i (heart) cross

so, i did my first cross race this past sunday. and boy oh boy, do i ever (heart) cross. seriously, it was probably the most difficult race i've ever done. there is just no time for coasting and resting, at least with this course. perhaps the fact that i did this one on a single speed may have had something to do with that too. whenever there could have been room for a bit of coasting i still have to spin to keep the speed just slightly above a snails pace.

about the bike: ghetto speed converted into pseudo-ghetto cross. john says it can't be ghetto anymore because i spent money on it, point duly noted. anyway, big thanks to john for letting me use his basement, and jeff and matt for their bike fixage knowledge helpage extraordinaire. without you jokers the pseudo-cross wouldn't be. so the story goes...saturday i spent running around to the shops and getting the necessary parts for cheap to jimmy together a cheap single. to save you the boring details, the most notable change is drop bars. yep, single speed with drop bars, and non-aero brake levers to top it all off. needless to say, it's pretty hot.

so, lindsay, jeff and i rolled down to the village of east davenport for the race in lindsay park. beautifully laid out course. i don't know any better, but it sure seemed fun to me. ma, margo, sandy, jean, and phil were nice enough to come out and see us in action. i raced the c race, as that was where they put us foolish singles. turns out though, i wasn't the only one who thought it would be fun to rock cross single. i think the field had about 8 singles. i finished 5th, with which i am very happy, as there were some strong riders in the bunch. jeff had a solid race in his first cross jaunt too. he rolled in the b race, and looked like he enjoyed it. my one regret is that i didn't race a second race in the b class with the other mtn bikes. they may have had gears, but technically, my monstrosity is still a mtn bike. and no, matt, it is not "attrocious." and that, my friends, is why...
I (HEART) CROSS.

fixie revitalized! fall is here!

last weekend, yerke fixed the fixie. he knew someone who had a kind headset for sale, so now i'm rocking a king. a new chrome fork, and a new, old itm stem yerke rummaged up for me at northtowne. bottom line, it looks hot. it is hot. it handles a bit quicker now with the new fork. i love it. i've gone brakeless. so far so good. i had to ditch the cross tires, for lack of clearance in the new fork. so now, the fixie is just about how i want it. happiness ensues.

yesterday, john, yerke, steve, jeff and i rode out to sugar, did the better part of a lap, and rode back in. we were all on our mtn bikes, jeff on his cross. i like riding out to sugar. it beats driving out any day.

last monday, dave and i rode sugar in the evening. the swine dropped me a couple of times. it's only a matter or time and dave is going to be giving us all a run for out money on the dirt too.

it's finally looking like fall might be arriving. yesterday's sugar ride was awesome. i love fall.

minnesota collegiate time trial 9.17-9.18.05

this past weekend, yerke, john and i headed north to southern minneapolis area for the 2nd installment of the collegiate mtn bike race series.

we left saturday, in a minivan. yerke worked till 1, so john and i packed up here and picked him up in cedar rapids on the way up. we got to northtowne, and met up with matt. but, we are bikers, and we were in a bike shop. you do the math. a half hour or so later, one new wheelset and a few other goodies, and we were on our merry way. i bought a new tubeless wheelset and a rear tire. borrowing a front from yerke. anyway, my bike is significantly nicer now. we got up to eagan, at a park called lebanon hills. i guess some farmer back in the day gave 2000 acres to the city and said it had to be used as a park. so now, in the midst of minneapolis-suburban-sprawl there is this awesome park area. we set up camp, and sadly it was too dark for a pre-ride. so instead we headed into town, got us some dinner and made a night of it.

woke next morning, dressed, rode over to the course. registered, chatted with some of the other racers. headed out for a pre-ride. 4 mile course. most fun course i've ever ridden. yerke and john say about the same thing. when they built this trail, they built it for fun. trial following a nice line, with the land. barely any noticable climbing. tons of fun rollers. extended downhills. banked turns. a jump over a water drainage. fun fun fun. fun enough, post race, we went out for another lap. specifically to ride a double black trail people told us was fun that was left out of the race. a mini teeter-totter, bridges, and all sorts of other goodness. it was simply put, a riot of a place to ride.

the race was fun. time trial. one minute intervals. i put myself in line behind john and matt. and it was appropriate, as i didn't see either of them, but they would have caught me. time trials are different as you constantly have to remind yourself you are racing. i'm pretty sure i could have had a faster first lap, but anyway i look at it, i'm still happy with my time. i came in 9th place with 2 26 minute laps. yerke 6th. john 8th.

i want to go back just to ride those trails again. i can't say enough good things about them.

tour de lizard 9.10-9.11.05

so, the first collegiate mtn bike race of the season. the slightly infamous (among our crowd) tour de lizard, in arkansas city, ks. read: almost oklahoma.

