pine Classic which was held on July 4th. The weather was hot and humid. Starting temp was in the upper 80's and this was 9:30 in the morning. After getting to the race site and going through the pre-race ritual it was off to the rider meeting and to the start. The Long Pine Classic is not your typical mountain bike race. Instead of doing 4 or 5 laps the organizers have you do one colossal 25 mile lap. Held in the Michaux State Forest the Long Pine Classic is run on some of the best single track anyone could want for a race. It has a little of everything for everyone. Lots of tight twisty singletrack, rocks, roots and lots of climbing. The start was a neutralized affair which was pretty cool. Instead of having everyone rip roarin from the start we followed a motorcycle for about a mile and a half on a gravel road to the start of the single track. As soon as we made the turn into the singletrack it was game on. I had a good start position on the front row about four riders to the right of team mate Aaron Snyder. Into the singletrack I was in about 8th position. It took a while, but eventually found my rhythm and everything was comming together. The first few miles were tight enough to not allow passing so between that and the mass of riders trying to enter the singletrack I did not see anyone for most of the race. Enter the climbing. Between the bouts of epic singletrack there has to be climbing. I don't mind going up hill in fact I even look foward to it in some sort of a twisted way. Most of the climbs were done on a gravel fire road similar to the one we started on so putting time on riders still trying to navigate the singletrack wasn't a problem. There was one climb or rather a hike-a-bike section that just didn't make sense. This thing just went on and on. As soon as you thought it was ridable there you were dismounting again and walking in the negative mile per hour range. Eventually it came to an end not in the it's all down hill from here sense, but rather a long false flat that didn't seem that bad after the walk.

The rest of the course was much of the same as the beginning lots of twisty singletrack peppered with gravel road climbs. The last mile or so was in the high canopy trees with superman dirt singletrack. The kind you just get incredible traction on. The finish was a bit strange. There was an event tent with two people under it. At first I thought it was a feed station, but upon making my way up the climb I noticed it was the finish. Just two people one screaming numbers and the other writing them down. This is where the fun began. Just as I realized that the race was over I also realized that in order to get back to the start/ finish area we had to navigate one of the craziest sections of trail yet. Fun Fun. When it was all over and the sweat eventually stopped Aaron had taken the win in the Pro field and I finished second in the Cat 1 35-39 field. The Long Pine Classic is an absolute must do and worth the trip if you come from a distance. I know for a fact I will be there next year. Until the next adventure enjoy the ride and keep the rubber side down, Scott Wilson

EFTA #5 Horror at Harding Hill

2010-07-20T21:40:00.002-04:00

I raced in Sunapee, NH at the Horror at Harding Hill on Sunday. The race was very uneventful, nothing great, nothing bad. I felt fine physically and rode a decent race. The course is not technical, but it can't be mistaken as smooth either. There are numerous fireroad sections, but on either side of the defined path is tall grass littered with large rocks and divits. So, the perceived trail is quite wide, but the actual path is actually very narrow. I didn't get a chance to preride the course and doing so would have been quite helpful. Many times during the race, I found myself taking awkward lines that slowed me down. I did the Elite / Open race. At the Summer Sizzler, I could have had a decent result in the Elite field had I not had chain issues, so I figured I'd give it another try. In addition, my friend, Ben Chase, also decided to try racing with the fast guys. The start was okay, I was in 9th for most of the first lap, but forced myself to slow down in order to survive the long 5 lap race. So...I rode in last the rest of the race. On the last lap or two, I started to catch up to Jeff Landfried, Ben and Stephen Humphereys, seeing them through the trees and up the trail. I finished 39 seconds behind Jeff and about five minutes behind Ben, who seems to get faster each race. I just didn't want to risk blowing up trying to catch them, so I concentrated on riding smooth and consistent. I didn't embarrass myself, but I do think I will go back to Cat.1 / Expert for the hilly races (Harding Hill was ~400 ft. per lap, not crazy, but not flat either) and keep trying Elite for the courses I do well on - dry, fast and flowy.

Just like at Weeping Willow, there must have been 10+ photographers, but not a single one has posted anything on the wonderful www, so if you have made it this far without a photo, good for you and thanks for reading.

Results are here.

