The Blair Witch

ride. 1.5 hr's today on the cross bikes. Rode everywhere, did some running, got wet and muddy, almost got killed by the same pick-up truck twice, so we rode straight to the local cemetary to catch our breath . Pretty safe and there's some good ridin' there too.

Bring on Boughton Farm!

Mucho spyware

on my pc. I couldn't quite understand why my machine was running so slow and I had all these annoying adware and popups popping up all over the place.....arggh!
I went to the local pc doctor store and bought a smokin piece o software that cure's all the ill's of a sick computer and installed it. Did a 2 hour complete scan of my machine and found 16 spyware and other nasties that were hidin' out. Got em all and now my machine is purrin' like a kitten and all is once again good.

Happy Thanksgiving

to everyone and their families.

08 States recap

OVCX did a really nice job setting up this course on a very dry and great conditioned Lane Rd. Park in Upper Arlington. The course offered some technical switchy up's with some really fast down's, steep short climbs, a run up and flat straight power sections both on grass and tarmac. The whole course had a nice flow to it and did I mention it was in great condition? There was a marching band drum section at the top of the finishing hill and also the stereo system near the double barriers was a nice added touch, very well done!!

We arrived at the park early on race day for Robert to get ready for the C race followed by the Junior age groups. Robert lined up for the open C race and was in the mix of things the whole race, he raced strong and looked very comfortable in the big field. After his warm-up in the C's he lined up in the Junior race and commenced to put the smack down on the field and won overall, convincingly, well done Junior State Champ!

Next race up was the Mens Cat.3. Tony lined up 2nd. row and when the gun went off he was battling for a front position. About 1/2 way through the first lap he was sitting in 2nd. with 3 slightly off the front. After the 2nd. lap the 3 had distanced themselves from the pack and were now working hard together. On one of the switchback up's Mayhew dropped a chain and now it was Tony and another rider, who I don't know his name. Over the double barriers, Tony attacked and established a gap, he kept the pressure on and was pulling away for about a lap, Chris Mayhew had caught back on to the 2nd. place rider and the 2 of them were now working hard to bring Tony back. We were yelling to Tony to keep the pressure on as the 2 were working very nicely together. Tony would jump out of the saddle at every corner and flat to keep the speed high and ensure that the 2 would not catch him. On the last lap the 2 chasers were within about 20 seconds. I yelled to Tony that they were very close and he must have had an adrenaline rush or something and buried himself to just pull away with no chance of the chasers catching him. He pumped his fist as he came up the finishing hill having just became the Cat.3 Ohio Sate CX Champ!

Next up was the Elite Master 1,2,3 Men, 35-45+ Rudy, Jeff, Derek and myself all had decent starts in the large field. Over the top of the 1st. steep hill and down the backside we were going so fast it felt like the Demon Drop at Cedar Point! The whole 1st. lap stayed very fast like that and we started to split apart on the 2nd. lap. As the strongest had a gap already we were all fighting to stay near the top in the placings. Jeff and Rudy were a few riders up and I was hooked up with 3 or 4 and we were going good. I was smooth over the barriers and would attack each time and get a gap to the switchback stuff and ride it smoothly also. I gapped the group that I was with and was riding alone when I would look back and see Derek coming up to me also. He was riding strong and dropped the riders that I was with earlier. There were 2 up the road a little way and my thought was to let Derek get up to me and we could work together and bring them back. We did just that, we never caught the other group but we rode together holding off a group of 5 that was catching us in the open stuff but would loose ground in the techy parts. It came down to a drag race between Derek and I and we big ringed it from the 180 by the tents to the top of the hill with Derek getting me by a 1/2 of a wheel. Good stuff!
I ended up 5th. Master 45+ and 15th. overall out of 35. Jeff was 7th. OA 2nd. M. Rudy 10th. OA 3rd. M. Derek 14th. OA 4th. M.

Julie was coming into the race as the Womens overall 1,2,3 points leader. She lined up sporting the OVCX leaders jersey in a fast womens field and was soon in a heated battle. The race stayed a race the whole time with Julie finishing 5th. overall and 3rd. in her age group. She also was the overall OVCX series winner for 2008 and raced EXTREMELY WELL the whole season. Nice Job Julie.

