Smithville Cross

Drove North of KC Sunday for some cross racing. Smithville CX. They put together a nice course that had a bunch of cool stuff. Sand, water, long climb, steep run-up/ride-up, asphalt, etc... The money tree was my personal highlight as I made it away with an extra 4 bucks. The race started off pretty fast as usual and after a lap I found myself in 4 place. I was passed by Studnicki, Cameron (on his fixy), and Andrew Coe. I was able to get back by Cam and Andrew and followed Studnicki around for a few laps until he ran out of gas thankfully. About that time we started closing fast on Shad Smith who was having some sort of troubles. I got pretty close to catching him and then he was gone again. So I cruised around for another couple of laps to finish. 4th place. After taking a few weeks completely off, then a couple of weeks with no real "training," it was good to see after one week of real bike riding that I felt much better. Maybe it was the new bike.

Race Across the Sky

Went to the premier of Race Across the Sky tonight. It was really good. Inspirational. Gotta put in my entry for Leadville 100 for 2010 after seeing it.

Post Moab Racing

Well, racing again less than 7 days after Moab might not have been the perfect idea. I did manage to sign up for the Capitol Cross in Topeka after debating for a bit and then talking about it with Jeff Winkler (who went on to cruise to the win). Finished somewheres around 10th-12th, but I finished. Left the race and directly put on the leathers for a cold motorcycle ride to Manhattan for Harley Day. The Cats killed A&M and Shannon and I mounted up for a very cold ride home in the dark. It was just above freezing when I got home and my hands were hurting pretty bad. After all this excitement, racing sunday was scrapped for a nice long gravel road ride.

SixSixOne

Im happy to announce that ill be wearing SIXSIXONE gloves and gear in 2010. For that matter they were my glove of choice in 2008 and 2009 too. Ill be wearing the 401 and Raji New Wave for the mtb season and the Transition through the winter. The 401 is light weight glove for those hot days and the Raji has a bit more padding when the track gets rough. Check em' out.

24 hours in Moab

24 Hours of Moab was a blast. Here are a few pictures from the weekend. More are HERE.

This appears to be the start of my 5th lap. Went out around 11:00 am on Sunday. It was the teams last lap. I was excited to improve on a disasterous 4th lap when my stomach didnt hold up.

Here is one of Cameron finishing up his first lap. He used his course knowledge to ride a couple minutes off course and still put in a fast time. This would be the only lap I went to watch, as I was relaxing and recovering in our sweet campsite the rest of the time. The guys from Golden Belt Bicycles put on a huge spread with 4 pop up tents, two sleeping tents, heaters, lights, and warm food. It was awesome.

Going out for my first night lap. This was probably my best lap of the weekend. Almost as fast as my daytime lap.

The team was the 24 hrs of Granny Gear series champions. I had very little to do with this but Craig, Scott, and Cam were the team's regulars and nice enough to let me join them for the weekend.

Happy to be done. Ready for the next one. A special thanks to my one girl pit crew for making the trip and staying up almost all the night with me. It was another great weekend.

Moab

We are back from Moab. It was a blast. We ended up 7th overall out of 250+ teams. Everything hurts. Full report after some more sleep. I cant believe people do those things solo.

24hr National Championship

Check out the realtime results for the Star Spangled Bangers in the 4 person championship division for 24hrs of Moab here. You can stay up all night with us and watch our progress. Race starts tomorrow at noon, oh boy. Ended up putting the 29er back together for this race as I dont want to get too badly beaten up when Im out at 2am doing a lap. Will probably be wishing I had some suspension though.

Michelin Tires

New tire sponsor for the remainder of 09 and the 2010 MTB season. This is great news since I already use Michelin tires on both my mtb and cross bikes. After switching to them early this year I wont use anything else. Only one flat all year and that was a 16d nail that went in one side and out the other. I got some good advice when I was told that its better to get to the finish line than save a few grams on tires.

Octoginta

Half way through the Octoginta ride everyone is happy as we eat breakfast.

No cross racing last weekend but I did do some crashing on the cross course the weekend before.

One week till Moab.

Saturday was spent out at Arrowhead for Farmaggedon 2010. Wildcats pulled out the win with a blocked extra point.

With only one weekend remaining until Moab I figured it would be a good thing to get back out on the mtb. 7 hours later I think I should be good to go if I can stay up all night to do my night laps. I forget how much fun it is to just get out and ride trails. Maybe ill do some night riding this week for practice...