cast of characters:
me, yerke, john, dave, and scott

the first 4 listed above rolled out of iowa city saturday morning at some ridiculous hour, like 4.45 am or something...
we drove a nice long 9ish hours. on the way we picked up scott in kansas city. he flew into kc to meet us for this race. earlier he had posted his bike to here, so we could load it into the van and take it down with us. he was waiting by a lamp post...
arrive at about 3.30 on saturday. unpacked, set up a bit, and headed off to pre-ride the course. wow. if i had to sum up the course in one word, it would be wow. rocks. rocky downhills. rocky uphills. sandy uphills. a huge climb. and do it all over again. lots of walking for me. riding in the rocks is hard. i took a spectacular fall, no one was around to witness it. on a particularly nasty downhill (in my opinion), i tried it, but got too far off to the right, where the trail curved left. crashed into a pine tree, which ate my bike, and sent me straight up over the bars. i actually did a full front flip in the air, and landed downhill from my bike in the brush, luckily on my back. i got up, and surveyed the damage. my bike was literally wedged in the middle of a small pine tree, looking like some fool had just barreled full speed straight into the thing...oh wait...i am the aforementioned fool. and i tore off a few limbs of said tree, the most notable one being 1.5 inches in diameter. to top it off i left a large flat spot in the brush where i landed further downhill. very little blood, only a few scratches. but i hit my left shin badly. it hurt all sorts. i still have a sizeable bump on it that just won't seem to go down. oddly enough, the thing never bruised, just a nice big bump. oh well. post-crash i got pretty testy and discouraged. leg was hurting annoyingly, and i was questioning whether i'd do the race sunday or not. the camping that night was warm but nice.

noteable on this trip is dave:
that guy had all sorts of firsts this weekend.
1> mtn racing. his 1st race. raced sport. 2nd place. nice.
2> camping. his 1st time camping. kimmy was nice enough to lend him her bag and tent.
let's get down to race business.... sunday rolled around. we woke up and discussed our plans. scott, yerke, john and i decided to race expert. 3 8+_mile laps of, what i would call, sheer punishment. dave, as mentioned, rolled sport.

yerke threw together what would turn out to be a plan of sheer genius. he suggested we all roll together nice and easy on the first lap. have sort of an iowa group ride. let the other racers fight it out for the lead. 8 guys started the A (expert) collegiate race. 4 of us were from iowa. at the line, 4 guys took off like they were starting a race. the other 4 sort of half-arsedly clipped into their pedals, and leisurely rolled out of the line. by the time the first 4 got to the single track, the last 4 were about half way there. very soon, the last 4 couldn't even see the first 4. that was us. we were those slow jokers. we made it about the first 1/2 lap together before we broke up too. there were times where we all got off the bike and let the experts from other age classes (that started at 2 minute intervals after us) go by. it was a riot. we were talking and joking and having all sorts of a nice ride. eventually, john and yerke were keeping a quicker pace than i could handle, so it was scott and i for a bit. sometime i lost scott, and thus we each commenced our own races. the lap finished up with a super long, steep climb...which politely started out as sand, and made it's way to large, loose gravel. dave was up at the top of the hill snapping pictures.
at the end of the first lap i hollered at dave to see if he would tell me how far down i was on john and matt. he said i was pretty close. so i decided i was going to try my hardest to bridge that gap and catch back up to them. somehow, i did manage to catch them. about 1/4 the way into the 2nd lap. there was a brief open section of singletrack through some fields. i turn out of the woods onto this, and who should i see infront of me but john. i made some smart crack about john q being good looking, and it appeared he was surprised and happy to see me. so i hung on with those two for a while. yerke stopped to pick up a pump someone had dropped. i learned that they had stopped for john because he dropped a gu packet. these guys were doing the race right. seriously...you aren't supposed to stop and pick stuff up are you? awesome. that's what it is. simply awesome. eventually we got far enough into the rocks that, me not being very good at rocks, i lost them again. but it was a boost of my moral for a while to catch 'em. the rest of the race went pretty normal for me. it wasn't a race for speed, it was a race of sheer, stubborn obstinance. i just kept going. on the third lap, i caught the 3 of the other collegiate racers, each of them appeared to be hurting all sorts. about 1/3 into lap 3 i broke my chain again. (this is getting old...i need new cranks) so i flipped the bike, fixed the chain and kept going. i managed to ride the downhill which had thrown me the night before all 3 laps. so i am calling that a victory too. i finished up not terribly far behind john and matt, i may have even seen them headed back to the camp on my way to the finish (the course ran through camp on the way to the start/finish).

turns out john finished 2nd. matt cramped up on the last big hill, and ended up 3rd. i came along for 4th. and scott ended up in 5th. 5 finishers. 4 of them from iowa. we are all pretty proud. it was a super fun, if not a bit odd race.