Overall the team did a great job. Nate finished well in the C's, Scott in the 3's and we had left before the Elite race went off to know how Matt did. I'm sure he was strong.

Great races, great competition, no bike cleanup afterwards and everyone lives happily ever after...............Til Copley :-)

See ya in a few weeks and have a Great Thanksgiving.

Did we skip a few months or what?

It seems like the crosss season is all over and The final race at Copley is just a distant memory. This past week and especially this morning seems like we're locked in to the middle of another nasty cold winter that comes around January and February with school cancellations, white out snow conditions and plow trucks out in full force. Maybe after all this blows by, ole man winter will give us a break for just a little while longer.......I'm not quite ready for all this just yet, after all, we have more racing to do.

At least Columbus is lookin' good for the weekend.

See ya.

Another beer review

This time it's not about the Christmassy type of brew with flowers and cinnamon and spices and all the other ingredients that try to make you get into the Christmas groove, this is some good ole dark lager brewed and bottled in the Eastern Bloc country of the Czech Republic. It's called what else but "Brou Czech" and I must say that it is VERY good. Brou Czech is a traditional dark lager handmade the same way since 1872 using an origional 3 step method, (whatever that method is I don't know). It's reddish brown in color and it's rich hoppy and malty aroma leaves a very pleasant aftertaste. I could sit down and enjoy at least 3 of these in a row. Very nice beer.

Thanks goes out to Amanda Hassner for the beer. Amanda always gives Rene and Lynn very thoughtful gifts each cyclocross season. Technically these are Lynn's, but she said that it would be alright if I sampled one of them, after all, they are in MY refrigerator.

Cheers from the Czech Republic.

CX Sunday

@ Broadview Heights. First I'd like to congratulate everyone that raced, this was one hard race due to the conditions, but, cyclocross in every sense.

Mud, Beer, Coffee, cowbells and bike racing, you gotta love it. As frustrating as this sport sometimes can be and is, due to many factors, a good race can change your whole prespective and everyone know's the frustrations that I am talking about.

Those frustrations went away today for Tony especially. Our A-A Masters race which consisted of 31 racers went off at 1:45 and Tony was soon in a break of 5 with Gerry, Ernie, Brent and Zak, all of them heavy hitters. They had gapped the field fairly quickly and all were working well. With about 2 laps to go Tony flatted and rode nearly a whole lap on the flat. He came around to the pits, changed bikes and Ernie had passed him and Tony just couldn't close the gap. At the end Tony finished 3rd. overall and 2nd. A, by far his best finish ever! Nice racing Tony, too bad about the flat. Tony said his legs were feeling great today but the conditions were not to his liking. I say he should race in this stuff all the time!

I felt pretty decent myself and have to say that I raced to the best of my ability. I was duking it out with Quinlan and the guy with the dreds for a while, Dave S. and I were going back and forth early in the race also. Ray passed me around mid race and I just tried to keep him in my sights, that probably motivated me to keep a steady pace, (By the way Ray, you were 11th. overall and I was 12th). Nice job on the SS.
I saw Ross Clark catching me so I tried to keep the pressure on. He eventually caught me in the far soccer field and latched on to my wheel through the soccer field, the asphalt and gravel section to the switchbacks, the far East end of the course along the soccer field and then passed me near the concession stand. I jumped on it in the mud section and caught his wheel when he was going by and we were now starting the descent down the gravel hill. I backed off a bit going down and thought I would make it up on the climb, since I was climbing strong. Just on the other side of the bridge he slid out and crashed hard. I had to dismout and jump over him (ya, a barrier) Sorry about your crash Ross, I hope your achilles is okay! I re-mounted and jumped hard at the base of the hill and was totally redlined at the top, literally seeing stars riding through the parking lot section. I ended up finishing 12th. overall and 3rd. Master. Good day.

Despite the conditions we had a great turn-out (90 racers). Everyone had a good time and raced strong, hopefully everyone stayed warm by the fire and went home happy. Thanks for coming out everyone and thanks to you Sherman for the pizza at the shop afterwards.

Next up is the Ohio Sate Champs. this weekend.

Nice job everyone.

