Whiskey City
Posted Date: February 19, 2025
July continued with a lot more racing. Next up was Race #9 of the Music City Crits Series. This race came on Wednesday just a couple of days following the DINO Challenge weekend at Muscatatuck Park. That picture from Muscatatuck that I loved so much found its way onto the DINO Mountain Biking Facebook Page as the cover photo for a while. That was pretty cool. In all my years of racing I can count on one hand when a photo of me made it onto anything.
I was a little nervous about this race after having such a poor weekend at Muscatatuck. I was flying for the state crit, but seemed to have lost a bit of my speed since then, not really having much in the tank to race with in the XC on Sunday. The road bike had been clicking a little the past week so I greased up the crank and pedals the morning of the race. I found one of the pedals had a crack in the spindle where it flares out to contact the crank just above the threads. I have never broken a pedal spindle before. That was an easy fix though as I just pulled a pedal off my spare bike and was good to go.
We only had 22 riders start the Pro/1/2/3 race this week so it was a bit of a smaller group. This was the penultimate round of the series. Both of the final two races would be held on the fast kidney bean course layout. I got to the race a little late due to traffic again, but I am getting better with shorter warm-ups. I have always needed a solid 40 minutes to get me ready to race, but this year has forced me to get used to 25-30 minutes and I am slowly adapting.
For once we actually started kind of slow, which was even better for my shorter warm-up. That didn't last too long though before the coal was thrown on the fire. There was a 20-minute segment where it was very fast with a lot of attacks. A breakaway finally got clear about 25 minutes into the race. They were pulled back initially, but then allowed to pull back away. One rider bridged across and that was the last we saw of them. The leading three steadily pulled away, lapping the field with 7 laps to go. I still felt like I was lacking some snap in the legs, but my seated power was great and I was able to crank across the little gaps and follow all the accelerations. I really felt like I could do whatever I wanted tonight, I just missed the break.
As the break was lapping us, I followed a move down the backstretch. As I sprinted across the gap I heard something clink and then felt a pop. I think some piece of debris was kicked up in front of me and it went into my rear wheel shearing off a spoke right at the nipple. The wheel instantly had some wobble to it so I dropped to the back of the field in case it decided to give out on me. I watched it for a few laps and did not see it getting worse so I started to move back up at three laps to go and try for the sprint. The disc brake paid off in this situation as I had no brake drag on a wobbly rim. I wasn't quite far enough to the front at one lap to go, but I thought maybe I could pull the slingshot move that was used against me in the Masters race in the state crit. The attacks started earlier than usual so I couldn't slingshot by the group, but I did have wheels to follow all the way down the backstretch. It was too fast to pull out until we neared pit road. I grabbed one spot, but the riders ahead fanned out before the chicane much like in that Masters state crit. I was blocked with nowhere to slide by before the turn. Riders literally went everywhere into the corner. I found the inside and was able to slide up alongside the bulk of the group, but did not clear them as I hesitated a little not knowing where everybody was going to go. I put in a few good pedal strokes before a rider came over on me and blocked me in until the line. I ended up 4th in the sprint and 7th overall on the night. It was another good finish, but another one where I felt like I had more to give when I hit the line. I am convinced I can win one of these if things unfold just a little better on the final lap. Thankfully, the wheel held up to the end and I didn't destroy it or end up on my backside.
Matt Baxter took the win from the breakaway ahead of Michaelee Bowes and Justin Lowe. That was a great breakaway combo. Michaelee had his camera on. His footage is posted below, followed by footage from Logan Gauthier.
The following weekend was a scheduled off-weekend for me. Everybody in the family was ready for some rest from traveling. I had thought I was too tired to race again, but after feeling so good on Wednesday I decided to go down to a new event in southern Tennessee at Henry Horton State Park. We could have went to the Mass Ave/Indy Crit weekend in Indianapolis, but I am still mad at that race. My last trip was a mess of parking troubles, course issues and officials just trying to get people off the course. They want $71 to race the Pro/1/2/3, but will pull you out two laps into the race while you are chasing back on after being behind a crash. Too much money for what you get in my opinion. I don't have that kind of flexibility in my budget to chance a dud of a weekend. I said I would never go back until I was in shape to contend. I am getting close, but not there yet.
The Henry Horton option looked to be the best option on all fronts. It was close to home so cheaper and we wouldn't have to stay overnight. It is a new trail that I have ridden it yet. The race is put on by MOAB and is called the Hammer Drop XC. There was also an outdoor festival happening at the park we could also attend. The whole family was excited to go. I felt awesome for two days following the crit. I felt a little tired on Saturday, but nothing too bad I signed up that evening and got my bike ready.
After a few hours of shut-eye to start the night, I woke up several times and couldn't really get back to restful sleep. When my alarm went off, I felt pretty terrible. I thought it was just me needing to wake up, but I could tell as I loaded the car that it was something more. I was sweating just putting my bag in the car and felt weak. I had paid the money and made the commitment so I still wanted to go. We got the kids ready and got into the van. I was feeling even worse as we pulled out of the driveway. Driving was difficult. I stopped at the first stop sign and just sat there. I didn't want to go any further. It was clear something was up with my body. I knew I needed to go home, but it took Shannon convincing me that this was a bad idea before I finally gave in. We had some time to play with so I turned around and went back to the house for a nap. Shannon took the kids to the playground for a while. Things did not get better before the deadline to leave without missing the start. I really hated to pull the plug, but I was definitely sick and would be doing more harm than good. I felt bad the rest of the day, finally having some stomach issues in the afternoon that continued into the following day. Looking back, I think my body was showing me the signs of something happening on Saturday during my ride, but it wasn't enough to be obvious.
I heard the course was fun and that everyone enjoyed the race. I was a bit disappointed that nobody checked up on me. It's not like me to sign up for anything and then not show up. But then again, most of the riders in Tennessee think I am just a "wannabe" that quit years ago so I guess I should have expected it. I am glad I stayed home and rested, but I sure wish I hadn't wasted my money on that registration.
My stomach issues continued for another day. I started to feel better on Tuesday. Wednesday was the final round of the Music City Crits Series. The finale is always extra special with more events and more of a big-race feel. Michael Edens does a great job getting together food, inflatables for the kids, added race classes and other fun things that bring in a bigger crowd. The food always looks good, but it's usually gone by the time we finish the Pro/1/2/3 race. I wasn't sure I was back to 100% yet, but I was not missing this one.
I was unable to find any shop that carried my spokes. One offered to order for me, but the spokes were not in yet so I had to go to my back-up wheel for this race. I kept the deep DT Swiss up front, but had my shallow Roval on the back. Not as fast, but a killer wheel for a spare.
One of the extra events at the Music City Crits finale is a Kids Race. Of course, Salem was ready to go. She has been ready for more since we left the state crit a little over two weeks ago. It was hot and humid when the kids took to the track for one full lap. Kellen wanted to try the big loop again. Much like last time, he got thirsty before halfway. He didn't want to drink the mix in my bottle so again he turned back and went to the van while Salem and I went on. The kid almost rode the full distance of a lap from where he turned around. Hopefully, next year he will be able to go all the way. I'll be sure to attach a water bottle to his bike. All of the kids had a great time and were cheered on by a great crowd all the way to the line before the mountain bikes lined up for the Fat Tire race. I like doing the Fat Tire, but didn't think it was a good idea with me still feeling the effects of being sick so I saved my juice for the big race.
I felt surprisingly good in my warm-up and in the race. It was again a 60-minute race for the 34 riders that lined up for the Pro/1/2/3 race. I still had a bit of a weak feeling, but I was strong and plenty fast. The first lap was blazing fast, then we slowed down on lap 2. The slowdown was brief and the attacks began in earnest. I felt a little stomach discomfort at about 10 minutes, but I think that was more from the heat and race intensity than the sickness. It was still over 90 degrees as darkness descended upon the speedway with plenty of humidity in the air. The stomach discomfort went away when we slowed down at the 20-minute mark. We had a 27.2 mph average speed at this point.
When the pace backed off, I went to the front just to stay in a good position. I rolled into the lead and jumped onto the first wheel that came by. Apparently, only one rider was on my wheel and suddenly I was in a break of three. When we saw the gap, we committed to the break and got to work. We stayed away for several laps and worked well together initially, but then both of the riders with me started to slow down. We didn't have a big gap so I knew we couldn't slow down. I am always the weakest when I get into a break, but tonight I was the strong one. That wasn't good for our chances to say out front for another 30 minutes. I could see this break wasn't going to last so I held back a little and prepared for the counterattacks that would come when we got caught.
Once the group started to chase us, the gap came down quickly. We were about to be caught at the end of the backstretch when the other two riders with me got together and nearly crashed. I have no idea what they did, but it was almost a big crash. Attacks started once the pack came by us. It was really hard for several laps. I was hurting after being in the break. It finally slowed a little and I was able to recover slightly with about 15 minutes to go in the race. I started to move back up, but then ended up in the fencing in the last chicane. A rider on my inside flatted entering the corner. He did a great job of staying upright, but had to go straight in the corner. I saw it happening just in time to send myself straight and slid into the metal barrier. Thankfully, I did not smash my hands or damage my shifters. I turned a little at the last second and let my right side take most of the impact rather than my hands. It must not have been too clear what happened. There were a couple of people standing at the barricade where I hit. One of them asked me, "Dude! Can you not turn?" Guess they missed the other guy sliding in on a flat tire.
I took my free lap and was back in the race quickly. The free lap helped me fully recover from the effort of the breakaway. I got reinserted in a good position and was still in this thing with a chance to win as the laps wound down. The pace felt much easier. A gap formed in front of me as the lap cards came out. I stood up to cross the gap coming out of the first chicane and suddenly my pedal felt weird. It wouldn't turn and then fell off. I stopped on the backstretch to screw it back on. The pedal body had locked up with no spin at all. I kicked it out of frustration and it seemed to reseat the bearing inside. It started to spin again, but felt like the inside was square rather than round. I was able to ride it back to the pit, but my race was done. Free laps were over and I doubt they would have given me another one anyway, especially when the pedal looked to be fine on the outside. Just like that, my race and series were over. I was beyond disappointed as I felt like I had the legs to do something tonight. The DNF cost me a couple of spots in the series too as I dropped to 10th on the final night.
Jeremiah Stoller took the win on the final night over Matthew Bratcher and Nicholas Reed. Michaelee Bowes took home another top 5 in 5th place, again carrying a camera with his footage posted below. Logan Gauthier also posted his footage which is below as well. Lee Yarbro won the series overall by 8 points over Reed, with Matt Baxter in 3rd. Like I mentioned above, I ended up 10th. Nashville Local Cycling won the Team GC over the Mustangs and Safety Herd. Results can be found for both Race #9 and #10 on the Raceday Results page. The Series standings can be found on the tabs across the top of the results after you pick the race and class from the dropdowns.
I tore the pedal apart as soon as I got home and found a broken spindle inside the pedal body that destroyed the bearing. This was the pedal that matched the one I just changed out before the last race with a crack in the spindle. I knew that I didn't hit the pedal in the crash and that it was no coincidence that both pedals broke at almost the same time. After talking with Shimano about it, we discovered that my pedals were counterfeit. Apparently, this has been a real issue since COVID. With the trouble I have had getting parts from my local shops, I ordered these pedals online a few months ago. There is a shop in Kentucky that has sent me parts in the past through eBay. I thought I had purchased them, but found out that it was actually from a different seller who had conveniently disappeared. The username was the same with the exception of a dash that I hadn't noticed. I learned a lot out of this ordeal. There are lots of fakes out there. Everything Shimano is being faked and sold as genuine. Chains, pedals, cleats, cranks and more. You better know who you are buying them from and know how to tell the difference between real and fake when it arrives. But good luck going after these people as they disappear quickly and pop up under some new name to trick somebody else. And it's not just eBay. I was told that Amazon warehouses store parts in mass baskets no matter what seller sends them to the warehouse. When you order, your part is pulled from that basket. If somebody is adding fakes to the basket then you could end up with one even though you bought from a legit seller. Best to stick with reputable dealers unless you want junk that will break on you in a couple of months. I am very fortunate that these fakes didn't cause me to crash.
Another weird thing that happened this week was that I had a hose explode on my other pump. I had never seen that happen before and then it happened to me twice in two weeks. My spare pump is several years old so this one was a little less shocking than the first, but still weird. We are falling apart over here losing two pumps, a pair of pedals and a broken spoke in two weeks. Geez.
I was still feeling good the rest of the week so we decided to go try a new race. I couldn't waste my good form. With actual Shimano pedals now installed, I decided to head to Lawrenceburg, IN for the Whiskey City Challenge Twilight Criterium. This one has been on my radar for a while, but I have never had the chance to actually do it. It was a flat, four-corner rectangle course so it looked right up my alley. Plus, it's on Saturday night under the lights.
With the race being in the evening, we had plenty of time to drive the five hours to Lawrenceburg. It's not too far from Muscatatuck Park where we just did the DINO Challenge weekend so we decided to camp there. We went to the campground first to set up tents as it would be late before we would return from the race tonight. It was a beautiful day with much cooler temps. I'm not even sure if it went much past 80 degrees today. For once, things went perfectly as we set up. We even had time for the kids to hit the splash pad while I squeezed in a nap. I have had a hard time napping for most of my life, but with me working full days more regularly while suffering from a lack of sleep from the kids I have gotten good at falling asleep in the car. I often catch a 30-minute nap on my lunch break when I'm not trying to key in a cookie dough order. Napping is a good skill to have. The kids were excited to go to this race, which made me happy and made the pre-race prep a lot easier. There were more fountains and water jets inside the course which further entertained the kids.
I only got one lap on the course between races, but I liked what I saw. The course was pretty close to completely flat and very fast through a nice little downtown along the Ohio River. There were plenty of restaurants along the course and all were serving food outside so we had plenty of spectators. All four corners were 90-degree lefts and it was plenty wide all the way around the course. There was one twist, however, as a railroad track went through the course. We had two crossings per lap. The first between Turns 1 and 2 and the second between turns 3 and 4. There was a slight hump up to the tracks and then a down slope on the other side. It was kind of like a small tabletop jump. The tracks themselves were pretty smooth.
I felt great warming up. It was the most ready I have felt on a start line all season, maybe in several seasons. There were a couple of nice roads with low traffic near the course that allowed the racers to get in great warm-ups. There was also a greenway along the river which you could easily get on. My spokes still haven't arrived, so I was on the spare rear wheel again with a wobbly wheel sitting in the pit. Hopefully, that would not be needed tonight.
The Pro/1/2/3 race was scheduled for 60 laps on the 0.67-mile course which put us at just over 40 miles. The temp was so much cooler than my last few races at only 75 degrees at the start. It felt awesome! We had 42 riders on the start line with a typical stacked group of the elite teams of the Midwest. I managed to get myself up to the second row for the start even though I was one of the last to line up. They called us to the line early to try to start the race early because a train was scheduled to come through town right at the end of our race. The hope was to get us going so we could finish all 60 laps before the train arrived. They told us to be watching the lap cards as we might have to shorten the race if the train got there early or we were racing slower than expected. I expected this race to be very fast and I did not want a repeat of Winona Lake so I fought for that start spot.
