Velo and Back to School Cross

Everyone has a nifty name for their event these days. It's no longer Northfield cross but back to school cross, although school has been in swing for a couple of months. Finally a decent wknd on the bike for me. Podiumed twice, Velocross putting 5 people on the podium. This kinda blows my built in excuse of tired legs from working all those long restaurant hours. I put in some serious hours this week getting ready to feed 250 folks at the annual Cats n Canines Animal Humane society fundraiser. Friday started at 10am for me and my course was plated at 10pm. I got home around 1am saturday morning and I thought I would be worthless for the Velocross but nice weather and good legs pulled me through. I rode the whole race in 3rd place and let some one by in the last 1/2 lap that shouldn't have gotten by. Ended in 4th with a nice gift certificate for some needed acupuncture. Went to work immediately after to a busy saturday night at the C-man and thought once again that I would be worthless the next day. Called my good friend Jared and rode down to Northfield with him and then rode the whole race with him. Got a good start and stayed in the top 10 the whole time trading pulls with Jared and staying away from the chasers. The hill was a killer but the legs held out. Jared let me take the final podium position. What a gentleman. Good times with good people. The bike as usual was stunning in its handling and looks. It turns heads.

Mikeyp

FedEx Truck Anyone?

11/6/09

I was tooling down the greenway, so happy to be heading home on a beautiful Friday afternoon. I paused at the top of the exit onto Bryant to let the FedEx truck pass. I rolled up to the light at Lake Street and put my foot down at the intersection, in front of the FedEx truck. As I stood there, I could sense the FedEx truck inching forward. A calm "Nice bike" came from the interior of the Fed Ex truck. As I looked in through the truck door, the driver asked "Is it lugged?"
"Yes" I replied, "steel with a carbon fork."
"It is really nice" he replied.
"Curt Goodrich is a local builder" I said.
"Yeah, he used to build for Rivendell" Fed Ex guy said. After a pause he continued "Does it cost as much as a motorcycle?"
"Probably"
"Want to trade for a FedEx truck?"

-Becko

Friendly Fridley

I had a 3 week hiatus due to family weddings and family needs. But I'm back.

And my, how things have changed. Starting with, I'm now racing/riding/styling on a super sweet Curt Goodrich cross bike. I picked up the finished bike from Ben at OneOneOne Friday afternoon. I was hoping to ride when I got home from work but no go. FINALLY got my chance to ride the New Bike at 9:15 Friday night. 36°F and rain. But it was a great ride! Only saw two other souls. I rode around the lakes, nice & mellow, just enjoying the feel of the new bike.

Sunday - Fridley:
Got up there with plenty of time. Nice. Rode some warm up laps, chatted it up, showed off the New Bike. Lots of looks. And even better I was feeling pretty good. Couldn't wait to get out there and ride fast. I mean, no better way to see how a bike feels than thrash it for 60 minutes, right?

The race started on the cinder track and some guy was hanging his shoulder on me for about 15 seconds. Was that you, MikeyP? I thought it was ScottERob but I later found out he blew a pedal in the first 10 seconds. WTF? Lucky for him, though, somebody gave him a pedal and and he came roaring back later.

After the track we all hit the baseball gravel diamond death spiral. Pure silliness for about 2 minutes. Poor Jared (race director) went down right in the middle of his own death spiral and got heckled from all sides.

MikeyP busted it out of the Death Spiral and I had to gear down to catch him. We made some moves, passed a few and got passed by a few. I was riding well after about 3 laps when I slid out on a downhill off camber. I was twiddling with my new SRAM shifters when I should have been riding the off camber. I got up (facing backward) and damn near got run over by Smithers. "Doh!" I tried to stay with Smithers but then slid out again while twiddling with my shifters.

With about 3 laps to go, I realized I should ride more in the big ring and concentrate on cornering and not shifting. Things then got much better and I finished up with a couple of guys.

Observations:
The New Bike felt great!!! Handling was spot on! Very tight. The frame feels surprisingly stiff. And I mean this in a good way. And so much fun attacking out of the saddle! I found myself attacking in the last few laps just because the bike felt so good riding hard. I can't wait until the next time I get to ride fast with this bike!

I thought I was good on the run ups. Then I got trounced on the run up. Ouch!

Cross is so much fun!!!

The Red Barn and that other thing

Red Barn is always a fun and festive race. Cool setting near Taylors Falls and a nice Halloween feel. One of my favorite things about bike racing in general is the social aspect. What a great place to meet really great down to earth folks and get caught up with really good friends. And then take it to each other for the suffering. I got a slow start but soon was with a group of fast folks. Rode with Scotterob for a while and he was looking strong but rolled a tubular in a corner. I stayed with the group doing a lot of work with Jared and we rode all but a few off our wheels. The last two laps saw some attacks and I was tired from the work put in. Stayed in to finish 14th overall and 6th in the 35+. Lately the 35+ field is stacked with a bunch of good fast fellows. Driving home after a burger with my buddy CJ I got a text from the sous chef saying we were underwhelmingly booked at 10 reservations for the night and he thought I ought to go trick or treating with the kids! I did. More resting than work or so I thought. The next day at the Fridley race I had nothing. Flat out nothing. I crashed hard on a warm up lap and my head was rung a bit and never back in the game. Pulled out with 3 to go and hung out with my son Ellis instead.