Delaware Trail Spinners Fair Hill Classic Report

2010-07-20T12:46:00.008-04:00

Delaware Trail Spinners Fair Hill Classic (MASS Series Event)
July 18, 2010
Fair Hill, MD
Conditions: July hot (upper 90s by the finish), dry

In attendance: John Arias, Jay Dodge, Mike Joos, Jeff Dickey, Scott Wilson, Cam Dodge (in a cast from last weekend's broken hand), and Ross Anderson

The Fair Hill July MASS race brings out huge crowds of mountain bikers to ride on the beautiful singletrack trails that the local clubs have worked to maintain. The Fair Hill area is also heavily used by the equestrian set (the start was near a number of active horse barns and the trails had horse route signs all over them). The course was in great shape - mostly dry, smooth and fast singletrack that wound back and forth. At one point in the race, I swore I was getting dizzy from so many left and right turns in quick succession.

This week, though I usually carry my mtb tube in my back jersey pocket, I needed some space to carry a spare water bottle, and so I used my new Simple Strap from Kyle at ByeKyle. The Simple Strap is a very sturdy and secure method of attaching your tube, CO2 inflator, tire levers, etc., to your saddle or frame. Kyle coats the backside of the velcro straps with a sticky substance that, when cinched down, doesn't let anything slip out. I'd never used one before, but they're used by a number of top riders like JHK, Jeremiah Bishop and Georgia Gould. It was easy to attach and I strapped my tube and CO2s to my frame to free up a full jersey pocket. It worked perfectly. I didn't even notice my tube/CO2s during the race (they're usually bouncing around in my pockets) and found them in exactly the same spot as I'd put it on before the event. This coming week, I'm going to try attaching my tube, etc., directly to the saddle rails and see how that works. Here's another link to a review.

Kyle can make custom colors for you if you'd like something specific to match your frame or kit. This is also a nice item to have on your bike if you get into a real fix and need to do some McGyver type repairs to your bike. If you'd like one, send him a note at Kyle@ByeKyle.com

The elite/open field had about 35 starters and the start was on a 2-3 mile prologue in open fields before hitting singletrack. Mike Joos and I got into the singletrack in the top 15 and with a few passes, I worked my way up to 7th. The course had a number of short, steep hills, and I used them to gain a little bit of time on the guys ahead of me.

Eventually, the field sorted itself out and I found myself in 4th place between a group of 3 riders ahead and one or two behind. Wes Shempf caught up to me on some exceptionally winding sections of singletrack and we worked our way up to Chris Beck. The three of us rode together for 15 or 20 minutes until a long, fast downhill where I was leading. I was confused by the course marshal and went straight, instead of a right turn and lost some time on the other two. I used some extra energy to catch back up, but hit a series of long climbs just as I latched back on. I'd done a road race Saturday and cramped badly in the high heat and I could feel my calves starting to lock back up again. As I was trying to stretch out some cramps, I bounced off a tree. That set me back and I wasn't able to catch back up to the two guys ahead of me.

I kept a good high pace to the finish (dodging some horses who had gotten onto the trail) and finished up in 5th place. Some Italian ice at the finish really hit the spot after the race (why don't more races have that at the finish?!). Mike came in 10th in the elite field, just getting pipped at the line by the 9th place rider.

John Arias rode away from his field to convincingly win the 35-39 division. Scottie finished up in 3d in that field, just losing out in a sprint for second place.

Ross Anderson turned in a fast time to place 3d in the always quick 19-34 category.

Jay Dodge survived two 27 mile laps in the 90 degree heat to win the masters endurance category (and finished eighth overall in the endurance category).

After the race, we had a little BBQ under the Scott team tent that we linked up with the Guy's bike shop team. A good way to end the day.

I'd highly recommend going to Fair Hill for next year. It's one large 27 mile loop, has just the right amount of climbing and the trails keep you on your toes with lots of different terrain features, like bridges over the highway, trails along a river, some open fields, and lots and lots of smooth, fast singletrack.

Results from the day are here.

- Jeff

Hotcycle Race Report

2010-07-19T11:40:00.003-04:00

Hotcycle
July 10, 2010
Leesburg, VA

Conditions: Wet, muddy, slippery

In attendance: Jeff Dickey

Even though it was the day before last weekend's Summer Sizzler, I couldn't pass up the local Hotcycle race held in Leesburg, VA that was less than 1 hour from my house. I entered the race with some trepidation, as this was the same course that had left me laid up for 1.5 months earlier this year with a massive hematoma, broken blood vessels and the inabilty to walk, let alone ride for several weeks. And, this time around, Virginia had just gotten its first rain in a few weeks, leaving the trails with a quarter inch slick of mud over hardpack. But, it's hard to turn down going to a good local race.