I called it right as it was full-throttle right from the gun. Quite a few riders popped off in the first 10 minutes where we jumped up to a 28.8 mph average speed. Athens Twilight and the Spartanburg Regional Crit are the only two places I have felt this kind of speed. Those were big Pro/1/2 races that were part of Speedweek in its heyday. There was no recovery time. I was up front the first few laps, then slowly drifted back on the sprints out of Turns 2 and 4. The pace was all I wanted and then some, but I hung in there. There was only one straightaway where we backed off any at all in those first 10 minutes. After that, the pace was crazy for 1-2 laps at a time, then would have a slight lull. I did not move up during those lulls as I needed the moment to suck in some oxygen.
I could not keep my wheels on the ground over the railroad tracks. It wasn't as big of an issue as you might think getting air twice a lap in a crit might be. It was really fun even though I felt a bit out of control at times. After a while, I started to pre-load before the ramp and was able to unweight the bike enough to keep it on the ground and pump down the backside. That helped me hold the wheel ahead with less effort, which was nice since the race was so dang hard. Putting those mountain bike skills to use on the road!
That initial 10-minute stretch had me riding with my heart rate very close to my final lap effort for most of the races this season. I was able to get the heart rate down a little after that part of the race, but it was still really hard. There were some laps where the pace up the front stretch through the crowd was 100% effort just to hold the wheels. Some laps I didn't hold the wheel and would have to close it back down by railing Turn 1. There were a few small crashes that I heard. Most occurred behind me, but there was one guy that went down by himself on the front stretch. Thankfully, he went to the far left of the course before going down and everyone else was on the right side.
Things finally slowed a little at 25 minutes. I finally felt like I recovered some and was settling into the race. This is the hard part that usually blows me out, but I had survived. We were clicking off the laps. We had started at sunset. By this point it had transitioned to full darkness. The lights made the fast moments feel even faster.
Suddenly, I hung a pedal going into Turn 3 at around 30 mph. I have no idea what happened. I was just starting my lean so I should have had plenty of pedal clearance. I had been pedaling all the way through this turn most laps anyway. I hit the left pedal really hard and it lifted the rear wheel well off the ground. I don't know how high, but it felt like three feet. I got super sideways before it came back to the earth. I thought I was going to high-side off into the crowd. It happened so fast that I had no time to react. Somehow, the bike straightened itself out. I went all the way to the outside edge of the course to get it back under control, but I managed to keep the wheels just off the curb and my body out of the fencing. Thankfully, nobody was to my outside. That was the only reason I had the room to save it. I got a few pats on the back and "Nice save!" shouts from riders as they went by. I would say it was a sphincter-clinching moment, but I didn't even have time to tighten up or soil myself.
I got my bearings back and was immediately out of the saddle to sprint back onto the group. As I sat down going into Turn 4, I almost slid down onto my top tube. The impact of my body weight slamming down on the nose of the saddle as I rejoined rubber to road had smashed my seat. It was tilted almost vertical. I couldn't even sit on the thing so I had to stand down the front stretch and then try to bounce on the rear of the saddle between Turns 1 and 2 to try to get it to tilt back up. It didn't move. I sprinted out of the saddle down the backstretch and rejoined the back of the group in Turn 3 about the same spot where the incident occurred. I tried to sit on the back of the seat, but was having to hold myself up with my legs as there was nothing horizontal to sit on. I bounced a few more times out of Turn 1 and finally got it to slip. It came back up about 1/3 of the way. Not enough to make a lot of difference, but progress. It was still hard to sit and I had to keep working to stay on the back as I fought with the seatpost. My legs were screaming as we came up the front stretch to complete another lap. I had to get it back in a decent position right now or my legs were going to give out on me. Again, I bounced with all my might out of Turn 1, losing contact with the group. Nothing. You would think all the cheeseburgers I have eaten over the years would have been enough to generate some major force, but that post was not going to budge. I kept trying for a few more laps while dangling just off the back, but still matching the pace of the group. Finally, my legs cramped and I had to sit up, or stand up I should say. I rolled around a few more laps until I was pulled and credited with 35th position rather than just pull off and be listed as a DNF, even though it felt like a DNF.
I was devastated. I was mad. Yes, it was my fault. I hung the pedal. But it felt like one of those things that was out of my control. I sat on a bench near the start/finish for several minutes to get me away from my bike while I cooled off. I had one little temper tantrum banging on the seat, but it still didn't move. I cannot believe the issues I have had the last few weeks when I feel like I am on the best form I have been on in years. This was going to be the night I got up in the middle of a big crit race. The pace looked to be steady the rest of the way with no other riders getting dropped. The selection had been made and I was there. To further add to my angst, it ended in a bunch sprint just like I would have wanted. I continued to try to get the post free in the parking lot, but the thing was stuck beyond belief. I took it completely apart, but the insert that controls the position of the seat would not budge or release from the seat rails. I hit it with my hand, I hammered the nose of the saddle with a crescent wrench and it did not move a single millimeter. It was a quiet ride back to the campground as the kids fell asleep and I had no words for how the evening had ended. I guess it could've been worse if I had ended up flying through the barricades, but that was not on my mind as we drove.
Race result aside, the race was great! I have nothing but good things to say about my experience in Lawrenceburg. I will be back for sure. It had plenty of high-level racers, good payout and a unique course. Most of all, it had that big-race feel in a cool little town that welcomed us in to fly around their streets for the night. As for that train we were worried about, it came through about three minutes after the race ended thanks to the railroad company slowing it down as much as they could. Thanks guys! Caleb Langley of First Internet Bank Cycling won the sprint, finishing the 60 laps in 1:27:23 which comes out to just shy of a 29.2 mph average speed. Check out the full results here. Jeffrey Jakucyk got some great pictures of all of the day's action. Check out his page here.
The kids went right to sleep when we got back to the campground and were pleasant the next morning. It was the best night of camping we have ever had with kids. Finally! It was a good thing I brought the mountain bike to hit the trails at Muscatatuck on Sunday because the seat was still stuck the next day so road riding would not have been an option. The kids wanted to ride in the woods with me. I took each of them on the Shotgun seat for a partial lap, then they rode their own bikes for a while. We found a little trail near the campground that I didn't know existed. It was easy with good flow, perfect for them to try on their own. They are getting so much better on their bikes. Salem is still a little scared of pedal brakes as she wants to put her feet down like on a strider, but less scared than a few months ago. Kellen is getting great at the descents. I am amazed at how he can maneuver his little strider on those tiny wheels. We saw mushrooms and turtles along the way which made their day.
The kids hit the splash pad again after their ride, while I knocked out a couple of laps on the race course. I was a little tired, but didn't want to stop as the weather was perfect again with the temperature in the mid-70s. The trail was in great shape from all the laps put on it at the DINO race. We then took another dip in the river before hitting the road for home. We stopped at a sunflower field in the Crosley State Fish & Wildlife Area just south of Vernon. Kellen was asleep, but Salem and I hopped out for a walk through the flowers. A bit later we grabbed a little treat of dinner at Cracker Barrel which everyone appreciated. Another killer weekend of fun brought to us by bikes!
Sunday helped ease the disappointment of Saturday night, but I came home still hungry for a good crit finish. I ended up having to take a hammer to the seatpost to finally break it free. I pounded a screwdriver through from the backside to finally unseat each insert. I had to hit it harder than I have ever hit any stuck part before. I had no idea carbon paste could hold that strong! I guess that just shows how hard I came down on the seat to have moved it that much. I know I sure did have a sore rump for a few days.
Only a couple of days after the State Championship we were crit racing again at the speedway for Race #8 of 10 in the Music City Crits Series. It was another really warm afternoon with the temp in the low-90s. I got there a bit late due to work and traffic. I lost a little more time when the hose on my pump exploded while starting to pump my first tire. I have never had that happen in my 25+ years of bike riding. Thankfully, Jason Tatum loaned me a pump and I was able to get the tires set on my bike and pit wheelset. Thanks Jason!
Tonight was the 180 course for what was looking like the last time this season. I really wanted to have a good night and be in the mix as this course layout is always a challenge for me. I end up pulled early more often that making it to the finish. I expected another hard night as it was July 3. People always go a little harder around a holiday, especially when they don't have to go into work the next day.
The start of the Pro/1/2/3 race was fast as usual and the pace stayed high. I was having trouble holding the wheel ahead of me off the first 180 as we were sprinting super hard lap after lap. I was a little tired from the weekend and was missing a little snap. The group split about 7-8 minutes into the race and I found myself behind the split. I was the first guy off the back and chasing alone. I had some sustained power in the legs and was able to sit out there for a while before being caught by a group of three riders. Everybody else had been blown out of the race already. We were chasing hard and quickly blew one rider up, leaving three of us about 8-10 seconds off the group. One rider was dropped from the front group and we caught him to boost our chase group back up to four. We spent about six laps sitting at the same 8-10 sec gap behind. I thought we wouldn't get back on tonight, but I was going to keep pushing until I blew up. There's always that chance that the group ahead slows down.
At one point, the group ahead split into several smaller groups. Then they reformed into one big pack and finally there was a bit of a slowing. I was hurting, but I saw the opportunity to get back in this race and put in a huge pull to get us back to the group. I moved over just before we caught onto the back. Two riders came through like I expected, but the third came through slow and let a gap open up. I don't know what he was doing, maybe trying to tail me off after that big effort, but he punched it to close the gap and I had to dig really deep to stay with him and get across. My legs were screaming, but I made it. I've said this so many times this year, but it's true. These are the kind of things I couldn't do in the past. It was like being in a breakaway off the back for 20+ min and then putting in an even bigger effort to end it.
My work wasn't done yet though as attacks began literally as soon as I got to the pack. There were more gaps and I had to extend the depth of the pain cave I was in. I got across one gap, then another gap opened. I tried to cross it, but just didn't have the speed to get there this time and eventually popped. I rode by myself for a while, expecting to get pulled. But the officials left me in and allowed me to be lapped near the end of the race. I hopped on the back of the group as they came by. The legs were pretty shot, but I was able to hang on the rest of the race without too much difficulty. I ended up 21st on the night, the last finisher of the full race and the last rider to pop off the main group. Getting better, but I want to be in there at the end instead of taking the "best of the rest" title. My legs might have felt off, but I matched my best power output from the weekend's races during the early sprints off the first turn. I was putting put out close to 1150 watts off that turn every lap and still getting gapped. I knew those laps felt hard.
Michaelee Bowes shared his Pro/1/2/3 race footage and it is posted below. Jason Messing also had a short video of his time in his second race of the day which is also below.
The summer race action kept coming fast and heavy with a double weekend ahead. It was time for the DINO Challenge weekend at Muscatatuck Park in North Vernon, IN. This weekend is chock-full of fun. It begins with a night-ride on the trails on Friday night. Saturday brings a Trail Run race, short mountain bike Downhill race, afternoon Short Track race, kayak shuttle trips and rock climbing clinics. Sunday is then the DINO XC race. You can camp at the park's campground or tent camp festival-style in the field across the street from the Start/Finish area. You can get your fix of all things outdoors. With this race weekend coming a day after July 4th, the turnout was good and the camping was crowded.
We have never been able to go up on Friday and join in for the night ride. We made the 4+ hour drive north on Saturday morning to get there in time for the Short Track. I always like to do this race. You probably can tell I try to race every chance I get, but I also make sure to hit this one as there just aren't that many short tracks available throughout the year. It's a fun discipline that I wish was offered more often. It's also a discipline that has challenged me over the years and I have made it a point to try to improve at. I like the SERC/GSC Series format where you could score series points from one time trial and one short track per year. I would love to see DINO adopt that and put some points up for this short track. It would surely boost the participation. Many riders skip out to save their legs for Sunday, especially in the Elite/Expert group. Nevertheless, there is always some good competition for this short track. We have had some real battles for the top spot over the years. I have been fortunate enough to win it before and was hoping my crit legs would help me do it again today.
Unfortunately, this year was not going to be one of those exciting battles as I was the lone rider in the Elite/Expert Men's group. We race with the Sport riders so I had people to race with, but it wouldn't be the brawl I was hoping for. I had been tired since the Wednesday night crit, but the legs were recovered by Saturday afternoon. We were scheduled for 30 min of racing. There was one Expert Woman, Kate Droese, and she jumped off the line and into the lead. I eased into the effort and just kind of watched. Everybody wanted to hang with Kate, but she was hurting them all right away. I watched the race unfold for most of the first two laps before going to the front. The course is half singletrack to start, then open grass for the second half. I got a gap in the singletrack without putting in a real effort. Once I saw that I was clear, I put in a few hard laps. I wasn't pulling away as much as I expected so I picked it up even more to see how quick I could lap the field. It took a while for me to lap them all, close to 20 minutes, but then everyone seemed to really fade and I started to really catch them at a fast rate. I lapped most of the riders three times and got almost everybody else twice. Kate ended up breaking all the others and took home second overall. DINO promoter Brian Holzhausen was out there. It was fun riding with him. My lap times were super consistent. From the time I attacked until two laps to go, I ran every lap within a two second range. The last two laps I tried to pick it up and was able to chop off seven more seconds per lap.
After the race I did a lap on the XC course to spin out the legs and see what changes awaited tomorrow. The trail was in great shape. The kids hit the newly opened splash pad in the park while Dina and I set up camp, then we took a dip in the river. We put our tents next to a pavilion that DINO rents out each year, but nobody ever uses. We had shade and picnic tables to cook and eat on. It's the same pavilion Dina and I hunkered down under last year in the thunderstorm. I enjoy camping here, especially since it is cheap at just $2 per person per night. But you can't count on getting undisturbed sleep. It seems like there is more midnight noise every year. The festival camping is right next to the park road which you would think should be quiet in the middle of the night, but it is amazing how many people drive through the park between midnight and 3am. It seems everyone here has a loud truck too. The campground would probably be a better bet, but Dina and I have had issues with people driving through there too when we camped at this park before going to the Versailles DINO race two years ago. Somebody drove right through our grass campsite within a couple of feet of our tent at about 2am. I thought I was dreaming, but the tire marks were there the next morning to prove I wasn't.
I thought the Short Track would have been good to open up my legs after a couple of easy days, but they were junk on Sunday morning. I may have gone a bit too hard and maybe rode a little too much afterwards. Combine that with a poor night of sleep and I was off my game. I stuck to the road to loosen up the legs, but never really got them going before the start.
It's been a while since we have had a dry race here, but it was dry and fast today. The temp wasn't quite as high as the last few years, but it was humid. Race distance is four laps on the 7ish mile course. The layout here makes it easy to divide up the loop. It starts with a hilly section full of steep climbs and descents. The biggest climb tops out just before the halfway point of the race. A flatter section leads to more climbing in the second half, but these climbs are more gradual and longer. It's not an easy loop at race pace, but can be quite fun on a good day.
On the start line, I realized I grabbed the wrong water bottle. This one was just water and had no mix in it. I was going to need those calories. I didn't see any of my people around so I wasn't able to swap it before the race kicked off. I sat at the back of the group as we sprinted down the grass toward the singletrack, flying by the pavilion where we had camped. I was able to slow down and yell to Shannon that I needed my other bottle so she could get it to me at a feed point. Dina actually ended up grabbing it and met me at the first road crossing so I had a full bottle within just a couple of minutes.
