spring

Spring news: Joined the CSU crew team. Fell in love with rowing. Most certainly want to stay with this sport. I think it is a great complement to cycling. Road: Road biking for me has kind of fallen to the side a bit. Though I did one road race in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I kept up for a few laps before being shot of that the back into no-mans-land. I will probably do more road races as the season progresses but not for a minute. Other: Bought a single speed mountain bike it is awesome and I spend everyday on it. Went back to polo finally to find that my skills have severely deteriorated. Finally graduated with a Master's, now for the easy part, finding a job.

Nik

Cleveland lost a good friend last week. Here are the few pics I have of him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeBXER6_I1k&feature=context&context=C393be84UDOEgsToPDskI0YBX_Pq82Sa38G5jrFQfj

another slow season

big props to the NEOCX administrators, its hard to imagine the amount of work (probably all of it done in peoples spare time) needed to have such an awesome race series.

big thanks to all the scum city racers, and Joy Machines Bike shop,

Kirtland pump station is my favorite course, always fast and fun, and being the last race of the season no matter what, there is something to look forward to here. I tried to get people to come out the race, making claims that, it will be easy to watch, i'll have beer,you'll laugh when you see me in spandex, and at least come for the food trucks, but everyone bailed. (There were a few surprise shows though, high-fives to the redryders and scott l.)

My race didn't go so well, and called it in the 4th lap when I hopped back on the saddle of the Centurion only to have it drop rails deep to the frame. I tried to fix it and carry on, but it was too jimmy-jacked to continue. I considered my options, and decided some tacos from the food truck were the best choice.

almost immediately daydreams of what to do to make next year better flooded my head and monopolized all my keyword searches in google and yahoo. Should I keep riding singlespeed? Should I get a bike with gears? If I go to geared do I have to race in the B's again? Will there be taco handups instead of beer?

I do have a couple of plans

1) stay in shape over the winter. this is easily the hardest to accomplish. riding the bike trainer is so boring... so very boring... in fact i don't know if there is anything more boring.

2) buy a mountain bike. last summer I was switching out the slicks on my polo bike with knobbies and riding that as a single speed mountain bike, but since that was stolen along with my CX bike I think I might take the plunge and buy the redline 29er

3) ride with people. riding by yourself makes you slow. riding with people makes it easier to push you self

4) become more involved with the NEOCX series

we have the technology

Welp, the Centurion is back in action. Rebuilt for cyclocross action with some spare parts. I had moved the handle bars, brake system, bottom bracket, cranks and chain ring to the new, and now stolen Raleigh. This has left me with little to work with when throwing together a whip for the last local race of the season. Of course, I had just finished converting the Centurion to the ultimate winter commuter bike. Off with the fenders and back to the front line...

good bye

good bye dear Raleigh Hi Life. You got me on the podium 3 outta 4 times. A bit too small , but not too fast ....stolen

photo credit: from greatracenutrition.com i think

no gas

raced day 2 at the chagrin river 2 day cx extravaganza pb fast track cycling. Every year the folks who put this event on do a great job Just couldn't get going. I however, did not do a great job. Spent most of the race thinking, "how the eff is he soo far ahead of me, ?..." Fun race, but frustrating. There were a bunch of dock section and barn doors covering up the flooded ditches. These were very sketchy, potentially dangerous and I hope they don't return next year. Also, our car got stuck in the mud, we had to resort to filling the trench dug by the tires with sticks and pine needles. Managed to bend a skewer on the roof rack too. blergh On a lighter note the 'rents, the g/f and brother #1 came out to watch my mediocre performance, and then we got some Mexican at El Camino. Tacos make everything better.

fantasy cyclocross http://www.velogames.com/about.php yup I have a team

comments on pro cyclingcrozz: trebon is crushing it, we'll see if he can keep it going until January, Tim Johnson is having the worst luck in the world. And my favorite underdog, Geoff kabush is now unemployed, luckily he's Canadian and has free(ish) health-care.

next week's race is in Solon, and it's contending with the big UCI race down in the dirty 'nati, so with any luck the fast doods will be out of town. Flyer here.

azure sky

Blue sky (or not) II went down this weekend. At over two miles it was a fun course, and pretty long for this series. Rolling up to the race venue in the morning it was exciting to see the event on the City of Euclid electronic message board. I'm a bike fan of urban races. I live in the city, I don't have a car. I grew up in BFE, and though it is nice to visit, I don't really want to drive waaaaay oouut there to race a bike all the time. The tale of cyclocross coming about as a point to point race in Europe across farms and fields, is great but very situationally applicable. One of my favorite traits the US cyclocross, and the NEOCX series is the variety of locations offered. There are races out there in BFE and they're great races, and there are races near city centers and in urban parks; ultimately each provides their unique compliment to the series as is progress through the season.Somehow though, I tend to favor the re-appropriated city park races, no offense rural promoters,as its just one man's opinion ...what a ramble....

Having a single speed division that starts 2 minutes behind the normal field has completely spoiled me. Unlike past races the Blue sky started the SSCXers with the B-masters group.Over this season I have forgotten what mania the first lap of the race can be; with log-jams, pile ups, and getting stuck behind someone who can take a turn if their life depended on it. Starting with the rest of the B masters brought those memories back quickly, the entire first lap was a fight. ugggh.

2/3rds of the course was pretty plane jane grass crit, that was slowly turning into mud as the day went-on. The other 1/3 was some dry rollers in the woods, and a hellacious off-camber 100 yard wide series of mud-switch-backs on the shore of Lake Erie. The switchback had a 100 yard flat section that made a hairpin about face into a 100 yard stretch of mud on a 45 degree slope, which had another 180 turn at its end to a similar to the first part 100 yard muddying flat stretch. Somehow I was lucky enough to ride this every lap, and not burn myself up for the ensuing stair run up. Overall good course, great beer, and some jaw-droppingly awesome pulled pork sammies


"you can only race the people who show up" is a quote from zach(or james?) dieringer, after I told him, yeah I got 2nd but its because all the fast people are down at states. So for the first time in my storied 3 year career I ended up on the podium, and I was awarded a balling pair of super socks.