Mountains of Misery 2011

This year I decided to do Mountains of Misery instead of the IMBA Mountain Bike Festival, which I’ve done for the last five or six years over Memorial Day Weekend. A bunch of my PPTC friends do Mountains of Misery annually as one of their challenge rides. Mountains of Misery is not a race, but it is a timed event, so you get a chip and an official time. This year, they decided to do waves, so you didn’t know who you were going to end up riding with at the beginning of the event. Because this is a road event, to actually get a good time, you would need to be with a good group of people that you can draft with. Since this was my first time doing the event, I had no pressure on myself, so I could just enjoy it.

So we were the third wave of riders to go off, and I was in a huge line of drafting with Chris, Jonathan, and Rudy. There were some fools taking huge pulls for no apparent reasons, but I was like fine…if they’re willing to do that, I will just stay behind them. I didn’t waste much energy until finally we got to the big downhill. The downhill was a little sketchy because I had never done it, and I was with a pretty big group of people who weren’t always taking the best lines. Rudy had charged off to the front for what I thought was no apparent reason, but he knew the hill was coming so he got to the front so he could choose his lines and get down the mountain pretty quickly. After the downhill, there was a rest stop, which we passed, and at that point we got a good group of people I could see myself riding with for a lot of the day. We started doing some smaller country roads that had kind of stepped hills, which is more my kind of terrain, and I was gapping the group I was with.  I decided to pull back, though, and save my energy for the end.  

Rudy got a flat, so I said I’d wait for him since I had no time to beat from previous years. He fixed his tire, and the sag came by, which was great because I was able to refill my water bottles. Rudy was pretty pissed off since this took off about four to five minutes, which would be hard to make up. Once we got going again, we hooked up with three other guys and we were going along at a pretty good pace. Rudy was falling off the pace a little bit and waived us on. We started going downhill toward one of the big climbs of the ride. I decided to push it a little bit with the guys, staying with them until the base of the climb and then assuming everyone would do their own pace up it.


 John's Creek Mountain is actually a pretty good one for me, since it’s around three miles and varies in pitch. I pushed it up the climb and took a pit stop. I think this was crucial in my overall time, because since I had gotten the water from the sag wagon and brought my own food, I had not stopped at a rest stop and had an official break. The rest stop girl thought I was a little crazy because I was one of the only person to eat the pickles, but I have found that pickles do me right on this kind of event. I continued to then ride the next forty miles by myself. I think what helped me was having done the SM100 and other long-distance mountain bike races. Through them I learned to ride at a high pace even by myself.

The Hardest Climb I’ve Ever Done-Mountain Lake

Since I had my Garmin, I was could see I was doing consistent riding at pitches of 14 to 15 percent. The climb started off ok, although the heat was starting to get bad at around 90. It then just turned into a grudge match of me against my pedals. I kept thinking I was going to have to get off the bike and either push the bike or take a breather. There is a reason that this climb was in the old Tour DuPont—it really is pro-level. The people cheering from the roadside was great but also frustrating because I was going around 3 mph. I did love the wet towels on the neck—great relief. I finally got to the finish line happy to be done. The food afterwards was great, but I couldn’t eat too much having put out so much effort and just nibbled at a hamburger and had a Coke.

Final Note
I’m actually really proud of that ride considering my body weight(in the 190s) and how big the climb at the end was.
Stats
Ride Time: 6:07:46
2nd, Age35-39
17th Male
18th Overall

J. Bishop Grand Fondo

This was a beast of a ride, I have done rides with more Climbing, but this thing had 3 really hard climbs. The First was Rt. 33 VA to WV, not my kind of climb consistent 6-8% pitch that keep going up and up. The Downhill was super fun though. The second dirt climb I was totally at my limit, and going up 14 and even 16% pitches. I was better here since I could use more of my power, and the grade was not constant. The 3rd climb was not that bad, but Reddish was a tough one. Alot of people had issues cause the climb was a dirt rough road climb. My issue was that it was just so long, my body has a hard time climbing for more then 2mile sections(I was going 3.0mph at one point). Nice ride Got to do it with Matt Donahue, and Jonathan Wheaton. At the end of the ride I did the last 15 miles with Jonathan and Chris my PPTC friends. Thinking I might do it next year as well.