So I entered the woods fifth out of five riders. The first climb was fast and I was still lacking in the leg department so I let the group go. I was able to cross the gap back to the group on the following descent and slimy rock garden where most riders had to dismount. Dina was waiting at the top of the rocks with my bottle. I lost 7-10 seconds on each of the next two climbs, then got smoked up the fourth and biggest climb on the course. I thought I could make up time on the following faster sections, but I didn't have the legs to go fast. I never saw the group again. I lost about two minutes the first lap, getting caught by the leading Expert rider just as we exited the woods to complete lap 1. He started asking me if I missed a turn. I recognized the voice and looked back to see Anthony Slowinski. We had a moment of exchanging greetings with each other, then he asked me again if I had missed a turn. I told him no and then he asked how I was ahead of him when he got the holeshot. I told him that there were four more riders ahead. That was when he realized he had started with the Expert riders instead of the Pro/Elite group. Ooops. He then passed me and went to work on the climbs to try to catch back up to the other Pro/Elite riders. I couldn't follow him, but did keep him in sight for a while, but he eventually went out of sight on the big climb.
Unlike lap 1, I had some speed on the faster sections on lap 2, getting back to within 3-4 seconds of Anthony as we crossed through the campground into a long descent. By the bottom, he had caught the next Pro/Elite rider, Brenden Shrum. I was very close to getting onto Shrum's wheel, but once Anthony went by, they picked up the pace and he pulled Shrum away from me. I never could get back to Shrum again.
I faded on lap 3, then cramped on lap 4. The cramps hit me on that big fourth climb that I hate so much. It took a few miles of easy riding to get the cramping to stop. I ended up finishing 5th. I was 8th overall on the day as two other Experts riders also beat me on time. That put me out of the money yet again, which wasn't a surprise as I did not have a money performance today for sure. Those two Experts got me by about one minute, which isn't bad considering how off I felt and the bad cramping that came on that last lap. DINO had actually put Anthony down in the Expert group when he registered, so he just left it alone and took the Expert win. My second lap was my fastest, besting lap 1 by about 30 seconds, but I faded a minute on lap 3 and then lost another minute on my last lap time with the cramping. You can't fade that much and expect to be competitive up front in Pro/Elite. Most riders in Pro/Elite got faster each lap.
Rick Mezo got the win and appears to be back in control of the series overall, but Jake Fiddler was right there with him in a sprint finish. It was only 46 seconds back to Kevin Broadstreet in 3rd. All three still have a great chance of winning this series with two rounds to go. I am pretty much out at this point and will have to see if I can secure 4th in the final standings. That is going to be a fight as Shrum is right there with me. He has beaten me now two out of the three times we have faced off. The Mezos doubled up as Rick's daughter, Kaitlyn, won the Expert Women. Dina had a tough day and finished quite a ways back in 4th.
After the race, we got packed up then did the Kids Race with Salem. She enjoyed this course as it has a good amount of singletrack in it. While she was not in a hurry by any means, she did stay more focused and wasn't running off the trail constantly or stopping because she was looking at people. She even finished ahead of a few riders. Kellen was tired and hot, far from being interested in riding. Full results from the day can be found here. There is a short video below of some of the action Shannon was able to film during the day. Thanks to all the photographers we have had at the DINO events this year! The number of photos available to all riders has been outstanding all season.
We started the drive home with a quick stop just a few miles from Muscatatuck Park to see Rock Rest Falls. Dina and I stopped by here two years ago and it was a trickling little waterfall. With no rain recently, it had no dribble dropping over the ledge at all. Later we stopped by a new Buc-ee's that just opened near Bowling Green, KY. I enjoy a little Buc-ee's stop, but this one was super busy and was a nightmare with two little kids. I could barely hold onto their hands in the crowd. I don't like Beaver Nuggets and beef jerky that much. The kids were way overwhelmed, but enjoyed the giant inflatable beavers outside. I'm not sure why so many people that hate Walmart love Buc-ee's. They are pretty much the Walmart of gas stations.
Another fun DINO Challenge weekend is in the books. The Music City Crits was in the home stretch in the middle of July with two new events planned for me as well. Details on those coming in the next post!
After the big weekend at Potato Creek and Griffin Bike Park, June wrapped up with a shift back to the pavement. I took a couple of days off the bike to rest. There was no Music City Crits race on Wednesday night this week as we would be racing there on the weekend for the Tennessee State Championship Criterium. This race would hand out state medals while also doubling as Race #7 for the series. I got in one sprint workout in the second half of the week and saw some really good numbers. I was feeling like my form was good going into this target race.
The race course for weekend races at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway when we have more riders on course at once is typically the kidney bean loop. This year would be the same, but this time there was more to race for with state medals and a jersey on the line. I would be doubling up on the day, racing the Masters 35+ in the morning, then the Pro/1/2/3 later in the afternoon.
It was a cloudy morning with temps in the low-80s, but lots of humidity in the air making it feel like being wrapped in a wet blanket. I had some issues with getting my heart rate monitor to work in my warm-up and lost a little time fiddling around with my spare strap, but I could tell I had decent legs before the race.
The Masters 35+ and 45+ groups raced together for 40 minutes. We had 21 total riders on the start line with 11 of them being in the 35+ with me and 10 in 45+. The group size was big enough to make for some real racing, not like the small group we had at the Sunday race here last year. The legend Kent Bostick was on the line with us. I watched Kent race many times when I was younger and got the privilege of riding with him at the Labor Day Century one year. I was only able to hang with him for about 25 miles, but he taught me a lot during that brief time. Most of what I know about drafting and hiding from the wind while rotating in a paceline with a small group can be traced back to that one ride. It was pretty cool to be finally racing with him.
The race was fast from the start with constant attacks. David Howe was definitely the favorite for the race in 35+. I knew I would have a hard time beating him. His sprint acceleration is usually more than I can match, so I thought a breakaway might be my best bet for getting the upper hand today. He likes getting in breaks too and is often the one that forces a group off the front so getting into a break without him was going to be very hard to say the least. At the least, I didn't want to miss any splits and ruin any chance of sprinting against him at the end. Some of the early moves looked serious and I had to chase. A few laps in, I went to the front and just pounded the chicane like a madman, gapping the riders behind me and allowing me to slingshot my way across a gap to a break of four or five. It would have a been a great move to be in, but the group chased us down in one lap. Howe looked to be about to launch an attack when he and David Koonce collided at the front of the group, sending Howe down hard. I was far enough back that I had plenty of time to react. Fortunately, nobody else went down. Howe took a good shot and some bike damage so his day was done. I hated to see that for him, but the door was now wide open for me.
I covered every move I could in the middle of the race, trying hard to get in the break. I was being marked heavily. Several teams had multiple riders so I was outnumbered and always had somebody sitting on my wheel that wouldn't pull through. Jeff Young was making moves with me. Over the past few years, he and I seem to end up together often in these races. We became sort of teammates out there without talking about it. We both understood that we were going to need each other's help today as he was being marked as well.
The second half of the race was so hot. We had a tailwind down the backstretch that was moving about the same speed as the group so it felt like no air was moving at all. It felt like a toaster back there as the temp began to creep up with the sun peaking out of the clouds at times. The attacks continued. Every time we came back together and there was a brief pause in hostilities, Bostick would put in a dig. The guy went off the front a bunch of times in this race, too many to count. Of course, we all wanted to be in the break with the legend so somebody would bridge and everybody else would follow. He never really stayed away for very long, but he was always willing to give it another try.
A group of three eventually got a gap. There were some attacks and bridge attempts, but it was all chased down with no real reduction of the gap to the leaders. I was trying to get into a group crossing the gap until I realized that everyone up the road was in the 45+. After that, I only followed wheels of those in the 35+. One of the three leaders ended up going away solo and lapped the field as we were starting to slow down despite attacks going almost every single lap. Bostick went again inside of three laps to go. I was trying to follow wheels and stay hidden, but also not miss a split. Koonce's teammate was the rider that lapped up. He went to the front and did a big leadout for Koonce as we hit the final two laps, chasing down Bostick with less than half a lap to go. The pace was solid, but not as fast as I had hoped. Everybody looked to be resting too much and we were a little too packed up at one lap to go.
I was only a few wheels back on the backstretch as I waited to go. The pace was still a little slow, but I didn't think I could launch my sprint now and make it all the way to the line so I waited. And then I got freight-trained by the back half of our group. They came by doing about 10 mph faster than the rest of us. I jumped out of line and tried to get a wheel, but it took me all the way down the backstretch to catch onto them. It was a wad of riders along pit road as everyone fanned out into the headwind before the last chicane. All lanes were blocked up as we went into the chicane. I ended up on the outside of four-wide in the turn which was super scary. I was blocked in as riders washed wide toward me. I hung the very inside edge of the pavement along the rumble strips and squeaked through, finally able to open up my sprint as we came off the turn. It was too late though. I was able to catch all three riders in front of me by the line, but didn't get by any of them. Koonce took the sprint after his teammate led him almost all the way to the line. Fifth in the bunch sprint placed me in 3rd for the 35+. I was really disappointed as I still had so much left after the race. I botched it. I hesitated and I paid the price for it. I will probably never get an opportunity that good again with the favorite out of the race and the finish setting up in a sprint on a course I love. Props to Jason Messing for being the one to conduct that freight train and take it rolling to the front. He put in some big watts at the right moment to slingshot his way past most of the group with the tailwind on the backstretch. His move took him all the way up to third wheel and he was rewarded with a 35+ win. See his video footage from the race below which includes his nice move on the final lap.
After the race, I found out that medals are actually awarded in five-year age groups, so I actually took home a gold for 35-39 as Jason and Matt Schupp, who took 2nd in 35+, were both in 40-44. There's only one jersey though and that goes to the 35+ winner. I'll take the medal, but I wanted the jersey. I don't really count this as a gold medal since I should have won that sprint. I know I have good legs when I can bust over 1,000 watts in a race. I did that three times in this race, including that little piece of the finish sprint when I got clear of the mess of riders. The second of those times was the highest power I have ever hit in a race, close to 1,200 watts. My average power was 273 watts which is on par with my best races. I had the legs today and might have been the strongest sprinter left at the end, but I tactically blew my opportunity. Our average speed was 26.0 mph for the 40 minutes of racing.
There was a little more drama after the race when David Howe shared his handlebar cam footage of the crash. When the crash happened, I was a bit far back and chasing. I saw Howe accelerating, move left toward the wall and then go down. I couldn't really see how he ended up getting into Koonce, but I could tell Koonce was involved. The video showed Koonce and another rider had attacked a corner before the incident, then sat up and were being caught by the group. As Howe approached leading the group to the left of the two riders, Koonce moved left and into Howe's front wheel. I am not going to take sides on this issue. I can see how you say it looks intentional as Koonce looked over his shoulder as he started to move left. He surely saw Howe coming and didn't seem to stop his movement left. I can also see how Koonce was just trying to move over and slow down the pack that was about to blow by him and didn't mean to cause a crash. Everyone was upset about it, but that kind of thing has been happening in our races for years. It has happened to me before at this very track. Years ago, I got pushed toward the wall intentionally while trying to attack on the last lap and everybody said it was fair game. I also realized I wasn't going to come out well in that situation and I backed off, not hitting the rider that moved over on me or the wall. Howe didn't appear to back off so I could see how you could put some of the blame on both of them. In the end, Koonce got a DQ after the video was reviewed. I thought that was a bit harsh, but if it was intentional then it is well deserved. Only Koonce knows what he was doing. I won't try to declare his intentions because I have always hated it when people have done that to me. If you want to see the incident, check out Howe's handlebar cam video below. The crash sequence begins at 19:00 into the video. You can also see it at 14:22 in Jason's video above.
After my cool down spin and the podium, it was time to kick the feet up and try to cool off as the sun was now out and it was really getting hot. I brought my tent and a fan I could hook to the van battery so I could get some shade and moving air. About the time I got settled my family showed up. Shannon brought the kids out for the second race as we didn't think they would endure sitting in the sun for a full day. My parents came too as they wanted to watch the kids get on the track for the Kid's Race. I didn't get much rest with keeping the kids occupied and everyone fighting to have my shade and the spot in front of the fan. Then it was time to get the kids over to the start line for one lap of the course. Salem had a blast and rode really well for two full laps. She is getting the hang of her pedal bike now. Kellen wanted to take a full lap too. He started off well, then began to slow about 1/4 of the way around. He then stopped and said he needed water. He didn't want my bottle and instead turned around and rode back to the van. He was not one bit sad that he didn't complete the course. Y'all know how I am about finishing everything so it hurt me a little, but I had to be sure that I was supportive dad and cheer him on even when he turned back. At least he got out there and tried on such a hot day.
The temp was well into the 90s and the sun was beating down as I started my warm-up for the Pro/1/2/3. No "warming" was needed to say the least. I never felt like I cooled down between races with wrangling the kids. My stomach started hurting as soon as I got back on the bike. I tried to spin the legs, but didn't do much more than that as I didn't want to increase my core temperature any more. I spent a few minutes in the bathroom getting rid of that stomach trouble before re-packing my ice socks and heading to the start line.
This Pro/1/2/3 race was scheduled for 60 minutes of hell. And hell it was. It was another haaaarrrrddd race. We had 30 starters and a similar amount of attacking as this morning with riders going off almost every lap. The chases were hard. We were rolling 35 mph over and over, but each time we would catch an attacking rider the pace would slow to a 20 mph coast. Then go again right back to 35 mph.. It was surge-city out there. Thankfully, the air was moving more and I actually felt slightly cooler than in the Masters race. Maybe cooler is the wrong word. I shoulder probably say I was "melting less." The wind had swapped directions from the earlier race, now coming out of the north which might have been what helped with the slightly better feel to the air temperature.
My legs actually felt a little better in this race than in the Masters race with a bit more snap in them which helped with responding to the surges. The power meter numbers told a slightly different story as the data showed I was gradually fading with a much lower max power output during those sprints. I went with a couple of moves just before halfway and got myself in a bind as the pace ramped up even higher after I was caught. There was a segment of about four laps where I was going at 100% effort, especially on the backstretch where it was more of a headwind now that the wind had flipped. You had to hold that wheel or the wind would gap you before you could blink. I drifted to the back and thought I might come off, but then it slowed down. I stayed the last man on the line for a few more laps before I finally recovered enough to move back up.
After that, I never really had the legs to contend anymore. I survived the continued attacks and was able to get into a decent spot with three laps to go, but I was out of juice and just got muscled out position by the pace of the final two laps. The sprint started out of the first chicane at the beginning of the final lap. I had nothing left to respond with and couldn't even hold onto the draft. I was tailed off with 3/4 of a lap to go. I put my head down and kept mashing the pedals, picking off as many riders as I could before the line. I ended up 16th overall. It wasn't as high up as I had hoped to finish, but that was a much harder race than I anticipated. Again, I think in the past I would have been shelled during that middle portion when it was so hard, especially in my second race of the day so there was a lot of positive to look at from today. I do not know where I ranked out of the Cat. 2 riders, which are split out for the state championship awards. Zach Schneider took the sprint win over Nick Reed and Brandon Feehery. I showed a 26.7 mph average speed, so faster than the Masters race by 0.7 mph (and it was 20 minutes longer). I still got the power up over 1000 watts while following an attack, but that was the only time of seeing 4-digits in this race. Shout out to Matthew Trask for the awesome photos from this race! Check out his race gallery here. Michaelee Bowes has some camera footage from the Pro/1/2/3 race posted below. Results from the day can be found at the Raceday Results page as always for this series. Select 2024 Music City Crits from the first dropdown and then pick Race #7 in the second dropdown. Categories will be in the third dropdown. For some reason Masters are not on there, but you can see all others.
The kids had a great time watching the race and were talking about coming back before we even left the track. They won't have to wait too long as there is a Kid's Race on the final night of the series which is only a few weeks away. Salem was so pumped that she asked me to take her for another lap during my cool down. No problem, kid.
That does it for June. I continued to jump back and forth between the road and dirt in July. More on that month in the next post.