The course is about 75% singletrack and is purpose built on the race organizer's family farm. It's only available for riding on race day or designated pre-rides with the organizer as it's an active cow farm (and you wouldn't want to wander into one of the fields that hold their large bulls). I lined up with 20-25 other guys in steamy weather. It had just finished raining hard and the temperature was beginning to climb - humidity must have been 100%.

From the start, guys were having difficulty controlling their bikes in the mud. I hadn't had much time for a warmup (and having done a local road "race" on Tuesday night in 102 degree temperatures and a mountain bike Wednesday night in 104 degree temperatures, I was still a little tired out), so I planned to take the first 8 mile lap fairly easy, get warmed up, and go from there.

I entered the singletrack in 7th or so position and had to slow down for the riders infront of me who were slipping and sliding everywhere. Eventually, we sorted outselves out and by the end of the first lap, I was riding in a three person group with local pro Matt Bailey and Plum Grove (the team that was hosting the race) rider Stu Staton and we were chasing one rider who had gotten a lead while the three of us were gingerly riding through the mud and getting warmed up.

I'd been getting more and more confident in the slippery terrain (I used to race these kind of conditions all the time back in New Hampshire growing up) and when we got within 10 seconds of the leader, I slid out on a corner and kept sliding across the slippery mud, eventually ending up in a ravine. It took a bit to climb back out and to the trail and by that time the leaders were gone.

This race was all about drafting in some of the wide-open cow pastures and without the draft, I lost a bit of time to eventually finish 4th. Results are here.

- Jeff

Danzeisen & Quigley Summer Sizzler Race Report

2010-07-19T10:41:00.009-04:00

Danzeisen & Quigley Summer Sizzler (MASS Series Event)
July 11, 2010
Gloucester County College, Sewell, NJ

Conditions: HOT!

In attendance: Nathaniel Williams, Cam Dodge, Aaron Snyder, Scott Wilson, Mike Joos, Jay Dodge, Bart Passanante, Brian Bohlman

Almost all of the team traveled to NJ on July 11 for the Danzeisen & Quigley Summer Sizzler held on some very cool singletrack trails at the County Gloucester College. Even Nathaniel came to the event, all the way from Massachusetts (enduring a 12+ hour train ride that involved a delayed bike and a long, long day).

Danzeisen & Quigley, the race sponsor, is a big Scott dealer in Cherry Hill, NJ, so, if you're interested in a bike like one of our team bikes that have been fast in all conditions and courses this year, like the Spark RC or the Scale 29er, give them a call at 856-424-5969.

The Summer Sizzler course was almost 100% singletrack and was tacky and fast from some overnight rain showers. The local trail builders had done an awesome job stuffing as many trails as possible into a small space and using all of the available terrain; so, there were water crossings, a big sandy area, tons of short, steep uphills, roots and lots and lots of twists and turns.Bart lives 1 mile from the course and brought the team van and two tents. We had an awesome compound set up right by the start area. Very cool.

We also had our new team banner made for us by EJ of Crankskins (a beautiful piece of work that shows off our team sponsors to the fullest). EJ can seemingly make anything, from frame decals (he made us all sponsor decals for our bikes, as name decals) to custom water bottles, to banners with incredibly clear writing.

Also along for the trip was Brian Bohlman, the regional sales rep for Scott who is based in the Virginia Beach, VA region. Both Brian and Bart were headed out to Scott HQ in Sun Valley, Idaho after the race. If you haven't seen it already, Scott is launching a 949 gram or less (!) Scale 29er frame and a 899 gram (or less) Scale 26er for 2011. Both are going to be much lighter than anything offered by Cannondale or Specialized. As much as I love my Spark RC (which weighs in at just 21lbs with 4+ inches of travel front and rear), I can't wait to see how a 20lb (or less) 29er rolls. I may just need to get a second (or third bike) for next year.

The race start at the D&Q was pretty rough (that's an understatement). The prologue shot through a large open lawn area and into singletrack. As I was sprinting for the holeshot and all my weight was forward, I hit a concealed drainage ditch in the middle of the lawn and it sent me into a nose-dive. I landed hard and Cam, who was following me, also fell into me. He broke his hand. I felt so badly about that crash as he's going to be laid up for a few weeks with a cast.