scott's story is worth mentioning too. scott went into this not having ridden as much as he would have liked for preparation. and toughed it out. i guess the guy cramped up something fierce in the same spot yerke did, at the bottom of the last climb. lay in the sand for something like 10 minutes, and decided he had 2 options...stay laying there and be eaten alive by mosquitos, or ignore the pain in his legs and shove his way up the hill. he opted for choice number two. scott had run out of water at the beginning of lap 3, and was thus hurting bad. since the race ran through camp, he stopped, got a cold gatorade, had a few drinks, got back on the bike, and rode to the finish. he had to look pretty awesome, rolling across the finish, surprising the officials who made some crack to him at the end of lap 2 regarding the fact that the sport race was about to start, holding an open bottle in one hand. i wish i could have seen it. way to go scott...you're tougher than me!

dave commandeth at the end of his first lap, at the top of the hill, that we fill up his rapidly waning water supply. john, or matt, i don't remember who, grabbed daves bottle ran over to camp, filled it up, and met dave at the other end of camp. and dave was on his merry way again.

pictures:
<---mine--->
http://www.flickr.com/photos/helpingfriendlybook/tags/tourdelizard/
<---dave's--->
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80942263@N00/

i killed the fixie...

so we had a cycling club meeting last tuesday. post meeting someone got the nice idea to go get some old chicago cheap pizza and beer. so it was on. 4 of us headed out on bike. yerke, steve, john and me. we were headed down by the river path, when john got the great idea to take off across a nice big park lawn. me, being the clever type i am, immediately entered "pursuit mode." so here we are, two fools sprinting across the lawn. i'm only a few feet from a glorious capture when... john makes a quick decision. he doesn't realize i was so close to him, and thus he decided to slam on the brakes and stop his bike perpendicular to his prior path. seems like a decent idea. except for the -- brian-is-less-than-5-feet-away-in-the-midst-of-a-dead-sprint fact. so, i did what anyone would have done in my shoes. well, maybe not anyone, but safe to say, other fools like me would have done... i t-boned the sucker. naw, i didn't really mean to, but i had no other choice. it all happened so quick there was no alternative. i was going to fast for any evasive manuever, and we were too close for stopping. i didn't even have time to hit the brake. i guess i just leveled him. steve and yerke were up ahead, and heard all sorts of comotion from the lawn, so came back. all i remember is flying through the air, and rolling when i hit the ground. laughing commenced before i even landed. john said he was relieved to hear me laughing. i love falling on the grass. we were both fine, i guess john hit the ground pretty hard, but nothing bad. and i didn't even get sore. i did however kill the fixie. we surveyed the damage. the front wheel was rubbing the fork. the brake was bent to $#*! yerke ghetto-trued the wheel with a few whacks on the ground, and we forced it back into what we suspected was a bent fork. and i commenced riding a very oddly handling fixie to the bar. good times. good times.

evidence:


i already miss the thing something fierce. must fix the fixie and get it back in action. the ghetto speed is no fun to ride around town. not to mention the fixie ride just isn't the same not rocking a fixie. speaking of fixie ride...new pics up.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/helpingfriendlybook/

labor day weekend is nice. rode sugar friday with john. a lap and a half when he broke a spoke and we called it a day. i had a nice crash. full speed @ss-over-teacups endo, whole right side of the body smacked the ground, including a nice head thwap crash. john was very obviously concerned for my apparent lack of concern and desire to continue the ride relatively quickly post fall. we got a kick out of my comment while on the ground as he came rolling up to me... "i know what i'm doing" i meant to try to convey to him that i was fine, just needed a second to lie there, but that's what came out. and funny enough, it makes sense. sadly, i must admit, while i may not "know what i'm doing"...i am getting quite used to crashing. i do it more than anyone i know. anyway, it was a spectacular fall, and miraculously only one small new wound on the elbow. so i called it a good one.

yesterday had a nice morning sugar bottom loop on the road with john. we met jeff for breakfast at the cottage, he had to work, so no ride for him. then later in the evening yerke and john took me 20" riding. which was all sorts of a good time. bmxer's are crazy. i waited till most everyone had left the skate park before i gave it a go. 1st go round, fine. 2nd go round, got too far up on a wall, and stayed vertical on the bike, so it slid out, and so did i, down the wall a bit. opened up the right side of my rump, and my knee gash again. both of those are injuries from back in the day, memorial day to be exact. q.c. crit crash wounds. healed by now, but the skin seems to be weaker there, so they keep opening up. this makes 4 times now i've torn the skin off the exact same spot of my knee. it'll leave a nice scar if the damn thing ever stays healed for more than 2 weeks at a time. anyhow, 20" riding is all sorts of fun.

ran the kayaking club pool session today. couldn't get in though. open wounds all over = not a good idea to get sumberged in the pool. showers hurt enough. so i got to watch a few people have fun. i was jealous. part of me can't wait for winter. a nice long chance to heal up... i did get to check out our new boats. they are pretty nice, and i fit in them, which is a plus. now instead of fitting in just one boat, i get to choose from 4. good good.