A Mountain Biker is Born

 

This Christmas, I continued the tradition of giving my nephew a bicycle-related item. Previously, I had given him his first bicycle with 12-inch wheels and training wheels. Next, I got him a trailer bike. Then I bought him a sixteen-inch BMX bike, but Cole was having trouble with balance and continued to need his training wheels a lot. I got him a scooter, which I hoped would help him learn to balance. Eventually, when he went back to his bike, he was able to ride within two tries. Cole has been growing fast, and he needed a new bike this year and so Sara and I planned to get him one for Christmas. I decided to go with a 24-inch wheel mountain bike. I realized it would be big for him now, but he is going to be tall someday, as his dad is 6 ft. 4 in. Also, it should last him a while. Of course, Cole was happy with the present (which we gave to him on Christmas Eve Day), and Sara and I told him that it would be for Christmas and his birthday (in January). Young boys do not know how much things cost.

 

I took Cole out for a ride, and it ended up being a long one. We got to go off-road for a bit and around the Lake of the Woods development, where my parents live. We had to do the obligatory roll down the hill (without the bikes) that almost made Uncle Darren puke and also stop by the playground so that Cole could race me on the jungle gym apparatus.

 

I ended up biking again with Cole when we visited my sister on Christmas Day. He had been waiting for me to arrive for another bike ride. I took him to Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, and this time we actually went on some hills, and Cole got to understand that gears are good. He also got to understand that what goes up must come down, and he enjoyed riding the downhills. On one of the steep hills, I knew Cole wasn't going to make it up, so I had him go in front of me and jumped off my bike. As I cheered for him to pedal, I lightly pushed him up, but he still did most of the work. As usual, he seemed pretty tired both days. I hope to take Cole on some real mountain bike trails in the future.

DCCX 2010

Most photos by Jon Janis

As the captain of DCMTB, DCCX is more than just a race for me. It's our team's way to give back to the biking community by putting on the best event that we can. Yet again, I think that we have succeeded, having over 700 racers and shattering the MABRA record of 80 women at our race. Mother nature came through as well (for the fourth year running) with sunny skies and mild temperatures. A big thank you to all the sponsors--Dogfish Head Alehouses (for tasty beer and pourers), Family Bikeshop (Jonathan rocks), Bobby's Pottys (we had to go big this year, with 7 porta-johns that still all became out of order by the end of the day), the Dutch Club (for making great pancakes). Stickyfingers Bakery, and Joe Foley Photography. Special thanks also to the Armed Forces Retirement Home for allowing us to use the beautiful grounds.

Men's Masters ¾

Well, I was worried a little bit going into this race.  I had been working on the race and on my feet all day Saturday, and then was working the VIP team tent area in the morning.   One good thing with having your own race, you get an ok start position.   I was starting next to Mark D. from the team.  I got a pretty good

s tart(which I seem to be able to do usually)  Right before going to the finish line for the first time, I was able to get to Bruce B’s wheel.  I had the opportunity to pre ride the course a  Bruce had not been able to pre ride, and was not riding as smooth as I was.  I got a little impatient and passed Bruce.  This would be short lived as Bruce passed me, then Bill of CXHairs passed me as well.  Around the 2^nd or 3^rd lap my back blew up.  At that point I was in trouble, I went from like 17^th to the 31^st position I ended up at.  I guess Gwadzilla was behind me closing in cause he finished right behind me.   I did ok, but when you loose 15 places you are not going to be too happy.

