States

Went down to Yellow Springs Saturday morning, it takes almost 4 hours to get there from my house so we headed out about 10:00 am to get there for about 2:00 pm to ride the course, check lines and do a few hot laps before settling into our motel room, get some food and hang out with family and friends for the rest of the evening. The course was hard and twisty with two short sand sections some gravel, two sections of singletrack and one set of barriers along with a couple of deceptively hard inclines. I raced the Cat.3 Mens 35+ Masters. They kinda lumped all the Cat.3's together which was the Open, 35 and 45+ Masters for a total of about 63 racers. They started us about 10 seconds apart and soon we were all toghether. We were second to go off and we mixed with the Open 3s and soon the 45+ fast guys were in the mix too, there were alot of guys out there. After all the bottleneck and logjams cleared we all got into our rythyms and it was racing as usual. I finished 9th. overall and 7th. Ohio rider in the 35+ group, but never felt like I had "good" legs. I think I'm ready for the season to be over. I think my body is telling me that all racing and training that I have did this year has caught up with me and rightly so, it's hard to keep on going month after month without much of a break. I need a battery recharge!

Tony did a helluva job in the Elite race. He finished 12th. overall and 10th. Ohio rider and still in the money. Matt was 2nd and Shawn 3rd. in a hella fast race with veteran road and cross racer John Card taking the win. Scott finished 4th in the Cat.4 Mens 35+ race just barely off of the podium for his first State Champs race, nice race man.

Last race of the season for Tony, Scott and me this weekend at Boughton Farm. We will still ride the cross bikes on the nursery roads after cross season but we are also looking forward to finding some new and exciting running and hiking trails to train on this winter, but just not at a Zone 5 pace.

See everyone this weekend.

Good races, Not so good races

Kirtland Park is an awesome cyclocross venue. The spectating is great from just about any part of the course, especially from the top of the ampitheater when seated on the benches looking down on the racers making their way up from the bottom through the top and then back down again . You all know those benches, you have probably sat on them before at one time or another. Well I was really thinking about taking a seat on one of them at about the midway point of the race on Sunday. I enjoyed the climb to the top of the ampitheater and the tight lefthand corner at the top, it was technical and fun, but I seriously think if we would have continued to go straight and make the left past the benches and onto the sidewalk, I just might have stopped and grabbed a seat and became a spectator. I love this course and have did fairly well on it in previous races, but that wasn't the case this past Sunday. I could tell early on in the day that I wasn't going to have a good race. I climbed decent and rode the course well I just didn't have much power for some reason. It wasn't that I was blown anerobically I just couldn't put out the power necessary to be competitive, for whatever reason I dont know, it was just one of those days, I think we've all been there before. That's why I really appreciate the good days and the decent races that I have because thats what make me come back for more.

Congrats to all that raced and especially to Matt Weeks who is racing in another stratosphere right now. It's awesome to see how he has progressed in the past few years, hopefully he will only get stronger and faster as time goes on.

Just another quick note, SINCERE APOLOGIES go out to anyone that feels that they were shorted a lap in their race. There were unintentional timing errors and we do apologize for that.

We appreciate each and every racer that comes out and races and supports our series and we do not want anyone to feel that they did not get their money's worth at each race.

We see a Team Lake Effect timing clock on the start finish line for next season though......

Ohio State Championship races in Yellow Springs outside of Dayton this weekend, and don't forget about our Series Finale at Boughton Farm on December 6th.

Later everybody.

KSU Main CX

Beautiful weather graced us for race #7 in our Bike Authority / Lake Effect Racing CX series held at the Kent State Main Campus, Allerton Sports Complex. We had 130 racers total for all events and some big fields. We had racers from Pennsylvania and Indiana show up as well, thank you all for coming out and supporting, we hope everyone enjoyed the course in a demented sort of way.......

In the 55 man B field Robert was 8th overall and Scott was 13th. Both Robert and Scott raced strong and finshed the race in a sprint finish, great stuff guys! Kevin Ward made a race appearance and did very well. He was on the work team both Friday and Saturday and still raced and looked good. It was awesome to see you racing again Kevin, hope you finish out the season.

The 33 racer A field once again was stacked and very fast, but we had 3 Lake Effect teammates in the top 10. Shawn was 3rd. Kyle, 7th. and Tony was 8th. I had a decent race but crashed which cost me some positions once again that I wasnt able to regain, but I still managed to finish 19th. and on the same lap as the leaders. I think the racing this year is extremely harder and faster than in previous years. It could be combination of coaching plans along with the use of Power meters etc., but I do know I'm being pushed harder than ever before, (which is a good thing) I feel as long as I can still hang on in this race and be called "old man Marut" thats okay by me......

