bear creek race 2010 sept 19th

I think about 20 guys showed up for my category (elite)… 65 -75 degrees… ski mountain course so there was a good amount of climbing and descending… there was a few technical section thrown in but not horrible… It all seemed ridable except one tricky switchback with a lot of big rocks … Im sure someone can ride it but not me.

the fist lap decent I found that my front breaks weren’t working… the pivot pin came out… i tried riding with no front breaks for a while… but I ran in to serious issues when trying to ride down the steep switch backs … I would find my self going into corners with too much speed and rear wheel locked up making me unable to steer effectively… I decided to stop and fix it… fixed it using the pin from my chain breaker tool and some electrical tape to hold it in… it worked and I was able to finish… I came in 11th

this was the series finally of the mid Atlantic supper series … I was trying to do well in this series overall but after having a bad string of flats I lost any chance of a respectable ranking… since ive switched to tubeless its been a lot better… I went from getting a flat every week to getting a flat every month (on average)… so hopefully next season will be different with less flats and less excuses.

Might be the end of the season for me… I don’t have any races on my radar but something might come up... i'm sure i will still be doing a lot of riding either way

ride with the mayor (of frederick md)

the Frederick bicycling coalition had a deal going on where you can ride your bike to the minor league baseball field in town and get free tickets. the mayor was leading the ride... it was all put together to promote people riding there bikes around town instead of driving.

Anna Kelso was the master-mind behind the project
Anna talking w/ one of the police escorts
the mayors ride
i successfully completed the 1.5 mile ride and was was awarded this certificate sighed by the mayor (i'm adding this to my resume)
free ticket... i didn't end up going to the game though. no food or drink allowed in the park... i lost my motivation after going back home to drop off the snacks and drinks i had packed... i'm not a big sports fan... so i stayed home and ate my snacks all alone.

machaux, fall

Rode at machaux with Joe and Larry…


it was fun to go someplace new … I’ve been doing the same ride over and over… Larry knows his way around… it was nice to have him as are navigator… some pretty technical sections … one of which I had a pretty bad fall… I went to put my foot down but continued to fall down a slope… kinda like the guy in this video…




I only fell about 15-20 feet… and landed in a soft section of soil.. my left buttock absorbed all the impact… over all I got pretty lucky… I had no control over my momentum and I was moving pretty fast.

My bike seat got messed up during the fall.

giant horse fly

Delaware Trail Spinners Fair Hill Classic XC Sunday July 18, 2010

Delaware Trail Spinners Fair Hill Classic XC

Sunday July 18, 2010

Race went good… again no flats witch is a key factor in having a satisfying racing experience.
There was a large field…maybe 40? It seemed like 40…. I had a slow start … i spent the race passing people … even though I wanted the race to be over by about mile 20 or so I did pass about 3 more people after that… so I suppose those extra 7 miles were good for me even if I wasn’t having fun anymore.

I came in 10th.

It was a cool course … lots of bend and short steep climbs.

Jeff Dickey, teammate came in 5th… even after stopping to fill a water bottle and making a wrong turn.

Rest of the team had solid results too…I believe we were all mechanical and injury free this weekend!!!

John Arias and Scott Wilson scored 1st and and 3rd in cat 1 race

Danzeisen and Quigley Summer Sizzler

Sun July 11 Danzeisen and Quigley Summer Sizzler Gloucester County College, NJ XC

Race had lots of bends... it was fast rolling with slick roots.

Race went well… I didn’t flat…. I came in 7th place witch is about par for what I expect from myself assuming that everything is working correctly. Aaron won the elite open!!! and Jay won the masters Category!!! but things didn’t go so smoothly for the rest of the team… crashes, broken seat posts, broken chains and possible broken hand.

Hopefully all injuries sustained will heal fast.

Bart the team director gave me a new nick name “stacks”… in reference to the height of the spacer on my steer tube… hopefully I don’t end up like the stacks form Goodfellas



GoodFellas Full "Stacks Gets Whacked" Scene

"GoodFella" David Johnson | MySpace Video

Bart was kind enough to host a BBQ at his place after the race… it was a good time

I car pooled with Jeff Dicky… we saw some crazy people while driving home…

Mr stroller in his lap

And Mrs doing a u turn at the toll booth.

iron hill challenge, mountain king tires

Two weekends ago I did the iron hill challenge race. I set my bike up with my new continental mountain kings 2.4”… I set the rear up tubeless… they are nice tires… sizing is a little off more like a 2.25 but they are tall extenuating the 29er feel. Rolling over and absorbing bumps noticeably better than the maxis ingnitors that I was running before (especially in messy rock gardens)… they run a little sketchy on the road being tall with large nobs but seeing as they are mountain bike tires and they weren’t meant to ride on the road I suppose I cant complain about that. (even though I just did)

Ok back to the race… it was a hot day 90 something degrees and course was super flat and fast… my new big aggressive tires didn’t suit this course but I’m not one to buy and switch out tires to suit particular races. I think people who do have a mild case of OCD.

I didn’t start very strong but I was slowly passing people and expecting to real in more as the heat got to people. A lap and a half in I got a flat… in the rear.. the one I was riding tubeless…I could hear the air leaking out and the sealant wasn’t doing the trick so I put a tube in… it took me a while to fix it and by the time I did I pretty much gave up on a respectable placing… I rode the rest of the race with teammate Jay Dodge (who was riding strong, winning the masters men).

I haven’t looked yet to see what the issue was with the tire… I’ve done 6 races so far and have had flats during 3 of them…

I heard Greg lemon would stop and let the air out of his tires when he was doing bad during races… with the high frequency of flats I imagine people are thinking I am pulling a Greg lemon… I’m not but I am getting so many flats that it seem unbelievable to me and probably others… hopefully I can figure out away to avoid flats in the future so I can regain my reputation as a 5^th -10 th place finisher (on a good day).