Tandem

This was the race that I had been thinking about leading up to the race.  I had originally planned to do the race with Sara.  After pre-riding the course, Sara and I thought it best for our relationship that we didn’t ride it together.  I got Matt E. from my team who was a great sport.  He is a really strong rider, and fit the tandem great.  Matt, and I had pre-ridden the course on Sat so we had an idea what we were doing.  We had a slow start, but by the first turn one tandem blew up, and we were in 3rd place.  At the barriers our technique came into play and we were in 2^nd.  The Toms boys caught back up to us, and we were doing ok until we messed up at the stairs(which we did good in practice).  At some point we lost a pedal and some time getting it back on.  I think after that on the backside of the course we saw one of the tandems roll a tubular(don’t use tubulars unless you have defense grade adhesive!)  We lost some time on the uphill pavement, then lost our pedal again.  We fixed it with a pedal wrench, but the damage was done we went into steady mode.  The best part on the tandem was doing the bricks to the downhill, we were doing 33mph there.  I had a good time on the Tandem and will hope to do it again this CX season.

DCCX has gotten better every year, and this year I was really happy with the course, and my little off road addition to the mix.  Sara was great for coming out for the day as she was reading when she could and watchin’ her man do his thing too.
 

2009 Shenandoah Mountain 100

For any Mid-Atlantic mountain biker, the SM100 is a goal to do either for the first time, a personal best, or to beat your teammates. I had done the SM100 previously in 2007, and had an amazing ride, pulling a 9:33. In hindsight I wish I would've done worse the first time out, because it sets your expectations pretty high. For this year, I was training to beat the time I had gotten in 2007, but although I felt strong going into the race, I wasn't sure I had gotten enough miles in.

Pre-Race

I was able to hitch a ride down with Mark W. since Sara was to join me on Sunday coming from PA and I would go back with her. We got down to the site and found the DCMTB crew and set up our tents, eventually doing a pre-ride shakedown on the bikes. The bike was good, but the suspension felt a little slack, so I pumped up the shocks a little bit (looking back, I should've just left it the way it was). We had some good times talking that night and I was able to get to bed pretty early for the start the next day.

I got up with the usual SM100 tradition of the gong and somebody setting off some black cat firecrackers. I did not want to have happen what happened to me last year with the bathroom, so I made sure to get coffee as soon as possible to ensure that the system was flushed out. As I was going to get coffee, I saw somebody coming towards me. She looked like Sara, but Sara wasn't supposed to get there until later in the day, so I thought, "Who could this be?" Then as she drew near, I found out it was Sara, so I was shocked and pleasantly surprised. She had decided that she wanted to see the start, so she drove through the night from Pennsylvania, got to the campsite around 3 a.m. and slept in her car until I got up (she is racking up the bonus points).

As usual, I had forgotten something--this being my DCMTB jerseys. Mike K. was nice enough to lend me one of his, which would mean that I would have a jersey, but I wouldn't be able to change it mid-race like I did in 2007.

The Start

This time, compared with 2007 when I started as one of the last 25 people, I was in a good spot with all my teammates. We went down the road with lots of dust, and I was just spinning out the legs going at a pretty good clip. I was going pretty fast up Narrowback and rode well until I went through the only mud puddle on the course. I was able to ride a lot of the Cookie Trail because I was with the faster people and didn't get caught behind slow riders. I was dismayed going to check point 1 that the old Jeep road had been turned into a logging road, which made the trail not as fun as it used to be.

Check Point 1-2

I hooked up with Matty and Kent after the downhill, and we were riding a good paceline to the bottom of Reddish Knob. Once on the Reddish Knob climb, I was off the pace with Matty in front. I slowly made up ground to him and by the time we got into the Lynne Trail singletrack, I was a good hundred meters in front of Matty and Kent. I felt going up the climb that I was burning some matches, and I was not really feeling on top of my game; I felt a bit outside of my comfort zone. On the Wolf Ridge downhill, I was riding better than I ever have before. I got stuck behind a non-technical rider who had about ten of us bunched up behind him. He finally pulled over, and we went on our way. Towards the bottom, Matty caught up to me. Once we got on the road to check point 2, Matty, Kent and I got to ride together again, which was nice. We were going at a pretty good clip, but I still wasn't quite feeling myself, so I had to go my own pace. When I got to check point 2, Kent was still there, but Matty was long gone. I exchanged a bottle, ate some yummy oranges and had some pretzels, and then I was off to Hankey.

