velocb

Young Man Winter

2012-01-15T20:53:00.001-08:00

Ice World has no rules. As we all know. I like most sane people have some rules. One of those rules is no riding under 20 degrees. I also hate the trainer. Like viscerally hate it. I don't know how people do it. Frankly riding the trainer for extended periods of time is wayyy more brutal than riding outside. So when Andy Huff (picture above) called me out on my own supposedly Hardman fb page and on twitter I pretty much had to show. You lose all your Hardman status if you don't show up for your own ride right? The Garden Gnome said 10 degrees. But it looked sunny. Andy tweeted that he was dressed and heading to Cutler. No turning back now. I got my self all jacked up listening to Sean Paul Temperature. About 20 times....

Put on ALL my clothing. I was a bit worried about my gloves but whatever. How bad could it be? I rolled out and it wasn't that bad. Sun was shinning. Sure it was cold. But it wasn't that bad. On my way to Cutler I saw a pack of teenage girls walking wearing just hoodies. No hats. No jackets. Hoodies. Uggs and sweats. Yeah you think you are Hard. Not even close my friend. Townie girls are wayyyy tougher than you trust me. I laughed a bit inside and rolled over the hill to PTC. I got there wicked early. Not a great thing when its 10 degrees and windy. One rule of winter I do stick with is keep moving. As long as you are moving you can't freeze to death. Pretty sure that was in Jack London's Call of the Wild. Or maybe its keep moving so the wolves don't get you. What ever. I was an art major. So I go into Cutler and search out the euro chutes. The ground was frozen and fast. Found the sickest chute yet. Rolled back to the parking lot and was greeted by about 5 police cars, an ambulance and two Firetrucks. Ahhh the party doesn't start til the cops show up.

Andy was boxed in by what looked like either a.) Dog Walker road rage b.) Drunk hikers c.) an old lady who went for brake and hit accelerator. Either way a car got t-boned in the parking lot that defied all logic. All the policemen and the poor guy who's SUV was just jacked up just looked at the crime errr accident scene and shook their collective heads. Luckily they were all wearing their helmets or they would have deserved it cause driving cars is inherently dangerous...

Anhyoo. Two other hearty souls arrived. In all the excitement I started getting all Hypothermic so I jumped in the team car. Should I mention that Andy had four rolls of course tape sitting in his car. Yeah the King of Bandit cross is ready to occupy your park at a moments notice....be afraid. The Occupy CX movement is coming to a park near you sooner than you can imagine.

They finally got me out of the car after much protest. They weren't buying I already did my ride. You guys go ride I am going to listen to dancehall music here in the car...They dragged me out and put me on my bike. Mostly cause they didn't know the trails. I lead out and go into the park towards the Island. Andy and I are chatting a bit. I stop to shake out my now frozen claws of hands so I can use my brakes and notice its just me and Andy. Hmm that is weird. The other two roll up with a story about a stick in a derailler. If my brain wasn't so frozen solid this would have raised red flags. Cutler is a derailler killer. Not sure why. But it has a nasty reputation as a ripper of deraillers. I head towards the rooty stuff. Clean the crazy rooted camber. I hear some "noises" behind me and just hope no one has maimed themselves too severely.

I get into the flow once again. Just railing the turns. Get out on the board walk and over to the Island. I assumed everyone was right behind me. I stop to try and get feeling in my hands. And no one is behind me. This is starting to shake out like a bad horror movie. Finally one rider appears. We talk about how cold it is. We wait. And wait. Then head back. At the other end of the board walk we see a lone toe cover. WTF? Has the Yeti devoured Andy and the other dude? Holy crap. So now we are in full back track mode looking for blood trails and any remains. After almost getting all the way back to the main trail I see Andy coming towards us. Looks like the late rider snapped his chain and they went back to the parking lot.

I take them back out to the Island and get in a nice hot lap. Then give them high fives and say my goodbyes. I jet home as fast as I can and eat all the food in the house. I still have a wicked Ice Cream headache. But all in all an awesome day on the bike. Thanks Andy for once again getting me stoked to ride bikes!

The Way of the Bike

2012-01-13T14:24:00.001-08:00

Roger Cadman and I battling it out. We look like a kind of Yin and Yang of cx. Or maybe the Half-Moon cookie of cross. It was so much fun...photo by Tiffany Remy

The bike cannot cure cancer. The bike cannot save the world. The bike is not everything. The bike can transform its rider. And it can build communities. And it can be a time machine that even if for only one brief moment of flying can fix everything. This post was going to be called "The Kids are Alright" And it was going to be an homage/shoutout to all the riders, mostly young who have taken Ernest Gagnon under their wing the last two cross seasons.

I don't know how much you all know about Ernest. I didn't really know much about him til recently. I knew his story a bit and knew he was a good photographer. But the impact these young men (mostly) have had on his life is nothing short of amazing. We talk incessantly about how to grow cross and fight over the most minor details. Its insane actually. What gets lost in the conversation is that like lots of movements cross has its own life force right now. The growth is happening in a viral way now. Look at how many women are coming into the sport. People can say they have contributed to the growth but in the big picture it is the community that has made it happen. Not one person or event or team.

One of Ernest's goals other than to get his health back was to race a cross race. Ernest is struggling with some lifelong health issues. He is trying to lose weight by changing his lifestyle. A big part of that is cycling. He has done an amazing job! He has already lost a ton of weight. And is getting his health back. But he still has a ways to go. I think he got kind of bummed that he didn't get to actually race at one of the races this year. He really shouldn't have been bummed as what he has accomplished already is beyond belief. But his friends and he came up with an idea. How about a cross relay race? And thus the Ernest Gagnon Bitter Cold Showdown was born!

A bunch of people got together and made it happen. Andy Huff is now and forever the King of Bandit racing! Typically a Bandit race is show and go. Ie., show up maybe throw a few cones down and do a flash mob cx race. But be prepared to flee from cops, angry dog walkers or groundspeople. Last Sunday the same day as Nats Andy created the Occupy Cyclocross Movement. Andy talked about the race for weeks. He found a venue. He invited everyone. We all showed up and it was like Deja Vu of Shedd Park. I rolled up and saw step in stakes and course tape. On the WHOLE course. I mean that is unheard of. That takes balls made of unobtanium. But sometimes when you want to do something Bandit you go big. And everyone including the police assume its legit. Andy, Ernest and Abel set up a sick course. Like seriously fantastic. Turns. Lots and lots of turns. And a bunch of offcamber and some sketchy stuff. Two drop ins and some great use of the broken down remnants of this old park. There were also two short cuts. The idea afterall was not to do a race that crushed everyone but that was for beginners or those new to the sport.

The NECX is awesome. But there is a piece of the puzzle we are missing. Say all you want about juniors being the future of cyclocross but beginners and women are the future. End of story. No beginners. No future. And doing it as a relay makes it so much less intimidating. Teams of 5 were formed up. About 40 people showed up to race. Cosmo came up from CT, a gang of ECV came down, Geekhouse, Newbury Comics, Hup, Mystic Velo, a ton of riders. And it was like the word got out to bring a new person to try cx. So many new faces that were willing to give it a go. Ernest and Cosmo were on our team of Abel, Parke and Myself. A lemans start was decided. Batons were issued. And they were enormous. I had a lot of trouble with the baton....I kept fearing I would crash and it would need to be surgically removed from my body. A bunch of us were on singlespeeds. It was so awesome seeing people having such a good time

Soy Sauce Jesus...or Pikachu not sure which...

The highlight of course was Ernest taking two laps! He did it. Respect to Ernest. And to Cosmo and to all the kids who supported Ernest in his dream to race cross. I really believe this is the future of beginner cx. Whether we do it as a "clinic" or as a race series I think is irrelevant. What it does it brings new people into the sport and doesn't scare them off. We really could build it into a cool thing. I wanted it to go for 24 hours and have bonfires and kegs of beer but you all know I am sick like that ; )

The other highlight was my final lap. I got to race my great friend Roger. I love that man. If there is anything the bike does is it opens you up to so many amazing people. And it forges friendships that you just couldn't build in any other way. I think it happens in surfing and a few other culty sports/activities. But cycling and cross especially are something special. Roger got me at the line by a bike length. And Susan technically beat us. Well she beat us pretty badly actually...

Smithers!!!!!!

2012-01-05T13:56:00.001-08:00

HUGE Hup! Hup! to our brother Smithers for his win at Nats in the 40+ yesterday! Non-championship sure but he's a champion to me. Look at that Hup style right there! Congrats Chris seriously so stoked you rocked it you made all of Hup proud!

You Got This

2011-12-27T17:14:00.001-08:00

Cross season goes by in the blink of an eye. This time of year for me is always about rebuilding and reflecting. No PCXSD (Post-cross season depression) for me this year. Season was so great and just flowed right into mtn biking and cross riding in the woods with friends that to be honest I didn't even miss the weekly freak outs to get ready for each weekends race. What that has been replaced with is arguably vastly superior. But I do miss the NECX. And the whole intensity of those racing weekends. Obviously its that which hooks us all.

I have been living and racing in New England for seven years now. Flew by. But man how its changed since I have been home. Night and day. This season more than anything else has been the season of the 3/4 women. Sure there have been other things that have occupied our cx minds. See what I did there? Never mind. But nothing has been a bigger story than the huge growth on the women's side of cyclo-cross. It really started last year when we had 100 women line up at Gloucester. When 100 women line up at New England World's you better take note. Cause it means something. And that momentum carried right through to 2011. Cxmagazine and Verge collaborated on a series of articles featuring the 3/4 women of the NECX coined "You Got This" It became a buzzword, mantra, rallying cry and movement.

