Schedule Change

So last month my Grandma (Nana) fell and broke her hip. It was not nearly as bad as it could have been, and she'll make a full recovery. Bill wants to go and visit her the same weekend as the 12hr. race at Hanson Hills. I'm pretty sure he had no idea that I'd planned on racing that weekend, and I'm not going to bring it up either. He's been working seven days a week since Memorial Day, and I've had three whole weekends off for racing (not to mention a handful of Thursdays as well). It would be totally selfish and unfair for me to ask him to go see his 90 year old mother with the broken hip some other weekend, and so I won't. To make up for not doing the 12hr. race, I've got a new plan. Hugh's Humongous 100 is on Sunday Sept. 9th, and I will ride it all. The next Sunday (the 16th) I will ride another century....off road and on the singlespeed. Hugh's up for it, and anyone else is more than welcome to come along. We haven't quite got the logistics mapped out yet, but plan for a 10:00 am start time. If anyone's interested give me a call when it get's closer to the date, and I should have the details hammered out. WNR is at the Bartley House this week. Be safe out there everybody, and ride well.

Sturgeon Bay

Got out of work right at 3:00 yesterday, so I was able to make it up the SBYC by 3:30. I got in an hour and a half of intervals on the North Country Trail riding the 1X1. That is such a nice trail, and we're all really lucky to have it so close by. Dinner on the beach was splendid as always. We had a fresh cucumber and tomatoe salad courtesy of Madge and Mike. Our main course was grilled chicken served with wild rice and grilled carrots. A nice 2003 Pomerol rounded out the dining experience beautifully. For those of you that don't ever eat dinner on the beach, give it a try sometime. All you need is a little portable grill and the same food you'd be eating/preparing at home. Trust me, everything will taste better. And you can't beat the view

Drought Conditions

I don't even remember the last time we had any meaningful rain round these parts. It's been a long time though. The trails are sandy, and the grass is brown. All that didn't stop us from having a good old time on the WNR last week. Had nine riders including myself for a tour of the Boyne trails. I got a good hour in before the group showed up, and it felt good to be back on the singlespeed. Hugh and I went out for a 25 mile spin this morning on the road, and we both feel like there is still a little residual soreness in the legs. Hopefully that will work it's way out by the end of the weekend. I've got to start getting ready for the first half of September. As the schedule stands I'll have Hugh's Humongous Hundred to tackle the first Sunday after Labor Day with the 12 hrs. of Hanson Hills only six days later. I'm really looking forward to the 12 hr. race. The trails down at Hanson Hills are super fun, and it sounds like there will be a fair number of local riders down there which will be nice since Sarah won't be attneding. That's all to report for now. WNR on N.C.T. from Stus. to Kipp and back this week. Bring on the hills. That's all for now, thanks for reading.

p.s. Matt was showing us this YouTube clip last weekend, and I thought it was so funny I just had to put it up here for you all to enjoy.