Check Point 2-3

I caught up to Kent and passed him on the climb. Then we regrouped after the downhill and rode the gravel road to the Hankey Mt. fire road climb. Going up the fire road climb of Hankey turned into me going through the rings of Hell from Dante's Inferno. I started off okay, but yet again I still wasn't feeling myself, and I had to keep gearing down. Then the mental implosion was underway when more and more people were passing me on the trail. Previously I had ridden up this climb without dabbing, and I knew that if I was going to break my 9:33 I needed to ride the climb at least as well as I had before. I started thinking about quitting once I got through 3/4 of the climb. I stopped at the top of the climb to get my wits about me, and still had it in my head to quit at aid station 3, where I knew Sara was working. I went down Dowel's Draft not even really caring if I was going too slowly or not. I got into aid station 3, and Sara looked happy and supportive, not knowing what nightmare I had just gone through. I was eating food and Kent tried to lift my spirits and cheer me up, but I was still floundering. Kent was sitting in the camping love seat and he said "Come sit down here next to Uncle Kent." Maybe he slipped something in the vanilla Coke that he'd slipped in his drop bag, because boy it sure tasted good. Kent then left and after talking to Sara I decided that I would go do the Brailey's Climb because the route would then return to aid 3 so if I wanted to quit at that point I could.


Check Point 3-4

I was going up the road climb at a pretty good clip and I had a couple guys pacelining behind me for a few miles. I decided to unhitch myself from them and just went my own speed, knowing that I was not going to get my 9:33 and that I just needed to do the race at my pace. I caught up to Kent at the dry riverbed crossing. He had stopped for a second before starting the ascent up Brailey's. I then prepared myself to go up the Brailey's climb; in previous years I have cleared the whole climb without dabbing. I didn't take the climb too fast--just a steady tempo. There was a singlespeeder and another rider who I was ping ponging with back and forth. I ended up pushing into the guy's nuts one time when he had stopped during a rocky section and I tried to go around him. I got hung off and pushed off with my hand, but what I pushed off of was actually his crotch. He was none too pleased, but at the same time I felt that if he hadn't stopped that wouldn't have happened. To return the favor, I let those guys go in front of me on the downhill. I ended up riding the downhill pretty clean. I had a guy behind me at one point who wanted to pass, but there was traffic in front of us, so we kinda went down together in a group of 7. I got down the climb and into the aid station, picked up my drop bag. I looked up to see that I had caught up to Matty somehow, but then I realized something was wrong. He was walking around in a daze, with bandages on his leg and arm, some blood seeping out of it. He said he crashed hard going down Brailey's and he was thinking about quitting (I found out later that he was really out of it there because he had already talked to the race official by that point and quit). I waited for Kent to ride the death march from 4-5.


