Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Big Ups to Lorena from RFK Crit!

Lorena races for dcmtb on the mtn side. See below...

City Bikes RFK Criterium - Washington DC Sunday May 25th 2008
Lorena Candrian with HPC powered by Altarum and Dave Fuentes with Battley HARLEY-DAVIDSON/Sonoma claim victory in Washington DC at the 2008 City Bikes RFK Criterium presented by Hub Racing. They not only won the pro bike races on the Grand Prix Course at RFK Stadium, they also both won the mid-race Prime: an all expense paid trip to the 2008 Gran Premio de Guatemala in September.
Candrian, who is a teacher off the bike, commented after her win: "I was checking the school schedule last night to see if I could go if I won the prime for Guatemala. And I just figured, it was worth it, I'll find a way. So the team put me in the right position to sprint for the trip and the win. It was a good day for HPC." Candrian, for winning the featured womens pro race and 2 primes, won a total of $1050 plus the all expense paid trip to Guatemala. Fuentes, for winning the men's pro race along with a total of 3 primes on the day, takes home a total of $600 plus the trip to the Gran Premio de Guatemala.
Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty raced in the Category 5 (entry level) race for Fleet Feet Racing and took 10th place. His brother Shawn Fenty (Clean Currents p/b Don Beyer Volvo) took 15th in the Men's Masters Age 35+ race. Marjan Huizing of Team Kenda Tire out-sprinted a Womens Masters Age 40+ field packed full of impressive veteran pro riders and City Bikes sponsored club Artemis Racing took victory in the Womens 3 category with Judith Wexler. The Hub Racing women won some of their own cash with 2 money placings in the womens pro race: new mom Brooke O'Connor and Elizabeth Morse Hill. And Hub Racing development racer Jennifer Wolfson took 6th in the Womens Category 4 before handling race registration the rest of the day.

Thanks to the racers of all the categories, the 2008 City Bikes RFK Criterium raised over $1000 for the Doug Gordon Memorial Easter Seals Fund. The event, in its 6 year history, has now helped raise over $6000 for the fund.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Sup Y'all

So I've been a bit busy. Here are a few updates. Like most of us, I can't figure out where the first half of the year has gone. I'm already talking about the SM100 on Labor Day weekend... We haven't even had hot weather yet and I'm closing out the season.

I think I'm the first person in these parts with not one, but TWO jerseys from Mellow Johnnies bike shop in Austin. That's Lance's new bike shop. Susan was there last week and she brought me some presents. The woolie is from Earth Wind and Rider in MA and is pretty sweet. As nice as my Endura woolie but we'll see how it wears. Good first impression. The other jersey (see pics) is a REALLY nice jersey. Black and white, big-a$$ star on the right shoulder, for Texas, of course. It's a Capo Forma. I've never heard of it and I haven't googled it yet but it's REALLY nice. Big ups to the spousal unit. Dude from Austin managing the shop lived in DC for a few months and raced with us this Spring. Small world, fo sho. Some of the press about this new shop mentioned that Lance wanted to promote commuting and that that would be the focus of the shop. Uh huh... Susan said they have Seven, Trek, Merckx, De Rosa, Masi... Sounds very approachable. 'Yeah, can I get some fenders on that De Rosa?' I'm not sure if Lance would ask you to leave or if they just have staff do it... I dunno. It's possible.

If you haven't washed your helmets before OR if they just stink to high Heaven, it's time to do this. Fill up the sink with cold water and some regular dish soap. Wiggle the helmets around in the soapy water for 10-15 minutes whilst drinking a beer or two. The beer helps lubricate the washing machine. I'm on my third season with one of these helmets and it doesn't stink yet. And I sweat like bigfoot on the beach. No, not Joel, an actual bigfoot.

Speaking of Joel, I rode with Mr Gwadz on my home break of Patapsco on Sunday. The trails were perfect. I rode for about 2 hours then met up with him (don't ask him where 'the tunnel' is at Patapsco) then rode for another 2 with him then another hour looking for my cell phone. It's hard to stay in front of Joel no matter what but it's even harder 2 hours in when he's pushing his singlespeed around out there, sometimes literally. He's talking about a (gasp!) full-suspension bike. There aren't a lot of people that ride behind me at Patapsco that DON'T think about one...

There was some highland games people at the local library last weekend. Jeremy saw the 'fighting guys' and wanted to go check it out. These guys were hammering on each other with hard-foam swords and stuff. It was pretty funny. At least they were outside and active. I check the TV Guide and there weren't any Star Trek re-runs on so that explains it. They did have a Picard/Kirk debate though... Jeremy was throwing these big darts at stuffed animals, knocking them down. He had fun.

I went on a work outing to see some of the sites we handle and I saw this fish. There's a section of newly-constructed wetlands on the bay and our staff did such a good job with it, there's all these goofy carp spawning there. I wish the site was open to the public because it's beautiful. But it ain't. I've been fishing in the bay and many of its tributaries for almost my entire 33 years and I have NEVER caught a carp. These things were everywhere. I had no idea they were that plentiful. My buddy Kevin and I used to spend a lot of time at his grandfather's place in Bay Ridge and he had carp in a brackish pond behind his house but I always thought it was just in that place. I never asked. These suckers were probably 16-18 inches. Apparently, they aren't good eating. Like bluefish. It's a wonder that I even eat fish after growing up eating potentially the worst on the planet! Here's a feesh... He's giving me the stink-eye.