Up to this point in the season, I have been frustrated. My races so far have been decent, but I want to get back to the front. After all these years of riding and racing, I know what I need to get to that kind of fitness level. And right now, I know what I have the time to do is not going to cut it. I still don't enjoy my job and can't wait to change clinics. Only problem is, I was supposed to be out of my current clinic in April, but the person they were hiring took a different job after the company refused to give any details on the job offer. Duh. Now the supposed end date for me is in July. That would be nice, but I don't know where I will go next so the uncertainty will increase again.
Things started to improve a little in June following Brown County, at least on the bike side of life. That's the part of life that rejuvenates me mentally and keeps me pushing forward. I found a little more time to train. Not enough, but more than the past two months. I knew I needed to make the most of the time I had so I laid out the most structured training plan I have been on in many years. I switched over to specific workouts, focusing on interval training and sprint work. I know when I am good in both of these areas then I usually race well in both crits and mountain bike races.
After only a couple of workouts I could feel a difference and it started to show at the next Music City Crits race. The fifth race of the series came without any weather issues. We were on the kidney bean course this round, so things were fast and packed up within the Pro/1/2/3 group. Early on in the race, I was lacking snap in the legs. I kept getting gapped off the corners and having to put out more effort than I wanted, but some quick line adjustments fixed the issue. I am still learning how this Canyon reacts in the corners, but I am getting better and really starting to like it. I felt like something clicked at Winona Lake despite how intense that race was.
After the initial 10 minutes of fury, the pace was either on or off. We had super fast moments, but also really slow moments as well. The slow portions usually usher in attacking and that's exactly what happened. I was trying to stay up front to avoid any splits in the group during the fast moments. One rider was off the front solo at the 38 min mark. I was riding wheels forward and found myself off the front with one rider after nobody followed my wheel. We took advantage of the free gap and tried to bridge to the solo rider ahead, but didn't make it across before the pack pulled us back only a couple of laps later. The solo rider was caught a lap or two later and the cash prime came out. I was feeling good so I decided to go for it. The prime is $50, which is the equivalent of winning. I ended up in a battle with one other rider, who jumped off the front early. I chased, but he was strong and held a few bike lengths on me into the chicane. I railed the turns and got to his wheel, but didn't have the legs to come by with a headwind blowing across the finish stretch. Again, so close, but no dollars. Seems to be the theme this year. It's rare for me to top 1000 watts in a sprint during a race with the speed we are always running, but I cranked out 1094 while chasing into the chicane, then over 1000 again out of the last turn all the way to the line. The power is looking better, but still not enough just yet.
Needless to say, that effort hurt me for a while. I finally felt ready to go again inside of four laps to go. I wasn't able to move up into a good position, but I was in the sprint group on the final lap. I think I was in about 12th with half a lap to go. The speed was high and no positions were changed down the backstretch and onto pit road. I couldn't move up with the speed and had to wait until people started to fade before the final chicane. I picked off four riders just before the chicane, then got by one more through the turns. There was a little gap ahead of me exiting the final turn. I was able to close it to 5th and 6th, but didn't have time to go by them. I am happy with a solid 7th, but I know I had more power in the legs in the final stretch, I just have to start the sprint in a better position. Easier said than done. This performance was my best crit of the year thus far as I was active during the race and still had it to be up in the middle of the sprint at the finish. We were flying into that final corner. My Wahoo showed 36.5 mph entering the chicane. It was so much fun! JP Primm was the winner on the night.
Those kind of races really get me motivated. I dug into the structured training and really worked hard to be ready for some big weekends coming up this summer. Two more weeks of training went by before Race #6 of the Music City Crits Series. In that time I did some long rides, a lot of sprints and even the rare motorpacing session, which is hard to come by these days. Have you ever drafted a minivan? They are insane! Vans punch a huge hole in the air. It took 42-43 mph on a flat road for me to work hard. It was scary going that fast just a couple of inches off the back bumper, but a lot fun at the same time. That pacing ride was kind of crazy for June as it was only 66 degrees outside. That's 20 degrees less than we often see this time of year in middle Tennessee, which is still making me sweat as my peppers continue to struggle this year with the low night temperatures.
I spent one of the off weekends trying to potty train Kellen. He has been much more difficult than Salem. She wanted to be like us and use the full on toilet, not just the little kid potty. Kellen would rather fill his diaper and skip the hassle of going to bathroom. We ended up having to strip the kid down so he wouldn't have the diaper to pee in. I stayed home with him for several days and endured the peeing on the floor, before finally making a breakthrough. This was another thing I didn't expect to be doing, but contrary to what everyone has said about me, I participated in raising my child and we got it done. We spent a lot of time in the garage those days as it was much easier to clean pee up from the garage floor than out of the carpet in the house. I was able to plan out some projects that have been on my "To Do List" for a while and was quite entertained watching Kellen wander around doing things while naked. I'm sure the neighbors were entertained as well. They probably saw him watering plants, looking like our naked gardener.
The day before Race #6, Shannon had the morning off so we took the kids out for a ride in the trailer. Shannon has ridden very few times this year, but she waxed me on this ride. I mean badly. The kids felt so heavy and I was struggling the whole time with the wind. I actually stopped once to see if my brakes were dragging, but they were not. I was sweating a lot too, kind of like at the CRAM where I felt like it was too much sweat for the effort I was making. I felt bad the rest of the day. That 52 minutes of pulling the kids made me feel like I raced 100 miles.
Fortunately, that feeling was gone the following day. I had a great race on the 180 course. I felt strong off the corners. I focused a lot on carrying speed through the 180-degree corners which further helped me with sprinting off the turns. I only got gapped a few times the entire race, which is rare for me on this course. A few times I was uncomfortable with the speed we were taking into the first 180, but I sent it anyway. Every time the tires held up and my confidence grew.
The pace was normal for the first 25 minutes, then slowed down. When it picked up again, the group blew to pieces. We were in four groups at one point. I found myself between groups 2 and 3. I put in a huge effort get to group 2, but didn't make it. Group 3 almost dropped me when they came by. It took all I had to get onto the back. A few laps later, we joined group 2. Our group of eight would then yo-yo between 7 and 15 seconds off the leading group of six for about 15 minutes. We weren't working well together. There were lots of small accelerations. I was at my limit most of the time and had trouble responding to the accelerations. I would get gapped, but could claw my way back to the wheels after 30 seconds of chasing. Suddenly, with a couple of laps to go, the gap to the leaders started to close. They must have slowed because we never really got organized. We made the junction with just over a lap to go. I felt like I had nothing left, but I gave what I had and was able to finish 10th. That one hurt, but might have been my best ever effort in a race like this. It was brutal and I hung in when over half of the starters were dropped and pulled. It's nice to start making the splits in these hard races.
David Howe put in a nice move at the end of the backstretch on the final lap and took home the win. He was recording so you can watch his full race here. Steve Ehinger nabbed a 7th on the night and also had footage he shared here. Full results from the night can be found on this Raceday Events page by selecting the 2024 Music City Crits Series and then picking Race #6. Same for Race #5 that was mentioned above. Michaelee Bowes also had a camera rolling here on his way to a 12th place finish.
The next race on the schedule for me was the third round of the DINO Series at Potato Creek State Park in North Liberty, IN on June 23. This race was moved up one month this season from it's normal late-July date. I'm guessing the move was made in hopes of dry weather since we have been hit with heavy summer thunderstorms more often than not on the years when the race was held in July. The change threw me a curveball. We had planned to spend this weekend in Palmyra, NY watching Amber sing in an outdoor performance for the Millennial Choir that she is a part of. She has been a part of this prestigious choir for several years now. We have only been able to catch one performance when they had a concert in Salt Lake City one year while we were visiting. This was a special performance, being held outdoors in a very historic area. It is an important area in the history of our church and a place I have always wanted to visit. But I also could not pass on Potato Creek. It is a course I always do well on and the DINO Series is my primary goal for this season. Shannon and the kids wanted to go to New York with or without me. The concert was on Saturday night, so I did the math and it was possible to see it and still make it to Potato Creek on Sunday. It was a long drive, but I could do it if I drove deep into the night. Dina would be left out because she didn't want to drive eight hours by herself up to Potato Creek. I didn't really like the idea of Shannon driving 16 hours across the country by herself with two little kids, but that's what ended up happening. The logistics just didn't make sense in the end and I felt like I needed to get Dina to the race as well to help her with her own DINO ambitions.
Shannon and the kids left on Wednesday so I had a couple of days at home to work on my projects without distraction. I've been slowly working on making a second work bench and counter for the sink in our garage. I was able to get all my lumber and get to work. I also was painting my car. I have some spots where rust is forming after the paint has started to peel off the roof and trunk. I see it also starting to show signs of flaking on the hood. I don't have the money to paint my old beater car, so I took some inspiration from riding buddy Kiersta Tucker and painted it myself with spray paint. She did a huge section of a car years ago and it turned out well. I spent a day sanding and prepping the car. There was a lot that had to be taped off to black overspray. It took two full days to get on two coats of paint and two coats of clearcoat. It turned out well I think for a redneck paint job.
Saturated
Posted Date: January 14, 2025
Rain forced the cancellation of yet another Music City Crits race as our area continued to be hit with round after round of showers and thunderstorms. Thankfully, this time there were no 'naders. I took it easy most of the week following Winona Lake, recovering my back while also taking note of the long list of weak areas revealed in that weekend.
Memorial Day weekend was now upon us. The first part of this year has flown by! I had not planned to do the CRAM bike ride in Clarksville this year, but I added it to my program a few days before as I felt like I needed to work more on my endurance. I knew I couldn't make 100 miles with the group, but I needed that kind of effort and the suffering that would come with it. I also needed to know exactly where I stood with my endurance at this point. Could I make 50 miles at that 25+ mph pace? Three hours maybe? Only one way to find out.
With a camping trip planned for the following weekend at Brown County, I wanted to do something to help the kids adjust to tent camping. We have missed every single camping weekend we have tried to get to this spring for one reason or another. The only thing I could come up with considering all the rainy days we have been having was to tent camp inside. So Friday night before the CRAM ride, I set our big tent up in the living room and we tried to have a "camp out." Different experiment conditions brought the same results. The kids were so excited and distracted they didn't want to eat and then refused to go to sleep, just like every real camping trip. It ended up with only Salem sleeping in the tent after Kellen pushed us beyond our limits and got tossed into his bed.
After that failed experiment, I was up early to get ready for the CRAM. The ride starts at 7am. Of course, there were thunderstorms rolling through with lots of lightning and heavy downpours. It was so cloudy that sunrise was quite delayed. I watched the radar as I loaded the car. At first, it looked like the ride was out. I didn't see it being safe, let alone a fun day on the bike. But the speed of the storm picked up and there looked to be a chance it would push out by 7. I took the chance and headed on to Clarksville, getting to the start area at 6:45 right as the rain was stopping. The lightning had also moved on. The ride was a go with no time delay. Turnout was pretty low, but still quite a few people had braved the storm to make it over. I quickly got ready and managed to spin around for 7 minutes before time to start the ride.
The road was very wet as we started out of the industrial park near Exit 4. The pace was a bit slow as many of the riders were weary of the conditions. That put us behind schedule for the sub-4 hour century right from the start. The pace picked up as we left the industrial park. I sat back in the group and tried to finish my warm-up and save a little juice for later. After about 10 miles the group started to shrink down. I did not feel very good. The legs were a little off, but mainly I just felt weak and hot. It was a little humid from the rain, but by no means was it hot. I was sweating too much for the temperature and effort.
After we went through the town of Guthrie for the first time, I hit the front a few times as we had a good rotating group. There were about 20 riders up front at this point. After 25 miles I started to feel better and did some longer pulls at we reached Trenton for the first time. That feeling didn't last long though as after a few pulls I went right back to feeling crummy and sweating way too much. I don't know what was causing it, but it was not going away so I was just going to have to manage my effort today. A little crosswind followed and we picked up the pace as everyone could see we were behind. We got up to 24.9 mph average speed, but it blew up the group and there were just 12 of us remaining after 30 miles. Not good with 70 miles still to ride and the wind picking up.
One of my favorite sections is the rolling hills back to Trenton. It hurt me some today though as some of the guys in the group were too strong at this point and pulling too hard. Everyone was working, but we were far from smooth and steady with the pulls. I dropped back when it got fast and tried to keep myself hidden as much as possible. I still felt ok as we started north again through some more rollers and into another fun twisting section of narrow farm roads. They kept the super fun section after Trenton that was added last year due to road construction. I did another long pull through the twistiest section to keep myself out of danger. As I drifted back after my pull, the pace went up again and gaps started to form. I found myself in chase mode right after a big pull. I had to put in a big effort, but did get back onto the group. Two riders accelerated on the only lump in this area that can be classified as a hill.
We rolled into Elkton after a little more than 60 miles with just eight of us left in the group. I was wounded from the efforts and fading. We hit the rest stop in town for a quick nature break and water refill. The strong guys then went crazy with the pace rolling 30 mph at times. They started yelling at everyone to pull and then trying to get rid of those that couldn't, me being one of those. I got gapped off the back with a little help. There was nothing I could do about it. At mile 67, I was alone with six riders left in the group as it pulled away from me. One more of them came off shortly after. I made 2:42 with the group, so almost three hours. That was longer than I expected really, especially on a day when I felt a little off.
I rode alone for a while. My legs were gone so it was a long, lonely ride on the most open part of the course. It was really about the worst place to get dropped and be by yourself. Oh well, I said suffering was needed today. After several miles, Paul Carter and another rider ran me down and helped me fight the wind back to Guthrie. We caught the other rider that popped off the leading group. He pushed the pace a little more than what me and one of the others had left. He and I dropped off a few times and helped each other out before reaching the biggest climb of the day known as CRAM Hill. They went up the second half with a little more pace than I could hold. I fell off a few seconds and never could close the gap. Nobody waited on me that was for sure. I finally blew up and resigned to just surviving the rest of the ride alone. That was the case until the final four miles when a rider caught up to me as I stopped to fill my bottle at a church faucet I use on long summer rides. This guy was smooth and willing to work. We had a good final few miles together, ending the day at 100.5 miles in 4:46:04 with a 21.2 mph average speed. The first riders to finish did not break the 4-hour mark, which is fitting as I feel like they rode this thing all wrong from a strategy standpoint. It seemed more like a muscle flexing contest there in the middle. I was glad to be done with this one. My legs were destroyed the rest of the day. I didn't even want to walk to the refrigerator which is saying something for me.
The following day was yet more storms with tornado warnings all over town in the morning hours. We were in church and almost had to take cover. The tornado threat stayed a little to our north, but the skies opened up and dropped several more inches of rain in less than an hour. We were already too saturated to handle this kind of precipitation. Water pooled up all around town. The church just had new mulch put down. The standing water lifted the mulch and carried it around the building, eventually stopping up all the drains. We came out of the chapel to find our front glass doors looking like an aquarium. There was three feet of water on the outside of the doors. Somehow they were just starting to leak. People were able to start mopping up the water as it began to come through into the foyer and kept it contained to a fairly small area. Outside, we quickly got to work on trying to move the water away from the building. We found the clogged drains and unstopped them, but there was so much water now backed up that the drains took forever to have any real effect. It was like draining a pond with a shovel.