There are lots of reasons for this growth. But that isn't what this blog post is about. This blog has always been about Hup NE. Its my personal love fest to all things cx and Hup. I have never been shy about that. Some people's blogs are narcissistic exercises in their own self worth. To me my self worth if you will is tied into how I can help others. Whether its helping others fall in love with cross or literally helping others out to be able to race cross. At this point in the game I get way more satisfaction seeing a friend do well in a cx race than my own actual race performance. I love racing don't get me wrong. But like lots of things seeing things through the lens of someone new to a sport renews your own love affair with it. And it helps you to not get bored or burnt out. Focusing on your self is a one way trip to burnout. I guarantee it.
But just as the NECX has seen a huge growth in women in cx. Hup NE has seen our numbers grow big time. We currently have 10 women on Hup. They are some of the most active members of our team. They bring so much energy and fierceness to the team it is contagious. I am always skeptical of a bike team that only has one woman. Or no woman. Really? Why? How can you have a club in any pursuit and not include women as part of the equation? It boggles the mind. This season not only saw growth but some really serious competition. They are basically what the killer b's were 3 years ago. Tough, solid teamwork, PRO as hell, and supportive of their teammates and the other racers. Sure there were some growing pains this year. And some stuff that really needs to be sorted out. Most of it just revolves around the fact that women's racing needs to be taken seriously. The women's field can't be relegated to having bad start times, mixed fields with jrs, inconsistent race times, and unequal prizes or prize money...or lack of prizes all together. Basically its time to give them the respect they have earned.
I think I have said it before but I will say it again. So much of my introduction to Hup was via two of Hups OG. OG being Original Ganstah obviously. Meg Bilodeau and Kerry Combs were and continue to be two of my greatest mentors in the cx game. They have both been great about helping me get better at cx. And mtn biking. Kerry introduced us all to the Hupcake. This can either be the greatest moment in Hup history or a scourge on cyclocross. Still don't know why USAC hates something as nice as a Hupcake but what do I know about growing the sport of cyclocross...they pretty much know what is best for cross right? Yeah Nationals in Wisconsin in January sounds like a great idea. But I digress...Back to the ladies. So what started as a small but really influential duo grew into 10 riders in a few short years. Lots of women made this happen. And I am so thankful to them. Sara Bresnick helped so much. Even though she went on to start her own team and race for cxresults.com she had a huge influence on me and Hup NE. Joy Stark, Michele Smith and Jenn Urguhart played really big roles in creating a team that women wanted to be a part of.
We have grown by adding friends. Hup always has grown by one mantra. "One Hup Finds Another." This has helped us to avoid some of the pitfalls of other teams. We have very little drama because we all know we are in this for each other. Not having sponsors makes us basically become our own sponsor. Every tailgater we throw is sponsored by us. No outside money we do it for the love of it. We sponsor each other. And that is how you build a solid team. The other way you do it is with competition. And make no mistake about the women of Hup they bring it. Every race. There was a picture from Gloucester 2010 where Michele and Meg were running up the hill leading to the beer garden. The looks on their faces were so fierce it was incredible. And you could tell they were battling each other. Not just racing but fighting it out. It was awesome.
I am beyond proud of all the women of the NECX whether they are on Hup or not. I am of course beyond grateful to have such amazing teammates as Meg, Kerry (know riding for Zank but always Hup in my mind!), Michele, Joy, Leah, Kristina, Roni, Jane, Elaine, Shirl, Kim, Ana and Lucia (who's team transfer papers are not coming through as quickly as I had hoped!)
The women on Hup have helped me so much its not even funny. I mean in some ways I have learned more from the women over the last three years than men. Its funny. Women are tougher than guys. Its true. They will not bullshit you. When you wuss out and don't ride a woodbridge they will lay into you. Sara still gives me sooo much shit if I dismount in LPR. I can't help it. Some of those bridges are sketchy as hell. How she rides them the way she does still boggles my mind. Her good friend Jane snapped me out of this woodbridge pity party I would have every mtn bike ride. I still suck but every time I ride a wood bridge I have Sara and Jane to thank. Guys (well other than Colin...) will let it slide. I have no idea why. For how hard we are about so many things in the woods what ever happens is fine. When its 20 degrees out and you don't want to get out of the car they will kick you out and tell you to get on the line and race!

The women on Hup have also helped me focus. Its been very well documented how bad my ADD can get. They are not afraid to crack the whip on me and get me to focus on the task at hand. Michele Smith has bailed me out of so many things its not even funny. Her leadership and experience have helped me and Hup out so much. I am so grateful she is a part of our Hup NE family. She really is the main reason I was able to race Night Weasels this year. Meg and Michele held down the fort at reg and then did the awards while I was out playing in the mud.
Joy and Roni not only bring a ton of style to the NECX and Hup but they have taken the HUPcake and cranked it up to 11. Who knew a.) cupcakes could taste so good and b.) they could look so good. Both ladies have taken baking and made it an art form. Some of my greatest memories of racing cross are taking a handup from one of them of their amazing cupcakes.

Kim moved recently to the MAC which was a bummer as we missed her so much this season but I have to say thanks to twitter and fb we were able to live vicariously through her and her amazing season. She rocked it! It was a battle and we are sooo proud of her that she came in 2nd in the 3/4 women in the MAC!

Leah in so many ways is like a partner in grime to me. She is such a badass and so tough she just pushes and inspires me to be half the badass she is. Having her on our 24 hour team up at Great Glen meant so much to me. Sounds stupid but its true. At events like 24HOGG you need people who are tough. Leah is very tough. One of the toughest people I know. But sooo creative and such a positive force. She probably doesn't even know how much she has inspired me over the years even before we were teammates. But its true. I feel really lucky to be able to call her my teammate and friend.

We have added some great new women to the team this season. Elaine (aka Tri Girl Pink) came on the team late in the season. She is good friends with a bunch of my friends and it made so much sense when she asked to be on the team. Again another super creative, fun and talented women who also is such a great competitor. And to top it off she introduced us to the Hupwich....Kristina and Shirl have been another great surprise this year. Two incredible women who have become good friends and Hup in such a short amount of time. Cross is amazing in that it bonds teammates and friends like no other sport that I have participated in. I am not sure what it is about cross. To me its the ultimate team sport. Not in the actual contest but in the build up and the preparation. You need teammates and friends. In the course of a cross season crazy things happen. You need to have each others backs. Whether its to have a teammate chase you all over the course with a Lion of Flanders flag zip tied to a hockey stick screaming his lungs out for you to go hahhdah or for a friend to run your wheels to the pit. It takes a team to make a cx season be a success. And for my money Hup is the greatest team on the planet. Thank you the women on the NECX and especially the women of Hup for bringing it every weekend this cx season. You inspired me, got me stoked, made me freak out, taught me about Power Animals, and showed me there is a better way. Hup! Hup!

To DQ or not to DQ?

2011-12-18T19:09:00.001-08:00

For the record I always stop at Dairy Queen I love that soft serve. But I am obviously talking about another type of DQ here. Disqualification. And the Icecrisisweasel. Not Dairy Queen. It is a dirty word in my book. It means you cheated. Or did something unsportsmanlike. I may be a lot of things. Fat and slow. Old. Sort of ugly. Totally ADD. But one thing I am is loyal. And a man of honor. For real. I am not even kidding. That means different things to different people. To me in a bike racing context it means riding and racing with class. It means having a higher standard. I don't yell, or swear on a race course. I don't do dirty things. I race hard. I don't mind rubbing elbows etc but I do not create drama like so many other masters racers. I believe in growing the sport by being positive and inclusive.

So I was faced with quite the dilemma as I was staged up at the back of the singlespeed race (that I was helping promote for my good friend Mike Zanconato) and the head official told us we would be DQ'd for taking a handup. Not just beer. Anything. A cupcake. A cookie. He said he'd already DQ'd 13 guys in the 1,2,3 race. This as you imagine was not received well by a bunch of singlespeeders. What the official didn't realize. Or chose to ignore is people were here to race. Whether they took a beer handup or not this race was on. There was a ton of bragging rights on the line. If you win Ice Weasels you have bragging rights for the whole season. And you are a badass. Period

So there was much grumbling. Counter to what the official stated later there was no disrespect towards him at all. He was laughing. Later he made it seem much more serious. It wasn't. How serious can a man in an Elvis costume be? Scary I guess. Well he scared me as it took me the whole race to beat him. But this was the younger Karate expert, hip shaking Elvis not the doped to the gills fried banana sandwich Elvis. The race goes off! 75 singlespeeders pedal their brains out to get the holeshot. I get in a good spot as I had a pretty big gear. Did I mention this was my first singlespeed race? Yeah pretty much. So I am locked in on some guys wheel which I find out maybe isn't the smartest thing with ss. We avoid one big pileup. We come flying down the straight away carve the berm and then come to a screeching halt at the tree as there was a HUGE pileup. I ram some guy in the rear with my brake lever. And then get t-boned from behind. I thought my rear wheel was done! Well not my rear wheel technically as it was The Wilcoxs R-SYS...doooh. I figured all those fancy carbon spokes would now just be shards hanging from a now useless wheel. But to my surprise it was only my brake arm that was jammed under the rim. So I step off and get my act together and get after Elvis! My battle with Elvis becomes epic. And as the laps wore on and my back and legs start killing me from the pain. I say to myself "Self just take a beer feed and get it over with. Make the pain stop." I let Satan have his little 15 minutes to rant about the injustice of how much suffering I was putting my body through and then ignored him. My last thought before getting back to the business at hand was racing singlespeed sober is stupid. Then I stopped the self pity talk and got rad.

I start getting high fives which is really weird. I am like oh yeah HIGH FIVE! Afterwards I found out it was the high five hand up. Oh goodie. No one can be offended or worried that cross will be ruined by high fives I guess. I do my best to finally catch Elvis. Meanwhile a 12 year old ECV rider gets on my wheel right before the sprint to the finish and proves that once again Old Man Power is a lie. 12 year old power is much stronger. Trust me. So I took the high road. I did not get DQ'ed. Streak alive. No DQ's on my permanent record.