By the time I'd untangled myself from under a pile of bikes, realized that I'd not broken my collarbone and gotten riding again, I was already 45 seconds behind the field. To make matters worse, the crash damaged my seatmast clamp and my saddle came loose. I made it up to 10th place or so and in the twists and turns saw that Aaron was in the lead. When I caught up to Nathaniel and Mike, I tried to fix my saddle, but couldn't get it sorted out in my haste. So, after the first of 4 laps, I pulled into the pit area, planning to drop out and ran over to see how Cam was doing (lots of ice and a hurting hand). While there, I was able to fix my saddle and I got rolling again.

Back on the trail, I caught up to Nathaniel who was having some chain issues. I paced him for half a lap to make sure he was OK and then started to get some speed. I didn't catch any riders, but had a great time on the swooping singletrack trails.

Aaron won the race in a sprint finish. Mike passed a bunch of guys to finish 7th. Jay crushed his field and won by over 4 minutes. Scottie pulled out from the high heat. I rolled in 16th and Nathaniel was just behind me in 17th. Results are available here.

After the race, we all went to Bart's house for a big BBQ. He's got an incredible place (his garage is stuffed with very cool Scott bikes and parts). It was good to sit down with everyone and just relax after a hot and fast day.

- Jeff

H2H Bulldog Rump Race Report

2010-07-19T10:19:00.004-04:00

H2H Bulldog Rump (Campmore H2H Series #4 event and USA Cycling Mid-Atlantic Championships Series event #3)
July 11, 2010
Andover, NJ
In attendance: John Arias, Ross Anderson

The H2H Bulldogs race was a big one for me since I'm currently 2nd and closing in on 1st in Category 1 30-39 for the USA Cycling Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships with one race to go. I'm in 3rd in points for the H2H series.

Bulldog Rump went very well with a stacked group of 30 plus racers. I started off in top-5 then four of us packed together to pull away from the main field. During midway of the first lap we were able to drop one more making it three of us in a fast train. I kept moving to the front to do some hard pulls to ensure we would not be caught.

After the start of the 2nd lap myself and Ryan Heerschap were able to pull away from the other guy; Ryan and I swapping back and forth for 1st. Feeling good I attacked at the end of the 2nd lap gaining a lead, but took a bad line on a downhill into a rocky turn and went into the woods crashing. I was able to get back on the bike and get flowing again, midway of the 3rd lap was back on Ryan's wheel and we were CRUSHING it.

We rode together till the last rocky climb where he took a better line then me and gained about 10 seconds on me. I tried to close the gap but wasn't able to, finishing in 2nd.

This was a great race for me, fine tuning my racing tactics and what my body can do. The H2H series is by far one of the hardest series out there that I race but I know all my competitors are beatable now.

Results are available on the Bulldog team site.

- John

Delaware Trail Spinners Fair Hill Classic XC

2010-07-19T00:22:00.002-04:00

Sunday July 18, 2010

John Arias and Scott Wilson scored 1st and and 3rd in cat 1 race

Weeping Willow (again)

2010-07-01T10:23:00.002-04:00

Scott Bumpus from Seaside Cycle found this great picture from the Weeping Willow race I did over a month ago. Just thought I'd share it. I had a great conversation with him last night while taking pictures of riders at the ECV bi-weekly Time-Trial.

West Hill Shop Race Report

2010-06-27T18:29:00.007-04:00

The Sparknotes version: I raced my bike for 45 minutes, I got a flat, the CO2 didn't work and I DNF'ed. I'm good at making little things long, though, so below is the real edition.

So, anyone who reads this knows school had been intense the last two months. The spring of Junior year may be the worst part of all 12 years of public high school and I attempted to "get my priorities straight" by studying and not riding or racing my bike too much. I managed to get in four races, and four wins on 3-7 hours of riding a week. School ended recently and I decided the best way to celebrate was to ride my bike, putting in a 21 hour week of pedaling (pavement and dirt). I was beyond psyched to get out and race at Putney, VT. It is sponsored by the local West Hill Shop.

Local friend, Fred Howland got me up there.

When we pulled up, we saw the TWO time Olympian and totally rad Mary McConneloug and her husband, Mike Broderick. Pretty cool. They won...they dominated.

