AZCross Race 4: The Dr. gets sand in his cavernous vagina

Good day jerks. It may take a while to type all of this with two snapped wrists, but I'll give it a shot. Yesterday I woke up a 6:00am to travel to Phoenix for the 4th race in the AZCross series, and my first cross race since that jerk Rich Pierce decided to set a car on fire and make us ride the spiral of death across the most rutted and painful course he could find.  The smell of burning PT Cruiser haunts me to this day.

I wasn't sure what race to do. There is a cat4 only race, Masters 30+, cat 3/4, and mens open. I opted for the mens 3/4, knowing that the Open was going to be the "A" race and that I would be eaten alive in that one. Now it is important to understand that this is a much smaller scene that STL. Checking over the results for the previous races I noted that the largest category was only 20 dudes give or take. I went into what would be the equivalent of the traditional "B" race expecting a mid pack finish, but with mild delusions of a podium spot, and maybe a Wheaties endorsement deal or something. Anything could happen in the 3/4 race. This is me on the start line, unknowingly facing near total anihilation.

(1 or 2 more guys raced, for a total of 10 or 11)

The bell sounded and we were off. I got a good jump off the line and started out hard to try and hold it. This did not work. 2 guys fly past me almost immediately followed by 2 more and 2 more. I was able to hold this place for about a lap. I settled into the fastest pace I could keep for any length of time and tried to hold on. This also did not work as I soon found myself being passed again and hanging off the back with only 2 guys behind me. The rest of the pack had a rapidly growing gap on me, and one of the guys behind was starting to nip at my heels. I held him off for a lap, maybe two, but he eventually passed me and I was struggling to hang on. I passed him again at one point, but not for long. He came around again and I was unable to respond. I spent the next 2 laps trying to bridge the gap, riding way above my head. This also did not work. Here we are either right before or right after I passed him:

(Note that he has horns. Like the devil)

By the last lap I had accepted my fate and kept pushing because I obviously need the training. I did snap at least one wrist, and I will do the 3/4 race again next time. Hopefully next time I am in a little better condition. I still have two weeks (11/28) and I have had a taste of what the pace will be like.

It was definitely different without my jerk ass teammates and friends from STL. I made multiple attempts to hand off a beautiful PBR 24oz'er to the leaders in the A race, and to no avail. Finally a gentleman named Pace (who ironically was in the back of the pack) who had been eyeing the beautiful PBR 24oz'er that I myself was drinking during his race gladly took it and crossed the finish line in style. Scott and I had some PBR 40's during that race too which I think contributed to our not thinking to capture photographic evidence of the handoff.  You jerks need to come teach these people how to drink and race at the same time, except of course for the 15 year old kid that I inadvertently offered a beer handoff. He was in third in the "A" race. How was I supposed to know? We need a few more people to party like this guy, a resident of the park the race was held in.

(Nice fella letting us race in his living room, passed out about 10ft from the course)

The course was awesome. It looked pretty flat from the parking lot, but the backside contained all the ingredients for a pain train. Tight downhill S-turns, tight uphill S-turns, and even S-turns on flat ground with barriers midway through the turn just for kicks. There was a sand pit that was in the middle of a playground complete with actual children that somehow seemed deeper each time I waded through it. Where is the Park Tools Vagina De-sandifier (VGS-12) when you need it. There was even a concrete drainage ditch at the bottom of a short downhill, which looked worse than it was, but it still kept you on your toes.

All in all it was a good time, although not quite as rowdy as the STL races. This is the 3rd year they've had the series, as it goes on more people will get involved. I would like to try and host a race in the series here in Prescott. Maybe a couple to fill out the schedule a little bit. A little bit bigger turn out would be nice. That's all I've got to say except that Kid Rock sucks, even more than knee deep sand pits. Even more than dreaming that you pissed the bed, only to wake up and find out that you really pissed the bed. Until next time, I bid you goodnight.

Cyclocross in the Desert?

Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick!! I just realized that I haven't put anything on here in over a month now. I have been working on an epic post about pretty much the only road ride here and it is no where near completetion,. It looks at this point that it will be my life's work and personal memoir, a heroic tale of a Doctor and his travels. So in the meantime, a bit about current happenings in the wester-regions.
This coming Saturday I will be traveling about 2 hrs to Phoenix to race Cross. There is a "statewide" cross series here that consists of about 6 races. The first two were held in one weekend in Flagstaff and the remaining four are in Phoenix, one of which is taking place this very afternoon. Since I have to work today I won't be able to swing this one. In preparation for next weekends event I spent the entire week camping at the top of Thumb Butte

   You can camp up here free for seven days, although they are pretty lax about it and you could stay for a while this time of year. The roads leading up to the campsites are primitive fire roads, think Matson Hill or Terry Rd but for 8 to 10 miles depending what side you go up. These roads are curvy and bumpy with huge washboard sections and pot holes with the occaisional sand pit thrown in to keep you on your toes. Perfect practice for cross. Long steep technical downhills on the way to work and climbs back up after work. It feels good to be on the cross bike. Amazing all purpose machines. Speaking of which I am supposed to be on mine right now. More to come, I mean it this time.

SSWC09:Race Report

Good day Ladies and Jerks. As I write this, my dog Taco is licking up the bits of my blown mind that are still dripping down my sleeve. The Single Speed World Championships is simply the BEST race on the face of the planet. I don't even know where to begin. The race itself is merely the climax of a week long string of events. In addition to all the BeerBque, group rides, and other debauchery, Durango has some killer trails. Almost literally.
On Thursday, Gino Fellino (of Team Seagal fame) and I set out for one of trailheads near the downtown area. After passing Carl Decker on the way there (he was going the other way) we rode with some local guys on some crazy technical trails that spit us out into a Wal Mart parking lot. No shit. Friday found Gino and myself joing Nico Toscani and Casey F. Ryback (also of Team Seagal fame) for  an hour long shuttle ride up the side of a huge mountain to ride back down on the Colorado Trail. This ended up being an amazing ride. The first 3 or 4 miles of the descent is wet, technical, and very slippery. The trail is littered with wet rocks, roots, and water bars. While attempting to ride a fairly innocent looking creek crossing I was Judo flipped face first into said creek with a nice scorpion like motion that tacoed my rear wheel and left me beat up, wet and freezing. I ended up with a huge gash in my hand that wouldn't stop bleeding. Another rider caught up to me and wrapped it with gauze to stop the bleeding and allow me to ride the rest of the trail. At the top of the 1,000ft, 4 mile climb in the middle of the ride, it was holding up fine. What followed was close to ten miles of the most amazing downhill I have ever ridden. Close to the bottom I find Gino, Coarch, and Nico talking to some other riders, one of which is a real doctor, Dr. Darcey. She stitches me up in the parking lot over a beer and did such a good job that it lasted through the race the following day. Thanks again Dr. Darcey! Coach put some pics up here.

Now to the race. Holy shit. Almost 1,000 people signed up for the race, the SSWC09 website says 2,000 people rode the course that day. I have  never been in a race with that many people evar. There were soooo many people, most of them in some sort of costume. Only about 10 of these people actually raced, the rest of us went on a gigantic, drunken, really really hard group ride. There were beer tents, Jager Faries, and strange hippies with whiskey and bacon. All other races should be like this. I crashed a couple of times, and broke my chain on a climb with about 6 miles left to go, but by that point I was too drunk to care. The last couple of miles were downhill and had me coasting in to the finish line.   Which brings me to the race within the race.

I had one goal, and that was to destroy Robort, thereby saving millions of schoolboys mental health. In a conventional race, the winner is the one who crosses the finish line first, Robort crossed the finish line before me, as evidenced in the above photo. But did he beat me? Let"s review the facts.

So, by my math it seems like I completed the race as it was meant to be done, but since Robort did cross the line before me, I have changed the letters in the title to this blog to his gay favorite colorway, pink. anyway, here's some pics:

Adam Craig in his drawers and a TT helmet. So Aero.

WTF?

Nico helping up the hill.

The after party was amazing, pros were running rampant in the Ska brewery following the basketball game to decide next years host. Start saving for your plane tickets to New Zealand. Jerks.

D9 Bulldozer

Good evening ladies and jerks, and of course, rabid Team Seagal fans. September is here and that means that we are only days away from the most glorious event of all time evar, the D9 bulldozer aka the Single Speed World Championships. Holy shit! Energor, in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to send me to Durango to share classified information  and PBRs with several members of the original Team Seagal (St Louis) and a contigent of men from China. He has also charged me with the task of crushing Robort, which will in turn crush Robort's will to cruise by middle school playgrounds, drunk on Zima, and hellbent for leather.

The mental well being of thousands of school boys is in my hands.