Next up is Kirtland Park this Sunday. See everyone this weekend.

Good weekend

Did alot of riding this weekend starting on Friday. We rode Friday and Saturday on the road for about 100 miles then today we rode at Kent State dialing in the CX course. Ideal weather this weekend so we had to take advantage, not too many sunny 70 degree days in November.

Weekends really fly by don't they?

Indian Summer

weekend it appears to be, which means being outside, riding and such. Yesterday Scott and I got out with Jim Behrens for a great ride, I ended up with 45 miles and the reason for that was I rode to Scott's and then we rode to Jim's, did our ride, rode back to Scotts to hook up a computer on my CAAD9 and then I rode home for a total of 45 miles. Great day yesterday too.
We're headed out again today on the road to take full advantage of the nice weather and tomorrow we're going to hit up the cross course at KSU and also do a little course work to boot. I don't think there will be too many nice weekends like this left this year so we might as well use em while we can.

We're signed up for the State CX Championships which is being held at John Bryan State Park in Yellow Springs near Dayton this year instead of Columbus. We signed up early so hopefully we'll get a good start spot. I'm racing in the Mens 35+ Cat.3 instead of the 45+. I did pretty good at Harbin in this group with a not so good starting position, so I'll give it another go in this field and see what happens with a better start.

Looking to get a new TT / Triathlon rig for next season. Headed to Bike Authority after our Kent ride on Sunday to do some business with the Big Cheese. Hopefully all will turn out well.

Catch ya later.

Who let the chickens out?

Thats what I want to know. On the last lap of round 2 at Bretts today the chickens were out and running all over the place and I almost hit one of em. Heck, if it wasn't for that I mighta won!

Seriously hard race for me today. I think I burned all my matches yesterday and didn't have much in the tank for today, not to mention my back was on fire from the first couple laps on til the end of the race, actually I heard quite a few saying their backs were hurting. Lots of great competition today too. We had a good showing again and took the win (Shawn) Matt 2nd. and Tony 6th. great job you guys!! Robert was 3rd. in the Killer B's and Scott was 7th.

We have an off week this week and I need it to recharge the batteries. After that we only have 4 more races, 3 of ours and the State Champs then its slow comfortable stuff for a while, lookin' forward to it too.

Chagrin River Challenge CX A Race

It was good racing today on Brett's course in Bainbridge. The course was muddier than hell though with a major mud pit leading into singletrack that lead us into another small stream/ditch that was muddier than hell too, it wasn't bad though because you could ride through it and feel like you were going somewhere, rather than just spinning your wheels.

I feel like I had a good race minus the few bobbles that I had in the singletrack. One of them caused me to loose at least three spots due to me performing an endo after I ran into a big course cone right in front of the scorers tent, I should have gotten a few more points in the overall standings just for doing that #10 somersault off the bike. I had to put my chain back on after I unjammed it from the 3rd. eye and that casued me quite a bit of time right there, but oh well, others were having problems of their own too.

I ended up racing with a strong group of riders and we kept attacking each other throughout the race dropping a few here and there only to have them catch back on in a different section of the course. In the end Dave Steiner and I were together for the last lap and I knew if I could keep it upright in the singletrack we could battle it out to the line. My idea was to run the last ditch crossing right before the finish and go to the opposite side of Dave and possibly get back on quick, clip in and nail it to the finish. We had taken the right side of the ditch pretty much the whole race and Dave was leading up to the ditch so I went left, dismounted, jumped the ditch and quickly glanced over at Dave to see him riding it and slightly bobble. I remounted and missed my pedal and bobbled myself and by then Dave was back on and charging hard for the line, Yes, I heard him. We drag raced through the muddy section before the finish racing side by side but Dave puts out a little more wattage than I do and came across the finish a bike length ahead of me. That was great racing Dave, nice job!

Tony started fast with a great start and held 3rd. position for most of the race until Dan Quinlan passed him in the pwer section and held 3rd. for the rest of the time. Tony finished 4th and Shawn 5th, both of them in the $, great job everyone.

Today were back at Bretts for round two. Now that the equipment and gear is all clean it's time destroy everything again, we just have to keep plenty of quarters handy for the spray car wash.

See everyone on Sunday.