But back to dahweasel. Thom Parsons had been getting us worked up all week that it was going to be a mudpit and that it was going to be insane. Or Xtreme! I forget which. Thankfully the mud was not of epic proportions but it was nice and greasy which made it super fun. The course was probably my favorite rendition of dahweasel yet. It was super turny but in a good way. And Kevin had dug out the most badass little Euro Chute on the back section. It was dubbed Bermingham as there was a nice little Berm you hit right after you dropped in. Then a run up and another chute and a ride up. In the 3/4 race I lined up with my good friend Markie Mark. He is pictured above looking like a stone cold killah. Actually we were both pretty much praying we didn't die in the first turn as the 3s have had some issues at the start this season. Noho? Hello people can't we just get a race started without bombs going off? And as we had thought the entire right side of the field at the holeshot looked like something out of Glory. Bodies and bikes flying through the air. We shot left and made it through clean. I think I ran over a dudes arm or his wheel. I didn't look back. Mark and I got in a great groove. We were in a group of 5 or 6. 1 Cambridge rider we knew and that same strong 12 yr old ECV rider. Ok he's not 12. He's probably like 19 or something. But he's wicked fit. Its not right. But in all seriousness he is a really nice kid. So Mark and I are working these guys over a bit and trying to get tactical. Unlike some of my other teammates, cough*Robert*cough, who would rather beat, crash or destroy their own teammate than lose to them. Mark and I were much more interested in beating the other guys in our group. I think we were all locked together for about 5 laps.

With 3 to go. We started feeling the situation out. Mark got to the front before the Euro Chute and got a little gap. As we came out and on the straight away I got a bit nervous. Mark was maybe 100 yards up now. I sat up. I did not want to work to bring CB and ECV up to Mark. Right before the pit Jordan came around and I had to go get on his wheel. Jordan, Me and Nick stayed in contact together for the next three laps. Mark stayed away and I fought as hard as I could but got gapped off with one to go. It was a great race. It felt so awesome to have that tight of racing for pretty much the whole race. I think the officials may have been doing too much work hiding in bushes trying to DQ people for HUPcake handups though. I am pretty sure we did an hour and lap. Not that I am complaining.
But in my mind I was done. I survived the cursed race #13 unscathed. Which is no easy task for me. Ice Weasels has left its toothy mark on me before. So I was glad to be done. I got back to the tailgate and was just stoked to be surrounded by the NECX and having a good time. I pounded a bunch of Moxie sodas, had a ton of steak tips and about a dozen mini-HUPcakes. Then the boys pictured above came looking for me. They wanted to know why I was in street clothing. Ummm you know I am done racing...What are you talking about Baker? They were not going to take no for an answer. So I did a push up contest with NegaCoach to get the blood going, a one eyed dog licked my face and I put my kit back on and got out to the start line of the singlespeed World Championships of New England. That nice man to the right with the frown? Yeah he is your NECX SSCX World Champ. So proud he won. Nothing better than your good friend and team rider of the Sponsors race taking the win.
There are way too many thoughts from dahweasel and this season to put in this post. I will say this singlespeed racing is alive and frigging well in New England thank you very much. It is not going away. And next year it will be bigger than ever. I am so thankful to everyone who made it happen this year. It was amazing. Seeing all the racers just race their hearts out. And battle. And have fun. Its what cross is all about. My personal thoughts from the one race I did? I am hooked. It is so different than geared racing. Night and day. It is not a gearing choice as the haters like to say. You have to flow. It gets to the crux of racing cx well. You can't use your brakes. Like ever. And certainly not in a turn. So it teaches you to really go tape to tape and carry that momentum. And you get in some sick battles because you all basically have the same gear. So its who can pedal harder. And then go even hahhdah. Or who can pedal at 150 rpm! I love it. My ss bike is going to get a lot of action this winter that is for sure.

Ice Weasels itself was amazing. Sure we had police helicopters circling us, and the board of health shook us down a bit. But everyone had fun and was polite and respectful. It may seem like chaos and mayhem to outsiders but its organized chaos and orchestrated mayhem. I bow down to Colin, Thom and Kevin. They worked so hard on this event this year. It was like a mini Noho. For real. And one thing that to me just spoke volumes was a little interaction I had with Thom's Grandmother. For those unfamiliar with the Ice Weasels. Its a working farm. Thom's family owns and runs it. They live there. So in the am as we were getting reg set up and everything rolling. His grandmother comes out. I don't know how old she is maybe 80. She looks out at the race course. She walks the course a bit. She says hi to me and says "this is amazing." Then she asks me and Ryan Kelly and Leah if we want to come inside where its warm. Mindblowing. You do not see that type of grace and warmth much anymore. Here we are for lack of a better word Occupying White Barn Farm. 500 strangers descended on her farm and got their cross on. Its not an out of control frat party its like Woodstock for cross racers.

Andy Huff and Joe from Seven soaking it all up. To my friends and amazing HUP teammates thank you for an incredible cx season. Thank you for Power Animals, NegaCoach, "You Got This", Dahweasel, Flyovers, mudpits, the Death Star, HUPcakes, Smithers and Lazer helmets, handups, Mudstaches, Matt & Mo, Singlespeeds, The Wilcox, Coach Al, Zank and the Sutton MTB Mafia, MegA and JD and the Noho CX Mafia, Old guys who race hard, the 3/4 women of the NECX! Especially the ladies. You ladies are so rad its not even funny. You show me how to race hard every race but still have fun and how to support one another. Thank you for that. Thanks to Roger and Newbury Comics. No one rocks harder. Thanks to Pete for making it rain Glitter. Thanks to Mark the Shark for that lap at VeloCX and for coming back. Thanks to Zank. Huge thanks to Mikey. Thanks for the singlespeed series. It was amazing. Thanks to Rob and Patria at the Ride Studio. You both have done so much for the NECX. Chan and Chanbagger. You two are a dynamic duo. ECV. Where to even start. Paul and Chris? Such good friends and both do so much for the sport. Colin. Dude. Hardest working man in the NECX. And just pro as hell. I have seen the darkside of race promotions. And Colin not only busts his ass but he stays so positive it is amazing. I can't believe the kid is half my age. But for real much respect. Matt Aumiller and the cockroach. Thank you for letting some boring white dude hang out with you hipsters. And don't worry I won't let your dirty little secret out that you are all PHD's and super smart productive members of society. No one reads this blog anyway your secret is safe ; ) Rosey. Gerry. The Ronde. Eli and MVL for keeping the HUP tailgate flames burning bright. Zac Daab, aka the Godfather. Huge thanks to that man for creating HUP and supporting us in the NE, Chris Milliman, Bill Strickland, TJ, JPow. Last but not least my babymomma. Err my smoking hot wife. My wife and kids are everything. You all are my family away from my family but they are everything to me. I owe them big time for letting me go play cx racer from August to December every year. Have a happy holiday and a safe New Year. My New Years promise to you all. 2012 will be filled with more gnar and more radness...promise

We fly high

2011-12-07T05:06:00.000-08:00

Ok this may be my favorite photo of the season! Well of myself. Most photos I see of myself are cringe worthy. I am sooo deep in the pain cave or I have snot bubbles coming out of my nose. I am not really photogenic anyway if you know what I am saying. But this photo! Damn. Our newest teamate Elaine Debititto is not only a great bike racer but an ACE photographer. I have really admired her work for the last couple of seasons. As a racer she puts herself in some great spots to get some great action photos.

But what we have here is one of the things I love about NBX! Those uphill double barriers are amazing. My technical training has pretty much taken a backseat to just riding the bike. I used to get out with the pvc barriers and just do dismounts over and over again. That really was the focus of most of my cx seasons. I prided myself for having that technical piece down. But you know what this season I realized while it is all great to do a perfect cx dismount its a bike race and not a cx dismount show. So I have been riding fast to race fast. But these play to my strengths. You can come in super hot as there is a straight away leading up to the planks. Then you just rail up a little bermy grass hill and fly off!

Probably my best work on the barriers all season long. Made up for my horrible beach runs both days! NBX was an awesome weekend of racing. Thanks Elaine for making look like I am sort of going fast! Hup! Hup!

My ONLY regret with this photo is that I am not rocking some pimp black vernice Sidi Dragons. The old ones I have on don't accent the Lion of Flanders socks or do them justice. Which is so sad. But frankly those socks added sick watts. Even on the beach. I have never heard of running watts. But no one passed me on the beach run on Day 2. It was definitely the socks...

The love of cross

2011-12-05T13:55:00.000-08:00

Lucia and I freaking out about cross! Andrea's win was the most exciting bike race finish I have ever seen in my life. Not even kidding. Photo by Natasha

Falling in love with cross is a beautiful thing. I still remember when it happened to me. It was in Seattle at the Nationals about a decade (or two 1994) ago. God I am old. But back to the falling on love with CX. I traveled with the Ritchey team to help with Shari Kain's attempt to win Nats. Tom was one of the first guys to really bring in some serious talent into and from cross. He brought Europeans over and turned them into mountain bike racers and took athletes like Shari and turned them into solid cross racers. We had such a fun time. And it was really so ahead of its time. I mean think about it. This is 1994 or so. Shari had a crew of 4 people with her to help her be ready. We had a mechanic, a media guy (me) and technical guy. It was pretty badass. And we made the mechanic wear a latex French Maid outfit in the pit. Cross was pretty loose back then. It had a lot of that mountain bike attitude going on. Shari won and it was amazing but it was the elite race that hooked me. I didn't really get to watch the women race as I was helping in the pit and trying to figure out time gaps etc.

I had a front row spot for the men's race and it was amazing. It was a battle between Don Myrah and Jan Weijack. It was really intense. Course was nuts. Fans were going nuts. And I had a bunch of friends in the race as well. And I was hooked. I wanted to do what they were doing. That is how this all got started. On the sand dunes of SeaTac park. Segue to this past weekend. I saw the exact same thing happen right in front of my eyes with my friend Lucia. She started cx this season. She has been kicking ass. And really loves it no doubt. But she fell in love with it this weekend. The picture above might be the exact moment when it happened. After the race I went up to Andrea and congratulated her on her win but I also thanked her. Thanked her for getting my friend to fall in love with cross with her racing.

Deep in the pain cave! Photo by Benjamin Stephens

But its not just the racing that you fall in love with. Its the cross bike itself. My other friend Patria who works with Andrea at the Ride Studio Cafe just got a brand new Honey CX bike. She has been loving it. Not as a race bike but for its ability to take you places that no other bike can. A cross bike can be sooo much fun in the woods just riding along. Its different than a mountain bike. I dig riding a mountain bike but a cross bike in the woods is a whole other experience. You slow down a bit. You check stuff out. Maybe its the big wheels or the geometry of the bike but its just so different. And then you pop out on pavement and its like the nicest road bike you ever had. Sure maybe its a touch slower if you have fat tires on it but it still rides sooo nice. So cool to have two friends so stoked on cross. Coming at it a bit different. You have a non-racer (Lucia) getting all stoked about racing and the competition side of it. Then you have Patria who is a really seasoned road racer finding the other side of it. The cool adventure side of it. That is what makes cross so special. It can really transform you in a way that I don't think any other bike can.