There were seven (hahaha, Seven) Cat.1 Juniors, some I knew, some I didn't. That was a record number, at least since maybe '06. So, the race started and a super quick 15 year-old almost got the holeshot, but I beat him to it. The first descent was very fun, downhill, smooth and berm-laden. I stayed in front for maybe five minutes, until said 15 year-old attacked and my friend, Ben, went with him. There was no way I could stick with them. They were on fire and I was certainly not. In fact, I was cold. I had cold chills, my head was throbbing and I had no power. I remained in 3rd for a bit, until my chain got properly bounced off my crank and the jockey wheels on my derailleur.This actually happened a few times and I think it was simply due to the fact that I was on a hardtail and the descents were super fast (and rough at speed). So, that allowed Zeb to get by. I rode a lap, had fun, but was withering in pain and wondering how I would survive another three laps. Well, fortunately, that pain was cut short on another fast downhill where a rock sliced my sidewall. I have never sliced a sidewall before, but I had a Stans setup, and I thought it would seal. I attempted to CO2 it, but the head wouldn't let it out. I decided to walk it out and cheer everyone else on. I later ran into Matt Green, who had also flatted, but got a spare wheel. He knew this DQ'ed him, but he was just riding around having fun. Ten minutes later, I ran into him again. He flatted again, attempting to ride his 18lbs Spooky hardtail like a downhill bike. He attempted to gap / tabletop 25 feet of trail on another fast descent. He came down on the front wheel (a 1150 gram MTB wheelset, mind you) and his tire exploded off the rim, causing him to die.

Not really, I lied. You can see in the picture above, he is alive and well. He had enough energy to lift his middle finger at me in protest of me taking his picture (it's a joke). So, he was in good spirits and told me about his "training week" that does not really include "training" rides, but rather trips to the BMX park and such. Must be all that rainbow colored unicorn blood.

Our local Adam Craig - Tom Sampson the 2nd best XC bike handler in the country (my subjective opinion)...he rides wheelies forever and gaps things, without making a sound or crashing. He can pedal, too.

So, I DNF'ed. Eh, I'm somewhat disappointed, somewhat okay with that. During the race, I felt like I was working hard, but going nowhere. There is good pain, and there is bad pain. That was bad pain. Anyways, I got to see some people I hadn't seen for awhile, and ride some pretty sweet singletrack. It's not all bad.

Last year, I filmed the race, along with Colt from Cyclingdirt. Our videos and pictures are here. The music on mine got messed up, so just turn it off.

Long?

H2O Overdrive Triple Crown Finals - Massanutten Hoo Ha!

2010-06-21T15:49:00.008-04:00

H2O Overdrive Triple Crown Finals - Massanutten Hoo Ha!

Date: June 19-20, 2010
Location: Massanutten Resort, Keezletown, VA
Conditions: Hot!

In attendance: John, Aaron, Jay, Cam, Jeff

This past weekend the Scott RC Mountain Bike Team traveled to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia to race in the the H2O Overdrive Triple Crown Finals consisting of a three races: a Super-D, Short-Track and Cross-Country. Massanutten Resort, who hosted the event, is a classic mountain bike destination and has been holding races at the resort (on pretty much some of the same terrain) since 1989, including a UCI World Cup downhill event. The trails are typical Virginia - lots of rocks, climbing and included typically hot and humid Virginia weather.

Not only was this race the H2O Overdrive Triple Cup Finals, but it was also round two of the USA Cycling's Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships, and the Mid-Atlantic Kenda Cup Invitational qualifier. A lot on the line!

The major cycling news organizations came out to cover the race: http://www.cyclingnews.com/, http://www.velonews.com/ and http://www.cyclingdirt.org/.

Additionally, the Triple Crown format pitted all racers in the Triple Crown, whether pro, Cat 1, or in the open category, in the same running for prize money and started all of the categories together. So, an amateur could potentially win the top prize of the weekend if he won all the events.

On Saturday morning, the super-downhill event kicked off the weekend. The team met up before the 1:00 start and rode up the downhill course as a team to get a close look at what we'd be flying down. The trail was full of sweeping singletrack turns that followed the natural terrain, a few short climbs in rock gardens, large berms in fast corners, and some sections of 35+mph. It started out on a rocky ridgeline and finished in the main expo area. Unlike other super-D races, this one was a time trial format as the course was nearly 100% singletrack. We lined up by number and had a 1 minute gap between riders.