I ended up working on the drains, then helped to move water away from the leaking doors using my trail building skills within the landscaping. We had no tools though so I was doing what I could with a push broom, dustmop and large dustpan. Trenching and keeping the water flowing toward our trenches worked and we were able to eventually drain the entire area and dry the inside of the building. We have a later group that meets after us in the same building that would not have believed what happened had we not taken pictures and videos. It was unreal, but thankfully there was no real damage.
At the same time, my parents were up at their lake property doing some work. They rode out the storm in their little cabin, then decided to head home. There were multiple trees down that they were able to get around. Once they thought they were in the clear, my dad said he saw a tree coming at him. He slammed on the brakes as a big tree fell into the road. It landed on the front of their truck, but he was able to stop without making much impact. It was mainly the top of the tree that got the truck. Amazingly, a crew was there within minutes on their way to cut the other trees they had driven around. These guys quickly and carefully cut the tree off the truck. Pops was pleased to find no damage on the truck, not even a scratch. The weather has been so crazy lately!
We didn't get much break from the wet weather the following week. All my rides were short between showers. I did make good use of them though and knocked out some sprint work and intervals. The nights continue to be cold for this time of the year and are keeping my peppers from growing. I'm just hoping they can hold on through the deluge of rain and these temps. It is really stressing me out this year.
The following weekend rolled us into June and looked to be another one with dodgy weather for race #2 of the DINO Series. We were not at all excited to camp in the rain with the kids, but it was looking likely. Saturday was definitely a rain-out, so we chose to go up to Brown County State Park late, riding the trainer instead of pre-riding. We got a little gap in the rain at the right time to allow us to set up our tent and eat dinner before the rain returned overnight.
It was a dreary morning in the campground, but the rain was gone. I did most of my warm-up on the road, then dropped into the trail just to get an idea of the conditions. I did the final descent to the finish line which had some puddles, but was in great shape considering the amount of rain we had gotten. I got the word just before the start that the course had been changed. Brown County has two courses that alternate each year. Odd-numbered years take on the huge Aynes climb in the middle of the lap. I hated that one last year. Even-numbered years are on the more flowing Green Valley trail. This is an even-numbered year so we should have been on Green Valley, but the loop was changed to Aynes as they felt this loop drained better. I was bummed. Not the news I was hoping for.
No matter which loop we race, the start is awful, beginning with a steep road climb that almost always pops me off the group. I knew this year that I was probably not going to make it over that monster with the group. I didn't get in a good warm-up and knew I would blow up if I went too deep. The mud made chasing back to the group more of a possibility today. We had 14 riders on the start line for Pro/Elite. Race distance was held at 3 laps which surprised me with the conditions. This place is unique in the fact that the start/finish area is away from the main loop. You have to take the road up the hill to reach the loop on the start, then descend back to the finish on a trail after you finish all your laps.
We have some younger riders that moved into Elite for this race. As often happens in this situation, the excitement got the best of a few of them and they went crazy off the start line and up the road climb. I hung in the group over the steepest part, but had to let the group go shortly after as it would have blown me up. I wasn't the only one off the back before the top, but I did enter the woods last. I bombed the first descent and caught one ride, going by him on the next climb. The trail was not as wet as expected. I made up some time, but was unable to catch the group before we reached the Aynes climb.
I actually had a decent climb up Aynes, holding off the rider behind me and then getting in sight by the top one of those youngins that went out so hard on the road climb. I proceeded to catch and pass him on the descent. I got caught by one Expert rider just before the end of lap 1. Three more Experts were close, but I held them off for several miles. They finally got to me on another long climb, coming by with one Elite rider in tow, dropping me back to 13th. That Elite rider was Brenden Shrum, who was in his first Elite race after doing so well at Winona Lake. They lost me up Aynes and I rode the rest of lap 2 alone. The trail was drying up and my advantage in the mud was minimal throughout most of the loop. I saw something on lap 2 that I had never seen before in a race: a tree fell on one of the climbs. It wasn't there on lap 1, then suddenly there it was. Thankfully it was a slower section and everyone was able to see it before slamming into it. The tree was pretty big, but many of us were able to hop over it without dismounting.
I was feeling pretty good starting lap 3 so I picked up the pace in the opening section on North Tower. The trail was continuing to get better as it dried. I got Shrum back in sight as he was fading after being popped by the train of Experts. I passed him on North Tower where I could get some flow going, then had to dig deep to hold him off up Aynes. He was close to me most of the way up, but I got over the top with a small gap and then pulled away again on the descent. Compared to last year, I was WAY better on this descent even in the wet. My bike set-up is so much better and I am suddenly starting to like the way it feels. I hit one tree multiple times last year with my handlebar. Not once today!
One rider ahead dropped out. I was able to keep pulling away from the chasers to finish in 11th. Not good, but not bad for me either on this course. My third lap was faster than my second. A negative split is always something to be happy about. My upper body held up well today and my back was only a little tight with no pain. I'm getting better! I also tried a new nutrition strategy which is what I think helped with the speed on that final lap. I'll report more on that when I use it a few more times. Those four Experts that passed me were the only ones that beat me on time today. Sadly, 15th overall is the best I have done here in a while. That's the least amount of Experts to beat my time since 2017 when I sprinted for the Elite win and missed it by a bike length. I was very happy with this performance. It was the ride I needed right now. I'm not back yet, but I'm headed in the right direction.
The trail was amazing and held up so well. I could not believe how well it drained and how quick it started to dry. Thank you to everyone who helped with the drainage as I heard they did some digging on the final descent after dark the previous night.
Afterwards, it was over to the Kids race. Salem rode her bike and Kellen tagged along with me on the Shotgun seat. He contemplated riding it on his own, but the tall, wet grass was not much fun on a strider so he quickly changed his mind. Dina did not have as much fun as I did today. She also was fighting at the rear of the field and finished 9th. Brown County is one round she would rather skip. She was very tired after the race, but I still persuaded her to ride back to the campground with me. I hauled Kellen to make us more even. The little guy started to fall asleep on me and I had to flag down Shannon as she came by so we could put him in the van. Of course, that didn't happen until I hauled his 38 lbs up all the climbs. Salem wanted to ride the Shotgun as well, so I ended doing even more time around the campground with her. It was a good workout today for sure.
The weather was great the rest of the day. We took off work on Monday so we could stay a second night. We had a nice campfire and dinner. The kids were still a little wild, but better on this trip with eating and going to bed. Still stressful on us, especially Shannon as she does more with getting them to sleep, but there was a little hope after this trip. They were better during the race too. While we still can't trust them enough to take them down the trail, they were able to see me twice during the race from the road. I could hear them yelling down to me as I went through the feed zone. Shout out to the lady in the feed zone who helped me out by moving my second bottle up to the top holder on my pole. It made it easier on me to grab the bottle that last lap. Thanks!
Monday morning was beautiful! We were all so happy to see some sunshine. We took the kids down to Strahl Lake for a short hike. It was their first hike and this trail is the perfect place to do it. The full loop is just under one mile and full of all kinds of things they found interesting. They hopped on roots and boulders, jumped off rock ledges and balanced on the edges of the boardwalk sections. Kellen kept saying he was a dirtbike over the roots and was having a lot of fun until he whacked his head good on a rock overhang trying to get his picture taken in a "cave." Other than the set of stairs starting this trail, the loop is almost completely flat. The kids did great and wanted to keep hiking so I think we can chalk this adventure up as a win.
After the hike, I got to mountain bike with Shannon briefly for the first time in a long time. We never get to ride together anymore. Kellen tagged along with me on the Shotgun again. We then packed up our campsite before more ride time. I took Salem for two laps on Limekiln with Dina. The trail is perfect for the Shotgun other than the long climbs. They aren't steep though and I can get up them quickly with some effort. Salem is almost 45 lbs now and I felt every bit of it. She felt so much heavier than Kellen even though it's only about 7 lbs difference. Dina and I finished with a ride over to Aynes where we came into the trail at the top of the climb. We rode down it backwards from the race course and couldn't believe how great it was. The trail was fully dry, like it had never rained. The race had packed the main line to perfection. If you were worried about us damaging the trails in the race, I can verify that it was perfect just one day after with the exception of two or three soft spots on North Tower.
Fat & Skinny Tire Fest 19
Posted Date: September 2, 2024
It feels like the entire country has been having crazy weather this Spring. It's not unusual for us here in middle Tennessee to get severe thunderstorms weekly during this time of the year, some producing tornadoes. You can pick out transplants to our area at two times of the year. One is now when you see major panic over the threat of tornadoes. The other is in the Fall when the local fire department gets inundated with calls about barn fires from people that have never seen a smoking tobacco barn before.
A few tornadoes got really close to home this year. The tornadoes seem to miss where we live most of the time. The storms will often reach the Tennessee River over by Dover and track either north up into Fort Cambell and along the state line, or move further south and pass through Ashland City. But this year the pattern was broken. We had one pass within a mile. Thankfully, it was not on the ground and did not do a lot of damage throughout the area.
A few days later, on May 8, we had a day filled with the wrong kind of excitement. It was wave after wave of severe storms with most of them producing at least one tornado. The morning wave of storms stayed away from us, but then things started to get real after lunch. I was at home when it started to darken. There was no tornado associated with the storm as it approached Clarksville, until suddenly there was. It crossed the Cumberland River into nearby Henrietta with strong rotation detected on radar. I got an alert on my phone that sent me toward the house. Of course, I was outside working on the garden. I checked the radar as I walked back and saw it was heading toward Sango where Shannon works. I sent her a text to see if she was watching the news. By the time she replied to ask where the storm was, the rotation was about a mile from her work. They had not been keeping an eye on the weather and had no idea. The rotation then disappeared without much damage to report. It seemed the threat was gone. The area that had been rotating seemed to be tracking similar to the storm we saw a few days ago and would miss our house by a few miles.
I decided to grab the mail, watching the dark black clouds swirl in the distance to the northwest as the storm came by. We live in a bit of a hole with lots of trees around us that limit our view. The neighbor across the street just had a few trees taken out of their front yard which opened a hole in the canopy in the direction of the storm. As I approached the mailbox, I looked through that gap in the trees just in time to catch a funnel-shaped cloud passing by. It appeared to be rotating. I only saw it for a few seconds before it crossed the gap and was out of my view behind the trees again. I couldn't see the bottom so I wasn't sure that if I saw a tornado or just a rotating cloud. I texted Shannon and said that I thought I saw a funnel cloud. Within 10 minutes the news was reporting a tornado touchdown at Exit 19 off I-24, which is exactly where I was looking. The tornado bounced up and down near I-24, before hitting a group of houses on Ridge Rd, a road we ride on our Tuesday night group ride. I immediately wanted to go help with clean-up, but another storm was on the way so I stayed put. A group of roofers were waiting out the storm at a gas station when they saw the tornado. They followed it to Ridge Rd where they saw the damaged houses and immediately began to work on recovering rooftops. That's what I like about Tennessee. People are just out looking for somebody to help. Thankfully, nobody was inside the damaged homes and all were salvageable. One of Shannon's coworkers lives between I-24 and Ridge Rd and the tornado sat down on the back of his farm. He had loads of downed trees that landed on gates and fences, but no house damage. Someone got a video of the funnel as it moved onto Ridge Rd. It looked exactly like what I saw from standing in the driveway. You can watch it here on Facebook. That gap in the trees is where her coworker's farm is located.
The second storm also produced a tornado. It was only a mile or two further north than the first one, damaging more homes in Coopertown and Springfield. Both of these storms were within five miles of our house at one time, but we only got rain. It was a lot of rain though. The town of Adams just north of us got 11 inches of rain that day. I know we didn't get quite that much, but I would guess we were somewhere in the 7-8 inch range in about a three hour period. It was enough to flood all of our ditches, overflow the pond next to the house and flood most of our front yard. Kellen and I went out to clear debris out of the road and ended up pulling sticks from the ditch and culverts so the water could drain. We found a snapping turtle just hanging out swimming through the front yard.
After the storms, we had a rare occurrence where the northern lights were visible all the way down here in Tennessee due to increased solar activity. I somehow did not hear about this until I started to see everyone's posts on Facebook. There were some beautiful photos, including a few from my neighbor looking through that same gap in the trees where I saw the tornado. She got some nice red and pink colors in the sky. We slept through the whole thing. It was another chance of seeing them the following night. I sat outside in the driveway for a couple of hours and even got up at 3am when it was supposed to be the best chance to see them. I drove up the road to where I had a better view and it was darker. I couldn't see anything really, but did manage to snap a couple of pictures that showed some faint colors. I don't count those pictures as seeing the northern lights as I want to see them light up the sky with my naked eye. We had hoped to see them when were in Canada in 2019, but it was cloudy the night we were furthest north in Jasper National Park. Hopefully it'll happen again here one day as they are definitely on my bucket list.
The next round of the Music City Crits Series was supposed to be on May 8 when the storms came through. Thankfully, the race was cancelled earlier in the day as it just looked like things were going to get wild with the weather and nobody wanted to be riding it out on the open speedway. The next Wednesday was also affected by storms. This one was postponed a day to Thursday night just a couple of days before the DINO Series opener at Winona Lake. This first DINO race takes place on Saturday as part of Fat & Skinny Tire Fest which features mountain bike, road and BMX racing over the three-day weekend. It's almost an eight-hour drive for us to get to Winona Lake which makes pre-riding on Friday hard to do, so we drove up on Thursday this year, which meant we were not in town for what ended up being Race #4 of the Music City Crits Series.
I actually didn't do much training the week of the Winona Lake race. Spring allergies were kicking my butt and I was in another rut of not getting much sleep. The kids killed me last season with lots of sleepless nights in a row. They are sleeping much better now, but still have some periods of poor sleeping. They have had allergy issues too. Kellen wakes up crying in a pool of snot. The periods of no or reduced sleep are happening less often, but they seem to be happening on around events when rest is so important.
Like I said earlier, we headed up to northern Indiana on Thursday. The plan was to stop for a ride somewhere to break up the drive, then pre-ride the XC course on Friday. The forecast did not look great though and forced us to modify our plans. Lots of rain looked to be on the way Thursday night through Saturday morning. Instead of stopping in the middle of the drive, we went right to Winona Lake and hit the trails before the rains came. It looked like it might be our only chance to pre-ride.
We arrived at the trails early in the afternoon. They were a little wet from rain earlier in the week, but good other than a few slimy spots. The trail was not marked yet so we hopped onto the trail like we expected the race course to go. It alternates directions each year. My legs felt like complete trash after being off the bike the last few days.
About halfway through the lap, we saw our first rider. He was going the opposite way. As we passed he yelled that we were going the wrong way. I remembered that somebody told me these trails were directional at some point in the past. I had noticed we were following small arrows earlier in the ride so I thought we were going the right way. We kept going and just kept our eyes peeled for more riders. Within a minute we met two guys. We moved off the trail and let them pass. The first was straight up rude yelling at us about riding the wrong way. He took off before I could ask a question. The second guy slowed down enough that I was able to ask how we know which direction to go. He acted like we were just being smart with him at first, then realized we really didn't know where we were going. He said follow the arrows, which I thought we were doing. So we turned around and started riding back to the last arrow I saw. We reached the bridge over the creek where there is a kiosk. I still couldn't see anything about direction. The trail splits we had seen didn't have arrows on them or say anything about direction. I only saw one that said no running and no strollers. We noticed one sign said runners go opposite of bikes, but I still had no idea which direction that was. Finally, I noticed a tiny arrow on a post off the side of the trail at a junction near the bridge. Turns out, the normal loop at Winona Lake is a figure-8. We had been going the correct direction initially, but it changed once we crossed the creek. The arrow was literally about a 2"x2" dark green square with a dull white arrow on it. Easy to miss in the Spring undergrowth. After closer inspection, I noticed the colored trails on the trail map had tiny arrows within the color. I never would have seen those. We are used to trails that are well marked with huge "DO NOT ENTER" signs on them if they are directional. I guess us Tennesseans are dumb so the signs are really big. All of our trails also alternate directions each day so I thought these did the same. Sorry riders, we didn't mean to ruin your day. It really was confusing. We reached another spot a few minutes later where the arrows went in multiple directions. Had we not known where the race course goes we would have had no idea how to complete the bike loop. It might be easy for locals to get around, but for visitors like us it was a challenge at first. It would be nice if everyone could see it from that point of view before they just start yelling at someone who is out there trying to have a good time just like they are and not trying to cause a problem. It wasn't the greatest introduction to the area to kick off our weekend.
