Salida/Durango Racing

Raced 2 weeks ago in Salida at the Mountain Cup race, felt good, race went well. This weekend was in Durango at the Iron Horse Mountain bike race. 19th/50 in the pro/C1, not too disappointed. Details to come eventually...

Kansas Fat Tire Fest

Headed out to Wilson, KS for the much anticipated Fat Tire Fest this past weekend. This was actually the first race I ever did years ago, and the trails that made me fall in love with mountain biking. Since the first race there that I did (with about 25 people), this race has grown a ton with a lot of friends from eastern KS, Oklahoma, and Missouri making the trip now. We got in Sat afternoon with temperatures around 95 with humidity that seemed about the same. Needless to say, my pre-ride made me a little nervous since we've yet to see 90 in the rockies yet. It was still spectacular though and was tough to get myself to tone back the pre-ride and not just keep going. Sunday morning we lined up with about 10-12 in the elite field with quite a bit of fire power. Shadd Smith took the hole shot and I followed into the singletrack with everyone else keeping pretty tight the first few miles of windy, non-technical trail. As soon as we hit "little Moab" Shadd bobbled just enough that Aaron Elwell and I snuck by. As we headed up Tower Hill there were about 5-6 of us still in contact.

After the technical climb up the back side of the hill I found myself off the front a little with Cam in tow. Garrett made contact within a few miles and we were rolling pretty strong with 3. Granted, it wasn't long when Cam put in a burly attack that I followed however was too gassed to hang on long. Garret kept me honest for the remainder of the first 18 miles when he had a crash that let me put in a little time. Granted he hung in strong and made sure I couldn't relax the remainder of the race. As it turned out Cam ended up winning, I was in 30-40 sec later, with Garret about 10 sec back. '

All in all it was an awesome weekend, seeing a lot of friends that I haven't seen since I left KC, and having a blast on some awesome singeltrack.

VooDoo Fire

Welp, yesterday kicked off the MTB season for many of us in Colorado with only 1 other race in the state prior to this, it was a lot of racers 1st go at 2012. The race was a 44 or 66 mi option down in Pueblo at the reservoir which consists of a lot of bluffs, limestone, and prairie. I ended up signing up for the 44 which was 2, 22 mi loops of 90% singletrack and was for the most part blazing fast. Thanks to my less than optimal planning, I managed to ride about 400 yards over to the start for a warm up and figured the .5 mi neutral roll out would have to suffice. Well...needless to say, once we cranked it up headed for the singletrack, I was about 10th rider in with little room to pass. We got gapped from the front group, caught up behind a couple slower riders and took a little bit to get around and put on chase. After I got around them however, the work was not yet done. Not more than 1 mile into the singletrack we started passing marathon riders....LOTS of marathon riders. Basically this set the tone for the remainder of the day. Ride hard, slam through yucca/sage/shale/quicksand to pass, ride hard again....Luckily I had UST Croxxmark maxxis rubber on the rear and an Ikon on the front so I made it through without any tire issues (not the case for many). The race went rather well despite the missed handup/bottle that dumped more water on my legs than in my mouth. Only started to get a little gassed at about mile 35 when I had to soft pedal for a bit and take in some more Honey Stinger goodness. All in all the race went as well as I could have hoped for, rolling in with 7th place/14 pros in 3:17. Maybe I'll have to do an interval or two before the next race......or maybe not.

Training Camp

Doing both a little (or a lot) road and mountain riding this past 6 days in Phoenix...needless to say, my legs are tired. The first 3 days were blazing hot at 87 degrees then Sun, rain/cold moved in, dropping it down to 55 or so. Today I finished up with a 60mi road ride with Ashley, wearing our arm warmers for only half the ride, woohoo! Definitely got a good jump-start on my race fitness. Now I just have to figure out when that first race will be out in the rockies. Always tough to get rolling as the high altitude stuff doesn't open up and isn't predictable until later in the season...looks like the April 1 race was canceled too. I guess I could always race a crit.....or not.

Tearing up the Phoenix singletrack this week

Snow Sports

Well, as we roll into a new year, it's about time to kick off training for the upcoming mountain bike season. I started January with a new work schedule to make sure I get 2 days/work-week outside on the bike, plus whatever weekend riding I can do along with the dreaded gym on those other nights. Definitely was glad to be back at it last week though I was a little sore from lifting for the first time since I don't know when. In other adventure news, last weekend we did a little x-c skiing and winter camping in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area, followed by a great weekend of skiing this weekend. Finally got a little more snow which even allowed us to hike up into a bowl and do some great tree skiing that hadn't been touched yet. Hopefully it will just keep dumping on the mountains now.

Cruisin through the wilderness

Steph being super warm in the tent at 10,800 feet

Hiking the bowl today

Doing a little xc skiing over to the trails today!

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