NBX was an amazing weekend. Lucia came up to race it from NYC and that part alone made it one of the best weekends of the race season. We had so much fun. She raced great. Both days were so different. I learned the hard truth that yes you can have a Gentleman's slide on a beach run. Day one I must have lost 5-10 spots each time we ran that 150 yards of sand. Day 2 was a bit more to my liking as far as the course goes. And I got a good pro tip to deal with the sand. I came in each time dismounted and left the bike on the ground. I put it in the little groove closest to the tape and ran with it next to me. It was WAY faster. Not sure why. But it was. Day 2 I held my own in the sand. Both days the racing was soooo fast. It was tight group riding which was something really special. I am really beginning to love those 4-6 man groups were you are battling each other lap after lap. It is a pretty cool feeling to be locked in with the same guys the whole race and see if you can outsmart them or out ride them. My form is finally coming back around after the disaster of October. Its sort of funny as we have one or two weekends left of racing. And one of those races is basically a keg party where a bike race breaks out.

Should be a pretty funny two weeks. I am lighting votive candles and praying to the snow gods. Cause frankly if we don't get snow for dahweasel or Fitchburg I may have to take this late season form on the road to Maddison and frankly no one wants to see that!

Waffe Cross

2011-11-28T05:33:00.001-08:00

Waffle Cross was born out of a desire to ride cross bikes 365 days a year. Not RACE cross bikes but ride them. Yes I get that cross is technically about racing but the bikes themselves as Grant Peterson once so poignantly stated are "do everything bikes." They really are. Yeah you can just be fixated on the racing and good for you. That is awesome. But you are missing a big aspect of what a cross bike can do for you. It can truly end up being a time machine. A core group of us started meeting up at Wheelworks. Andy Huff and Andy Ewas two of the most stylish gentleman cyclists in New England championed it and kept it going. The crew at Wheelworks were/are huge supporters of it. Starr and Brian and everyone who made waffles, brought coffee and led rides built it into this communal thing that moved beyond Battle Road and to an actual cross race at Lowell and then to what I hope is a long standing tradition the Thanksgiving Waffle Cross ride.
This Thanksgiving a small group of us showed up at Elm Bank to partake of the 2nd annual Waffle Cross. I didn't do a hard count but I would say about 20 of us were on hand. A lot of familiar faces and teams representing. It wasn't too cold at all and in no time we all headed out to do The Loop. The Loop is a sick mix of multi use paths, mtn bike trails and roads looping all through Wellesley and South Natick. My good friends Rob and Steen carved this loop out and have shared it with us. It is one of the most revered rides I do. I can't ride it without thinking of Rob and Steen and what a gift it is. Its not to be taken lightly on cx bikes especially covered in wet leaves. And we may have had some collateral damage along the way but I think everyone had a good time. I had to peel off early and didn't get to the waffle portion of the ride but felt so stoked to be able to jump in on a ride like this and then head off on my holiday vacation.

Rob is one of those guys that literally does it all. I have never met a more dedicated man in my life. I stay home with the kids but frankly I am an amateur compared to Rob. He is a cat 1 stay at home dad. I wish I could do half the things he does with his kids with mine. It is mindboggling. Huge respect to that man. And not only is he an amazing dad he is one of the coolest friends I have. Super talented on the bike, amazing photographer and one of those friends who even if you haven't seen them in a while its like you never skipped a beat. Love that man.
Uri getting his hi-viz on. I seriously need to get him a hi-viz Lazer helmet. Only Uri could pull it off. We had a crash not even 2 minutes into the ride. Wet leaves combined with a metal grate and you get the picture. To make matters worse the crashed rider landed in a huge puddle. Soaking her pretty much head to toe. She was tough as nails and just continued on. I would have headed back to the cars and started drinking massive amounts of coffee...

The Wilcox in deep thought. Or ducking my attempts at photojournalism. This is more arty anyway. As always so much fun riding with David.
Valhalla, Mecca you name it. Elm Bank really is a special place. Thank you Steen and Rob for sharing The Loop with the NECX. Thank you to Andy Huff and Andy Ewas for giving us Waffle Cross. And for being the most stylish men in cycling. I wish I had one ounce of the style those two have. Cross season is almost over. The cross RIDING never has to be over.

Welcome to the Jungle

2011-11-23T09:17:00.001-08:00

VeloCX

Its funny how this year Jungle cross has now become Euro cross. I am not being sarcastic at all. I loved it when I read resultsboys post about VeloCX and he described the course as being Euro. What has happened I think is that there are two styles of Euro courses. The fast grass crit style World Cups and Superprestiges and then the Jungle style Euro courses like the GVA Trophy series where all bets are off: Logs, crazy ass descents, woods, dirt, all manner of nastiness to challenge the rider. New England is missing that style of race. We need races where you better buckle up that chin strap extra tight cause its gonna be a street fight to steal a term from the voice of the NECX Richard Fries. I don't know if he has actually said that it just sounds like something he would say. But VeloCX may be my new favorite cross course in all of New England. And NEBC and Katherine Snell did an amazing job with it. If you missed it I feel bad for you. You missed a chance at a real Euro cross course. As the name would imply the race revolved around a velodrome. Not the huge banked style like at Trexlertown but a nice concrete velodrome with a course laid out all around it and through it.
The race started on the velodrome did about a 3/4 of a lap dove into the infield where we had a bunch of nice turns on grass and two sets of double barriers. Back out on the velodrome then a drop off into the woods. Some great woods riding with some insane climbing and descending. Not really insane but compared to all the grass crits we are subjected to it was pretty rad. Then onto a legit BMX pump track with two high walled berms, and numerous crazy ass table tops. The course was in good shape but there were at least two pretty good mud pits and a couple of gravely corners. But to say I was stoked when I walked from the parking lot and saw a full Shimano presence and heard Chris Zigmont over the mic was an understatement. This could seriously be built into a real mainstay of the New England cx schedule. It was also stop number 6 on the Zanconato singlespeed cx series. Most of the singlespeeders were there with a few key absences who chose Cheshire over NH.

I lined up in the 45+ race. The start on the velodrome was mentally pretty challenging for me. I don't road race so being locked in with 40 guys at 25 mph going into the first turn was making my brain want to explode. But in the back of my mind I felt ok as the fast old guys do not do stupid shit. Like ever. We got through into the infield with no incidents. Some separation occurred through all the turns and barriers. I was in with a good group and rode clean the whole race. With two to go I started to unravel a bit and started to bleed some spots. Not in a huge way but enough that I was starting to get the inner voice going. You know the "Master says faster voice..." As I came onto the pump track I noticed Mark McCormack entering it. I thought a minute and was trying to remember a.) how to get lapped by a PRO like a pro b.) how do I avoid taking Mark The Shark out on the high berm and being banished from New England when Mark gave me the gift of one more beautiful lap. He could have passed me with ease. But he sat up and said "Chip get moving don't you want another lap?" Actually I really did. Some races you want them over. Not this one. I could have ridden that loop all day. Literally. It was that much fun. So I answered the call and put down WATTS to get my last lap. Well as fate would have it right as I went back onto the infield I flatted my rear tire. I literally laughed out loud. But you know what. I knew the glue job would hold. The Wicox's glue jobs are bombproof. So I rode the entire lap on a flat rear Rhyno. And it was awesome. Really didn't effect my ability to ride any part of the course. Sure you had to ride a bit lighter but the contact patch was great and the tire drove really well. I finished up last guy on the lead lap. Thanks Mark!
Abel Mr Mudstache himself at VeloCX. I love that man. I really do.

Lowell Shedd Park

Lowell has always been my own personal buzz saw. It rips me to shreds each and every year. But like a lot of races like this I keep going back thinking it will be different. I am not going to lie I want the hard. I want the challenge. If its easy and you are so good at it it doesn't even seem to make you sweat what is the point? That really is what cross is all about for me. My problems at Lowell have always been crashes. I had one of my most epic crashes of all time that first year when the Forest of Lowellenburg was born. I t-boned some dude in hub deep mud at warp speed and flew what must have been 20 feet. Still have the ding on the tt of my Rock Lobster. Then the next year when it was fast and dry I almost killed the tiny Russian. I don't even know what happened in that one. I think I hit gravel and then I just went out of control at about 20 mph heading right for Tasha. She basically went into the fetal position to save her camera. Luckily I laid it down before I hit her. Last year I had a sick start and then hit a stump up top and that as they say was that. Being at the back of the race after that did afford me free reign of 4loko and waffle handups!
But this year. Wow. We unveiled the Death Star of ez-ups! How perfect that the new Hup ez-up was unveiled in the shadow of the Forest of Lowellenburg where so much Hup NE tradition was born. We had 7 women in the women's race. That literally brings a tear to my eye. We had an unreal Waffle Cross. But the racing. All that bad crash karma must have been used up because its not like I didn't have a ton of chances to once again have a crash of epic proportion. As we were lining up on the grass with 80 dudes in the 45+ race...wait 80 dudes? Yes there were 80 45+ guys at Lowell. It has become a mini-Verge. So we are sitting there in the start grid listening to Diane tell us to not take any beer, cupcake or waffle handups or we will be dq'd when my two wingmen and I start getting nervous. You can just feel something bad is gonna happen. There are no set lanes. People are half wheeling each other. We are screwed. Diane blows the whistle and the 3 of us are one bad move away from locking bars and taking everyone out. But we keep it together. The three of us clip in and are moving. Then BOOM. Its like a bomb went off. I have no idea how I got around the bodies and bikes but a small gap opened like the Red Sea and I jammed through it. I think I ran over some dudes carbon deep section wheel. Oops. We get on the track and it is on.

