Chagrin Cross Day 2

Much better day for me today at Chagrin. The B field was loaded and large and when Go was said I didn't get the best jump I've ever had. I was sitting about 8th or 9th for a bit when I made a move to get to the group of 5 that was ahead of us. I bridged to that group and sat on for about a lap until I recovered. On lap 2 on the straight-a-way in the field I jumped the group and established a gap which I hoped would stick and was also hoping that I didn't go too early. I buried myself on lap 3 to get a gap on the 5 man group and also tried to bridge to the 2 man lead group. I had to recover a bit but kept my pace steady and would jump out of each corner and ride the flats strong. I rode the techy sections pretty fast and managed a bobble free race. With 2 to go I was gaining on 2nd since the 1-2 group had split and we both picked up the pace and I wasn't able to catch him. Paul Donatelli (Stark Velo) was the 2nd place guy and he pretty much has the overall B series won with 3 races left to go in the NEOCX series and I can see why, he's fast and a good technical rider. I'm not sure of who won today race but he raced for Pro Bikes and my hats off to him for a great fast race. I managed to roll in for 3rd and in the money since Brett pays to 5 deep in the A's and B's.

Julie was 3rd in the womens open for her 2nd podium in as many days. In the A race Johnny P. was 5th, Tony, Rudy, Jeff C and Robert all raced hard and had strong finishes.

A HUGE shout out to Brett Davis and his parents for hosting this great weekend event again this year and for all the organization, course set up, etc, Thank You All!

Next weekend is Spin's Cross Your Heart race, see you all there.

Chagrin Cross Day 1

Lined up with the large B field somewhere in the middle and when the "GO" signal went off I worked my way to near the front pretty quick. I was 5th going into the barriers on the first lap and we were moving pretty fast. I had a hard time unclipping with my right foot and when I finally did it was too late and I smashed into the first barrier with my foot. I almost walked over the barriers after that and it took me a while to finally get back to speed again after getting passed by a few ghouls and gobblins, damn thy ankle! Anyhow I kept it at a steady pace for the rest of the race and tried to stay close to Brian Ramsey who had a great race, rode technically sound and did not have any crashes on this twisty, sometimes slippery course.

I sprinted it out at the end for a top 10 finish and enjoyed "racing". I'm hoping for a better result on day 2 that is if my ankle will allow it. Tony did well in a hard fought battle to finish 8th in the A race, Robert around 12th, with Rudy finishing 6th. and Proppe in 3rd. Nice racing you guys, it was fun to watch for a change.

Julie was 2nd in the womens Open and Lori Erwine (Robert's Mom) was 3rd in the womens C, her first race of any kind since before Shimano came out with STI shifters.........Great job Lori!

More to report later on this evening.

P.S. in case your wondering what's up with the costume, the race was a Halloween costume race and if you didn't wear one you would get a :30 penalty.................

Old school cross

Check this out, this is definitely not your weekend dirt crit race. I wonder how many would come out to race these?

Cyclocross, 1950s-style

No racing

for me this weekend. I rolled my ankle pretty good again on Wednesday on our first group trail run in the North Chagrin Reservation and it's still pretty sore. It's not that bad of a sprain, maybe around a grade1, 2, I can walk on it and I can ride and put good power to the pedals but I can't dismount and run on it yet. It's very early and I'm not expecting it to heal in just a few days so I'm going to bag the Elyria race this weekend so it'll be good to go for Brett's two day race over Halloween weekend.

I did go out on a nice road ride this afternoon into Kirtland Hills and did some climbing. I ended up with 45 miles and climbed Kirtland Chardon, Mentor, Hermitage, Mitchell's Mills and Morley. A couple swim workouts this weekend with another bike possibly and that'll be good stuff.

Hope everyone races well this weekend in Louisville and Elyria and good luck to you all.

See you all next weekend.

Creek Cross

Nice job by Kevin Kimmich and his friends the Bartels for allowing us all to invade their property all day. The course utilized the whole property and I don't think that there could have been any more turns put in, it was one helluva hard course with a gravel climb and a grassy/muddy field section that kinda sucked the life out of the legs. The Lemans style start was interesting and without a doubt the best and only way to start this race. Everyone jumped the gun and sprinted to their bikes in a wild frenzy. I stayed off the back not wanting to jamb anyone up through the spiral of death once we all got going. As it was we were running the first lap through the spiral with bikes hitting folks in the head and alot of pushing and shoving going on, kinda reminded me of a triathlon swim start. Once through the sprial it was so strung out already all you could do was try your best to hold the wheel in front of you and not slide out or bobble in one of the thousand corners and if you did your race was over before it even started, as was my situation.........I managed only one slide out but by the time I got through the spiral at the beginning I would say that the leaders were at least 1/4 of a lap ahead of me and with the caliber of racers that were in the race it wasn't going to be long before they came roaring by.

I managed to hold Matt and Paul off until lap 9 of 10 then Lynn pulled the plug on me and told me to take a seat. I snuck off in the weeds where no one saw me and laid down for about 10 minutes till I was able to see somewhat clearly again. My contact was stuck up in my eyelid from about lap 2 and was burning like hell. I tried to get it out after the race but couldn't....not only did I get my ass kicked in this race, I thought I was starting to go blind too!

