NVGP-Mpls 3

A member of the Columbia contingent, flying past Brit's Pub and the overwhelmingly delicious aroma of fish and chips.

NVGP_Mpls 2

More scenes from the Minneapolis crit.

Nature Valley Grand Prix-Mpls 1

Your eventual stage winner, Health Net's Kirk O'Bee.

Dirt Spanker

Global warming sucks. Another hot race with brutal climbs. The Dirt Spanker at Mont du Lac starts at the bottom of the ski run and sends you all the way to the top. Once up top, it's all tight singletrack with some steep uphills and roaring descents. None of it is particularly smooth, with lots of roots and muddy ruts making for some tricky handling.

I was holding back a little on the first climb, and was able to pass most of the field before the singletrack. Second lap I felt okay, and even the third time up the big climb I didn't feel too bad. I was in about 5th, but about 1/4 of the way into the singletrack I started to fade. By the time I got to the downhill, Tom had gone around me. I stayed on his wheel as best I could until the final climb out. He spun out and walked and I caught up to him just as he got back on his bike. If he wasn't on my team I could have maybe pushed it to get around, but even that might not have happened. Ended up 8th out of 39, 16th overall. Not bad, but not great. At least we picked up some team points. Ton just missed Top Ten with a sweet wipeout on the downhill finish.

Spongebob

In a year or two I can tell my son that I know Spongebob and Patrick and I've got the Polaroid to prove it.

That's not how it looked in the brochure...

Doesn't look too bad, does it? Well, next time you book a reservation, be sure to take advantage of Google Maps new Street View option. Unfortunately, the room was booked already. See below for the "view". Also, FYI, not the greatest hotel. Go to Google Maps and enter this location: 60-30 Maurice Avenue, Maspeth, Queens
Then spin around and check out the neighborhood. I can't wait until this feature is available in more cities.

Even better at night

No tripod, so not the best, but it captures the fun and excitement that is the Comfort Inn and Suites in Maspeth, Queens. I love business travel. Got up at 4:00am yesterday for a 7:00am flight to JFK. Long cab ride to Manhattan. Walk trade show for 5 hours. Dinner at the Marriott Marquis. Long cab ride to hotel. Decide to bag second day of show. Cab to airport at 8:30am to try to get standby seat on an 11:30 flight back to Minneapolis. 1 seat available, which I took. The best part of the whole trip: getting to leave 6 hours early and getting an aisle seat on an exit row. Poor man's first class.

King of Queens

So, if you're the King of Queens, this is a view of your kingdom.
Glorious hotel room view from Maspeth, Queens, in what I can only describe as the Cemetery District.

New York by Cab -- Empire State Building

Another random shot down what I think is 35th St. Just happened to get part of the Empire State Building.

NYC by Cab -- Times Square

Times Square, looking north. Random shot holding camera out of cab window.

Murphy-Hanrehan

I got to ride the new trails at Murphy yesterday, and I was pleasantly surprised. There are 3 loops of increasing difficulty, resulting in about a 10 mile system. The thing I really like about this system is that it is very natural. There are a few bridges, a couple of stepped bridges between sections, and a "log of death", but 99.8% of this system looks like has existed long before the mountain bike was invented. I like Lebanon Hills, but after a while it feels a little gimmicky with all the log piles and other man-made obstacles. Murphy is technical without being gimmicky, with lots of sharp corners, some sustained climbing and fun downhills. It has a good combination of technical sections that keep you on your toes followed by open stretches to recover and flow.

I had time for a warm-up lap on the beginner loop followed by a beginner, intermediate and expert loop. I was maybe expecting something more "extreme" in the Expert loop, ala Lebanon, but after riding it I am glad MORC did what they did. If I want to ride a teeter-totter I can go to Leb. At Murphy, the terrain is the challenge, and for my money that's the way it should be. Sharp corners, bigger rocks, short steep climbs and some drops keep you focused on finding a good line and maintaining momentum. The entire system flows well from start to finish, and would be a blast on a single speed (next time).

Living in the north metro makes this a haul for me, but I'll definitely ride this again. I hope they can manage something close to this at Elm Creek or somewhere else in my neck of the woods. Nice job MORC and all involved.

Pants!

How does this kind of crap even make it into a courtroom?

Peace Coffee

After hanging out with and racing against the Peace Coffee gang for the past few years, Ton finally convinced me to join. I still love the Birchwood crew, but with the exception of Clayton, nobody races in the dirt. Peace Coffee is pretty much all mountain bikers, so for me it made sense. And, I got a pound of Sumatra java in my welcome kit. Can't beat that.

Even after my disaster at Afton, I'm in 7th overall in the series right now. Hopefully I will return to normal for the Dirt Spanker in two weeks. We'll see how the cruise intervals go tonight, and the Bwood hill ride tomorrow.