Check Point 4-End

This is typically the hardest mental part of the race, but this year it was not for me. I ended up not being able to ride with Kent, so I went off ahead of him at my own pace. I was now riding faster than the people around me, so it was nice that now I was catching people instead of getting passed all the time. I must've passed about 20 people going up the climb. As usual, you think you're almost there, but still the rest stop doesn't appear. Finally got to the rest stop, changed my socks and ended up taking some more time, since some of the people I'd passed came into the rest stop and left before I got my ass in gear. After the rest stop, doing the Chestnut Ridge, I caught up to those people I'd passed earlier and ended up actually passing them at the very top because they knew that they weren't that technically proficient and didn't want to hold anybody up. I was doing the downhill a lot better than I did 2 years previously. This is one of the more remote trails to get to, so it was actually only the 2nd time I had ever ridden the trail, whereas Brailey's I have ridden 6 times. So I had a good time on the downhill, wasn't as scared out of my wits as I was in 2007, and got down the mountain--passing four riders (a first)--without any mishaps. For check point 6, I was just going to do an on-the-fly bottle exchange, but for some reason the little kid who was doing the bottles didn't quite understand how to do it, so that did not work out. But that was no issue since I knew I probably had enough water in my Camelbak. The second time up Hankey was not as bad as the first for me--just a lot of out-of-the-seat climbing because my nate was feeling the hours in the saddle. I had to walk up a few parts on the way back to the campground (did not have to do this in 2007), but I got down to the fire road quicker than I thought. Then it was just the ride on in to the campground and over the line to see a cheering Sara looking very happy to see me back safe and alive.

9:28 ride time 10:12 race time

Notes

• If I knew that I was actually going to do a 9:28 ride time, I would've taken my head out of my ass, paced myself a little better and done a 9:45 race time.
• The race is long, so there's no need to kill yourself in the beginning. Next time I'm going to make sure I leave it for check point 4-5; if I have extra energy, that's the place to burn it.
• I should've kept my suspension a little softer so I could've enjoyed the downhills more...especially my front fork, since it has a lockout.
• The Crossmarks 29er tires tubeless on my Crossmax 29er wheels worked great aside from the loose gravel, which I don't think any tire can do well at while being fast on smooth sections.
• The bike worked great--no issues--besides some squeaky pivots that I'll need to replace over the winter.
• The race support was excellent as usual, with NASCAR efficiency.
  
• The post-ride food was great--gotta like them Scud fries.
• It was cool talking to Jeremiah Bishop after the race to hear how his race went since I didn't know how the pros did. What other sport has camaraderie where you can talk with a pro as an ordinary Joe?
• It was really good seeing my teammates at the race and watching some (Roy--Raul's brother from Costa Rica, Tyler and Mark D.) finish their first 100 mile mountain bike race.
• Lastly, it was especially nice that Sara came to encourage me and partake in the event that is the SM100.

Aftermath

Sara and I left that night because she needed some sleep and my back had started to seize up (go figure, I think I went too deep). So we decided that it was best if we slept in real beds for the night. I rode for the first time on Saturday the following week to give my body some time to rest and to somehow to even find some motivation to look at a bike, let alone ride one. It's funny how the mind works...I said the whole weekend I wasn't going to do the SM100 in 2010, but not even 3 days later, you start thinking "If I just do this or that, I think I could do better next year....."

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Iron Mountain 100k

This was the first year of this race, and boy was it a good one. Ended up being 55 miles but we are talking 8000+ ft of climbing! So it hurt, but what goes up comes down :-)
Chis Scott ran a great event, with good rest stops and great signage even better then SM100 I think.

Pre-race
So I went down to Damascus the day before with Jonathan "sweetone" Wheaton on my team. We left got a sub in Harrisonburg, and then got to Damascus around 6:30pm. We then actually ate again at the pizza place, I had some good beens and cornbread while I was there. Then set up camp. There were only about 10 of us sleeping in the public park in Damascus. We got up nice and early and I put down two hard boiled eggs and then had the two left over pieces of pizza from the night before. We got to the start line to hear the final directions and then we were off.


Parade Lap:
Great idea doing a parade lap behind the motorcycle but then I saw that my crank was loose, and I had a bolt missing. So I stopped tightened the one bolt and caught up with the group. Then before the first climb I stopped again to cut a ziptie that was holding a cable too tight, and Chris gave me an extra bolt off his own bike (shows his heart).