Proppe once again kicked it for 3rd and Matt got 2nd. with Paul Martin winning. Tony was in a fight with Brent all race long and got 8th. There were only 24 in the A race but it was full caliber with the local top guns present. I came to a final conclusion during this race that I have been kicking around for some time now. I'm just not as strong of a cross racer as I once was and the A race is above my abilities...I'm moving down the B's for the rest of the series so I'm able to *race* and just not hold on for dear life like I have been doing lately. Next season, hopefully there will be a separate Masters race aside from the A's and B's. It works well in other series and especially in the Cincinnati races and not to mention it will thin out some of the B field that can't race in the A's for the same reason as me.

Props go out to all of my Lake Effect team mates in all races, you guys and gal did a great job, I'm proud to have you all as friends and to be able to race with you all.

Elyria cross this weekend......should be a better day!

Peace

UCI Cincinnati

Beautiful, hot as hell weekend for cyclocross down in the tri state area. Friday we raced in Kentucky at Devou Park where we raced the last 3 years. The course was on the other side of the park this year and none of the previous course was used. This was the hardest most hilliest cross course I have ever raced on, not to mention it felt like holding onto a jackhammer for nearly an hour. The course was extremely dry and bumpy and did I mention hilly? I do believe there was not a flat section on the course and all the corners were either uphill or downhill off camber stuff. I'm not complaining because it was a different course to race on and the folks that set it up did a tremendous job and for that I'm very appreciative. I managed to finish 8th in the Cat.3 Masters 45+ group which I wasn't very happy with, I probably should have been since my cross legs are just now coming into form. I thought Saturday would be a better day.

Saturday we moved North to Middleton and raced in Sunset Park, again where we have raced the past three years. This year they changed up the course a bit and it had a really sweet flow to it with some technical twists. We raced again with the huge Cat.2-3 group and Masters 35-45 Cat 3's combined for a total of almost 160 racers on the course at once. First lap was nuts. I worked my way up fairly quick and had good legs. Passed alot of people and was riding strong but could only manage a 7th in the Masters 45+. I rode technically sound for both days so far for the most part (a few bobbles on Friday) and was pretty happy with my skills, just have to work my way up a little better and get more aggressive if I want a podium spot which I was totally capable of. Oh, got a serious case of cross lung going on too by the way.

Sunday was the last day at Harbin Park where I rode to a 5th. overall in the Cat.3 Mens 35+ race last year. We lined up with the 2-3's and Masters combined again and when the gun went off I managed to get in the middle of the chaos and keep my bike up amid a few nasty crashes early. My legs were feeling fine for the third day of hard racing and I kept the pressure on. I kept hearing the announcer say that I was sitting in 3rd. and Julie and Lynn kept telling me the same. I was carving the corners pretty fast and jumping hard out of them, riding and running the sand sections good as well, everything was going to plan in this race and I was getting excited as the race was on the last lap. I bridged up to a Cat.2-3 guy running through the uphill sand section and we stayed together through the twists before the downhill sand section. He entered the sand before me and was rippin, I was right behind and all of a sudden he stacked it just as he exited, I was just a few feet behind him and didn't have time to veer off anywhere and as he was down I hit him. My bike and I went crashing hard to the ground but I got up within seconds, grabbed my bike, jumped on it and took off around the corner. The front end washed out under me and I went hard into the tape with a punctured front tire. Guys came flying past me as I was running my bike to the pit only to find the front wheel gone......Tony had a flat too. Day over for me, but by the time I got to the pit I had probably lost 5 places anyway, so another lesson learned, two sets of wheels or, two bikes. I had third locked up on the third day of racing which I felt the best, but oh well, that sucks but thats the way it goes.

Team did well and it was a great weekend with everyone. Proppe and Julie kicked it and locked up the podium. Everyone else was in a fight all three days, congratulations everyone. Team Lake Effect represented very well!

Up next is Creek Cross this weekend in Solon. See you all there.

Applefest recap

608 runners in the 5k, wow! Temps. were perfect, 48*, light winds and clouds. Got a good warm-up of about a mile along with 3 openers and striders. We lined up and had to wait for about 10 minutes before the gun went off so everyone cooled down somewhat, so it was all relative there.

Once we took off the front row absolutely sprinted off at 500 mph and Tony was in the group.

I ran a little more conservatively and ran the first mile at 5:45 since the return was going to be slower and I wanted to have gas in the tank for a strong finish. Reached the turnaround and started the terraced uphill run back to the finish. Reached the 2 mile mark at 12:11 and the hills are starting to kick in a little more now. I was running the hills pretty strong and keeping the pace consistent on the false flats until the next one. Doug and I, and three others were all running together until the 1/2 mile to go when Doug made his move. He attacked and took another younger guy with him and I couldn't match his pace since I was redlined at this point. I did pick the pace up a little and slightly gapped the other two guys that were with me, not knowing that one of them was in my 45-49 age group. I knew one was younger but I still wanted to finish strong and get as high a placing as I could. As we reached the left hand turn back onto Main Street with probably 3/10 of a mile to go I started my sprint and brought the other guy with me that was in my age group. We gapped the other runner and sprinted it out to the finish with me taking it by once second! Totally spent, we almost collapsed as the volunteers cut our chip off our shoe. We shook hands and congratulated each other and went our own way. When we got our awards was when we realized we were fighting for 1st in our age group.

I ended up winning the age group, finished 5th master and 19th overall. The course mapped out just slightly less than 3.2 miles, meaning I averaged a 6:13 mile for a harder than it looked course and as Doug said "it's no P.R. course"

Doug had a great race and won his age group, was 15th overall and 4th master with a mile average of 6:10. Tony won his age group and was 7th overall and averaged a 5:45 mile.

This coming weekend is UCI Cincinnati, bring on more hurt!