Cycling in Winnesota.

This Saturday Chase, Jesrin and I left after I got off of work at good ol' Riverbrook to head down to Kewaunee for XC #4. We picked up Chadley and John Beck in Eau CLaire and managed to cram 4 bikes, CHad's bike being escorted to the race by Ron, on the back of the Trailblazer. We stayed over night at a Super 8 and crammed 5 guys, 4 bikes, and our gear into one hotel room. We ended up going to bed at about 1:00 am after shootin' the shit for a while.

The next morning we awoke to a light rainstorm. We loaded our bikes onto the car, checked out of the hotel, and headed on over to Denny's. The line at Denny's was long so when I put our name in I said I had no preference whether to sit in smoking or non smoking, Boy was I ever wrong! After about five minutes we could stand it no long so we demanded to sit in the non smoking section. AFter our hearty breakfast we headed to the race. We got to the race just in time to see the sport riders coming in all caked with mud. It was an ugly sight. I was worried cause the only tires I had with were my pythons and they would have sucked had it not dried up.

I ended up lining up in the second row and was smart enough this race to get to the front immediately. I sat about 5th wheel just 2 positions behind Johnny for 3/4 of the first lap. Everything was going great until my seat clamp slipped and my seat angled upward about 2 inches. AFter that it was all downhill. I missed the turn for the second lap and lost about 20 seconds. I had already given up but just wanted to finish at this point. On the second lap I crashed on a downhill and took down 2 other riders. I had so much hay in my cassette from the crash that I was skipping in my high gears. I just kind of cruised through the last two laps and ended up finishing 15th overall, another 4th in my age group. CHad had a good race in the ELite finishing 3rd overall, Jesrin finished 4th, AWESOME JOB JES, and CHase finished his first Elite race, you'll be killing em' in the future man.

When me and my dad pulled into the parking lot of the Frederic high school I was in schock from all of the bling bling that I saw. There were no less than 4 Cervelo p3 carbon time trial bikes rolling around the start area. I was certainly glad not to be doing the time trial. Anyway It was 46 degrees out when the race started so I was all bundled up in arm warmers and knee warmers. My backside was still a little sore from riding all this week but other than that I was ready to go. I lined up towards the front and the pace started off realy easy. after less than a mile the attacks started to come though. Two guys from Grand Performance broke before the ten mile mark and no one dared chase them down. There were many other attempts but none were successful. I was active in chasing down just about every break and ended up towing the pack quite a few times, a new experience for me. I got sandwiched inbetween two riders at about mile 20 and almost went down. I was blown out of my pedal but amazingly recovered. Apparently a few riders went down at about mile 30 and were taken away in an ambulance. I was out of harms way toward the front of the pack when it happened. A grand performance rider on a $6,000 Orbea with zipp wheels broke off solo at about mile 25 and I chased him down. He told me to pull through but I barely had any legs left so the pack caught us before we really had a chance. I stayed toward the front of the pack for the rest of the race. One of the last climbs left me a little short of breath and I lost about 10 positions. Before I knew it I could see the finish and was unable to break through the pakc. I managed to pull off of the side and sprint in for a 12th place overall and a second in my age category. If I had payed better attention I could have dusted most of those punks, but thats road racing I guess. I learned something today, it ain't the cost of your bike that determines how fast you are its how big your motor is. Just because you have the equipment doesn't mean that you have the engine!

As some people may already know I recently rode my bike from Superior to Stevens Point for a Special Olympics benefit. I started out in Superior at about 6:20 in the am with a slight tailwind on a chilly 50 degree morning. Me and my pops averaged 20.4 up until trego, we rode along the interstate with a squad car behind us, where we picked up some other riders. From Trego to Spooner we averaged about 8 miles an hour with the non-bikers and after fueling up our bodies at Kwik Tripp headed off for the remaing 80 some miles of our trip. The expansion cracks in the road on the way to Rice Lake were enough to drive us mad. We made a few pit stops along the way but it was a pretty uneventful day. I put a gash in the face of my front tire about 20 miles outside of Eau Claire and changed it in under 2 min. by hand including pumping it up. When we got into EC after about 8 hours of ride time we were tanked. The worse thing was the sunburn. We both felt fine until about twenty minutes after we were off the bikes when we started to turn into lobsters. Atleast our skin color matched our paint jobs well. 8 hours in the saddle couldn't have gone smooother.

After a good nights rest in Elmers campground me my dad and a straggler we managed to meet up with that morning, Jeff Lorenze, took off at about 6:20 for point. I had a hard time getting back into a groove on the bike and it took me an honest 2 hours to feel better. We took backroads the whole way and along the route about 25 miles out we stopped at Grunewald's general store and my dad begged a cup of coffee, made in his own kitchen, off of old Grunewald. We bought a box of oatmeal squares that probably had sat there for a whole year for a dollar and ate all six of them in one sitting. After that we were off again until we stopped for lunch in Amish country at a kwik tripp in greenwood with no less than three hitching posts, each with its own horse and buggy. We didn't see any Amish riding bikes though incase chad and chase are wondering. The tempo was really easy for the whole rest of the ride and we continually slowed down, Jeff hadyet to pop his century cherry. I even sprinted a few times out of boredom. My butt hurt worse than anything and my sunburn had only worsened. My left leg had swelled up where it burned to about an extra 1/2 inch in diameter and it hurt like a mother!