This was the fastest race I have ever been in. It was like a road race. Granted I have never been in one but if I had I am sure it would feel like this! 20 guys flying! 3 across locked on each others wheels. We made it around the tree of death and then just flew up the hill toward the double barriers. After the barriers some separation happened. I ended up in a group of 6 really fast guys. Guys I am not usually with. But you know what my form might actually be coming around. Because as much as mentally I was like this is too fast I am screwed. I felt fine. Then bombs started going off again. Chains started snapping. Dudes hit trees. Crashed on the upper deck. It was bananas. But I didn't even come close. Maybe I infected them all with my bad crash juju...what ever I will take it. I kept my arch rival at bay by about 20 seconds. Best race of the season for me. And by far one of the best days hanging out with the NECX.

Huge Hup hugs to Wheelworks, Shimano, BRC, CB, NEBC, and Hup for two great days of racing. My proposal? Lock this weekend up! Make it a VeloCX/Lowell double for eternity. This double is sooo much better than half the cookie cutter doubles we do and think that they are some benchmark for what cross should be. What you would get with these two back to back would be two polar opposite races. Two races really close to both Boston and NH. Two great clubs well four. Two races that try their hardest to be creative and give their customer what they want. Singlespeed racing, juniors on their own, women's fields that make sense. What a great weekend of racing

DFL

2011-11-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

There were a lot of possibilities for the title of this blog post. "Cross Crushed" as a play off Rapha's Cross Clash. The Grass isn't always greener. Maybe Ow and ow ow ow. You get the picture. Why is there a picture with a lion eating the lion tamer above? Being a lion tamer is a weird job. As long as the lions think you are a lion you are ok. Once the lions know you aren't a lion you have a real problem on your hands. I suspect its an awkward moment for all involved. A lion takes a swipe at the lion tamer and then is like wait what? Why have I been afraid of this hairless lion with the loud tail? You know how the story ends. That is pretty much how I feel sometimes. Do these kids have any idea how old and slow I am? Do they know that I really have zero talent? I guess that its possible that they do but they like me so put up with my total lack talent and pretend I am fast like they are. My Cross Clash with Matt Aumiller of Cambridge pretty much falls into this category. Matt and I have been riding together a fair amount. On more epic style rides. We did the Rapha ride together. We carved out the Ronde 2.5 ride together. Endurance riding can hide a lack of talent. I guess talent isn't the right word. Speed probably is the correct term. Or Power perhaps. Oddly I have speed but no power right now.

Matt in Newbury Comics kit he races for Cambridge obviously but looks damn good with tooth face on.

But back to the Cross Clash. This whole thing got hatched at Night Weasels when I was going pretty ok for an old man with zero talent. I unlike some of my younger old man friends have not found my old man power. Weird. But anyway I was going ok at Night Weasels. So after the race a 3 way Clash was formed between myself, Matt and Robert Hale. How can you say no to Cross Clash? To do so would be pretty weak. So we waited and waited. It never happened for various reasons. Eco-Cross in Falmouth presented itself as the perfect Clash. It was a Friday we all had it off. Looked to be a chill race. Matt got all stoked and said it was on. Ok no problem. I probably should have gotten a bit worried when he said with great enthusiasm that we were going to clash in the 1/2/3 race. Now even more disturbingly on the reg page it said PRO 1/2/3. Alarms were going on in my head as there is nothing Pro about me. But I figured what Pro would show up to some jungle cross race down the Cape when the payout is $250? My god at Night Weasels we were paying out $2,000 and its not like we were overrun by Pro's trying to get paid. So I thought ok it will be fine. For a few days it was really only me and Matt signed up. Then Colin and David signed up. We figured a handful of the usual Cape fast guys would show up.

The funny thing keeping me calm and not freaking out was I remembered eco-cross from when I first moved here. A super chill jungle cross race. I used to be great at jungle cross. In my mind I still am. But you know what? I am really not good at jungle cross anymore. At all actually. The Verge races have ruined me. I finally have speed but do not seemingly have any power. Oh well. Next summer I guess a healthy dose of mtn bike racing will be on the docket. So back to Friday. We lure Gewilli into the mix. Or did he convince me not to wuss out and request a downgrade from Dianne so I could race 4s at noon? I kind of forget. Anyway so we show up and then I find out real actual PROs are actually racing. In fact Luke Keough and his brothers are on hand. As are a lot of really fast guys. Ok no problem. We start joking about how many times we will be lapped. Twice seemed likely. Three times would just be sad. We line up at the back. Obviously. Colin gave me a nod to move up into the space right behind him but I shook it off. No way I wanted any part of that.

Luke Keough doing what he does best...

So basically it was two races. The super fast guys and us 3s partying at the back. Eco-cross seemed to be a bit more sketchy than I recall. Again I think Adam has ruined me. Seriously. I wasn't nervous it was just kind of funny cause I remember Dianne chewing out Colin for stuff way sketchier than this. Let's recap. A downhill barrier section at the end of a fireroad with gravel right before the transition to the planks. What could go wrong there? Then after the double planks a section of rubber ( they felt like metal) mats. They were super sketchy to say the least. Then after the plates of Death another gravel section. I saw a bunch of people almost hit the barn at the apex of the gravel. After that it was just the usual stuff. Course doubling on itself just asking for someone to get Treeboned. Ok let me take a step back. I am not complaining as racing it was way less sketchy than pre-riding. I actually enjoyed the challenge of actually having to stay focused at all time lest something really, really bad happen to you. But it also had a great mtn bikey flow to it.

But back to my actual race. So the 6-10 of us threes let a slight gap open after the "start" and then started our race. GeWilli got a good gap straight away. I stayed in a group of about 5 for most of the race. My Clash was dangling about 15 seconds up. I was in a group with his teammate Ian who had already done one race and was doubling up. He didn't even look tired. With about 3 to go I started to crack a bit. I made a "move" right before the woods on GeWillis teammate to try and do something that resembled racing. I got right in front of him before the woods and just went to warp speed. I got a small gap then down the fireroad to the 180 in the hub deep puddle. Made the 180 and he was on my wheel. My "attack" was short lived to say the least. He powered by me on the uphill riser and then that my friends was that. Luke Keough and the whole field came charging through shortly thereafter. At this point I went from "racing" to let's get lapped like a PRO ie don't crash out someone with an actual future in cyclo-cross. With one to go I saw Luke coming again. I could have sat up and been done with my race as if he came through at the finish my race would be over. But no way I was gonna be 2 laps down. I went hard into the pain cave and got through the barriers right as he came over the top of the vineyard. The hardest earned DFL of my life. Way back before we had kids Father Maurice a really sweet Anglican Priest said something that has stuck with me forever. He was talking about the keys to a successful marriage He said the key was that sometimes you have to put your hard hat on. Its obvious what he meant but for those who maybe don't get it he was saying even with love sometimes you have to work at it. Its not going to be easy. You may not even like your husband or wife. But put your hard hat on, grab you lunch pail and get to work. Friday was a day like that. I suspect I am gonna need to put my hard hat on for a few more weeks. And that is ok

No Sleep til Noho

2011-11-07T18:49:00.001-08:00

MVL chased me all over the course shouting and screaming.

Noho to me is like a home away from home. Sooo much of my biker 2.0 life revolves around Noho. My coach lives in Noho. The Nohocx mafia does sooo much for the sport. Their influence goes way beyond the town limits of Noho. Just look what they have done with the JAM foundation. Amazing how they have been cultivating talent and building the culture. So many of my good friends live there. It has dawned on me many times why I don't live there. I could do it and love it but my family love where we live. I think I like it largely because it reminds me in so many ways of Northern California. If you put it next to an ocean it could be Santa Cruz. I have been going to CSI aka Cycle-Smart International for about 5 years now. It may even be 7. It has always been one of my favorite courses. But only three years ago all it had going for it was the race. I mean you couldn't even get a cup of coffee at the venue. Which was kind of a bummer as other than that you really didn't want to leave Look Park as it is such a great venue.

Noho has one badass runup.

But over the last couple of years Adam, Al, JD et all have taken it to a whole other level. This year as part of the NEPCX it was as good if not better than any cross nationals I have been to. Big fields, amazing flow to the course. I feel bad for crossers who don't have course designers like we have back here in the NECX. And I really feel bad for those who never get to race on grass. Both days courses were amazing. Such a great flow. But CSI is not a grass crit. Yes it is super fast on the lower deck but up top in the woods will chew you up and spit you out if you are not on top of your game. HUP goes all in with this race. Rosey and Yash started the tradition with the HUP Vip Suite. And we have kept that tradition alive. Noho got pounded by a crazy early winter storm. They didn't have electricity for 5 days. But you know what they are tough New Englanders. The staff at the hotel was incredible. We barely had power but they took great care of us. Huge Hup hugs to all of Noho for rallying and making the weekend happen.

There is a whole lot of Mad Alchemy love in that box!

Friday night was pretty chill. We got up late set up had a nice team dinner and went to bed. The 4s, MVL and Stewart headed out early and set up shop at pit row. Pit Row to me has changed the whole dynamic of racing in NE. It has built such a great sense of community. Five years ago after the race everyone would bail and go home. Now everyone wants to hang out watch the other races and just enjoy a great day of cx. My race aka the old sort of fast guys was great. After Canton it was nice to get a race in that was fast and clean. Nothing to rave about but a good solid race. Legs felt like they were finally coming around. That night we all went out to the Dirty Truth. Another great Noho tradition. The Dirty Truth is a really cool beer bar in Noho. They must have 40 beers on tap. I went over with Dr Jay, Todd P and MVL. We caught up with pretty much the entire NECX. Some were raring to get their beer light on full effect others were hedging their bets. MVL was smelling a podium and I was stoked for him. I tried to keep him from doing a full on Anthony Freak Out but it was pretty hard. He was amped! It is always so cool seeing someone so jacked up on cx.

The Dirty Truth! Such a fun night out with the boys! I had a couple for my hommie Steen...

We got home early and crashed out. I promised him I would drive to the venue with him early and help him get set up. I only pretended to not want to go early. Deep down I love the 4s. To me they and the 3/4 women are the life blood of cx. People complain about 4s and 3s getting "sponsored" or "hooked" up but to me it makes perfect sense. I would rather see a totally PRO cat 4 or 3/4 team than a masters "team". Cat 4s appreciate everything they get. I could tell Mark was stoked I was there to help support him. And seeing Stewart and the 3/4 women roll up and be all so stoked to race got me so psyched it wasn't even funny. To me that is what the NECX is all about. Its what being on a team like HUP is all about. You support each other, you like each other, you are a family or a wolfpack. Well mission accomplished! Mark has been working hard for this one and he got up on that podium. Even brought Samantha up there with him. So stoked. Such a great way to end a kick ass weekend of cx.