Keeping that in mind, I have been riding a lot. I have a new favorite ride to work. It begins with a 4 mile sustained climb on the road which puts me on the east end of the 396 trail that I mentioned in my last post, and several hundred feet higher than my house. From this end of the trail it is 4 miles, almost all downhill to the western trail head, which is less than a mile away from the shop. On the way home the trail is mostly climbing and the road is all downhill. It's a great ride in either direction. The service manager at the shop took me on a couple more routes that he likes to do. One of them begins with a 7 mile climb to the top of Mt Francis, which is about 7200 feet (my house is about 5400 feet). Once you get to the top you are faced with some pretty ridiculous downhill, followed by a brutal trail that has lots of long, steep ups and downs. This trail drops you out on an old jeep road called Quartz mountain. This is an amazing downhill. After going down for a solid 7 minutes you are spit out onto the road the shop is on, about a half  a mile away. The riding is pretty difficult here, but it is truly awesome.

This is awesome in a different sort of way

The D9 bulldozer is going to kick ass!!!

Good day to you, the rabid Team Seagal fan. It has come to this, having forgotten the password to Robort and I's amazing blog, and no longer satisfied with posting in the comments section, I have started the Team Seagal AZ blog. Although I am currently the only member of the AZ branch there is a lot to cover as I attempt to spread the general vibe of badassery that is Team Seagal. I am also considering marketing a Team Seagal fragrance, because badass dudes should smell badass. Right now it is hovering somewhere between napalm and chicken soup, with hints of vanilla. Delicious. So I guess in a way I am breaking up with Robort, but what we had was mediocre and horribly misspelled and no one can evar take that away.



So I have been in Arizona for a couple of weeks and I like it a lot. There are trails in every direction, several within a ten minute ride from my doorstep. The shop I work for is pretty cool, the bars have two for one beers, and my ride to work only takes about ten minutes. The service manager at the shop I work for is a singlespeeder with Team Seagal written all over him. He got 8th place in the Whiskey Offroad, which is a 50 mile mtb race leaving from downtown. He completed the race, which has over 7,000 feet of climbing, in 4hrs 08 min. Smoking fast. I will likely be carpooling to the D9 Bulldozer with his buddy Ed, who may also soon have Team Seagal written all over him. There is a singlespeed only race scheduled for 10-3, which as it happens, is sponsored by PBR. Things just keep falling into place.



As far as riding goes, I am still adapting. The altitude has taken some time to get used to, but I am getting there. I took an early off season, between working RAGBRAI, packing, moving, and adapting to the altitude I didn't do any regular riding for about 3 weeks other than riding to work, which is only 2.5 miles from my house. The first mountain bike ride I did was short and it totally kicked my ass. Wednesday I went for my second mountain bike ride with a guy from work. We climbed about two thirds of the way up Thumb Butte, which is the title picture for the blog right now. It is part of the Prescott National Forest and is absolutley covered in randomly intersecting trails and fireroads. It was a good ride, a little short, and very low intensity. There is a singletrack climb, leading to a fire road, leading to some downhill singletrack. The next day, being off work, I decided to head back that way for a longer ride. The fireroad leading to the singletrack that we took continues to the top of Thumb Butte and beyond to a few even higher points. Armed with a pretty basic map and a lot of spare time I decided to continue on this fire road to some even more distant single track that, according to the map, would eventually drop me out on the same downhill single track that we had taken the night before. I proceeded on the fire road, which turned out to be very reminicsient of Matson Hill, but it just kept going up. By the time I reached the highest point at about 7,400ft I had been climbing continuously for over an hour. I eventually turned on another fire road which dropped me about a thousand feet in about 5 minutes. I found the trail head I had been looking for and proceeded into the woods to climb back up to the top to connect with the downhill. This is where things started going wrong. At some point I made a wrong turn. As it turns out, some of the trails on the map were not marked, other trails were marked, but not included on the map. I ended up horribly lost, out of water, and my map began disentegrating in my hands from being damp with sweat. Things were not looking good. I had some idea which general direction to keep moving in, down being the most important. I finally ended up on an unmarked trail that got me back out onto the road and on my way to water. All in all I rode about 25 miles with at least 3,500 feet of climbing on only two water bottles, a peanut butter sandwich, and some cereal. I believe I will be using my camelback more often in the future.

That is about all I've got for now, I'm going to have another go at the 396 trail (my first mtb ride here) in the morning before work. In the meantime you guys should start training in altitude tents for the D9bulldozer, it's gonna kick ass. Jerks. Here's some pics to tide you over. Jerks.