After the trail ride, Dina and I rode into the village to check out the course for Sunday's crit, one that has been on my list to do for some time. We never get to stay for the crit as I race in the afternoon and we would not have time to drive home afterwards. This year, we were all able to take off work on Monday so we could stay an extra night. There is also a crit in downtown Warsaw, the town around the Winona Lake Village, on Friday night. I would love to do that one too, but it is a very late race and I can't afford to start my DINO Series off with wounded legs. It was supposed to rain anyway.
The course was flat and fast. We took a quick lap and saw nothing to worry about other than the narrow road behind the Winona Lake shops between Turns 1 and 2. The village sits next to the lake with there being a bunch of houses located on a peninsula that juts out into the lake. The town built a canal across the peninsula for boaters to be able to float right up to the village shops and restaurants. The course was mainly on the peninsula, but crossed the canal twice per lap making for a very unique course. It went all the way to the tip of the peninsula with a great view of the lake. We took in the view for a second as I probably wouldn't get a chance to do so in the race on Sunday. Our view showed us dark clouds and confirmed incoming weather with the sound of thunder. We checked out a couple of the historic homes along the course and then headed for the van, getting packed and on the road just as the rain began.
The rain did not last as long as expected on Thursday evening and the sun popped out Friday morning to dry the trail. Dina and I decided to go back, making the 40-minute drive from Shannon's parents' house back down to Winona Lake. The trail was in almost exactly the same condition as the day before with the same greasy spots. The direction of the trail does not allow you to ride the race course, which does not do the figure-8 to avoid having a crossing point. The course was marked by the time we arrived so we were able to ride everything just like we would be racing it on Saturday. There was one short new section that was good to see before the race. Thankfully, nobody yelled at us today even though we did almost run into a group that was riding the normal direction in the spot where the race course took us backwards. I felt like trash again early in the ride, but the legs decided to come around by the end and gave me hope for a good race tomorrow.
We arrived to the race early enough to get our new number plates and set up out new tent. We had a few extra family members at the race. They were in town for a softball game, but the player they came to watch got injured and missed the game, so they tagged along with us. The legs were a little more sluggish than I had hoped for on race morning, but they got better by the time we lined up.
It was a beautiful morning, sunny and around 70 degrees, when the six of us in Pro/Elite took off for three laps on a course of around 10 miles in length. I was determined to have better starts this year and burst off the line in second. One rider got to my outside in the first turn, then chopped me into the second turn. I had to get out of the gas and let him by, but easily held third place into the woods.
The pace was fast. My heart rate was high, but the hardest part was just going that fast though the singletrack. I have not ridden a trail that fast since the last DINO race last year in August at Southwestway Park. I could do it, but had to make myself concentrate on it constantly. Early in the lap there is a great spectator area where we tackle a steep hillside. We start at the top, drop down the hill on a fast downhill, climb a steep hill with some roots back to the top, drop back down a steep descent with a jump at the bottom and then climb back up the same hillside again. Spectators can see us four times in less than two minutes without having to take a step. And it's only about a one minute walk from the start line. The jump at the bottom of the hill had a little kick to it. I told Dina in our pre-rides that it would probably buck someone over the bars before Saturday was over. Those climbs made me work hard, but I stayed within our group and held my third spot without letting any kind of gap open up. Rick Mezo was leading our line as we carved through the trees down to the two-way bridge for the first time.
Next up was the meadows area full of wildflowers and more climbing. The climbs at Winona Lake are all short, but so are the descents so you never really get any recovery. I struggled a bit more on these climbs, but still held the front group as we started to split up. For once, I was able to make the split as the three of us leading began to pull away exiting the meadow.
I pushed hard on the next climb as the trail gets more flowing with a break in the climbing afterwards. Again, I made it over the top on the wheels of the two ahead of me. Then all of a sudden "Bam!" I was into a tree and riding a bucking bronco off into the bushes. I didn't even know what I had done at first, I was just trying to save my life as I only had one hand on the handlebars and was out of control. I guess I eased off on the concentration after topping that climb and I misjudged a chicane between two leaning trees on the descent. I barely clipped the right end of my handlebar on a tree, then shot into a tree on the left. I hit my left shoulder hard enough that it ripped the bars out of my hand and sent all my weight forward. Somehow I didn't go over the bars, but I flew off into the underbrush to the left of the trail. The sapling trees slapped me in the face, but slowed me down enough I could come to a safe stop. I hit my man parts when I landed on the top tube which stunned me for a few seconds before I limped myself out of the bushes and hopped back on the bike. My bits were hurting, but I got going again, now in 6th after everyone passed by during my horticultural moments. Chris Bowman was closest to me when it happened and said he couldn't believe I rode that out. Me either.
I knew this next section was my best part of the whole course so I thought I could get back to the group. I didn't panic, I just tried to get back up to speed and get my nads to quit hurting. Once they did, I went back to full throttle and started chasing. I was 30 seconds off 5th at this point, which was Jake Fiddler. I tried to manage my pace once I hit the next set of climbs, but still blew up. I was basically soft-pedaling the fast section along the creek and was now well off the group ahead. My struggle continued until just before the end of the lap when the leading Expert rider, Daniel Flores, caught me. I know I was off the pace, but geez he was flying to have already made up two minutes on me.
I stayed close to Danny for a few miles which got me back into a rhythm. Again, the speed through the singletrack was noticeable, but a little easier to process than the first lap. My back was hurting by the end of that first lap. I have struggled with that at home since my back injury several months ago and was hoping I was over it, but the rooty descents at the end of the lap really strained it. The slam into the tree didn't help either.
I was 1 minute off Jake and Bowman early in lap 2. I was able to pick up two spots before halfway. At the end of lap 2, I was still about 30 seconds off Jake, who had also picked off the same two riders I did. In the middle of the race I noticed a lot of the photographers put their cameras down when I went by. I launched a big jump knowing there would be cameras, but nobody got the picture. Bummer. Guess I was too far behind. Thankfully, there were other photographers out there that got some great shots, some of the best I have seen of me racing in many years. Thanks Shannon, Dina, MoFlo Photography, Kyla Kuhn Photography, Jason Eicholtz and Jason Potsander!
I started fading early in lap 3 with the back pain getting much worse. Those rough descents were killing me. My arms and hands were also worn out and aching. I was not ready for this long of a mountain bike race yet. Three more Experts had caught me now. Two were together when they came by me exiting the flower meadow. Ralph Nurse was leading Brenden Shrum. I came to the spot where I crashed to see Shrum's back wheel go flying up into the air. Turns out, he did the exact same thing I did, hitting the same trees. Neither of us thought we were even close to them so maybe the angles were a bit deceiving. He was able to get up and bridge back to Ralph. The two of them caught Danny, but came up a minute short of catching Zach Dietch, who took the lead on the final lap to get the Expert win. Ralph outsprinted Brenden for second.
I limped through the last five miles, bleeding time to those ahead of me. I ended up 4th in Elite, some 7:40 off Mezo who led from start to finish to kick off his series title defense. Kevin Broadstreet moved up to 2nd by the finish, with Jake taking third. I lost almost four minutes to Jake that final lap. I was really having a full-body meltdown. I could barely get off the bike as my back was so tight I couldn't straighten up. I was stuck like an old man for about 10 minutes before I could walk upright again. To toss a little salt into the wound, my meltdown also cost me money as I finished 9th overall on time, missing the payout by one position.
As for Dina's race, she had some excitement as well. Remember that jump at the bottom of the descent I mentioned earlier? Well, it claimed a victim just ahead of Dina on the first lap. A guy got bucked over the bars and landed hard on his face. He was being tended to when the Expert Women reached the section. The ladies had no idea until they were already flying down the descent. Dina said everybody hit the brakes really hard and some of them went off into the weeds to keep from running into each other. Nobody crashed, but Dina slowed down so fast that her Garmin watch thought she crashed and sent out a distress call to me and our parents. I didn't get the notification as I didn't have my phone on me, but my Dad called her to make sure she was ok. She had to answer while trying to hang with the group. It was an interesting race moment for her. She was also lacking some endurance and speed today, ending up fifth and pretty tired afterward as well. Winona Lake whooped us. Plenty of photos are posted below to chronicle her race.
Full results are posted here. An article about the race from the local newspaper is posted here. Salem did the Kids race on her pedal bike. The grass is still hard for her on the little bike, but she got through with only a few small pushes from dad. Kellen was going to race, but he fell asleep right before the start. Poor guy was so tired that he woke up once and wandered over to some random car with his blankee and just plopped down next to it in the hot sun, falling right back to sleep. We decided to get him home since neither of us won any awards so we did not stay for the BMX stunt show, but it looked awesome as always.
I was more than destroyed the rest of the day. We did nothing but lounge around. The next day, I felt like I had been hit by a bus. Some of the soreness was from the near-crash, but mostly it was from just getting beat by a tough trail. I was not ready for that at all. I was sore throughout my arms, core and back. Even my legs had a little soreness which is rare for me these days. I was not at all excited for the crit.
I was shocked when I climbed on my road bike to actually find that I had some legs. The soreness and stiffness quickly improved during my warm-up. I actually felt pretty good by time to line up for the Pro/1/2/3 race. We had over 50 riders on the line for 60 minutes of racing on this unique island-peninsula course I mentioned earlier. The course is a rectangle with one end being rounded, sort of an odd D-shape. All three turns go to the left. The first and second are 90-degrees on the mainland. You cross a bridge over the canal just before Turn 1. You are descending into the turn and the exit is quite narrow. It was the scariest looking corner for sure. Turn 2 went uphill back over the bridge onto the island with a wide exit. A long straightway to the edge of the lake followed before a sweeping turn took us back onto the front stretch for another long straightaway to the finish.
I got a back row start. The start was fast and did not let up, making moving up very hard. We never really bunched up despite the long straights. The only place I gained spots was through and exiting the first two turns. That scary first turn was actually super fun. It was banked just right for you to rail it. I made some air pressure adjustments for this race after talking to some other riders at recent crit races and it finally made me feel faster than everyone else through the turns again. I have liked the new Canyon bike since I got it, but today I finally felt like I had it dialed in. The bike and I feel like one now. I was having fun!
The pace on the straights was so hard that I tried not to pull out into the wind and move up. I was basically sprinting all-out anyway just to hold the wheels ahead. People were getting popped after just two laps of racing. All I kept hearing was the bell ringing for prime laps. At first I was thinking this race would be fun for the spectators, but after the fourth prime in the first 12 minutes, I was getting annoyed. Gaps were opening up and I was catching a lot of wind through the sweeping third turn and struggling down the finish stretch. The only reason I crossed any gap was because I was railing the first two turns. Eventually though, the gaps were too big and I couldn't get across. I sprinted over 900 watts five straight laps out of Turn 2, but it wasn't enough. Once I was gapped, I quickly lost ground as the wind off the lake tore me up. And the pack was showing no signs of slowing down. I got pulled after just two laps alone. They told me I was pulled so quickly "for my own safety as not being able to hang with the group means you don't have the skills to safely ride the course." I feel like that is the opposite of reality. I am much safer off the back. The middle of the pack is the danger zone. The riders proved that a couple of laps after I got pulled when a big pile-up in Turn 3 caused the race to be neutralized and then stopped for several minutes while they tended to the downed riders.
I was disappointed to be out so early, but I really didn't stand a chance with starting so far back. I am super pleased with how I rode though. I had great legs, the strongest I have had this season. I rode better than I did the day before in the mountain bike race. My back didn't hurt at all. What a surprise that was after being so beat-up and sore after the XC. That is why you never write yourself off before the race begins.
We hung out to watch the finish, then did the Kids race. Kellen stayed home with Grammy as his race would again be during his nap time. Salem had a lot more fun as she needed no pushes on the pavement. She raced up into the 4-5 year old class as under-4 years old was for striders and training wheels only. That move up also allowed her to do a full lap of the course, which is what she wanted to do anyway. She had a blast, waving at everybody along the way and scoping out another girl's Frozen-themed bike. It was a great end to the weekend.
I highly recommend this festival. It was a lot of fun. My only complaints were from them pulling people so early and the fact that it took literally months to get results posted. I just found out a few weeks ago, as I write this at the end of August, that I finished 41st. They had a series of terrible events that led to the results delay , but that still doesn't make it ok for a race of this size. There is still a lot of confusion surrounding their accuracy as well. The atmosphere was great and the course was fun. The town got behind it like a Gateway Cup race. I will be back for sure. They already have dates posted for next year's Fat & Skinny Tire Fest, May 16-18, 2025. Read a news article about the festival here. There is a nice highlights video available on Vimeo. Check out the Fat & Skinny Tire Fest Facebook page. Brace yourself before you click as Facebook says it is a sensitive page with it being "fat" and all. They'll try to protect your feelings though.
Next up on the calendar was more Wednesday night crit racing in Nashville, a weekend at home for the CRAM bike ride in Clarksville, then the second race of the DINO Series at Brown County. More on those in the next post!
Do It
Posted Date: July 14, 2024
Race #2 of the Music City Crits Series was upon us just a week after the opening race of the 10-race series. April 24 brought the 180 course, the tougher of the two course options the series currently uses. This layout scares me as I have struggled on it a lot the last few years. The sprints off the first 180-degree turn are brutal and seem to happen lap after lap with little recovery. I had a good opening round, but I was still leery of racing on this course.
We had 29 starters on the line for the 60-minute Pro/1/2/3 event. I was surprised to have decent legs in my warm-up after being off the bike the past few days. The start was hard as expected. The first 16 minutes really hurt. I had to close several gaps. A few of them were caused by me just not getting off the first 180 well, other gaps were from people ahead of me blowing the turn or just blowing up. I have never seen so many dive-bombs at one of these races. It was mainly one rider, but others started to do it later in the race after watching him have success. It seemed like you could never use the proper line through the turns because someone was always slipping to your inside and messing up your apex. It was quite annoying.
I am still adjusting to the new Canyon. It feels much different and has me positioned a little different. I think I am going to like it once I get adjusted, but I struggled in the tighter 180 in this race. I just don't know where the limit is yet. I will find it, but I want to do it slowly rather than finding out I exceeded the limit as I eat pavement. Once the pace backed down, I had time to work on rolling the corners, but again, the dive-bombs often messed up the learning opportunities. There were a few times I nailed the tighter 180 so I know I can do it.
The pace got crazy again after a few slower laps. The intensity made my stomach hurt. It was a much harder race than Race #1. I was sprinting 1140 watts off the first turn, but still had trouble holding the wheel in front of me. I finally popped off the back on a prime lap. I just couldn't hold the pace down the backstretch after going over 1100 watts yet again off the 180 and then closing gaps in Turns 1 and 2 on the oval. I chased, but the group never slowed down and I was pulled out in three laps. I made it just over halfway. I was a little salty after that one as I felt like I was just positioned poorly. I could hang, I just couldn't overcome the gaps. I ended up 21st with a 24.9 mph average speed. My average power was 30 watts higher than last week so I was definitely putting out more effort.