Ore to Shore Report

Another Ore to Shore has come and gone. It was the hardest edition that I've participated in so far. The sand was relentless. My day started off well enough. Hugh, Doug, Will and I were able to secure great starting spots before warming up on our road bikes for about an hour. The gun went off, and Hugh and were able to maintain our spots in the first 100 or so for the first hour. Things began to unravel a bit at that point. I was cruising along paralell to some railroad tracks about two spots behind Hugh when I went down and landed on the railroad ties. It wasn't a bad crash, but by the time I got up and going again Hugh was nowhere to be seen. I was still feeling okay when Doug caught up to me, and we rode together until the start of Misery Hill. I was still feeling good at the end of those powerline climbs, but it wouldn't last for long. On the next section of road I noticed a serious drop in power, and I was having a hard time even drafting in small groups. By the time we hit the dirt again I was out of food and down to less than half a bottle of Heed with just over 15 miles to go. Needless to say, this is not the ideal situation to be in. Both my legs began cramping at this point. It got so bad that I would unclip one foot and pedal with one leg until it started to cramp and then switch to the other leg. I could do this a few times until they both got so bad that I'd have to get off and walk for a few minutes. By the time I got to the last aid station I was a complete wreck. I pulled over and asked them to fill one of my empty bottles. I also consumed a cup of some energy drink, two cliff shots, a donought hole, and a couple of orange slices. I don't even want to think about what would have happend if that last station hadn't been there. The rest of the race was still a perfect picture of agony with the continued cramping and unrelenting sand. I crossed the finish line, rode over to the group, let my bike fall to the pavement and collapsed (see attached photo). I was just coherent enough to tell them I didn't require medical attention. I stayed down there for a few minutes, slowly summoning the strength to sit up. I came around after a little while with the help of a nice recovery drink and rode my sore ass over to the scoring tent to see how poorly I did. Suprisingly, I was only 5 places short of my goal: 25th in the 30-34 group, up from 33rd last year. Considering how crappy the race went, I was quite pleased with this. The rest of the team all had way better rides than I did. Hugh dominated his class with a 2nd place finish. Doug had his first mechanical free O2S in I don't know how long and ended up beating me by something like 15 minutes. Rob completed is fist 48 mile race in just a hair under four hours. Matt had a good old time in his first time out racing. Sarah is actually starting to race now. She was talking about looking for places to make up time and really pushing herself when she was feeling good. I ran into Scott Q. after the race. He was riding the soft rock pacing his girlfriend, and one of the first things he said to me was how impressed he was with Sarah's descending skills. All in all, the team was able to represent well despite the fact that one of our own was stuck in the hospital. I called Chris after the race on Saturday, and he sounded like he was in good spirits. They'd moved him out of the ICU, and hopefully he'll be home by the end of the week. WNR at Boyne this week. Until then, ride well and be good.

DL

The team took a pretty hard hit on Monday night this week. Chris was out for an easy spin on his road bike to get ready for the Ore to Shore this weekend, and he touched the floor....hard. Some stupid ass lady hit him from behind going 55 mph on Pleasantview road. He's in the hospital and will undergo surgery sometime today to fix his back. Fortunately, he can expect a full recovery (after what I can only imagine will be a good number of hours at Northern Michigan Sports Medicine for p/t). This whole accident has really thrown me for a loop on a few different levels, I can't imagine how hard and frustrating this must be for Chris. He'd been riding so well lately, and I'm sure he would have made a big jump up the ladder at the race this weekend. My legs have felt pretty average this week, and mentally I'm a little off my game. Last night riding with Scott I was constantly looking over my shoulder for cars (sometimes even in the woods). I'm still feeling pretty good about the race, but we'll just have to wait and see what Saturday brings. Everyone have a good thought for Chris today, and be careful out there. Over and out.

WNR report

We're still riding on Wednesday nights. It's funny how the group dynamic changes from year to year, and even week to week for that matter. We started out with just a few riders in tshirts totally new to the sport. Some of us original riders are still coming out, week in and week out. We just wear jerseys now and ride nicer bikes. This season has seen a little jump in attendance, and a big part of it is a few new riders. Scott has brought Kathryn and Mitchell along to quite a few rides, and Matt has introduced Jessilyn to the wonderful sport of mountain biking (with Sarah's help). In the beginning of the season Doug brought an old motocross buddy Rob to a few rides. We weren't sure if he'd keep coming around or not, but he did. Rob's there every week now. He's looking to hook up for longer rides on the weekend. He'll be coming up north next week for his first of what will hopefully be many Ore to Shore experiences. I think we've got him hooked. If he sells his dirt bike with a motor this winter, we'll know for sure. Matt is also making the trip up over the bridge for his first O2S as well. All told we should have 7 or 8 team members on hand for the race next weekend. I'm really getting excited. I feel like I could have a really good race, but we'll just have to wait and see. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched and all that shit. WNR this week in the village. Until then.