Norge & TEDTA

Otherwise known as, Norge Ski Jump CX  & Ted’s Excellent Double Track Adventure CX.

Norge was a last minute call Saturday and it turned out to be the best last minute decision I’ve made in a long, long time.  If you missed it, well, you missed it.

The pics by Ali Engin do justice to the course, it was as awesome as it looks.

Looks like a game of bike polo where everyone has their own ball.

Super technical with lots of off-camber, up-hill 180’s, logs, drops and super steep, loose climbs.  Which is to say, I loved it. Funnest course of the year. The venue at Norge is tailor made for a cross race,  hopefully, it will become a regular stop.

Sunday I dragged the girls to Volo, IL for Stop #11 of the ChiCrossCup, TEDTA.  I didn’t do as well as I did on Saturday but loved the course.  It had the best sand and run-up of the year and gets my nod as toughest of the year.

It’s a little blurry but if you look closely you can see that everyone on the front row, (10 racers wide) is racing Zipp 303’s except me.  I wish I could say that’s why they all beat me.  303’s would be so rad on a steel single speed.

Bonebell!

I ended up 2nd at Norge in the SS class and 11th at TEDTA in the 40+.  Next up Jinglecross on Friday and Saturday.

Fail Moab

I missed Fail Moab Fall Moab this year for no good reason.  I so wanted to get back to the desert and ride with the team but I’m old, kids are busy, dug, Rick and Rick bailed.  Not to mention a Chicrosscup double header weekend for crying out loud. Wait, those are all good reasons.

Oh, and the debut of the CR skinsuit, front row!

Day 1 was awesome because the family came out to heckle and take pictures.  Kendra captured my favorite moment of the entire series – Cassidy running along side me heckling, “You suck, is that how you ride a bike? Can’t you pass me?”  The daughter heckle rules!

Day 2 was awesome because I finally got to zip on a superhero suit, I left it on all day – ask Tasha.  Thanks for the pic Duane!

Maybe it was the new superhero suit, maybe not.  All I know is I was riding out of my head, hanging with dudes I have no right to be hanging with. Finished 6th on the day, tying my best finish at a Chicrosscup.

Zero Carbon Footprint

Not a single strand of carbon fiber.  If  Jon at Sabrosa or Tony at Pereira were mass producing bikes in Taiwan I imagine they’d look something like the All-City Nature Boy.

Internal cable routing, integrated seat post collar and sexy drop-outs will now be mandatory features on all my future bikes.  The lugged fork  and head tube badge are unexpected bonus details.

 

You get a lot of cool stuff for about as much coin as a fancy carbon crankset.  And, most importantly, I find myself looking for any excuse to take it out for a ride.

The only niggle to all the swag: it’s heavy.  I don’t really want to know how much it weighs.  Admittedly, I only notice the weight when hefting it up and down 3 flights of stairs every time I go for a ride, which, seems like several times a day now.

Available at your NBS (Neighborhood Bike Shop) in my case, the awesome crew at Roscoe Village Bicycles.

ChiCrossCup Double Header Weekend

My car battery died at the coffee shop on the way to Wauconda Saturday. At first I was bummed that I would miss my 8:45 start, which I did, but the prospect of lining up in a totally different race category quickly got me over my bummedoutedness.

Race start would now be 11:45, plenty of time for AAA to rescue me and still make it to the race.  I’ve never had so much time to set-up, get ready and warm-up – loved it.   Maybe a permanent category change is in order.

Being new to a category has at least one disadvantage – lining up DFL.  Game face time!

Photo by Amy Velogrrl.

Game face worked pretty well for me, moved up from DFL to finish 16th. Or, maybe it was the new bike.

Next stop: Carpentersville.  Jeff and the gang from Main Street Bicycles  and North Branch Cycling put on a fantastic day-long race alongside Carpentersville’s Oktoberfest.  Polka music, brats, brews, mud, cross = damn fine day.