MVL up on the podium for the 4 race

HUP had 6 3/4 women racing! Which was incredible. Each one of those women inspire me and just get me so stoked. My race was really, really great. I felt fast. Raced smart. Still bouncing back. But considering I hadn't ridden or raced in a month? Wow. The highlight to me was with 3 to go I kept hearing Richard saying "Jan Wiejack is in the mix" blah, blah blah. All the other stuff pretty much was white noise aka Richard being Richard. But when I kept hearing him repeat the name my hypoxic brain clicked. No way I thought. It can't be THE Jan Wiejack. The Jan Wiejack that was so responsible for my love of cx. Jan was a legend. One of the first Euros to come over here. I saw him race nationals in Seatac in 1994. I had traveled with the Ritchey team as a sort of embedded journalist. Ritchey was trying to get a new racer Shari Kain on the podium. Deep down we all knew she could win it. She did. And it was amazing to be a part of. But what really hooked me was the elite race. You had all these bad ass americans lined up. Then the usual pack fill. Not like today but say 100 guys. Jan was relegated to the back row as he didn't have any points. The course was like nothing we have today. If we did it today there wouldn't be enough ambulances to carry away the injured riders. It was like some GVA race in Europe. I so wish we had courses like it.

Anyway he just destroys the field and makes his way to the front and then just punishes the Americans. It was like nothing I had seen before. And after that I knew cx was for me. Even if I suck at it. Which I pretty much do it is the most beautiful cycle sport on the planet. But back to Jan. He catches us and kind of muscles into our little four person group. Now that I know it is him I am like screw the rest of these guys what ever Jan does I am doing. I wasn't trying to beat him. I was trying to learn from a master. And I really did pick up some things. I can die a happy man I will say that. What an amazing weekend. So much to talk about. Jeremy Durrin's sausage fest has been well documented so I won't elaborate but it was hilarious. High & Mighty's beer tent. All my good friends working so hard. Pete giving me the best nickname evah! My wife jokingly has called me that for about a year. But I have never shared it with anyone as you can't make up your own nickname. When I saw Pete write it on my box of Mad Alchemy love it cracked me up. Pete get's me. And I love him for it. Brought home a Blue kids bike that has transformed my 7 year old into a total speed freak on the bike. Literally she went from not being able to ride to absolutely burning up the pavement in our 'hood. The best part was seeing all the people I missed seeing the whole month of October. It is so good to be back.
Along those lines. As I was in the beer tent talking with Christopher Walken, my good friend Katherine Snell handed me this cool trading card! It is for VeloCX the next stop on the Zanconato Singlespeed World Tour. Make sure you put this one on your calendar! My HUP Honey is being blinged out right now so I can race this! If you have never been there it will be such a rad course to do on a singlespeed. Super fun. A bmx pump track. We will enter Gnarnia my friends. And I have a HUGE box of swag for prizes and High & Mighty beer. See you all on the 19th!

Hitting the reset button

2011-10-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

On Saturday at Canton I hit the reset button on the 2011 cx campaign. Not gonna bore you with the details but October was rough. After Night Weasels it all went downhill fast. I didn't race or even ride my bike for 3 weeks. I was so close to pulling the plug on the season so many times. But finally things calmed down and I was able to think about the bike game again. But its rough when you are riding a peak and then lose 3 weeks and know just how bad you are going to suck. Some people can fake their fitness and just ride fast cause they are blessed with good genes. I am blessed with the worst genes on the planet. Not even joking. I fight bad genetics every day. The fact that I can be a mid-pack bike racer at 46 is a gift. But now I am being a doggy downer and really all that is in the past. With an impending snowpocalypse forecast for the weekend I started totally freaking out about bike racing again. Which was such a good feeling.

The last six months an unholy alliance has been forged between the Lion and the Cockroach. Ronde 2.5, Rapha G-ride, on and on and on. We have bonded over a shared interest in punishing ourselves and seeking the not so travelled routes on our cross bikes. Its been amazing. At Canton we set up shop right next to Cambridge's compound. It was great to see the crew as always. I was racing the 3/4 in the hopes of Cross Clashing with Matt Aumiller and Rob Hale. Life conspired against this and left me to battle men dressed as toilets, Tinker Bell and the Super Mario Brothers. Nice. I had really low expectations for this one. I was still hacking a lung and was not feeling right. But I took a ton of advice from Mr. Aumiller and coach Al. Went heavy with the vicks and all manner of old school tricks to trick my body into thinking it was actually health enough to bike race. But frankly merely being around the NECX got me ready to race. At the line I didn't even feel sick. I still knew I was screwed but I was able to trick my brain into thinking I had this. But back to the NECX. I had a most hilarious interchange with Resutsboy while warming up on the trainer. He was equally disgusted that I was on the trainer and then noticed I was using my Fangos. He began mocking me about using $80 tubies on a trainer and how insane that was. I assured him they were not $80 but were more like $120. His reaction was priceless when he realized I was using my FMBs!

He shamed me off the trainer and then gave the tires a pinch. And the mockery continued. But thank god. He suggested a much more PRO tire pressure like say 27/28. This set Rae totally off. Which in itself was hilarious. I doubted the effectiveness of such low pressure on a course covered in pavement but who am I to argue with the King of the Internet. I mean that kid knows stuff. So I borrowed CB's pimp crafstmen inflater and dialed it in. 27/28. And thank god I did.

So I roll over to the start and reconnect with everyone. I end up staging 3rd row right behind Dave Chiu. Not a bad wheel to follow. Whistle goes off and its like freaking Braveheart. People are swarming everywhere. I try and stay on Dave's wheel as much as humanly possible. We make the sketchy first corner and then I just lay down watts trying to lock onto Dave. In the scrum on the fireroad I lose contact a bit and get in with another Ride Studio rider. His gears start making all kinds of horrible I am going to explode any moment noises. Now I am learning cat 3s do things a bit different that the fast old dudes. Old dudes yell a lot in the beginning of the race. First lap they scream at you, threaten fights in the parking lot etc. All kinds of crazy shit. But nothing really goes down. They ride very predictably and contrary to the verbal barrage they spew at you, ride with a level of respect of someone who knows they need to go to work the next day and can't afford to be in a body cast. Cat 3s go kinda crazy. Which is sort of exciting.

So back to the starship trooper who's wheel I have the misfortune to be on. He mashes down on those poor gears one too many times and then BOOM! The chain snaps and goes flying through the air in slow mo like a helicopter blade in a zombie movie. I see it coming at my bike and don't even have time to process it. Bam its in my front wheel. Makes all manner of ripping and shredding noises. I dismount at the barrier pull it out and fling it. I remount and the wheel is f'd. Or I assumed it was f'd The front brake is rubbing so bad on it I assume I broke a spoke or two. The pit is soooo far away. I keep driving as best as I can but am bleeding spots. But at least I am moving forward. I am in an ok group heading towards the log when I stack it big time in a corner. I get up and the chain is off. A group of seemingly 20 dudes goes flying by me. I just laugh. Things went from good to bad so fast it was comical. Get the chain on and just try and get to the pit in one piece. The heckling starts in ernest. I hear Resultsboy yelling at me. "How can you be sucking this bad on $250 worth of French tubulars?" Well played sir.

I finally get to the pit after what seems like forever. I roll in and Mark is there in a second. He fixes the problem which ends up being my pads just got tweaked so they were rubbing my front wheel. I get back out in pretty much DFL. But now my bike actually goes sort of fast when I pedal hard. So I decided to go hahdah. Dave Foley aka Negacoach sees me and yells my favorite heckle of the day. I hear him yell "Baker are you really going to let a toilet beat you!?"

That shocks me out of my pity party and I am like hell fucking no I am not going to get beat by a dude wearing a toilet as a costume. So I start moving up. First through one and two riders and then groups. I pass Tinker Bell. Then with 3 to go I see the Porcelain God. And now it is on like Donkey Kong! With 3 to go the conditions have gone from cold but dry to pouring rain and freezing. And now Resultsboys pressure advice is paying off in spades. 27/28 makes a Fango which is not a great mud tire into a servaceable mud tire. As long as you stay on top of your shit you are ok. So I start making some headway as people are now either checking out mentally from the conditions or they are going off the course in the sketchy corners. I am able to ride the runup a couple of times which other than my battle with the toilet bowl man was the highlight of my day.

With one to go I finally catch him. He puts up a valiant fight but after Negacoaches heckling there is no way I am losing. I kick it into gear and catch a few more spots on my way in to the finish. At the line Andy Huff comes over and says "you know you wouldn't be falling out of that skinsuit if it was a Castelli" Hahah good one Andy a finish line heckle. Then I see my ass is hanging out of my skinsuit from some sharkbite. I don't even know at what point I shredded my $160 Vermarc skinsuit to pieces. What a day. CX season is back on! It was so great seeing everyone. Insane how much I missed the argy bargy, the heckling, the battles and all my good friends. Toilet bowl man...much respect. You are a worthy adversary!

Jay Sycip's Tequila Chili Pasta

2011-10-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

Jay Sycip pictured on the right

This is not a GeWilli foodie post. I am NOT a foodie. I eat good food but do not obsess about it. Not that there is anything wrong with that. So back when I went from an editor of a magazine to being a stay at home dad in full freak out mode with a colicky baby I got into cooking. I watched a ton of Jaques Pepin with a baby sleeping on my chest. I learned a lot. And I got into it. But like everything I do I tend to go "full Chip ADHD auto" in the blink of an eye. What is full Chip ADHD auto? You clearly haven't spent much time with me if you have to ask that. Its the old kill em all and let god sort them out approach to the Zombie apocalypse. Full auto is never a good thing. All it does is jam your AK and leave you without ammo...