Start-Aid 1
So I start the race in dead last with the sweeper. I am thinking well there aren't too many people here so I should be able to get through people pretty well. Jonathan was in front of me, and I figured I would catch him around aid station 1. There had been rain on Friday night so wasn't sure how the trails would be. The trails turned out fine, there were some muddy spots but nothing that stopped you from climbing anything but the steepest hills. It was more an issue of what trails had mountain run off, with some being totally dry. The first climb is steep. I was prepared since Chris said it would be. I was passing the experienced, steady riders and catching up to people, but no Jonathan. I actually caught a guy on the downhill to aid station 1, but lost major ground to a guy in chucks and shorts with a double crown fork on the downhill. The downhill here was a blast like going through a green tunnel of fun. At aid station 1 they said Jonathan was about 2 minutes in front of me.
Aid 1-2
I was going really fast and caught the people who passed me at the aid station. I finally caught the guy with the chucks and shorts and freeride bike. I was making some good ground I felt on this section, then went up into the singletrack section of climbing. I was climbing ok, just sticking to a steady rythym. The next big downhill was off-camber with every root or rock pushing my bike off the trail. There was several sections where the trail had eroded from storms, so you had to be on your toes. I didn't make any ground here I was sure. I got into aid station 2 and they said that Jonathan wasn't too far in front of me, I ate a PB&J and was gone.
Aid 2-3
I had determined if I didn't catch Jonathan by the next aid station I wasn't going to catch him. This was the hardest part of the course, reminded me of the 18-mile part in the SM100 from aid station 4-5 where it is a fire road that goes on forever. My seat was not agreeing with me too much either, my seat bones were hurting from sitting on it. I was then getting out of the saddle more to help with that. I realized that the climbing wasn't steep enough for me to catch Jonathan. If he was able to turn over his gear (he was on a single speed) he would be alright on this climb. I might have slowed down a little too much then as well since I was all by myself. I finally got to the downhill to aid station 3.
Aid 3-4
So Jonathan had pulled more time on me, so I decided to not sweat getting him. I had packed some extra socks in the drop bag so I got those out, and put them on. I also got two cups of Coke, which really helped. I then went off knowing that the hardest climbing of the race was done. I rode and did a ridgeline at one point, let a guy use my pump to pump his tube, but his tube was busted and I was running 29ers. As I was doing the downhill, I was thinking about not being able to catch Jonathan, but was thinking too he is the "sweet one" and he gets that name from tech skills. I was doing fine on the downhills, I was comfortable, but these downhills where the kind that you could get some speed on, and if you had balls some real speed. I got down to aid station 4 and found out that Jonathan's lead had maybe even grown on me.
Aid 4-Fin
So the rest of the race, was playing the waiting game of when is this race going to be over. We were climbing this Jeep road that would go up and down, and I knew we had to go down eventually. On the trail was a little upset cause there were not many vistas to look at, just looking 50 yards off the trail and seeing how fast the ground was dropping. We get back to one of the uphills we had done earlier so I knew we were getting close. Then we went up again to a different downhill then the one we came up! This downhill was pretty steep, got my rotors really hot (they squeal when they get hot) and I felt like I had no suspension with all the rocks pounding me. I got the pavement and got my time.
Race time: 6:23
Ride time : 5:54
So way too much stop time!

thoughts:

• I was happy with my ride time, I think I can do the same time or better and do like 10 minutes in stops for a 6:04 or better. But Jonathan would have still beat me with his 6:01.
• I didn't feel as bad about Jonathan's time considering he did a great ride and got 9th over-all so he had a great ride out there.
• To race this I think my 70 oz camel back and a bottle that I refill once or twice. Maybe only stop at Aid 2 and maybe 3.
  
• Make this into a vacation and stay for 4 days or something too far to drive for one ride/race
• Their course was awesome, like a more technical SM100. With the climbing less steep (but more of it) and the descents less steep as well.

There should be more pics will post them when I find them.