GLB Christmas Ale

I have to say that I'm not really that much of a beer connoisseur but I do however like a few different micro brews, Willoughby Brewing Company especially has an awesome Razz Ale, but I'm mostly a domestic type of beer drinker.
I have been hearing alot about the Great Lake's Brewing Company's Christmas Ale lately, so I thought I would go down to the local IGA where they stock just about every kind of beer know to man and get me a sixer of this supposedly outstanding ale.

I found it sitting nicely in the beer cooler in the back of the store, where Nick spends alot of his working time by the way with a hefty price tag of $10.99 a six pack! Yikes for this amount of money this stuff had better be better than good....

I had a hard time controlling myself on the drive home and really wanted to crack one open and even had one in my hand, but GLB did a wise thing and installed the kind of caps that require a bottle opener.

I finally arrived home 2 miles later and hoped that this $10.99 pack of golden goodness hadn't started to get warm, I didn't even turn on the heater in the truck for this very reason. I finally found my Pedro's bottle opener, opened this bad boy up, took a big long slug off of the icy bottle, swirled it around inside of my mouth like someone that knows a thing or two about beer drinking and then swallowed it.
My initial reaction was, WOW, this stuff sucks! Okay let's try it again. Big long slug off the bottle, swirl, swallow.......wait for a second to let my brain register....Yup, I was right the first time, This stuff sucks big time! Bad aftertaste and VERY BITTER. Maybe it's all the spices and fruits they put in, I don't know.

I don't know what all the hoopla is about this beer, I guess I'm just not refined enough to appreciate it. I did manage to gag one bottle down though. The next day I opened the second bottle and I could only manage to choke half of it down. I then gave the rest to the drain deep inside my sink basin. I still have 4 bottles left, which I will gladly bring with me to the Broadview Heights cross race on Sunday and whoever would like them is more than welcomed to take them.

Anybody have a Coors Lite?

:-)

Not 2 shabby

We had 2 very good cross workout's this weekend. Saturday we did cross practice at the outdoor Y for an hour and then rode the long way home which is like 45 minutes. We did race pace simulations along the way while taking mostly off beaten pathways home. We were maxed out along the way with Tony and I taking turns pulling and in the last mile Tony led the way home pulling like a mule. I thought when it come's time to sprint to our mailbox I will drill it and kick his skinny butt. Now, I have to say that I tried to come around him and do my share within the last mile but he wouldn't have any of it, so I just sat in and let him go. Back to the mailbox sprint......we came around the corner with 2/10 of a mile to go and we opened it up and I tried to come around him to win the sprint but he was just too stong and he pipped me at the line.....That's usually the way it goes though...I can't even beat him in practice anymore :-) (I can, I just say that to make him feel good).

Sunday was a great day. Jeff Craft, Tony and I rode the nursery roads. There was just enough mix of hard pack and mud to make this ride VERY fun and HARD. Jeff was pushing hard the whole ride and we had to work extra hard to stay with him. With the wind and sometime's rain during the ride it was classic cyclocross weather. We ended up with about 1:30 for the workout, Perfect! We got home, did the cleaning, oiling etc. Now it's time for some enchilada's and a few cerveza's.

Hasta la Vista

Classic

EuroCross. Maybe things to come for the next couple and final series races??

The weather

is a changin'. We got a few longer road rides in this week but we really wanted to do a cross workout at the local outdoor Y tonight. We probably could have but we chose to get a nice hilly trail run in instead. 2 trail runs this week and they were sweet. Tonight Tony and I ran for 1 hour all in the rain, it was great. Maybe we can get out on the cross bikes tomorrow since they are calling for just mostly cludy. We chose not to go down to the John Bryan cross race on Sunday near Dayton. If it were a 2 day we would have gone, but we didn't really want to do all that drivin' for a 1 hr. race. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get a couple days on the bike this weekend.

Ciao

The high's and low's

of bicycle racing. That's the way my weekend went in the racing department.
Saturday started out with my alarm clock going off at 4:20 am. and having to trek into work until 10:00. Lynn, Tony and Nick met me at work about 10:15 and then we caravaned down to Brett's for the race. I was hoping I didn't overdo it at work and would have some strength for the 1+ hr. race that I knew wasn't going to be easy in any sense.

During the warm-up and openers that I did before the race my legs were feeling pretty good. I thought the day before when we were drafting out a course at Kirtland Park, that Shawn had me do a little too much hard stuff during the week because my legs were just absolutely on fire as we were walking up the soon to be stair run ups, but I was wrong and he was right in the weekly training plan.