Adam Null slipped in for the win over JP Primm and Nicholas Reed. Race footage from Logan Gauthier can be seen below. Results can be found at https://results.racedayeventsoftware.com/ by selecting 2024 Music City Crits in the first dropdown menu.
After the race, there was some major trash talking going on. I guess I am not doing well enough to satisfy anyone so the "you don't belong here" crap has started again. I was planning to stay after the race and help with clean-up as they had asked for extra help tonight, but I was catching so much slack that I just stacked a few cones up and left. Apparently, I have never been in contention for a podium so I shouldn't be allowed in the Pro/1/2/3. I guess we faked all those podiums I've had over the years. I am not listening to that mess anymore. It is amazing the balls people have to come up and say things like that to you when they aren't even in the race and clearly have no clue what they are talking about. I don't feel like I can even defend myself because when I do they act like I am attacking them like some kind of bully. I don't want to deal with that anymore. We are adults, not middle schoolers. I welcome the downgrade though. Go ahead and do it. I will make you regret it.
The plan for the last weekend of April was to get in some mountain bike time with a long-weekend camping trip to Brown County State Park. Of course, the weather was forecasted to be wet all weekend in southern Indiana. We decided to stay home as the forecast was better here and we had plenty to do. We made the right call as it rained a lot to our north. We were able to pick more strawberries to put up for the summer and finished getting the garden ready for planting.
I got in a little mountain bike time between showers, but it wasn't enough. I feel like I am lacking the strength and endurance in my upper body and am not comfortable at higher speeds. On the bright side, I did find a little change to my suspension that I have loved so far this year and I am finally starting to like my bike. This Epic finally feels close to my old one that suited me so well. We managed to go over to Rotary Park in Clarksville, a place I have not ridden in a long time. The trails are so different now than they were 15 years ago when I rode there regularly. I had a good time exploring the new trails and riding their small pump track. It helped me further dial in my suspension. The kids were able to play on their nice playgrounds while I rode, then Salem rode the creek trail with me afterwards. She is starting to take her pedal bike off-road. Her biggest limitation right now is braking on downhills as she wants to drag her feet like she did on the push bike which takes away her braking ability when she has pedal brakes and can't reach the ground. We have had some out-of-control moments that have made her fearful of downhills, but I think she will get over that soon.
People are finally starting to show up for our local group ride. I did one of the rides to end the month of April. It was a little on the slow side so I sat out into the wind most of the ride to get in a little workout. The next day was Race #3 of the Music City Crits Series on May 1. The legs were stale and lacking snap. I guess I did a little too much on the group ride. I was excited to debut my secondary kit. The orange version of my DIG kit came in from Jakroo this week. I love the orange. I like it better than the green so far. The bright orange goes better with the grey and black in my opinion.
We had a big field of 36 starters for the Pro/1/2/3 race on the kidney bean layout. The legs didn't feel great, but they were strong and kept me in contention. This race was a lot different than our previous two races. It was either as hard as I could go or super slow. I had trouble following some of the accelerations early in the race, but people started to fade later on and the efforts became easier for me.
A break of about seven riders got clear around halfway. Several riders tried to bridge unsuccessfully and ended up in between the groups in no-man's land. We eventually cranked all those in-betweeners back, but wouldn't see the break again until they lapped us. I made a move at six laps to go to bridge to a solo rider who had just slipped off the front. I crossed the gap with a few others on my wheel, but nobody would work once we got there and we were quickly pulled back into the group. Just as we drifted back through the group we got lapped by the break, which chopped off one of our remaining laps. I was hurting from my bridge effort and stayed at the back until one lap to go. I thought I did not have anything left for a sprint, but the legs were actually good on that final lap. I was way back and blocked in, but I kept surfing wheels forward until I finally was able to open up the gas just before the last turn. Several ahead of me went wide in the chicane and I picked off about five riders through the corner and to the finish line to end up 15th again. That was the first time this year I did not fade after 40 minutes and had something left in the tank for a sprint. Even though we had some really slow laps and got lapped, the main group still had a 26.8 mph average speed. I hit a strong 1237 watts in the final sprint so the legs were definitely still there. That's the first time this year I have crossed over 1200 watts, even in training.
Nicholas Reed took the win from the break ahead of Lee Yarbro and last week's winner, Adam Null. Logan Gauthier again has you covered for some in-race footage posted below.
Projects have been eating into my ride time. The kind of projects that always seem to be more than I bargained for. Take our back deck for instance. It had three cracked boards that I thought I would quickly replace. Of course, it wasn't that easy. One board had a propane line going through it, you know, because through the deck is better than next to it. I got that board busted off quite easily thanks to the cracks in the wood, then used a router to make a groove in from the edge of the board for the line. I wasn't about to disassemble the propane line to make a single hole through the wood. I plan to build a much nicer deck in a few years so this is temporary. It's actually been on my future project list for a while now. Anyway, the three boards were just the tip of the iceberg as underneath them all the support pieces from the frame were rotted. Thankfully, I had enough boards lying around from where my parents tore apart their swimming pool a few years back. Three hours later and it was rebuilt where we could safely move our little pepper plants in and out of the sunroom without a little kid leg falling through.
We had a couple of tornados get close to home early in May and the first mountain bike race since last August finally arrived. More on that in the next post!
Canyon
Posted Date: June 29, 2024
The Spring continued with a little more backyard cross, but little time spent mountain biking. I have barely been able to touch my mountain bike this winter due to the weather. It has been raining a lot and the trail is in constant need of cleaning. The wind has really been gusting causing limbs to fall almost every day. Miss a few days of going around the trail and suddenly it is covered with limbs and unrideable. The family used to help me out with the cleaning, but everyone is too busy now and I haven't been able to do it all on my own. We still have two sections that I have never been able to get to after last March's wind storm. Other trails in our area have been dealing with similar issues. Even if they weren't, I rarely get time to go somewhere and ride these days.
I finally got a new shifter for my Specialized Allez road bike. The old one broke right before Gateway Cup last year. I have been on my old Jamis Xenith since then. The new shifter came just in time. I went to change my bar tape on the Jamis and found salt build-up like I have never seen before. It had corroded the bar to the point of having a hole in one spot just above the hood. I had just done a hilly loop earlier in the day where I was close to 50 mph on several descents. That thing could've broken at any time. Thankfully, I was able to get a new bar and had both bikes running again. I always try to keep up with cleaning my bars and changing my tape regularly, but this one snuck up on me. I think the build-up was worse than normal because this bike was on the trainer prior to being called back into action last September. I should've changed the tape, but that was the last thing on my mind with having to change bikes right before a big race.
The new shifter and new bar were great, but it was all irrelevant for daily use after about a week as I finally found a road bike that I wanted and could afford. I couldn't find anything in my price range through local shops. My online searches had also turned up with disappointing dollar figures. I had accepted the fact that maybe I just couldn't afford a nice road bike. It is very hard to put that kind of money into a road bike when I spend so much on mountain bikes. I just got a new mountain bike last year, along with a nice new cross bike. But I really wanted to get something more serious for road racing as I have no intentions of stopping crit racing anytime soon.
I found the road bike of choice by accident. I was watching a mountain bike video on YouTube that was my kind of riding. Braydon Bringhurst was hitting everything from dirt jumps to bike park drops to gnarly trails in the video called "All Ways." He was descending AND climbing nasty sections. I noticed he was doing it all on the same bike. It was a Canyon Spectral. I immediately looked up the bike as I would really love to get another longer-travel mountain bike some day and get back into things like enduro and slalom. The bikes were surprisingly affordable and had some of the best reviews I have ever read for bikes. They also have a 6-year frame warranty! For carbon! That is unheard of these days. Most manufacturers offer two years at most.
The drooling began. Once I mopped up my desk I thought about seeing what road bikes they offer. My knowledge of Canyon road bikes only goes as far as them being the bikes used by the Alpecin-Deceuninck and Movistar UCI Pro road teams. To my surprise, their top road bikes were again affordable and within my price range. They just so happened to be having a sale as well. I read more great reviews and mulled it over for a few days before deciding to give Canyon a try. I could not pass on the price and the long warranty. I went with the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX 8 Di2. That's right, Super D has electronic shifting AND disc brakes on his road bike now. Canyon said I would have the bike in two weeks which was also quicker than any local shop said they could get me a bike.
The bike arrived in just six days. It was almost fully ready to go in the box. You only had to put on the handlebars, seatpost and wheels, then add your pedals. All the tools you need, including a nifty little basic torque wrench, come with the bike. They have videos on their website of how to unbox the bike. It made assembly a breeze. Every detail seems to be thought out on this bike like no other bike I have ever owned. Every part has measurements on it to help with set-up. Carbon paste for the seatpost was included. The box even doubles as a stand. Canyon made sure to also send all accessories I might need like a Wahoo mount for their integrated bar, a spare derailleur hanger, bottle cages, bottles and tire levers.
The specs of the bike are definitely the nicest I have ever owned. The black carbon frame is loaded with Ultegra Di2 12-speed components with hydraulic disc brakes. The crank has a 4iiii power meter already installed on the left side. The wheels are ready for a crit with 50mm deep DT Swiss ARC 1400 rims paired to DT Swiss 240 hubs, my favorite hub ever. The wheels are fitted with Schwalbe Pro One tires with a 25mm up front and 28mm in the rear. I threw on a new set of Ultegra pedals. The bike was advertised at 16.01 lbs. With bottle cages and the Wahoo mount installed, the bike weighed in on my scale at 16.1 pounds, nearly five pounds lighter than my current race bike. So far, the ride is unbelievable. The difference was noticeable in the driveway. The only issue I had early on was that the seatpost kept slipping. It has an integrated seatpost clamp that worried me. I had used the supplied carbon paste, but it wasn't stout enough. I cleaned it off and applied the Park Tool carbon paste that stopped my post from slipping on my Trek cross bike last year and it was fixed. No issues since. I am super pleased with my purchase so far. I am also now a Canyon fanboy. Even got myself a shirt and hat.
I started April on the new bike, upping the road miles as my endurance began to improve. I had no speed and was not ready to race when the race season really kicked off a few weeks into April. I ended up skipping my first planned races as I just felt like I wasn't ready. Weather seemed to be questionable each weekend so I just didn't feel like I could risk a miserable weekend when I am short on funds after the bike purchase and still short on fitness. I wanted to race the crit at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis, but that'll have to wait for at least another year. I also missed a few rounds of the Georgia State Championship mountain bike series that I was hoping to get to this year as they are at places I have never ridden.
The weather at home was sketchy too as we got round after round of nasty thunderstorms, several packing tornados. A few of them were very close to home. Thankfully, we didn't get any damage. One of our neighbors had a tree fall onto their house. It wrecked the roof, but thankfully did not go through onto anyone in the house.
There was a solar eclipse on April 8. It was a partial eclipse in our area, but we were close enough to the Path of Totality to get over 96% blocked. Shannon and I were both able to be home to watch it with the kids. They didn't really understand what was happening, but they liked putting on the glasses and laying in the yard. It was amazing to me to see how light it still was with 96% of the sun blocked. The sun is definitely bright. Clouds moved in as the eclipse started, threatening our viewing. The heaviest clouds came right at the maximum point of blockage, but it turned out to be pretty cool. Some sections of the clouds were thin and you could see the eclipse through them without glasses on. It was like having a natural filter in the sky. I thought the photos I got were pretty cool, much different than the ones I got during the 2017 solar eclipse when there were no clouds in the sky. It made for a much different experience.
I spent the nasty weather days working on my garage. The goal has been to make a nice shop out there where I can work on my bikes easily. I have a spot to work, but things have never really been fixed up and organized like I had planned. There's an old leaky sink that I wanted to replace with one we took out of the kitchen a few years ago when we got new countertops. I have been looking for cabinets to house the sink and give me some storage space, but I could not find any reasonably-priced cabinets in the size I need. The cabinet will sit near my barrel heater, so it can only be so big or it will be too close to the heater and risk being melted..
After much searching over the last year, I finally decided to build my own work bench and shelves. It would be way cheaper. I made a Home Depot run and got to work. It took me several days and I am still tweaking the storage options as I build, but things are moving. I have a tall bench now with a sink set in it. The pipes are not connected yet, but I'm finally making some real progress. Each bench is made from the old countertops we removed from our kitchen so that saved me some money on materials.
We took some of our rainy-day time to plan out our garden for the year and pick up plants from our favorite Amish greenhouse up in Elkton, KY. I also made it up to Paducah with my parents to catch my first World of Outlaws Sprint Car race at Paducah International Raceway just outside of Paducah, KY. I had seen the Late Models series before with Shannon, but this was my first sprint car event. We saw a little bit of everything. It started with a dry track and a fluffy cushion that was getting pushed higher and higher during hot laps and qualifying. They watered the track before the heat races and we were treated to different lines and hard racing. We saw a few cars get upside down. The main event was super fast. Sheldon Haudenschild was on rails in the Nos Energy Drink car and took the win. We had a great time. Kellen was excited that I filmed some of the haulers leaving the parking lot. He is obsessed with big trucks and heavy equipment right now.
I have been fortunate enough to see two good dirt races in just a few weeks as I was able to take Salem to the Clarksville Speedway for the annual Toilet Bowl Classic on Easter weekend. It was originally scheduled for earlier in March, but rain caused a reschedule. The late model feature was a fast 40 laps as they had no incidents to cause a caution. The air was filled with dust and dirt by the time that one wrapped up. Salem now understands the need for glasses at dirt track races. We also saw where the race gets its name. When the field got spread out all around the small, clay oval it did kind of look like the water going round and round the toilet during a flush.
By the end of April, it was time to do some racing whether I was ready or not. The Music City Crits Series was back. For the third straight year many of us were surprised as every Fall the future of the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway is up in the air. The planned remodel is still on hold, but thankfully the track is operational and they are willing to let us race again. It really is one of the best venues we could possibly have. I hope the track owners can see how much the track means to the bike racing community.
I was a bit nervous leading into this first race. While I am getting close to race fitness, I really haven't done any speed work yet. I feel like I am all base at this point. I had planned to use the local group rides to help with the speed, but so far this year either nobody has shown up for the rides or the weather has rained us out. I really did not know what to expect.
We have a student from Baylor named Bre at work right now. I found out pretty early on that she recently signed up for a triathlon. Actually, a full Ironman. After talking with her, she didn't know much about triathlon, but she was up for learning. She seemed more interested in bikes so I talked to her about it and passed on the knowledge I could to help her get started. She was a bit overwhelmed with the Ironman she had already signed up form realizing she had bit off a lot to chew. Turns out her family rides. Her last name is Favre and she's from Mississippi, which made me think of Brett Favre. I knew he was from there and played his college football at Southern Miss. I asked her if they were related. I was expecting her to say no, but she said yes they were related. I asked how distant, expecting her to say fifth cousin of my mom or something. She said, "He's my dad." I almost fell off my stool. I already liked her because she was very down to earth and real, but the fact that she didn't build up her own life off telling everyone that her dad was a famous football player made me like her even more. Apparently, Brett has gotten into bikes since his retirement. His wife is also into bikes. Bre's last week in town before going back to Mississippi just happened to line up with the first Music City Crits race so she came out to watch. Her grandmother was also in town visiting so she came out too.