Muddy woop-de-doos through cornfields are like straw bales, they should be mandatory course features.

I dug as deep as I could and managed to pull out an 8th place finish.  Two days in a row of cross racing hurts.  Bad.  New CX goal for the year (down from podium finish) crack the top 5.

No More Magic

The magic ratio worked well for 3 races.  Even starting with new hardware, by race #4 the chain started falling off .  The magic ratio is supposed to let you run a single speed on a bike with vertical dropouts and no tensioning device.  It works. Briefly.  Here’s my temporary solution for last weekends race:

While it worked OK, it’s ugly, really ugly.  I don’t do ugly, it must go.

New solution:

Zero magic and 100% purty!

ChiCrossCup #2 (DeKalb) and #3 (Dan Ryan Woods)

My first race of the day last week at ChiCrossCup #2 (Masters 40+) went off at 8:45. Strategy was simple, go as hard as possible and see what happens.   While the hole shot and first lap victory were my reward, 6 laps were far too many for that strategy to work.  I faded fast and finished 11th.

All photos thanks to Amy Dykema aka Velogrrl.

The second race of the day for me, OUISSSCXC didn’t start until 4:15, no wonder the family didn’t want to come out.  But as you can see below, it was well worth the wait.  With so much on the line for the winner, all the fast dudes showed up.

Including this guy.

Hay Straw bales!

Hay Straw bales should be mandatory features in all categories at cyclocross races, let the petition drive begin!

I got 6th in race #2 of the day but more importantly James Lalonde won.  What does that mean? That Chicago will be well represented at the 2011 SSWCXC. No pressure James.

Huge thanks to Half Acre Cycling, North Central Cyclery, ChiCrossCup and Robots Powered by Love – they put on a stellar race and the course was my favorite of the season until this past weekend.

ChiCrossCup #3 – I wasn’t prepared to like Sunday’s course with lots of flat, straight, grassy, power sections, but there were enough climby, off-camber, techy sections to more than make up for it.  Bonus points for the giant log in the middle of the course, just big enough to scare 95% of the racers into getting off their bike but not so tall as to intimidate like a regulation barrier.  My favorite CX course so far this year, will be very hard to top.

Wait for it, wait for it…Money!

My strategy was to not go out as hard as last week and to hopefully ride with the lead group for as long as possible leaving enough in the tank to finish well.  Problem was, backing off just hair at the start of a CCC race doesn’t mean just a few people get in front of you it means 25-30 racers get in front of you.  Chase on!

Not starting at the front resulted in my best CCC placing ever, 6th out of 70+ registered.  Note to self: new strategy needs to be somewhere in-between the two previous strategies.

Big thanks to Beverly Bike-Vee Pak and Region Racing for all their work and especially for the free spicy chicken!

My Plan For OUILSSSCXC

Sound it out…ewls-kuck-sk. Or, Official Unofficial Illinois State Single Speed Cyclo Cross Championship. Ewlskucksk is easier to say.  This is a big deal. What is on the line? Check out the prize list here. Yes, you read right, not just the OUILSSSCXC on the line but an entry into the SSCXWC…scuks-wic, (Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships) in San Francisco along with round-trip airfare! Damn!

I’m all over it. Problem is, so are a lot of faster dudes and dudettes in the Chicago area. OK, so I don’t really have a plan, more like lots of hopes.  I hope a certain person rolls a tubular.  I hope another certain person doesn’t show up on their SS SuperX.  And I hope someone else  keeps trying to race cross on a SS mountain bike. Lastly, I hope it snows because that would be rad.

That’s what I’ve got – hopes. Oh, and I have this:

After getting my Cannondale CAAD9X stolen last month I cobbled this together from stuff on my back porch.  I think out-of-pocket I’m into it about $100, which may be too much for a dirt bag single speed bike.  See you in DeKalb for ChiCrossCup #2 and the OUILSSSCXC!