Children of the Night. Jay keeping the zombies at bay

But back to my transformation from hellion to stay at home dad. So yeah we were alone out in SF in a 3 bedroom condo with a new baby. We hunkered down cause we had no family back up and really only one babysitter. So I cooked a lot. Jacques is an amazing teacher. His shows were like Zen to me. Even though I was in full on daddy day care mode I was still a biker. We lived right at the base of Mt Diablo. It is like a dream or past life to me at this point. But dear god there was some sick riding right out my front door. Again I had made a pretty rapid change in my life. We had just moved from San Francisco. I had left the bike industry. Or the bike industry kind of folded all around me would be a more accurate description. People really have no idea how bad the job market was when my wife and I got out of school. It was a disaster. But we lived a good life. Never complained. Didn't try to occupy anything. So here I am in the 'burbs. Beautiful 'burbs mind you. But it wasn't SF, or Marin or Santa Cruz where all my friends lived. But we made the best of it. I still rode. Stayed in touch with my Sycip teammates etc.
Jay now works for Chris King and as you can see puts his culinary talents to work on their gourmet century. Jeremy Sycip is pictured to the left in the center

So when they called me and asked me if I wanted to be on a 24 hr mountain bike team I got pretty stoked. I told them I hadn't been riding that much. They said they didn't care we were just gonna hang out and camp and ride bikes and drink beer. Wow. That is like offering water to a man in the desert. So I kicked it into gear. What is funny is I had no idea that I was basically already training for it. I had no need for sleep at this point. My baby woke me up every 2 hours. She never slept. At all. Well that isn't totally true. She would sleep on my chest for 2 hours then wake up screaming for food. But I also started riding the trainer at crazy ass hours. I figured it would be hour laps or so. So I would do four hours on the trainer throughout a 24 hour period.

I had no idea but for some reason 24 hour racing really works for me. I think its the team format. I am not really competitive by nature. I don't have a killer instinct. I can be aggressive and won't back down from a battle but I really like the comraderie of racing more than any other part of it. Well and the riding in the mucky muck. That really gets me going. So I met my Sycip teammates at Laguna Seca. Totally unprepared as usual. I had some Top Ramen, a loaf of bread, some cereal and PB&J. And a ton of beer. Classic Chip. I think I had a sleeping bag but I might have had a blanket. But it was June in Norcal so it certainly wasn't cold. We had a great tent city. I was on a 5-person coed team with Jeremy Sycip. Jeremy's brother and business partner at the time Jay Sycip was along for support. Thank. God. He basically kept me fed for the whole 24hrs. Pancakes, lunch, coffee. The man has a gift. Around midnight he started cooking chili. God it smelled so good. At first I thought chili? At a 24 hr race? I held off at first thinking this could end poorly. But then our solo guy came in. Just blown to pieces. He had gone non-stop for 12 hours. He asked me to help him take his jersey off. That is how wrecked he was. He sat down and Jay gave him a bowl of chili over spaghetti. The guy inhaled it. Then got kitted up and took off. The stuff was rocket fuel. I was starving at that point. Jay looked at me. Do you want some he said? Hell yes. I had a huge bowl. My teammates started dropping like flies through the night. The sleep deprivation started catching up to them. I rode through the night and had the greatest lap a 24 hr racer can ever have. The COD lap...Crack of Dawn. Going out in the pitch blackness and then seeing the sun rise over Laguna Seca was amazing.

So here goes Jay Sycips Tequila pasta. Basically its just a normal chili recipe. I like beans. My good friends from Texas would disapprove. And I like two types of beans. I also like meat. For the tequila we used Sauza Commemerotivo. But you can use anything. I assume it cooks off but I forget. Maybe I was slightly buzzed and that helped the laps go by faster. Put it over some thin spaghetti top it with Parm cheese and voila!

This recipe is a mix mash of a bunch of good ones:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 lbs ground beef (or not for veg)

2 cups chopped onio

4 chopped carrots

4 chopped celery stalks

1 16 ounce can peeled whole tomatoes

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 can red kidney beans

1 can black beans

2 teaspoons cumin

2 tablespoons chili powder

Cayenne pepper to taste

2 1/2 cups of water

Tequila to taste. Maybe a couple of shots. I wouldn't use too much. Make it once and see how you like it.

Heat oil in large pot

Throw in veggies. Sautee with the tequila. You want to infuse the taste and burn off the alcohol. Or not I suppose. If you wanted to get your guests drunk you could add the tequila to the chili after you put the tomatoes in the pot.

Pour tomatoes in bowl. Crush by hand. Its ok to use your hand its your best kitchen utensil

Add in crushed tomatoes, the water and spices to the pot with the sauteed veggies. Turn up heat and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and let simmer

In a separate pan cook the meat. Some add the spices to the meat. It works well both ways. Once the meat is cooked add to the pot with the two cans of beans.

Let it all simmer. You want to stir the pot a lot with a wooden spoon so it doesn't stick. Add the tomato paste. Sometimes I add a jar of hot salsa in. It gives it a little extra kick

To add punch you could chop up jalapenos.

I cook some nice Barilla thin spaghetti. Then I serve the chili over the top of the pasta with some nice Parm cheese on top.

Night Weasels bonus footage

2011-10-11T12:36:00.001-07:00

The Newbury Comics "heckle zone" or "beer feed" not sure which. All I do know is every time I came through here it got me sooo stoked it was insane. Thank you NC for rocking so hard and supporting cross in New England

Jon Nable. New HUPmate. Such a great guy. Massive watts. Mad skills. A playoff beard worthy of envy. Sidelined with a nasty D2R2 concussion. So glad he is ok. It could have been worse. But we need that man healed and headache free!

Thom. Looking like a rockstar with double shades. He hooked me up with some Tim Johnson Mad Alchemy right before my start. And frankly it set the tone for my whole race! The fact that TJ was at the race giving beer handups while I was racing with TJ blend on my legs is mind boggling

DJ looking PRO as hell and in full HUP team issue compliance! We had a good battle out there in the dark and in the mucky muck...

The Newbury Comics tent was the place to be. Darkness falls on dahweasel and blood and metal feeds the beast

The Prince and Princess of Darkness Trophies were amazing! Thanks to Skunk at Seven for making them. People were so stoked to win them

There is a cross bike under there. Somewhere.

Yeah its a new type of Campy Electronic derailler. I had to hide it under the mucky muck or the Italians would have had my head....

How the bike worked at all is beyond me. The bikes went from 17 pounds at the line to about 70 pounds after the first lap. You literally had to pull shit off your brakes, drivetrain etc as you ran. Or you had to stop and just triage it real fast. Running was such a big part of the Night Weasels. This my friends was not a grass crit. At. All

You want Mud you've got it

2011-10-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

Kristina Donehew rocking the blanco at dahweasel. By Russ Campbell

Yeah I referenced an AC/DC song...what are you gonna do. Holy week featured something pretty unique. Don't know if its happened before or not but either way it was something special. Back to back weds night cx races. That is pretty badass. And the two events could not possibly have been more different. Gary, Russ and MRC did an amazing job on MidnightCX. It was such a great venue, so well organized, the course was fantastic. Top notch. They had world caliber racers. Especially the Brits which needs it own post but what a great night it was. Too fast and furious cross racing. Grass, tight turns etc. Night Weasels was like the MidnightCX's Satanic drunk cousin....that just got out of jail and was itching to do some crimes. While MidnightCX had a mostly flat, high speed grassy course Night Weasels had the heaviest course I have ever ridden in my life. Ski Ward is a heavy course on a good day. It is a ski hill. So yeah you will be climbing. So it will be hard. But we had torrential rain leading up to the race. So much so that the Ski Ward crew had to do some serious engineering just to make it rideable. Huge hats off to them. They do so much work getting the race course ready that people never see. They really deserve so much credit.
But this is dahweasel. It is supposed to be hahhd as Ultraendurance guy would say. What you get at Night Weasels is part party, part heavy weight MMA throwdown on cross bikes. It is supposed to be tough. But this year was a lot tougher. We say dahweasel requires two things for survival. Blood and Metal. She got a little taste of blood on Wednesday. Thankfully not too much. But her thirst for metal was unprecedented. So many rear deraillers just snapped off peoples bikes. I saw it happen at least once right before my very eyes. Snap. Crackle. Pop. I basically rode a single speed cx race last night. And no it wasn't a gearing option. I had no options cause I could not shift. Thankfully I was in the 39 X26. Any other gear and I would have been doing a lot more running I will say that. My race was sooo much fun. Like I said this is the muddiest course I have ever raced. You had to be smart. Ride way outside. Tape to tape and just hope there was some actual grass left to give you traction. There really wasn't much as everyones bikes went from 17 pounds at the start to about 70 pounds by the end of lap one. So much grass was packed up everywhere it made braking and shifting basically impossible. I had soo much mud and grass on my cogs the chain couldn't grip the teeth. Good times.

This year was a redemption for me if you will. I wasn't planning on racing as I was helping Colin promote the race and didn't want to leave him hanging. Last year I did one hot lap then started hearing Colin's voice in my head. Started yardsaling and packed it in before even finishing a second lap. That did not sit well with me. I do not drop out of races. But my good friend Michele Smith took over my prize czar role and let me race without worrying about Cat 4s sitting around waiting til I finished to get their Prince of Darkness Trophy. Yes we had sick Prince and Princess of Darkness trophies made by a man named Skunk. Skunk is a legend at Seven Cycles. So I was able to actually race. The great thing about this was that even though I ran from the Newbury Comics booth to my car with ten minutes to staging to throw on my skinsuit it just didn't matter. My warm up was a heavy slathering of Tim Johnson Mad Alchemy embro, a gu shot, some flexall on my lower back and a quick Belgian handshake on my tires. PRO as hell. A warm up was about as helpful as file treads on a night like tonight.