Mikeyp

Green Acres Ain't the Place For Me

Great course. Felt good in warm ups. Nice damp weather. First lap on a downhill into the sand I hit a rock with my front wheel and popped a Fango. It was about 3/4 of a lap to go before the wheel pit with a big hill to climb. I rode slowly for a bit, got through the barriers up the hill and part way down the hill when Matt saw that I would probably ruin my wheel if he didn't let me into the pit. He felt at that point that they had made a mistake with only one entry to the pit. Everyone had passed me and I was in dead last place. I changed the wheel and rode well to 20th passing 10 or 12 people. Oh well. Fun stuff. Pics leading to a runup and the runup.

mikeyp

Wirth win

 photo:  Frank Rowe

so this is THE race of the urban cx scene here in mpls, and I needed to repeat. I wasn't feeling that hot during the week, and worried that my cx season would go down the tubes if H1N1 caught up to me. Kids in my classes at the U were dropping, and mid week I had some congestion. Drank about 85 gallons of lemon zest tea and got plenty of sleep. Showed up at the race with the burley full of wheelsets, not sure what type of course the organizeers were going to throw at us. Turned out to be a nice mtn bike course, which suited me ok. All the usual suspects were at the start line. Dag Selandar showed up, and I'd greeted Bjorn before the start. Yes, I'm name dropping. Us geezers in the 45+ start were asking Dag if we should wait a year or two before booking our flights to France for July when the whistle blew. I don't mess around with the first couple of laps, just keep the lead in sight, and feel out the course. Then I hit it, and when Greg bobbled around a 180 in the soft stuff, I countered a move by Ladric (there were three of us in the lead group at that point) and let the blue bike fly. Somewhere in there I heard a voice at the top of the stairs whisper "you're gappin' him" .. about 200 yards later I realized "hey, that was Curt ! " Cool. Dang, I'll say it again. How cool is that to ride away from the competition, and have the dude WHO MADE YOUR BIKE whispher, 'hey, you're gappin' him" in your ear when you're cross-eyed ? frickin a.

- RPM

Corcoran and T. Wirth

                                                               Huppin the stairs at Wirth

                                                                        Run up at Wirth

Woke up saturday morning to a dusting of snow and about 20 degrees. I had second thoughts as I was racing in Wirth on sunday and had a busy night on my feet friday. But as I have said many a time What Would Jared Do? my former teammate and world leader of the Crossniacs. As I pulled up to the race I of course parked right next to Jared. Double Dip wknd. I got registered and felt it must be about 15 with wind chill. Got the Fangos on and worked the tire pressure and felt pretty good about the whole scene. The course was wet but not too muddy(yet). Got about 7th position in the hole shot and felt good on the first lap, but I tried to not go too hard yet. The course was on a motocross circuit partially and it soon turned to peanut butter as the sun melted the snow and warmed things up a bit. Things got more and more sketchy as the race went on and the course deteriorated. I went down in a fast right hand corner and lost some spots, but was still in the hunt for the podium in the masters 35plus when trying to peddle out of the mud on a hill my chain caught on something or so I thought. I hopped off trying to untangle and found that my rear derailleur was in my back wheel. Wasn't coming out either. Game over. The derailleur hanger was bent, the wheel was whacked, and the derailleur was bent. Got the muck and mud off and got in the car and immediately called Mr. Goodrich. He said "I'll pick it up at the Craftsman and get it back to you this evening if all goes well." And ladies and gentlemen this is why we work with local artisan frame builders. Curt came and got the bike, reworked the dropout which was sprung open, straitened the derailleur hanger, straitened the derailleur, and trued my damn wheel!! How unbelievably cool is that!

I can't thank the guy enough as I was able to race in my hometown mpls T. Wirth race.

This was a tough one. I was pretty tired but went hard. Had a top 5 in sight 35 plus for most of the race but bonked at the end. Crazy runup on some old rr ties sunk into an extreme vertical. Very odd spacing and hard for a guy with a 29 inch inseam. I had nothing left the last two times up those stairs after 8 trips up them. I was seeing stars for sure. The Stick Lavick helped bring me out of my coma at the end by giving me a little pep talk and hauling me around for part of the lap. Ended up 22nd overall and 6th in masters 35+. The bike worked and handled beautifully. Can't wait to do it again. Not the breaking part of course.

-MikeyP