Having some people coming to check out the race made me really want to do well. I built them up for the worst, telling them I might get dropped early, but surprisingly, I had a good night for my first time racing a crit in seven long months. We started off with the kidney bean layout which is my favorite for sure. The Pro/1/2/3 race was 60 minutes and we actually did the full time tonight. The pace was fast, but manageable. I felt like the group might split early, so I went with a few moves to stay on the front side of any gaps. Nothing stuck. I went again with a more serious move about 20 minutes in. Again, it quickly came back together. I knew then that my best bet would be to wait for a bunch sprint. The move hurt me for several laps, but just when I thought I was getting in trouble and drifting back, the pace backed down.
I started to feel the legs fade after 40 minutes and even bonked a little in the closing laps. I think my body was in shock with the intensity. I was able to hook onto David Howe's wheel late in the race and followed him through the group which was really fun. I cannot express how much fun it was to be back out there racing. I missed it so much this off-season. Our average speed lifted in the final eight laps to finish at 27.2 mph. A gambler prime caused a small split at two laps to go. I lost Howe's wheel coming to one lap to go as we swept up most of that group that went for the gambler. We were passing them through the first chicane on the final lap and I was the first guy not to make it by cleanly. I lost a few bike lengths and could not make it back up. I chased all the way down the backstretch, but never got back to the wheel ahead. It was a good enough effort though to pull away from the rest of the group and hold my position until just before the finish line when one rider slipped by.
Jeremiah Stoller grabbed the win after going solo for both the gambler prime and the win. Ralph Rufo led in the bunch sprint for second ahead of Howe. I ended up in 15th. I was very happy with that. I had more speed than expected. The endurance will come. There are several videos posted below from cameras within the group so check those out if you want to get a feel for racing here. It was nice to see Shannon along the course with Bre and Mrs. Ann. They were super interested in the racing and seemed to have a great time. Thanks for coming out! I hope that helps Bre get motivated for some time on the bike in the future as she prepares for the Ironman. They have invited us down to Mississippi to ride so hopefully we will get to take them up on that offer sometime soon.
More Wednesday night crit action ahead in the next post!
The body started to feel better in February. I was able to ride without being too tired to do normal activities after the ride. I built up to doing three-hour rides again. They were slow, and I often completely fell apart long before the end of the ride, but I stayed out there and put in the miles. Every weekend seemed to be very cold. I would do some days of backyard cyclocross or just stay inside on Zwift if it was stupid cold. I am so thankful for Zwift. It has changed the indoor game completely for me. I actually don't mind spending some days riding inside anymore. The Tour de Zwift is great because it engages you for a couple of weeks during the toughest part of the winter season.
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Kellen turned two years old which is insane to even think about. I feel like we just brought Salem home from the hospital a few months ago, but now our second child is two.
February is also when we start our peppers indoors for the summer season. I am still learning the best and most efficient way of doing this as each year we keep adding more and more plants that need to be started early to actually give you some real yield before the end of the season. We had about 1200 plants last year but are looking at closer to 1600 for this season. I built a grow shelf to save us some room. I took a Muscle Rack shelf and modified it to include heat pads and grow lights for each shelf. With stacking seed trays vertically, I can put four times as many seed trays in the same floor footprint which is the only way we can start so many plants. I have room to make a second grow shelf, but the circuit in our sunroom can't handle any more grow lights running at once. As you grow there is always a new problem popping up. We now know exactly how many lights can be on before the refrigerator cutting on will kick the breaker. LED bulbs have just become available for these lights this winter so maybe I can get some of those soon and cut down on the power usage.
I have expressed my frustrations with my main job many times over the years. I was pretty unhappy to be moved around near the end of last year, but I did finally start to settle in come the new year. Things finally slowed down thanks to all the snow. I didn't feel like every day was a dumpster fire. The clinic director has been building things in the clinic during his spare time because the company won't give him any money to buy pre-built items that we need for good patient care. He asked if I would help out during the hours I didn't have patients as nobody else has wanted to do anything hands-on. I was up for it as I like to build stuff. It's not unusual for me to do extra things at work anyway. I'm usually the guy they ask to repair equipment and clean out the lights because people are afraid of bugs and ladders. It's just become part of the reason why people want me in their clinic. We ran speaker wire through the ceiling to all corners of the clinic so we could have more music than just one speaker blaring from the waiting room. He came up with an idea for parallel bars that could raise up into a corner to be out of the way when not in use. He had already started building that and I jumped in to help finish the construction and paint it to match our other support rails.
I was actually starting to feel appreciated for once...until I wasn't. February is the time all employees get their annual review. I never know how mine will go as I really don't have one set supervisor. The person in charge of my review changes almost every year. I am kind of unique in my position as nobody else works the way I do. I am considered PRN, but I am really more of a long-term, part-time therapist. We have designated floaters that can provide help anywhere within the company, but I just cover one small area and often stay for weeks or months instead of days. I don't really think the company knows exactly what I do because I am currently one of one. My role has never been defined by them. Most of the time I don't think they really care to find out what I do. This was one of those times.
We have become a very numbers-focused company. Everything now regarding you getting a raise is dependent on numbers. The numbers approach has always irked me as it totally takes away from the thing that matters most, which is patient care. Some of the numbers they keep up with work against each other so if you improve one you decrease the other. I used to think they just didn't understand their system, but after years of discussion with them during my reviews I am starting to feel like it is set up this way on purpose. One of the main numbers they look at is the amount of units you charge per visit. Mine have always been lower as moving clinics all the time makes it hard to get the perfect treatment session in when every patient that comes through the door is brand new to me. They gave me a goal last year that I had to meet to get a raise, which was 6% more than what I had achieved the year before. I thought that increase would be very hard to get to with the difficulties of moving around like I just mentioned. Somehow I did improve and exceeded the goal. I increased by over 12%. I doubled what they asked me to increase.
But they went back on their agreement and denied me a raise anyway, saying I needed to raise it by another 16% to be eligible. On their review form, that amount would be beyond what is considered "Exceeds Expectations." Seems a bit ridiculous and also likely impossible as I have pretty much maxed out what I can get with the insurances we are seeing. I asked why the goal was changed. Of course that goal was given by the last person who did my review and so the current guy only had the goals given to him by the higher-ups, who then denied ever giving me the goal. I have the paper that shows the goal, but nobody would even so much as look at it. They just told me I was wrong. I was pretty mad about that. Then he proceeded to tell me, and I quote, "you show no value to the company." Talk about a punch in the gut. No value. After nearly 14 years with this company I have no value. If you want to write a book on how to ruin an employee's morale and drive this could be the title and first chapter. They acted like I should be grateful to them for giving me a job like it is charity and they are losing money by having me. They view me only as an expense, that my salary is something they can reduce to increase profit. They never acknowledge what I bring in. This all comes after showing me just a few weeks before that they profit an average of $125 per hour from each hour I work. Outside of my salary, I actually bring nothing but profit. I am extra help everywhere I go. Rent and all other overhead is figured into the other clinicians so I am purely profit. They went on to say that I am not dedicated because I don't work full-time for them, even though I have tried to get several full-time positions and been turned down, and that I don't contribute to the clinics of I work in. I wrote down all the other things I do like cleaning, repairing and all those other things I have been doing just in this particular clinic, but they didn't even read it. They also said I should show my commitment to the company by placing my kids in preschool so I could be more available to them. Seriously? Stay out of my private life. To put a little more butter on my burnt toast, they then went on to say that this clinic had record profits the last quarter of 2023, which just happened to coincide with me coming here in September. Go figure. Mentally, I'm pretty done and ready to find another job. Only problem is that the other companies in our area are worse. They lay people off all the time and have major ethical issues that I have no desire to be a part of. I would have seriously considered walking out after that meeting, but I really want to fund my race season so I have to be smart about it. I just want to work in the field I love and not feel like I am being railroaded and chastised every second of every day. Is that so much to ask?!
I was pretty fired up going into March. I used that Bobby Boucher tackling fuel to push my training and take my mind off of the cesspool that work has become. I dropped enough weight to start feeling like an athlete again. Cyclocross got easier. I was actually pushing myself instead of just surviving the efforts. By the end of the month, I was almost feeling "normal" again.
March was beautiful weather. The kids and I spent a lot of time in the woods doing trail work getting our backyard trail ready for some Spring laps. The kids did a lot of riding while I worked. They even helped with some benching and building a few jumps.
I am still struggling some on the mountain bike as I am still lacking the fitness to really push it. My back is still an issue, but getting better as I am able to do weights again and push my core stability. Road rides have been a lot of fun as the nice weather has made for an early sprouting of the flowers and trees. I don't think I have ever seen the backroads look so green this early in the Spring. I can't stay away from some of the roads.
I spent some of my time inside working on those custom kits with Jakroo. They were the only company I could find that would do batches small enough for one person and offered free design help. Before you ask, no I am not sponsored. I got hooked up with Jill, who took awesome care of me during the whole design and ordering process. I found a template on their design site that I was able to build off of and design my kit all on my own. The design was not available for the model of jersey and skinsuit I wanted due to the way the panels were constructed, but the designers were able to transfer it over for me with only some small changes. There were some little mix-ups here and there, but Jill was great about getting the designers to fix their problems and by the end of the month we had a gray and green design. I also liked gray and orange colors, so Jill had them work up a second design for me. We talked about me racing the green design on the mountain bike as it blended in well with the trees, and the bright orange for road events. Everybody I showed the design to liked the green so that is what I ordered first. The order arrived quicker than expected and I had my first new kit day in a long time! It wasn't quite as green as I expected, but I still liked it.
I got every detail that I wanted on that skinsuit. The DIG Racing logo is on the chest and back of the jersey, as well as on the side of each leg of the shorts. The top of the shorts and one side panel of the jersey feature the Sweetwater Farms logo, while the other jersey side panel has my training/coaching project logo of Supremacy Athletics. I have Super D on the top of the back, and the middle pocket commemorates the start of my solo project when I got cut from all my significant sponsorship in 2018 with the words "Irrelevant Since 2018." The right sleeve features the American flag and the number 13, which will always be my favorite race number. The left sleeve simply says N.V.G. That is a shout out to everyone who has ever given me crap as I have heard soooo many times that I'm "Not Very Good" at riding. For the top of the chest I went NASCAR/NHRA style. I like how they list their championships on the chest of their firesuits. I also figured it would annoy everyone who caused me to put the N.V.G. on the sleeve. It says 2X SERC Champion, 2017 DINO Champion and 5X Tennessee State Champion. I just went with the Pro state titles so as to not get ridiculous with the number. Those are the ones that really mean something to me anyway. The only thing I left off was 2X Dirt, Guts & Donuts Champion. Maybe I'll add that to the next kit design, haha!
While I was not even close to race-shape yet, it felt like the season was coming together. The kit was now a real thing. We have been wanting some sort of tent to use at the races so we can have shade and cover from the rain. We finally found the right 10x10 and caught it on sale. The tents have improved greatly since my last purchase. They are more durable, lighter and easy to set up with one person. We went with a tent from Academy Sports and you can literally push it up one hand.
My Dad has a friend that has been sick for a few months. He hasn't been officially diagnosed with anything, but he thinks he has a terminal disease and is cleaning out his entire house so his wife doesn't get stuck with all of his stuff. I have a hard time remembering his actual name as everybody just calls him Ski Rat. I have no idea where the name comes from. He sold a few things, but most of the stuff he just gave away to my Dad. I'm talking everything. Lots of tools, bikes, bike parts and even a boat. There were some good tires and tools in there that I ended up with which is super helpful. We are going to try to sell a lot of the other things and give it back to him to use for his treatments. Dad has already sold several bikes. So far he has kept their electric recumbent, which he has way too much fun on flying up and down the hill by our house pulling the kids in the trailer.
The month ended with one more new thing: a new road bike! At least I ordered one. You'll have to wait until the next post to see what it is. It was looking like I wouldn't have the money to get one until late in the summer, but all the extra work days and a good sale helped me find something within my budget earlier than expected. New bike photos coming!
So Cold
Posted Date: May 27, 2024
2024 did not start exactly like I had hoped, but things were on the way back up after a long sickness that brought me to my knees nearly the entire month of December. I was able to get back on the bike early in January, but could barely make 30 minutes on the trainer at a very slow pace before I was exhausted. Like so tired I had to go take a nap to be able to function the rest of the day. After a couple of weeks of taking all the meds given to me for the lung infection, I finally started to feel some endurance return and built up to doing an hour each day, then eventually getting outdoors near the end of the month for some short rides.
The down time gave me a chance to work on some other projects like getting kits for DIG Racing to make things official. I was really hoping last year that I could get some attention from a crit team. I really want to do some serious racing. I want to travel and race with other people that are serious as well. I want to be surrounded by people who want to work hard and ride harder. I got one sniff of attention early last season from a Masters team. It wasn't what I had hoped for as I am still not eligible to race Masters at most races. Tennessee starts Masters at 35 years old, but most others start at 40. I still have a few years until I get to 40. I was still excited to have teammates and committed to the team. But like the last several teams I have been approached by, they seemed to forget about me immediately. I was never given the link and password to order the team kits and I wasn't invited on the first couple of team trips to races. Then they all just disappeared for nearly the entire summer, not racing at all. Some members of the team didn't race the entire season. I am really tired of being forgotten about and even more tired of being around people who don't want to race consistently. They're usually the ones who tell me I am a want-to-be. Like my short stint with Riverside Racing years ago, I felt like some of the team welcomed me, while other team members did not want me on their team for whatever reason.
I have had enough of waiting around for someone that wants to race with me. Like I've said before, help isn't coming. So I went all-in with my own "team" funded entirely by my own endeavors as I can't drum up even a little drop of interest when it comes to sponsorship. Everybody I talked to about starting DIG Racing told me not to do it, that I shouldn't, and couldn't, do it. There was absolutely no interest in helping out in any way. I picked up a lot of extra work days during the winter months to build up a better budget. I not only want to get new custom clothing, but I have to get new clothing. Literally everything I have is worn out from years of riding. You can see through the fabric of all of my shorts. The pockets on most of my jerseys have been sewn back on multiple times, and every sock I own has been stitched up multiple times. It feels like my entire closet is turning to dust.
My road equipment isn't much better as my Allez is showing some major wear. I just put a new shifter on it and still have a broken power meter. My wheels are on their last leg and now Mercury has gone out of business so I can't even get parts anymore to keep fixing them. I knew I was going to have to spend a lot more money this year to get my season going so I put a plan in place early to get it done as quickly as I could. I hope to get a new road bike at some point during 2024, hopefully a more serious race bike this time. I have always had to skimp a little when it comes to the road bikes as I have never had enough money to get both a great mountain bike and road bike.
This period of less training time also gave me more time with the kids. We had a good snow late in January that was deep by Tennessee standards. It was very cold so the snow was soft powder, which rarely happens here. It was so soft that we couldn't really sled on it. I plowed the top of the powder off the hill in the backyard so the kids could have their first real sledding experience. Salem had a blast even though the powder flew up in our faces as we went. She didn't like that, but felt it was worth the ride. Kellen didn't like the snow spray nor the cold temperatures. It was single-digits for several days. Sled time was short, but we went out multiple times per day. That was perfect for me with my fatigue issues. We had one warm day during the snow week when it rained briefly on top of the snow and then froze again. That made for some awesome sledding. By the end of snow week Salem was sledding down the hill by herself and loving it.
Training and progress on my projects picked up in February. More on that in the next post.
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