Bike To Work Day 09'

So Bike to work day was allot smoother then last year where my bike broke and I had to fix a flat. This year, Jon and I did our bike to work day, with a side adventure to Sara's House to get my ID badge for work. We actually did a good bit of miles. The funnest pert of the ride was doing a picture on our friend's front porch when he wasn't there. I also got to see Wolfgang, Joel, Ryan, Ricky, Ilana and say hi to a few other bike friends along the way. With traffic getting worse and worse it is the time to bike to work. Photos and quotes done by Jonny J.

2007 DC-CX Masters Video

Update 2
I Now have this video up on Facebook since Stage 6(divx) went under, and UTube doesn't allow videos over 10minutes long. The race is the full masters race, with cuts and text commentary. I like this format much more then the cyclocross montage videos that don't actually cover the race aspect.









If you can't see the Video it is because your work, or security settings are blocking facebook

DCCX 2008

This was the big event of the year for the DCMTB team. We are a mountainbike team that races cross and road as well. I had helped with the course clean up and mowed the course to be as fast as it could be. The race is at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington DC. One of the few places where there is ample room to have a race. We pretty much doubled in size from last year. We became the biggest cyclocross race in Mabra's history of 400+ races. The nice bonus this year were the Frites cooked up by Scud, and the Keg beer. The Dutch club of DC came in as well with their treats which were great.

I had some of my friends come for the race and it was great to hear AB, Kristen, Elizabeth, Jon, Jeff, Diana, Ellen, and Sara out there cheering for me.

CAT 3/4 race.

I had a fourth row start based on my registration. I never really get that worried about my place at the start, since I am not going to win any of these races I just want to race people. I started behind Matty, and thought if things worked well I could maybe race near him for the race. The field was big with like 80 guys. The start went off well and organized, but on the first hill people were getting stacked up. By the time we got through the up and down section in the woods and on to the pavement groups had started to form. I passed Cargo Mike who was fixing a dropped chain at the brick section. I then took the next turn wide so that I rode the off camber straight on, a guy behind me was on my outside and I think wrecked going down the hill behind me. I felt bad, but if he would have followed me he would have been fine. I think on the second lap my chain fell off, I was able to put it back on quickly but that cost me a lot of spots. After this point I think Ryan from racing Union came up on me, this might have been his first CAT 3 / 4 race. It was good to see him, but I wanted him off my tail :-) I was by myself for a bit, I rode the road sections on the tip of my saddle just trying to get some speed out of the legs. There were a couple of people who I was catching up to now. Then before you know it Cargo Mike had caught up with me. We got to this little rise that was like an energy suck because it was so tacky (I bet by the time the pros rode it was hard), I had to let him go there. The rest of the race was me going hard then slowing a little so I could maintain the effort. Towards the end I saw Matty in front of me and he was a great carrot to try and catch. Matty is faster in most races, so it was good to catch him. I knew he had not slept much for the last couple of days and was rundown so I wasn't too surprised I caught him. So I went past Matty and one other guy, and just emptied the tank on the last lap. My knees did not give me too many problems and I felt my back from the effort, but it didn't get to the point where I hurt it. So I got 28th out of 78 or so starters. The rest of the day was good times with beautiful weather, and food and beer. I didn't get home until 7pm after doing all the take down and dropping stuff off at Wholefoods. Thinking I will be at the Rockburn cross race, I hope I can beat the guy with the chops who has gotten me twice now at Ed Sanders, and DCCX.
Photos done by Sara,Jon,Diana, and Bucknell

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BikeDC-08'

The weather held off, was just a little damp out there. I didn't ride the ride, but worked on bikes, and actually ended up fixing Diana's bike which some how had gotten goofed up since the last time I worked on it. I also did course marshall work for a bit. Mark and Vince from the team came down and we all helped out, also had some good talks with Ryan who races CX with Racing Union. One of the added bonuses was that I got the chance to ride a High wheeler! It was a little weird at first but then I started to get the hang of it. The biggest issue is getting off it, you have to get off the back.