Our Masters A race started off about 30-45 seconds after the A's and I got a pretty good start. I got passed by a few before the log barrier so I just figured I would settle in and see how my legs were going to respond for a while. After a couple of laps I was feeling good so I thought I would open it up more and see how it would go. I tried to keep my hr. in my race zone so I wouldn't totally blow up. The course suited my riding style more than the previous 2 at Orrville, so now I could use my technical skills and short strong bursts out of the corners. I was feeling good and started to pick off A racers and move up into the A group.

I was having a good battle with John, Dave S. and Derek and a few others that make cross racing so much fun. I would get a gap in the tech stuff and they would pull it back in the field that suited the power rider, great stuff!

After it was all over, I ended up 3rd. in the Masters and felt really good in this race. Major Thanks go out to Brett and his parents for once again allowing all of us cross racers to swamp their property and for them to host another Awesome race and a great day, Thank You all for everything!

Sunday morning we arrived at Kirtland Park early to begin the set up for another great venue and soon to be great races in all of the categories. We had alot of team participation again for this event and it made everything go very smoothly. We're actually starting to get the hang of this stuff after 10 years!! Thank You to everyone that helped in every way on Sunday, we couldn't have did it to this extent without everyone.

After set up we had quite a bit of time to spare and actually went and bought coffee's and got to relax a bit until the barrage of racers started coming for registration. While some of the C race was going on Jeff Craft and I did a bit of early warm-up and rode down the South Marginal past the Muni lot where all the Brown's parties were going on, (those guys know how to party) WOW. We rode up to 9th. and back to the North Marginal to 55th. and back to the Park, my legs were feling really good again, hmmmmm, what's going on here?

Came back and got suited up and did some hot laps during the B's and spun around a little to get ready for our A ,A Masters combined race. At 1:45 Lynn says go and we're flying down the flat to the 180 around the tree and Ehrlinger jabs his elbow right into my left leg, Hey! He said he just wanted to do it for fun, I said cool :-) Around the other twists and turns, up the stairs and through the ballfield and the off camber and I had to dismount due to the traffic on the 180 up. No problem, I actually passed a few riders while I was running. The ampitheater was good, the short stairs were good and the East run up was good. Past the start/finish and I was feeling GOOD again, Nice.

I was gapping some of the Masters and starting reeling in and passing some A's again for the 2nd. day in a row. I'm getting more confident as a few more laps passed and I was really getting into the flow of the course, (it had a great flow didn't it?)
when on lap 4 I was in a group of 5. We were all riding very strongly and anyone that would have had a miscue or bobble would get passed. I was trying to do everything perfectly. After the 4th lap passed and on the 5th. my left pedal broke!(Eggbeaters) Oh No.... I'm feeling good, riding good, in a race with 5 and now my pedal breaks..... Just my luck. I try to ride and clip in and the group was just too strong and fast, they're by me and gone! I try unsuccessfully for quite a while to ride but I can't. I pull over in the pit's and my day is over.
This same thing happened to Drew Bercaw's Eggbeater the day before at Brett's race while he was warming up. I loaned him one from my spare bike to use for his B race.
I didn't have the spare bike because Tony used the wheels from the spare for his bike because he broke spokes in his rear wheel the day before at Brett's!

Oh well as frustrating as it was and still is, we still had a great weekend with family and friends, racing, beautiful weather and it's great that everyone's healthy and able to do this stuff, it doesn't get much better than that.

Tony fared well both days in the A race and raced his heart out both days collapsing on the gound after the race totally spent from giving it his all. He was top 10 or 12 on Saturday and 13th. on Sunday. Awesome job Tony!

Robert won on Saturday and was 2nd. on Sunday. If only your legs were a little longer Robert, you would have been able to run the stairs better. Not too bad for a 13 year old though :-)

Julie won Cap City on Saturday and Kirtland on Sunday. What can I even say anymore?? Wow?? That's not even worthy anymore, maybe more like "YOUR HIGHNESS"............

Shawn was 3rd. in the A race on Saturday,Rudy and Jeff were strong as always this weekend with Rudy, Jeff and me taking the top 3 spots Saturday and Derek taking 4th, rounding out a Lake Effect sweep, nice job guys.

Great weekend.