Olympic Course

This is the "hard" parts of the 2012 Olympic Mtb course. Not exactly the most challenging track there has ever been. Most of the track seems to be a perfectly groomed walking path. I would anticipate that a fully rigid 29er with some 1.8 tires would be the bike of choice.  Obviously I wont be riding that course ever but I think im getting a little picky about courses but there are some really fun trails out there that races could be held on. There seems to be a growing divide on what mountain bike riding is and what mountain bike racing is. I knew I should have signed up for the Translyvania Epic to get my singletrack fix.

Cancelled races.

When I first started doing this mtb racing stuff, they never cancelled races.  It didnt matter what the weather was like or how bad the trails were.  It was always a blast racing in knee deep mud.  Last year we raced in Columbia under some terrible rainstorming conditions, and it was great.  Sliding all over the place, just trying to stay upright.

Ive been enjoying a nice rest week this week.  Short easy rides most everyday except when the nice weather and dry trails get the best of me.  Friday I decided I would go down to Oklahoma to do a little racing.  I expected that it wouldnt go too well, as I was sure to be "shut down" from not riding much this week.  Got the bike all ready to go and got on the internet just now to find out the race is cancelled due to rain.  March and xc racing just doesnt work in the midwest, april barely does.  Probably for the best, I was determined to not race until April.  Going to Sea Otter without any xc racing is a bit risky, but you really cant recreate the pace of that caliber of racing anyways.  Hopefully the lack of racing will pay off in July when Im not so tired.

Oh well....live vicariously through others and watch the ProXct at Fontana.  I wish I was there.  Im gonna go look at my bikes and wish I didnt have to put on multiple layers to go out and ride.

http://singletrack.competitor.com/2011/03/features/live-from-fontana_14276#

The Canyon

I was planning on a nice easy cruise for a recovery day, but after wathing Cam having too much fun in The Springs Im headed out to find some dirt before it rains again. I think its the woowhos that did it for me.

Otter course

The Pro course map for the Sea Otter.  I probably should have looked for this before I registered.  Its the same course as last year.  Its pretty much terrible if you like mtb riding.  Blow it up and you will notice that half the course is on the road racing track.  When racing it seems like the road part takes forever and the singletrack goes by in a flash.  Oh well, im still pretty excited about going and getting the racing season started.  Anything better than an 80th place will be an improvement.

Full Kits

Twin Six has stepped it up a bit more this year.  Now offering 9 full on kits.  You can now get all matchy matchy with jerseys, bibs, socks, and H20 bottles that match.  For everyone who doesnt want to sport black shorts with some goofy jersey, get a Twin Six kit that is pretty awesome.  Or you could be one of those guys who rides around in a Liquigas or Fabian Cancellara World Champion kit like you are a Euro pro.  You dont trick me, I know there arent any ProTour riders doing super secret training in Kansas.

Pullen

Big game tonight.  Jake needs to win us one more by continuing to play like the guy who deserved to be on the cover of SI at the beginning of the year.  We got by Utah St who most of the "experts" predicted was underrated and would beat KSU.

Riding in Support Of

This year the High Gear team is riding in support of a few organizations.  Most of the team volunteered their services this week with one of those organizations when they helped numana help the Japanese.  Pretty cool.

Click over to the High Gear website to learn a bit more about this and some of the other good deeds Matt and Stephanie are involved in.

Wombling

Trying again....

Video

Thought about racing last weekend, but its too early in the season.  Instead, 6 hours of ripping up the Womble.  Then Sunday was for road bicycling.  I rode to Lake Perry and watched a little road racing action.  Some corner marshall gave me a hard time for not racing, he couldnt understand why a person would ride for 3 or 4 hours by himself when he could race in circles for an hour.  I didnt feel like explaining myself, especially after he asked me if there were any mountain bike races where the trail was not bumpy or rocky.

Mountains of Mayhem, errr.

I found this online last week. Almost made me drive to Lawton.

It used to be that the 12 miles of Hell in Lawton, OK was the first big race in the midwest.  The year I did it, there were over 700 starters and the likes of Steve Tilford, Will Black, and Cameron Chambers were there. 
The course starts up a long climb and I remember thinking I was going pretty well in 3rd when some crazy guy on a singlespeed comes sprinting by like im standing still.  This would go on most of the race and Id finish 4th and be very happy about it.  Then it became the Hills of Hell and the field shrunk dramatically and the caliber of riders decreased. Last year I understand the race was terrible.  This year it was called the Mountains of Mayhem.  For a brief minute I thought about driving the 5 hours south for it as the weather was supposed to be nice.  Letra, where the race is held is a pretty cool place for a bike race.  Its pretty trecherous terrain and the course uses a lot of tank trails where the army practices blowing things up.  As it turns out, the race might have been a little better than last year, but whenever there are "three or four" places where riders got off course because it wasnt well marked means it still needs a little work.  Oh well, its too early to be racing anyways.

Bike Magazines

Magazines in general seem to be going out of business.  Internet is killing them.  I used to get a bunch of magazines in the mail every month but I dont any more.  I have been getting Bicycling Magazine for the past 6 months for free, with every issue saying its my last one.  Today was the buyers guide.  I skimmed through it in about 10 minutes.  They employ a bunch of writers that dont know anything about bikes.  Their mtb part of the buyer guide was a joke.  They had like 12 bikes in there.  Only 29ers.  I spent more time reading a old BMX Action from 1990 the other day.  Borders down the street from our house is going out of business so we stopped in a used a gift card I had.  I ended up getting a few magazines.  ProCycling and RockyMtnNews.  I only wanted the ProCycling to read about Jan Ulrich.  RockyMtn news for an article on Dakota Five-0.  Spent 10 bucks for really two articles.

When we were at the Tour a few years ago were hanging out by a hotel when Jan, Vino, and Kloden came out.  TV had always talked about how big Jan was and how he pushed huge gears.  It was funny to see how small he was in person.  If I had seen him and not know who it was, I would have just thought he was some skinny little guy.  I always liked him because he got 2nd like 5 times at the Tour.  He is one of those guys that had his greatest success at the beginning of his career and then spent the remainder trying to live up to that.

I got registered for Iceman today.  Its the biggest xc race in the nation.  3700 people registered in a few minutes, sort of.  Their registration site crashed in the first minute.  Two hours later it was back up and wasnt really working right still.  I almost decided it wasnt worth my time and I emailed the promoter.  I think his quote was something like, "nobody has gotten registered yet, what a cluster."  The same thing happened to them last year, so I would think its time to find a new registration company.  Iceman is in October, that is a long ways off.