Double Feature: ChiCrossCup #1 And US Gran Prix #1

Cyclocross season has been underway here in Chicagoland for a month now.  3 races already under my belt and it’s still Sept; Relaycross, Chicago Cyclocross Cup #1 at Jackson Park and even one U.S Gran Prix race in Wisconsin.

living in the center of the cyclocross universe in North America has its benefits, where else can you race a ChiCrossCup one weekend then drive 2 hrs the next weekend and race a  U.S. Gran Prix? Nowhere. And it just gets better every week.

CCC #1 at Jackson Park marked the start of the series and the start of the chase for call-ups and standings. I’m pretty sure last weekend set a record for # of racers at a CX race in North America, 680!

We had about 70 racers start in the Masters 40+ (most classes sold out at 100) No lucky call up for me this year, I just put my head down and pedaled.

Pics by Nick Gajewski

I ended up finishing 7th, exactly the same placing as last year at Jackson Park.

As much fun as it was racing, the most fun of the day was had cheering and heckling Cassidy.  She raced the Junior race and did awesome, finished 4th out of the girls.  She came to the race wanting and expecting to get heckled and heckled she got.  I don’t know who the megaphone girl was but we got her to chase Cassidy along the course shouting, “Hey, Cassidy Utah, you suck!” Cass was laughing so hard she could barely get back on her bike.

Fast forward 1 week and U.S. Gran Prix #1 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin served up exquisite CX conditions.

I’ve always said I’m a fair weather racer and would shake my head in disbelief when other crossers prayed for rain and mud.  I get it now. Mud rules! Ended up getting 4th in the SS class.

ChiCrossCup #2 is on Sunday in DeKalb and the Masters classes need some hecklers.  Come out early to heckle and and I’ll reward you with coffee.  I’m bringing 5-gallons of coffee and 20 gallons of CarboRocket. last week the coffee was gone by 10:30 and the CarboRocket was gone by Noon.  The early bird gets the worm.

Sweet 16

It’s hard to believe my baby, Kendra, is 16 years old today.  I love it, I think.  She is amazing and wonderful and smart and beautiful and talented.  I do love her, that, I know.  We have been celebrating her non-stop all day long.

I celebrated her with oven-puffed pancakes this morning.

Tacos this afternoon.

Followed by $100 worth of empanadas and Haagen-Daz coffee ice cream for dinner. Yes, $100 buys a lot of empanadas, please stop by tomorrow and have a few or I will be eating them for the next 3 weeks.

She then celebrated her 16th by shaving and bleaching her hair.

Kendra will continue celebrating her 16th birthday for the next 3 days at Lollapalooza in downtown Chicago wherein, I will age 5 years in same said 3 days.  Oh, to be 16 again! I’m loving every minute of it. I think.  Happy birthday Kendra, you are the best, most awesome 16 year old daughter I could ever hope for.  I love you!

2nd and 3rd Dirt

Sunday was my 1st mountain bike race of 2011 but my 3rd dirt race of the year.

Leland-Kermesse was dirt race #2 and stands as the toughest of the 3; 65 miles of dirt, mud, gravel and pavement.  Oh, and completely flat.  Racing on the flats is tougher than racing in the mountains, there are no downhill sections to recover it’s pedal, pedal, pedal.  I tried to debut the new CarboRocket jersey and the stylie  Bonebell / X-Men combo  arm warmers.

Sunday I hit Oglesby, IL for stop #2 of the Illinois Homegrown Series the Matthiassen Mountain Madness and my 1st mountain bike race of the year. I also debuted the new Rhodamine Red 333 jersey.  I think it goes really well with the orange CR bibs, no?

The thing about racing in the woods is that you never know if anyone is ahead of or behind you until you find yourself right on top of them or they on top of you.  The idea of having a carrot is non-existent.  I finished 8th but 5th, 6th and 7th place were all within 60 seconds of me yet I never saw them on course.  Damn trees!

Next up – May 14th, WEMS Stump Farm (stumps=carrots?) 100!