The team had a great result, with Aaron and me both top-10 in the pro field and Cam and John both finishing near the top in the open category. Jay had a brief mechanical, but managed to untangle himself and was able to finish with a fast time.
It felt like a 15 minute wind-sprint down the mountain. My heart-rate was maxed out for nearly the entire course!

Former World Championship medalist Sid Taberlay of Sho-Air won the event, with local multi-US national champion Jeremiah Bishop in second.

Saturday afternoon was the short-track, on a bermed course in the expo area, that featured switchbacks, some singletrack, a little jump and was very spectator friendly.

All 60 guys in the Triple Crown event lined up at the same time and went for the holeshot into the singletrack. John had an awesome start, but was taken down by another rider just before hitting the singletrack.

I made it 6th into the singletrack and rode on the wheel of Bishop, Taberlay, Andy Schultz and one other for the first half of the race. The venue was soon covered in massive amounts of dust from the riders and it was nearly impossible to see or breathe clearly.

I fell back from the lead group and Aaron caught up to me - I waved him through into the singletrack ahead of me so I wouldn't get in his way and he continued on to chase the leaders. I could see Cam in a group 30 seconds or so behind me, but couldn't see Jay or John through all the dust.
I eventually recovered from blowing up, but couldn't catch Aaron to help him chase the leaders. Aaron placed 7th and I was 8th. Cam was the first amateur to finish in 13th place overall (besting several pros).

The next morning was extremely hot - nearly 95 degrees - for the the cross country. Riders were tasked with completing two 12 mile loops that climbed to the summit of Massanutten mountain. The course was nearly all singletrack and riders encountered a long switchbacking ascent with several technical rock sections, a rocky-ridgeline, a long singletrack descent from the top of the mountain, lots of baby-head rocks and a few extremely steep, but short climbs. The race was a mass start and a number of riders showed up for just the cross-country portion of the weekend. So, fresh legs to push the rest of us...

The race started with a bang and headed uphill for the first 10 minutes. Aaron got a great start and caught onto the lead pack. I fell back a bit, lungs burning in the heat, and had to recover for the first major climb. I could see Aaron ahead of me in a large group of riders for almost the first 30 minutes, but I couldn't match his pace. Luckily, the promoters had a number of water stations and cooled us off on the switchback uphills.

The trails to the summit were incredible cut singletrack. The thousands of hours of labor that had gone to make them over the past several years were clearly evident. Aaron rode a very strong race to finish 6th in the strong pro-field. Cam was second in the men's open category, just missing out on first by 11 seconds; I picked up 12th in the pro field. John was 3d in the Cat 1 30-39 race and Jay won the Cat 1 50+ master's race by over 9 minutes.

In the combined overall for the weekend, Aaron was 6th, I was 9th, Cam was 13th and John was 21st. A great result for the team!

Results are here: http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/massanutten-hoo-ha-ne

- Jeff

Stoopid 50 Race Recap

2010-06-14T12:33:00.005-04:00

Stoopid 50
June 13, 2010
Outside State College, PA

In attendance: Jay, Cam, Jeff

Conditions: Hot, muggy, raining (for the first hour), rocky

Course: 50 miles over incredible ridgelines, rocks, roots, gorgeous flowing and swooping singletrack, and a good amount of fireroad climbing

This past Saturday, I drove up to the State College, PA area to meet up with Jay and Cam and race the Shenandoah Mountain Touring's Stoopid 50. Jay and Cam's friends, the Matthews, lived just across the street from the race and they graciously let me stay at their awesome house for the night and use their garage to make last minute bike preparations for the next day. It was great to stay inside in air conditioning on such a muggy evening - camping would have been tough.

The next morning, we all got up early to get ready. The weather was threatening and overcast. After a few cups of coffee (great coffee at the Matthews' house, by the way!) and some waffling on my part on whether to use a camelback, we rolled over to the start area and I got in a bit of a warmup. All of the roots and rocks in the woods were covered in precipitation - I was having a lot of trouble riding some of the singletrack because everything was so slippery. And, as this was my third time back on my Spark since April following an injury, I was seriously lacking in fine-tuned technical skills.

