Wausau Report and somthing special

It took me a while to recover from my injured knee from rhinelander, but I think it's just about back to normal. Since I've been doing so well this season I really had high expectations for Wausau. Unfortunatly though, on friday night I started going through the bike changing tires and such. I looked at the rear wheel and I never nothiced how bent up it got from my crash in Rhinelander. I brought it to JB and they didn't have time to fix it, so I just took it home thinking it would be ok for one more race. Once I examined it more I notice that I could turn one of the nipples by hand. I probably could have done a hack job of trueing it, but I really didn't want to make it worse.

So enough details, I ended up taking my dads stuntjumper. I thought the tires on it were fine which was a huge mistake. This bike feels like a tank compared to my ProCaliber. In warming up for the race, I noticed the bike just didn't roll at all. At that point I didn't expect much at all. So the race went horribly slow and I could barely go over fifteen, and mentally I just wasn't there. I ended up 17th with 1 hour 38 min (freaken horrible). In the end I should have brought my wheel in sooner, so oh well. I'll just have to do over 7 races to wipe this bad result out. The Procaliber will be out for Mount Morris, so beware, I'm planning on bringing out my Game face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think I'm going to try the BikeHub ride this Thursday and go to the camp Wednesday for the group ride.

I think that I've been racing long enough (7 season starts) to show these pictures. These are from my very first race in Kewaunee 2003. I weighed about 220lbs and was about 4" shorter. So seeing these and how the team and WORS has changed me for the better makes me feel pretty damn good. I weigh about 175lbs now, and I can vouch that its the best "diet program" in the world LOL!! Also if you notice I new nothing about equipment. My first ride was a Giant AC2. It weighs ride around 40lbs with 6" travel front and rear. Origionally I wanted to get into Downhilling, but quickly found out that it didn't exist here very much.

What an Amazing Race

Good old Rhinelander, it was my home town till I was two years old. I still remember the first year of racing there with the marathon suffer fest. After Iola I had some pretty high expectations for myself, and considering what happened during the race I am very pleased.

We had four guys from the flyers in the 19-24 wave (Andy, Scott, Ethan, and yours truly). I really didn't know what to expect from the other three, but I really wanted to beat all of the. I especially wanted to beat Andy after he beat me with no problem last year regularly. I shook hands with all the lead guys in the start shoot before Don said Gooo (I thought that that was very proper) I probably had the best start ever, as I was in the top ten of our wave for about two miles. While we were still on the gravel road, I noticed two guys hashing it out next to me. Both of them got closer and closer and before I knew it the guy to my left was pushing the wheels out from under me. So down I went. Made sure the Bike and I were still in working order, got up and went as quike as I could. I didn't evan look back to see who had hit me, all I remeber is seeing someone getting up. I feel very fortunate that it wasn't worse. I was ready to get run over by all the people behind me going full bore.

So Andy, Scott and Ethan are gone, and I'm on an adrenaline trip. I was more than a little mad, and I hammered through the field. I caught Scott about 3/4 through lap one and Ethan not too much later I think. Andy proved to be harder to catch and at this point I didn't think I had a chance. All of a sudden as it usually goes I see a flyer Jersey and I knew I had him. We exchanged our excuses and I passed him with about 3 miles to go. At that point I was starting to feel the affects of pushing so hard to catch up. I got on the logging road and couldn't go much over 15.The bridge area cam up soon after and I thought I saw Andy catching up. The roads coming back were brutal and again I couldn't go over 15mph. I pushed all the way to the finish and it turns out that the guy behind me was another flyer from a different age. I didn't recognize him, but thanked him for the extra motivation.

I went to the medics to get my knee cleaned, Shot the shit for a while and packed up for the long drive home. I went into work today and the leg didn't feel that great, so I took a half day off ( a definite perk of my job). Hoping I'll be in tip top shape for Wausua. Otherwise I was very impressed with how many Flyers Jerseys I saw in the finish. Now I just need to meet a couple more of you.

Cheers

Good times

Had a nice Memorial Day. Met up with Andy for the first time in quite a while, and went to the camp. We had two very nice laps (about 54 and 50 min). Of course we had to size each other up for this weekend. It should be an interesting race For Scott, Andy, and I, becuase we'll be racing directly against each other. We'll have to see if I can keep up my good finishes against those two. Andy performed very well for his first time on the mountain bike this year. I can definitly tell he had been doing something all spring. He'll know if I'm behind him with how loud my hubs are (thats just the intimidation factor).

Had a nice Saturday

Oh what a day, in a good way. I woke up at 8 and didn't get out of bed until around 10. I really haven't ridden at all this past week, but I did ride to work about 3.8 miles each way on friday. So I went for a very good loop at the camp around 1. I talked to a couple people who were just out for a fun ride, but training was on my mind. A better loop for me at Refo is around 50 min and up till today my record for the year was about 51min 30sec. Well today I smashed that record with a 47min 45sec. So basically I was in aw of this acheivement. I was pushing it really hard but I felt good at the same time. I got home, took a shower and relaxed for a while.

Oh there's a really shiny thing in my drive way now. 2.5hours of washing, polishing, and then waxing. I don't have a power buffer, so it's old fashioned by hand. Got to thank my dad for helping me with it. I try to do this twice a year at least. It's so shiny!!!!

12 hours of stumpfarm

I know it's a little late to talk about the 12 hour at refo, but I feel like it anyway. What an excellent race, I really had a blast. I wasn't too fast off the start because, I didn't want to step on anyone or get stepped on, so I waited for most of the people to get to there bikes. I slammed it down the strait and passed as many people as I could before the single track. I settled into a great groove and I stuck with two ladies and a guy on a single speeder for a majority of the race. Lancer and I finished our third laps at the same time and both decided to go for the fourth lap. Lancer left me in the dust and I was hurting a lot. I wanted to get off the course soo bad. Fortunatly Scott cought me and gave m e the determineation to finish. We had a good old fashioned sprint between our selves, and Scott beat me out. That was the longest continuos ride I've ever done on the Mountain bike and I tell you at Iola with Refo under my belt I felt awsome.
Kudos to Mark the Chiropracter for coming out us as well. See you all at Rhinelander and lets camp it up.

It's about time

What a nice first race. We had a great turnout of most of the usual team and a couple newer faces. I'd say we had at least 12. The course was great, classic Iola with a few sand traps. This was probably the best I have ever felt post race. I really though I could have done another lap. I think that its partly because of all the long distance riding I've dome this spring. The lap just flew by and all of a sudden it was time to cross the finish. My time was around a hour 18 minutes(4 minute improvement from two years ago). So finally the big news, I got my very first medal from racing in sport for three years(4th place out of 23) yay!!!MeSchindleAaronLanser

Last ditch effort to train for Refo

Well I got out to the camp today finally. I did two laps, the first 51minutes, and the second 54. I wasn't too impressed with those times, but considering how little riding I've done recently, not bad. This was actually the first time I was able to do complete green loops. It took some getting used to being bumped and bashed around after doing so much road training. I got a good start on the calices on my hands. The second lap it hurt quite alot. Other than that, the legs feel great and I didn't hit any tree's, for which I'm surprised.

Plan for the rest of the week, Do one lap tomorrow with the group and two on Thursday. Should be doing the 6 hour with Randy B on Saturday.

I'll be writing up on the Electric car soon. I just don't feel like typing for a half hour right now. In the mean time check out the video I put together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mpSEVrsqg