24hrs of Big Bear is 12 days away. I can't wait. It's such a fun race. Here's hoping... I just looked at the Expert team listing. There are five teams. So far, we are looking like a solid 5th. Oof. It kinda sucks to be the team that won the 24hr National Points series with Laird last year but then come to Big Bear to get our collective butts handed to us in Expert. Sure we won some races last year in expert and overall, but if you ain't winning at home, it doesn't feel right. That's when you just remember that this is actually FUN and not about winning. Honestly, after 15 years of racing, winning is nice now that I am FINALLY able to do so, but really, who cares. It's just such a great course and I'll be hanging out with some of the best people on the planet. Even when things go horribly wrong (Darren), it's a load of fun.

Oh yeah, good reports from the Stokesville-Douthat-Stokesville ride last weekend. Chris has some shots up at www.mtntouring.com. 14 hours one day, 12 hours back the next. I've GOT to make that next year...

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Ryder Bishop Punga Arrives!

Nice work, Pungas...

Let the fun begin.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Cool Company

I don't really get out much. If it ain't my-kids-related, I'm not too sure about what is going on in the world.

But I know this is good. http://www.terracycle.net/. And you should also spend 10 minutes checking out dude's blog.

Part of my new job is this site. I check it just about every day and most days, I find if very interesting for about 10 minutes. There is a lot of enviro-stuff in there and it actually make me feel good about a lot of what is going on in the world. If you need that, check it out. But check out TerraCycle, for sure. Two words for you to get started on their site: worm poop.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Lodi and Beyond...

I'm uploading my Lodi pics to the Flickr account as I type... I didn't take too many pictures but there are a few goodies. None of riding... I suck.

Monday, May 05, 2008

2008 12 Hours of Lodi Farm

It's hard for me to personally overstate the drama that was the 2008 12 Hours of Lodi... Weather threatened, Kent was out then in, teammates were dropping like flies...

On the grenade I jumped, volunteering for the first lap. Kent and Matty allowed me to set the strategy for the race: double laps for one full rotation then back to singles for the rest of the race.

I lined up for the pre-race meeting towards the beginning of the prologue loop from last year (hint, hint). Another quick parade loop through the singletrack was announced and I was in the cat-bird seat. I allowed a skinner-lookin' dude to get in front of me as a way to show others that I was in the front and solidifying my #2-into-the-woods plan.

We cruised through the end of the course for a solid 1/2 mile prologue then past the start finish. I was #2 into the woods. After the beginning of the first section of trails (before the field traverse), I took a few wrong turns (bad course markings) and I managed to stay in 8th by the end of the first lap. Tom 'Young Buck' from Family Bikes and Mikey 'Cargo' Pearce came by me as did a few other studs. No worries, I had another lap to catch somebody. The course was very different at the top and in the middle. I was lost as usual and confused, to be sure. Lodi has some turns in it, if you didn't know. I passed two people on my next lap and came in a little before 2am in 4th overall, second Expert.

To sleep...

Through the night, we went back and forth with the Troegenator's team. Their ringer was going against Kent and kept catching him, which is crazy because Mr Baake is quick.

Through the final set of laps, we were behind them. Matty went out a few minutes behing the Troegenators. Matty was riding HARD! Roid-rage hard. He was the only guy coming through our campsite HAMMERING! That boy is dedicated. Matty made up the time plus some (hard to do on that course) and he handed off to me with a 2.5 minute advantage. I climbed into the hurt locker that was inside the pain cave at the urging of my wife ('leave it all out on the course!') and DRILLED myself into the ground. I was tired then pushed harder then pushed even harder... I knew I had to kill those little hills, the only straight-aways in the course. Susan was at the end of my lap with the kids, urging me on. I came in to the start/finish fast and handed to Kent, managing to blurt out 'GO! GO!' The kids were stoked.

Kent Baake HAMMERED his lap and stayed out in front of Zach from the Troegenators. We managed a win. Zach came in hard and tired. We got him some fluids and did what we could to make him comfortable but that kid REALLY pushed that last lap. They were hard to beat. I would have been fine with losing to those guys. Great guys...

I would like to nominate Matty as MVP for the race. Inspirational... Between Susan's words and Matty's determination, I couldn't slow down. Our last three laps were 50, 50 and 51. Fastest lap of the day was 49.

1st overall, first expert. My immense respect for our dcmtb team continues to grow, especially Matty, Kent and Mr Fastest Lap, Mike Pearce!

Oh, and '70% chance of showers' in Spring in the Mid-Atlantic region means cloudy, dry and WONDERFUL weather... Pics to come later... GMR's pics here.

Of course, this brief race report leaves out the car battery going dead at Giant, Jeremy waking up crying in the car, the red ants, camping near the Family Bikes kids, trash-talking with 51-minute Young Buck and the kids 'falling' into the river butt-first while laughing.

At the end of my last lap, I got stung twice by a bee that flew down my jersey and was lodged betwixt my base-layer and jersey. That explains this picture from Gary Ryan. It was my last and fastest lap at 50 minutes. Here's the shout-out for Mike 'Fast-Guy' Pearce. Damn singlespeeders...

'Frieght train comin!'

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