I'd gotten some advice from Chad McCurdy (he was staying with us at the Matthews and helped me out with a tubeless setup on my Spark) to try and get to the front of the field before the Tussey Mountain ridgeline trail; that in years past, if you weren't one of the people first into the singletrack, you'd be walking for a long ways in the traffic jam.

The course consisted of some gravel road sections that led to awesome singletrack sections. Luckily, most of the climbing was on the gravel roads, so the singletrack was usually pretty flowing, either downhill or fairly flat. It made for a ton of fun.

At the start, the 200+ person field rode up a 15 minute road climb and it started pouring rain. Jeff Schalk, super-endurance racer from the Trek Co-Op team led up the climb and I jumped to get up a good position just before the first turn-off into singletrack, making it into the woods in 4th place. The two guys in front of me both crashed on the slick rocks that covered the trails. So, I followed Shalk for a bit until his Trek teammate bridged up to us and the three of us rolled along the extremely rocky ridgeline with what seemed like a good gap to any chasers. I was very happy to have gotten out of traffic and able to ride the rocks at a good pace.

Cam and Jay got near the front on the first singletrack section too, but Cam got a flat on the sharp rocks and took some time to fix it. He rode with 60psi in his tire to avoid pinch-flatting the tube which didn't make for the best of traction on the slick rocks.

Schalk's teammate flatted and I crashed at about the same time and Schalk got a gap on me. When we got to the first fire-road, I could see him in the distance, but as we went further, he put more and more time on me. I can easily see why he has won so many endurance races.

A guy from Alan bikes, Dave Weaver, caught up to me at the top of the long fireroad climb and I followed him down the other side to the feed zone and into the next section of singletrack, where I proceeded to crash, a lot. I seemingly crashed every time I saw a guy with a camera. Not the most photogenic day for me. Apparently, there's a video of me faceplanting into a rock garden. Despite all of my stupid wrecks, my bike performed flawlessly. I was so glad to have a 110mm-travel bike to get me through the rocks - riding a hardtail would have been exceptionally painful.

Weaver got a gap on me in some tight, rocky singletrack, and I was off on my own for the next hour until mile 35 at the feedzone when I caught up to him and a Freeze-Thaw singlespeed guy, Matt Ferrari, caught up to me. At the feedzone, Schalk had about 7 minutes on us. The climb after the feedzone seemed endless and I felt like I was standing still. I made the mistake of looking up the trail and couldn't see the end of it, or the top of the mountain. And, I watched Weaver and Ferrari get smaller and smaller in the distance. That makes the climb go so much slower. I was sure that a whole bunch of people were catching me, but I was getting some bad leg cramps in my right leg (I've been compensating for my left leg injury by using my right leg more) and I couldn't go any faster.

I caught Ferrari on the next climb and just trailed him to the top of yet another endless climb. On the last climb to the final singletrack descent, he got a gap on me and there was nothing I could do. I gingerly made it down the final, insanely rocky, singletrack to the finish to get 4th overall, about 20 minutes behind Schalk, 4 minutes behind 2nd and 3 minutes behind 3d.

Cam and Jay met up on the trail and rode together for most of the day and came in 20th and 21st overall - Jay was also second in the master's division (he had 30 minutes on 3d place).

Results are here.

All, and all, a hard day, but tons of fun. The SMT crew had built very cool rock bridges over difficult sections, chopped down tons of undergrowth in fast flowing singletrack and put together a fun and challenging series of singletrack linked by long fireroad climbs. I was just happy to survive.

Next weekend is the Massanutten Hoo Ha!, the third and final stop on the H2O Overdrive US Cup Triple Crown. It should be another day of long climbing and rocky singletrack!

- Jeff

Iron Hill Challenge Recap

2010-06-10T13:32:00.011-04:00

Iron Hill Challenge - MASS Series Event

Iron Hill Park, DE
June 6, 2010
Hot (my car thermometer read 92 degrees), muggy and threatening thunderstorms

Nearly all of the team made it to the Iron Hill Challenge last weekend in Delaware. In attendance were Ross, John, Aaron, Jay, Cam, Scott, Mike and myself. Our team had a great race!

The course is about 5 miles long and tucked into a little park. It offered tons of twisting and turning singletrack, a few rocks, one longish climb and some awesome natural features (the promoters played up the "Mega-Dip" (a huge bowl-type feature), but there were some other fun things to ride too). Lap times were in the 24-30 minute range and we all were racing 4 laps.

