All Blog Posts (398)

All forecasts pointed toward a cold and wet race day. Stuffed into the Summit Van, the rain came steadily down, as the team drove north. Rain or shine, the race would go on. The strongest winds and heaviest rains were expected near 11 AM with a high of 47 degrees. The race started at 10:30 AM. Suiting up, I attempted to wrap my mind around the misery ahead. This would be a special kind of suffering. Into the driving rain, bitter cold and… Continue

This is my 5th year racing the Napa Valley Dirt Classic. I put in some good base and build training in the winter and come into the spring with decent fitness for the first grouping of priority races. This year I am trying to come to a fitness peak for Napa, Sea Otter, and Shasta Lemurian. Though full-time work and spending time with my son Simon have made training conditions less than ideal, I felt pretty good for this race and excited to mix it up at the front. Last year I came in second…

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The weather could have been a determining factor. Snow levels expected down to 2,500', daytime highs in the 40s expected the entire week before. Arrived Friday afternoon. Rain tapering off. Patchy snow on the ground. Cold. Very cold. Storm clearing. Sized up the terrain and walked out part of the course. Continue

Met Jim @ Fontana for the ProXCT and was certain I would get punished and lapped and I didn't get lapped but got a real good beatdown by the real deal. 49th(and I think there were 90 total,1-2 DNS and DNF's included). I highly recommend to anyone who wants to push their MTB racing, to go to the "national level" races cuz they will certainly do that. Especially if you don't give up and go to more than a few (even a few will help you improve at the local level). Yeah, I had alotta fun and it…

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If you are an American pro mountain bike racer without the support or ability to race in Europe, the Pro XCT is the series on which you will focus in 2010. Though I will probably not do every race in the series, I am compelled to do Fontana and Sea Otter because they are relatively close. This is a completely different level than the local stuff. Sure, there are some fast guys in NorCal, but these races bring the fastest guys in America and Canada. The question changes from "will I win this…

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So I'm on my way down to Fontana for the first Pro XCT national race. I am seeing accounts as I go, which has brought me to Santa Barbara today. I got into town and checked into my hotel by 5:30. After all of the driving over the last two days, I knew I needed to spin around for an hour. I kitted up and started tooling around the strip malls on my Superfly. There were some beautiful hills in the distance, but I was having trouble navigating my way through the neighborhoods and private…

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This was my first trip up to Cool for their long running (18 years) mountain bike race. Because the race happens in the northern California rainy season, all the reports were of marathon mud-fests. Race day was clear and sunny, unfortunately two days earlier the area had been drenched in a all day downpour. The course, as laid out this year, offered rolling terrain balanced with a few sharp climbs and descents. The technical element as promised was water; standing surface runoff, rivulets,… Continue

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You never know what the weather is going to be like at this race. Last year was raining and very sloppy. This year it was sunny and still sloppy. I have to say I prefer the sun to the rain, and I don't mind the mud so much.

I won this race last year, pretty much riding by myself from the halfway point. I was hoping for a little more competition this year and I got it.

Timmel won the race in 2008 and he was here again this year. I knew there were some fast young guys that would…

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Quite nice. The course was fast, slick with snotty mud. Short grinder climbs followed by Rippin' fast descents. Muddied creek crossings hiding wheel-bending boulders and axle-deep mud bogs to plow through made it all that more interesting. After a couple hundred riders had passed, the course got slimier. Across this wet clay, I got used to the front and rear wheel drift through the narrow single track, even started to enjoy it on the third lap. Continue

I got out friday morning and did my time trial. It was raining and there was a tree down about half way up (i hold Carl responsible for the tree) but it looks as though i'vestill got a ways to go with my training. 42min 12sec.

A portion of the team met this morning to do a time trial up Eldridge Grade on Mt. Tam. Paul, Carl, Kevin, Mandy and I left together and did our first timed run up Eldridge for the year. It is still a little early in the training for a personal best, but these times give us an idea how our training is going and a good benchmark by which to judge improvement in the months ahead. It was a beautiful day and there were lots of other people out. Luckily we were going uphill on a fireroad, so…

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I've had a bad cold I'll post my time later this week when I'm feeling better. we are starting at the bottom of fish grade right?

This race was on my schedule as an early season training race, so I was going to race it despite rain during the week and a questionable forecast for race day. I went into the race prepared for conditions similar to the first CCCX race I did in 2009, which was seriously sloppy and cold. Though the course was very similar, the conditions were much better. There were a few big puddles, but for the most part the trails were in great condition. Much of the course was a reversal of CCCX #1. Lots of… Continue

Well, in an effort to broaden my horizons, I did the Grasshopper Chilleno Valley "training ride". This one is completely road, so it drew a slightly different crowd.

I guess over two hundred of us left Occidental Saturday, 2/20. The weather was mostly overcast, but the conditions were great. We hammered up Coleman Valley to spread things out, then turned south on Highway 1 down the coast. I guess most of the riders didn't get the memo about this being training, as they seemed to…

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ya'll best get out and ride before the weather turns crappy again.

Today was the first race of the CCCX cross country race series. Last year's first race was very sloppy, wet and cold. This year was sunny and perfect. No one could have asked for better weather or course conditions!

The course varies from race to race, though laps are usually around 5 miles each. This course was pretty good for me, as it had some relatively steep climbs and a lot of great bermed singletrack through the woods. Not as many "roady" sections where it helped a lot to be in…

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Around 230 racers started from Occidental at 10:00 a.m. on January 30th for the first of this year's 6 eclectic Sonoma county "training rides". This usually marks the beginning of early season suffering, but this year it was about a month earlier in the season than usual. Having just begun my build period after not too much base, I anticipated PAIN. At least the weather was pleasant enough - wet on the ground, overcast but not raining.

Race bikes ran the gamut, from road bike to full…

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