Week full of Adventures

I started of my week by driving to Chicago Monday morning with my Mom and Girlfriend to watch the live taping of the Conan Obrien show. It was pretty cool seeing how that works and it was my first time watching him since he was kicked off NBC (nbc is the only channel that comes in at my house). So after the show we got in the car and made our trek to Colorado Springs. 16 hours later straight through the night we arrived at our hotel where we checked in and made ourselves at home. My mom and I went out for an easy spin around some trails in the Garden of the Gods park and it was awesome to be riding in the mountains!

The week wasn't only about me and riding so we did touristy stuff too. We walked around the Garden of the Gods, went shopping in those little downtown stores, rode the Cog rail up to Pikes Peak at 14,110ft (it is hard to breath up there wow!) and did some more hiking in the parks. Each day I rode the course and thought I had it dialed in pretty good.

The main reason I was out there was for the PRO XCT at Ute Valley. I knew that I was in over my head with some of the fastest people in the Country/World but now is the best time to get my feet wet and gain some experience so I went for it.

Just before the Pro Womens race is down poured so everyone was sitting undercover hoping it would stop, luckily it did and the course dried up super fast.

The course started out on a gravel running track. My call up was 34th which was pretty far back... we did one lap on the running track and then exited through a small opening in a chain link fence. I got squeezed out right away and was sitting pretty far back.

The course had a few major climbs and some awesome rocky super fast descents. Each lap was about 15 mins for the leaders and I think mine were about 16.5 mins. I got with a group that I thought I could hang with but we got to the second major climb and most of them pulled away. I didn't feel to much affect from the altitude (6500ft) but it was hard for me to catch my breath. I hung with the few stragglers that fell of the group for lap 2 and 3 and then started to come around. Lap 4 I pulled away from the guys I was with and then got reeled in by another guy who was hammering. I didn't want him to get away because I didn't know if there were more so I stepped on it and finished the race with him for 32nd place. It was a pretty uneventful race to write about expect for a wooden bridge that was still wet from the rain, it was so slippery that I crashed on it twice! The first time I smashed my collar bone on one of the poles the went up the edge the the second time I smashed my hip.

All in all I am really glad that I made the trip out there and got some experience and had a decent finish. But this isn't the end of my weekend.

As soon as the race finished I changed, ate, stretched (didn't shower) and hopped in the car hoping to make in back in time for WORS #4 Cam Rock. We drove straight through the night, luckily I got to sleep and my mom and Girlfriend did did most of the driving. We got there at noon, just in time to put my kit back on and get on my bike for a good warm up.

My legs surprising didn't feel to bad on the warm up, but I forgot we had that nasty climb at the start and I could feel it. I spun out going up the last gravel climb before the single track and didn't have very good position. I hooked up with Matt Gehling who knew the course pretty well and he was tearing up the single track. He was pushing the hills hard to and I was doing all I could to hang on but managed. He used up a little bit to much the first 2 laps and slowly dropped off my wheel when we entered the single track on the 3rd lap. So I rode by myself for a while and could see Kevin McConnel up ahead and eventually caught him. I basically sat on his wheel the rest of the race and fought threw the lapped traffic for a 10th place finish.

Ute Valley PRO XCT | Course Recon

Here is a preview of the course. The course is nothing like Wisconsin dirt. Most is sand, sand stone and some roots. The downhill sections are a blast to fly down and the climbs will tear the legs right off you. Sorry for the low resolution...

WORS #3

Wausau had a stacked field. Most people are saying its been the deepest field in the whole WORS series. Even after my call up I still had a 3rd row start and that was scary because of the way the start was laid out this year, it had a bunch of sharp corners instead of the long straight lead out of previous years. I managed to make my way up near the front but the pace was FAST thanks to Ben Koenig for taking a huge pull right out of the gate. Then right before the first section of single track there was a pile up and a few people went down. I lost contact with the leaders. I hammered to get back up to the lead group and by the time we got to the big climb I pulled them in. There was a huge group and I was the last guy on the train, bad place to be. I couldn't get around anyone because I burned a lot of matches working up to them but held on the whole first lap and back to the first climb when teammate Corey Stelljes attacked and really broke up the group. 

I think this is where Jesse Lalonde and I got together and it was just the two of us the rest of the race. There were a few times when Kevin McConnel would fall back to us, but neither one of us really had it in the tank to attack and grab on. He said he was pretty sick all week. We sat in 9th and 10th basically the whole race until the 4th lap when Nathan Guerra flatted and Joe Malony crashed in one of the rock gardens. That moved us up to 7th and 8th. 

Jesse was cramping up pretty bad so that meant that I had to do a lot of work, which I was fine with. He was some good company and when we were nearing the finish he said "Don't worry, I'm a gentleman I won't attack at the finish. Unless it was for 1st and 2nd." I really appreciate his kindness and I hope that some day we do battle it out for 1st and 2nd!

Here is a better write up from cycling dirt.org