I haven't raced since my leg injury back in mid-April, so I was a little tentative about getting back on the mountain bike and risking losing all of the progress I've made in the past month-and-a-half after 6 hours a week of physical therapy. At the beginning of May, I wasn't able to walk, couldn't force my knee to turn even one pedal-stroke and was basically restricted to lying on the floor with my leg elevated, trying to drain out all the blood that had pooled in my knee and return my leg to normal flesh-color (it had basically turned black from the amount of bruising). But, with a really good physical therapist, lots of work in the swimming pool and lots of time, I'm back on the bike again.

We went out for a team pre-ride of the 5 mile course (well everyone else went out - I hung behind to make sure I could go at my own pace). I was very tentative on any rocks, but made it though one lap OK. The foliage was extremely lush - I couldn't see where I was going for a lot of the time, but started to pick up some confidence and speed as I got further and further along the course.

The start was in a big field and the open/elite men's category had about 30 guys. I started at the back, watched Aaron get a great start and ride away, but I found I could hang with everyone and even started passing people on the first long uphill.

It was cool to look back and see Cam right on my wheel. We were passing people together for the first full lap until I think I lost him on one pass. Somehow, I worked my way up to about 5th place when my freehub on my wheel started to stick (it was an old wheelset that I'd brought to the race - a very bad idea to have used them) and I lost the ability to pedal. I walked for about 10 minutes until I figured out what had happened (the chain had pulled the derailleur into the crankset), then set about fixing it and lost about 20 minutes in the process. Darn! So, I rode two more fun laps and finished second to last (which was exactly my target for my first race back).
Mike flatted about the same time I had freehub issues and he and I both had a good time on the course, but finished towards the back of the field.

Cam kept flying and finished 8th - an awesome result for a youngster in a large field!

John pinned it from the start in his race to win after leading from start to finish, ending up 4 minutes ahead of second place.

Jay did the same thing in his race and won convincingly.

Ross picked up a solid 5th place in his super fast category.

The heat got to both Aaron (who had just endured a hellaciously hot race in Texas the week before) and Scottie.

Full results are here.

It was great to see the team this weekend! I'm off to the Stoopid 50 Marathon in the State College, PA area this coming weekend, and I think Jay and Cam are going to join me for some fun in the rocks of central PA.

The next team race is the US Cup Triple Crown All Mountain Series finals presented by team sponsor H20 Overdrive at the Massanutten Hoo Ha! on June 19/20. It should be a big event on a classic mountain bike course (think rocky singletrack)!

- Jeff

Race Video

2010-06-08T09:28:00.001-04:00

Check out the helmet cam video of the Pro/Elite Men race from Iron Hill just this past Sunday!

US Pro XCT #3 - Mellow Johnny's Classic

2010-06-04T10:34:00.006-04:00

A few photos of Aaron at the May 29th US Pro XCT #3, Mellow Johnny's Classic, on Lance Armstrong's ranch in Dripping Springs, TX:

Race Report - Tymor Park Challenge

2010-06-04T10:12:00.004-04:00

Race Report: Tymor Park Challenge, H2H Series
Location: Lagrangeville, NY
Date: May 23, 2010

This was round two of the Campmor H2H series at Tymor Park in Lagrangeville, NY. This course is known for its super long and steep climbs and one of the hardest races of this series.

I was able to get a good start off the line into the first climb into the single track, I was sitting about 6th out of 25+ racers. Then we hit a long steep climb and was able to make my way up to 4th place behind last year's pro racer Roger Foco. After following him to the halfway point of the first lap, I passed him to sit in 3rd for the whole race until Roger passed me on the final lap finishing in 4th. The top 4 of us finished with more than 3 minutes on the 5th place guy.

Team mate Ross Anderson had a strong race finishing in 6th place.

This series is by far one of the hardest and most competitive series on the east coast. Every race is jammed packed with 20-30 racers who are all super strong. If you can do good at these races, every other series will seem easy.

Results are here.

Off next this weekend to the MASS series race at Iron Hill in Delaware on June 6.

- John Arias

Tour de Topsfield (and Ipswich)

2010-05-31T18:17:00.008-04:00

Just pictures. The air quality and the visibility were terrible as a result of the forest fires up North. Also, would anyone like to tell me how I can upload the pictures so that they can be clicked on and enlarged?