Don't believe the hype!!! The Vt50 recap.

All year long I've been hearing how this was the easiest of all the endurance races to win. My confidence was high coming into this race. Despite the fact that I've only ridden gears in three races leading up to this, I felt like the distance and lack of any "real pros" showing up in the past could lead to a win for me. Boy I was wrong. Andrew Freye is here, Adam Snyder is here, Jason Sager is here as well as a full cast of familiar faces from the pro class at the Root66 series, all licking their lips seeing me on gears for the first time. I almost expected Jeff Shalk himself to pull to the line at 6AM to jam his pump in my spokes (breaking away style), but he didn't, Thank god.
Start was in the dark at XC race pace, No scratch that. The start actually felt like a Cat5 crit, until the first climb where Jason Sager (Jamis bikes) took the lead followed by yours truly. Going out this hard in a endurance race is normally suicide and this was no exception. After about 45 minutes I was unwilling to hold Jason's wheel for any longer and was quickly gobbled up by the chase group where I came to the realization that I'm the only 170 pounder in the bunch. Hell I might be the only one over a buck fifty. After a long climb and a rubbled decent I was dropped from the chase group. Dropped on the downhill? Effing full suspensions and effing New Jersey. With the lack of any sustained downhills at home how do I develop this skill? I would eventually find my groove after a few miles alone and thanks to the ginger ale refill at one of the many aid stations would begin the laborious task of pulling cracked riders back. Working my way past Adam Snyder with 5 miles to go gave me a boost and I cruised to the finish. 5th overall and second in my age only to Sager. Not bad considering my tactical errors at the start and a victory for my continued development on the gears. I started hard, cracked, came back, cracked again and still finished, all the while not making too much of a ass out of myself. A victory!
I only have one more endurance race on my calender and after that I'm gonna take a year to work on speed. So don't look for me at anything over 2 hours next year and don't look for me on the single....

Northern bound...

Team Dark Horse heading to the Vermont 50 this weekend...
Loads of shenanigans I predict...
Little wheels and gears on tap for me...
Long Trail on tap for others...
Should be a hoot...

The bestest hamburger....

"Wow check that out, the rain totally straddled us at blue, bet it rained north and south of us. Awesome! Looks like we are in the clear!" (gtluke)
Blue mountain is awesome. I can't say this enough times and frankly I never get tired of hearing it either.
My plan for the race was to start slow and build into the pace picking as many off as possible. Usually a good strategy when you have little confidence in your anaerobic endurance. Good plans go by the wayside very quickly when you find yourself in the lead group five minutes in.
Recently I decided to wear my HR monitor on my wrist instead of on the handlebars like I usually do. Good choice today because I hit some heart rates I don't want to ever see in a endurance race. I surely would have slowed down when I hit 184 no matter how I felt but not being able to see it I went off of my perceived exertion. I think this was a success today.
Looking at the start list I believed it could have been anyone's race. Jordan has been strong, the Alesio brothers are always a threat, Sean and Johan from Bethel have been coming on lately, James and Josh always give me trouble, Brian just won some big money race in Ct. and Greg Waggoner has found his stride this season. This race had like four different leaders in the first two laps with a chase group only about 30 seconds back. No room to make any mistakes. Lap 3 I lead with James on my tail and Eddy dangling about 30 seconds back, on lower stinger I could feel my legs start to go and in a technical section I bobbled, begrudgingly letting James take the lead. This would be the winning move for him. I gave chase but could never catch on again. Making a few more technical errors in the process of chasing let Eddy catch me right before the final ultra technical section. I knew I would need 30 seconds or more to hold Eddy off in that section but with him on my wheel my fate was sealed. Third place, a success on the gears for me. A success because I was in contention the whole time and even in control at points. Much improvement over the last few outings.
Afterwards, my good friends took me out for my birthday dinner. That made the day special. The Birdsall house in Peekskill may have the best hamburger EVER....

Thank god for fall....

Blue Mountain in Peekskill, N.Y.
One of my favorite places to ride and race. Fast and tons of flow would best describe these trails that were made by mountain bikers for mountain bikers. No hike a bike sections here, every one of the challenging technical sections has a way through (on the bike). You just have to find it.
After somewhat of a summer sabbatical, I'm racing on Sunday. And I can't wait. I'd never ridden a geared bike at Blue and quite frankly wasn't sure if it was the faster option. In the past the single had been quite good to me at this venue. The way Blue is set up it favors a single (very little flat) so last Sunday with the Bethel boys I head off for a preride.
Bottom line is; "It's scary effing fast on gears". That's a good thing, I think.....

Windham world cup

Just a couple notes...

These guys are effing fast...

U.S.A. cycling girls are a force to be reckoned with...

U.S.A. cycling boys are way behind...

Lots of 26er hardtails... Hmmmm...