Photo by Skinnyski.com

A Perfect Storm

No sleep+feeling woozy+hot+humid+no water or food+Afton=Death march/bonkfest.

What was supposed to be my A race at Afton turned into my worst race ever, and probably my second worst day on the bike ever (I would consider the day I broke my collarbone better than this one). I could not fall asleep Saturday night. I took a sleeping pill which did nothing but make me feel loopy. Woke up tired and feeling weak and sick. Decided to race anyway. I didn't get my usual warm up, and felt pretty weak the few times I gave a hard effort. It was already in the 80's and humid by 10:30, and after standing over my bike in the sun for 15 minutes at the start line, I already felt worked. I could only find one of the energy gels I brought, so I didn't take one before the race like I usually do, saving it for later. Not good.

Race starts and as soon as we hit the first grassy climb I can tell it's going to be a long day. I've got nothing. No power, can't breathe. I was in the first 15 but after the Bridge Loop and Shady Lane I was completely cooked. The sun was killing me and to make matters worse I could not get anything out of my CamelBack for some reason. I gave up on racing and focused on finishing. I don't really know why I bothered since I knew I would throw this result away anyway. I guess I was hoping that I would somehow recover, which was a pipedream considering I had no water or energy drink and couldn't really try to suck down a gel with nothing to wash it down.

Somehow I didn't come in DFL, but 30th is about 27 places lower than I had planned on finishing and my worst finish ever in an MNSCS race (barring DNF's). 4th last week and 30th yesterday. Hopefully that's as bad as it will ever get.

Seaweed!!!

One of the best bands of the 90's is getting back together for a few shows in Seattle. Hopefully they'll hit Minneapolis. Of all the bands I have seen, I somehow never saw them live. It would be so, so sweet.

Hell has Officially Frozen Over

My buddy Grayson was in town this weekend for the Capitol Crit on Sunday. He asked if I wanted to ride on Saturday. I really didn't want to because of the hundreds of times we've ridden, it has never been leisurely, and I didn't want to blow up the day before my mountain bike race. We both promised to keep it mellow (again, that's happened hundreds of times before), and I met him and 2 other guys to do "the Loop" from St. Paul-Mendota-Mpls-St.Paul. Usually, I'd drop the hammer on the High Bridge climb, Grayson and Michael would contest every sprint sign, and John would be about 2 towns back trying to keep up.

Well, the 4 of us managed to get through the entire ride without even getting close to anaerobic. The High Bridge never felt so good -- granny gear all the way up, spinning and chatting the whole way. The only sprinting came in the last couple of miles to get out of a downpour. I'm still in shock.

Training Peaks

I forked over a C-Note to sign up for a Training Peaks plan back in January. It's hard to tell for sure, but I think the training plan has been going well. It killed my road racing in April, since I didn't want to peak that early. But off-road, my race times are several minutes faster than last year's. I'm not sure if that's due to better fitness, better strategy or a combination. I think the most helpful thing has been incorporating a rest week every 3-4 weeks. In the past, I would just go out and hammer every time I was on the bike. I'd usually be burned out by July.

Check out Training Peaks

MNSCS#2 Steeplechase

I used to hate this course, now I'm kinda diggin' it. They made a few changes and additions that seemed to help the race conditions, namely some tough climbs to thin the herd.

Top 10 in the series got a call-up to the front for the start, that was sweet (I was in 9th going in to this one). Prologue out the gravel road, then down into the ski area on the grass for some roller-coaster climbing, then back around the main building and into the singletrack. I went out as hard as I could and managed to get into the singletrack in about 5th position. The trail was pretty decent but corners were slick from the rain. I avoided any mistakes up top (narrowly avoiding Jaimison's faceplant) and exited to the twisty downhill leading to the new climb. NICE!! A loose, gravely, rocky, sandy climb where you can pass (unlike last year where it seemed like about 90% singletrack). Then, a super technical, steep climb back into the lower singletrack section. It bottlenecked a bit behind some of the first wave riders, but I was able to maintain a rhythm and keep the rubber side down.

New singletrack section on the bottom is pretty flat. It snakes through the woods and pops out into a grassy doubletrack. The grass is a real speed killer, which leads to the long climb back out. I was able to pass some guys and had clear sailing in front of me for lap 2. The only guy on my wheel was Brian from Silver Cycling, who I held off as long as I could. He had that little bit of energy I was lacking and went around me. I was getting pretty tired and starting to get a little squirrly on the bike. I came off the bike a couple of times in some technical sections, costing me some time, but no serious crashes. I ground out the climbs and came in about 30 seconds behind Brian for 4th place. I'll take it, this is a tough course, especially with the conditions today.

Next week, Afton, and possibly riding in new colors??? Stay tuned...