This photo may be the greatest cross photo of all time and says so much about the NECX Photo by Bob Jenney of 545 Velo

Really my only goal was to not die. Part of me really wanted to do well. Not gonna lie about that. Its well documented that I love mud. The crazier the better. But this took crazy and just sent it to defcon 11...Even though it was so muddy Colin and his crew created a great course. Yeah parts of it were a slip and slide but like Lyne said in one of the Cyclingdirt videos you shouldn't be afraid to run. If it bogged down just run. And actually running was better than riding in so many places. It also gave you a chance to do triage on your bike. I pulled so many of those little wire flags out of my cassette, rear derailler, front brake. It was insane. Its like the course was spitting metal at me..see there is that metal again. I rode with and against some of my best friends in the NECX. Frankly it was awesome. One of the more insane parts was at the top of the first climb. You basically climbed the hill then had to run about 100 yards through a ankle deep bog. Then you remount and go on Mr Toads wild ride down the hill. Well as I remount a guy is right on my inside. It is dark. You are moving wicked slow. So I don't even think about it till we both jump on our bikes at the exact same time. Then our bars lock. All I have time to say is Oh no...locked. And I eject out over the front of my bike and do a superman yardsale down the hill. I run back up and the other rider has been kind enough to untangle our bikes. We don't even say a word. Just remount and keep grinding.

What an amazing night. Huge, Huge HUP Hugs to my partner in grime Colin Reuter. Wow. What can you even say. He worked so hard to make this happen. I really don't know how he did it. Its hard to tell which he used more his talent or sheer will power. Thank you to Newbury Comics, Roger, Nick, Billy and Thom for supporting us in a huge way. I love those guys. They are what the NECX is all about. Pete from Mad Alchemy. He is pictured above. Twice. Man I love that guy. Again another guy who just backs cross. Lives it. Breathes it. And just ups everyones game. It was so great seeing Tim Johnson and Lyne and the whole Cyclocrossworld.com team out being a big part of grassroots racing. I can't even put into words their support. Tim put up $150 of his own cash for primes. And pushed riders to keep them from falling over. Gave beer handups. Talked to everyone. That is PRO. Supporting a bunch of cross crazed lunatics on a night when you should be resting for a C1 race on saturday. Much respect. Thanks to Chris Smith from Lazer Helmets. Not only are Lazer helmets the coolest helmets on the planet they are Belgian. I can't think of a more appropriate prize for the Night Weasels than a Lion of Flanders Genesis helmet.We had so many other great supporters: All Hail the Black Market, EMS, Thomson and the Ride Studio Cafe. And we couldn't have done it without the volunteers help. The crossresults.com team stepped up big. Sure there were some issues with bells or balls or something out on the dark side of the course but you know the saying what happens on the darkside stays on the darkside. Unless it gets captured on video....but I digress. Meg and Michele and Mark from HUP handled registration and prizes. What an amazing event. Thank you to all of the racers and fans and again huge thanks to Ski Ward. Show them some love this winter. They really have grown to love bikers. We should love them back.

P-Bob

2011-10-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

I ripped this photo from Stevil's blog All Hail The Black Market. If you don't know of it you should. Pictured above is one Robert Kurosawa. Or Pineapple Bob. Or P-Bob. That man is/was my CX Pimp. End of story. He is the one who got me hooked. Not to sound old but before the internet we had to actually seek out our teachers and mentors. You couldn't just become twitter friends with cyclo-cross pros. It just didn't work that way. You had to earn your way into the tribe. I had a bit of an in as I was friends with P-Bobs friends. They were my introduction. And I was an editor of a small bike mag in SF. So I approached him under the guise of wanting to do an interview and learn about cx. I knew nothing about cx.

But I had been dancing around it the last year. I was good friends with the Ritchey team. The same Ritchey team with Thomas Frishknecht and Hank Djernis. Yeah google search those two names if you really like cx. And yeah this american guy named Don Myrah. So even if I didn't know it at the time I was getting sucked into the cross vortex. But when I knocked on P-Bobs door in Oakland and walked into his house I was blown away. It wasn't a house as much as it was a museum. Bob is an artist. And his house housed his art. You just don't see this in Boston. I don't know why. But he welcomed me in. He made me coffee. He popped in a tape of Worlds and said sit down. He made me watch tape, after tape after tape. That is how people learned about cross. By watching old grainy videos of europeans going bananas on cx bikes. You would catch a glimpse of some poor American rider crashing into the tape while Frishy put on a clinic in descending some sketchy off camber.

Bob took me under his wing. I learned so much from him. There weren't any coaches back then. You just rode the damn bike. Lots. And you focused on doing cross right. My first cross bike was a Rock Lobster that was two sizes too big and had bar con shifters. We had clipless pedals. Frankly sti was just coming out but no one trusted it. Hence the bar cons. Bar end shifters worked great for cross. In some ways its too bad they died out.

But back to P-Bob. I owe him everything. Sure the NECX is amazing. But you can't replicate that first teacher or that first mentor who taught you to love something. It was so good to see a photo of Pineapple. And looking just like he is digging life. Thanks P-Bob for giving me the love of cx.

Sea of sin, my second skin

2011-09-30T13:04:00.001-07:00

Oh skinsuit why must you torture me so? I get it I really do. Its cool to wear a skinsuit in CX. Sure it is. But my god. It is worse than a second skin. I would look better naked than stuffing myself in one of those. I am a cross freak. This has been documented. And much to the chagrin of the diehard roadies and mtn bikers. Cross to many is still an offseason pursuit. To me it is the only "season" everything else I do is for fun and for cx. But and I have been heckled for this I am not willing to become a manarexic. Never. Gonna. Happen. You go with your skinny bad self. I am happy with my body just the way it is. But what ever. I guess it comes with putting on that super suit. Cavs even looked good in a skinsuit. Now that is saying something! Not to get to off track but I know there are a lot of Cavs haters out there. To me I love him. Is he perfect hell no which one of these athletes is. But I love how he just puts it all out there. The fact that he won Worlds and did it in a skinsuit is badass. But back to my first foray of the season in a skinny.
I usually take my time getting into the supersuit. Usually around November I am comfortable enough to do it. But MidnightCX in Lancaster was a special race. MRC, Gary David and Russ Campbell kicked off Holy Week in the NECX with their own night cx race! I was sooo stoked for this one. MRC, Gary and Russ are my good friends so there was that. And they had been talking about it for weeks which was getting me all kinds of pumped. Then they added in stop #2 on the Zanconato SSCX series and I was pretty much freaking out. Summer has refused to let her clutches go in New England and it was 70 degrees as MVL and I rolled into the parking lot and set up shop. I had planned on wearing my blanco short sleeve in the race. So I kitted up and we did some pre-laps. It was really cool going to a race with a cat 4 who was new to cross. It kind of was infectious. I was my usual cool self. Mark is bouncing off the walls and asking me all kinds of crazy questions like should we get our numbers and what psi to run. Oh shit. Yeah our #s. So we got a few laps in.
I got in the manvan and started putting on my blanco skinny. I got out of the car stood up and got back in the van. Damn I am not ready for a blanco skinny! Frankly at 45+ my days in a blanco skinny may be a thing of the past. So to honor Smithers I went with the new Belgie Blue LS HUP skinsuit. It was still snug but I felt way less sinsuit (thanks for coining that Kim!) and way more cross racer. I lined up with 100 cat 3/4s. It was so cool being around guys I never race. The start was bananas. Soooo fast and we all were locked in together. I surfed up the right side behind Hoppengarten. I was surprised at how calm everyone was at speed. None of the usual 45+ yelling and chopping that goes on in the start of my usual masters race. A group got away leaving 4-10 of us chasing. We could see them across the tape but the chicanes were so tight that what looked like 10 seconds was really about 20 or 30. The course was awesome. What looked to be sort of boring on the warm up turned into a great track for racing. We stayed together in tight groups which made for some really exciting racing. I rarely get a chance to race in a group of 4 let alone 10 in one of the 45+ races.
I got to work with Jordan Winkler which was awesome. He is such a cool guy and a solid bike racer. Strong as hell, picked awesome lines and just knew what was going on. That was one of the more fun parts of the whole night. I learned a lot riding with him. We were able to move up a bit but it was a tough course to really gap people. You would gain some time then you would come to the triple threat wood chip piles and slow wayyy down. Then you would accelerate like hell to get up to the chicanes. Then go wicked slow again. There really was no way to make up time in either of those spots. Those two sections really were all about not losing time or crashing. With one to go Jordan and I were really going well. We dropped a couple of guys that were right on us the whole race. As we accelerated out of the wood chips two guys came around us from no where. Then we got into the chicanes. We were both hypoxic at this point from all the efforts. We hit some lapped traffic. Jordan came around a guy and then just caught his front wheel and yardsaled. I felt soooo bad. Without even thinking I said "Jordan" out of sympathy. I was able to get around him and just had to hammer as the gap we had now closed. All the way to the finish I felt so bad for him. We were gonna go 10/11 and have a chance at a 2 up HUP/Cambridge sprint! That would have been rad. I ended up 11th and Jordan got 15th. That is how tight that race was. One bobble, one bit of bad luck and you dropped 5 spots.

Hats off to Gary, Russ and MRC. That venue and that race should become a staple of New England CX. And having two night races in one week smack in the middle of the two biggest cx weekends in NE? It will build up into something amazing. Thank you to Gary and Russ for letting single-speed cx be a part of the night. We had 50 racers at the line. And that race was just as fast and hard fought as any of the geared races. Don't let anyone say ss cx racing isn't racing. Ever. Ok maybe when they have a huge chicken costume on. Then its not racing...

Shake it! Before you bake it!

2011-09-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

Today at Sucker Brook I got schooled by Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr in the fine art of the Shake N Bake. Playing the part of Ricky Bobby was my good friend Brian McInnnis and Cal Naughton Jr was played by a flying Richard Perrotti Jr. Now I say this with much respect. They put on a clinic in how to race cross with a teammate. To work together. I have been trying to explain this to a few of my more excitable Hupmates. But it just hasn't really registered. Their response is usually "but I am going so hard I can't even think straight." That is actually a very good point and a nice segue to my race today. Sucker Brook is one of my favorite races in the NECX. It used to be the season opener before CX season began in August. Sucker Brook is a fun mix of fast grass with a ton of turns that you really have to bring your A game with you or you are ending up in the tape, flying off a wood bridge or going into the steps head first. It had rained the last couple of days leading up to the race making the track nice and tacky. Some spots were a bit slick but nothing heavy. It was very fast. Add in a nice fireroad and a little bit of woods and a killer sand pit and you have a New England classic. I was very impressed with the course.

I lined up second row next to a couple of friends I hadn't seen since last Fall. Boom off we go. Straight away pavement into a gravel left hander. I was bunched up on the right and made the turn but it all pinched in. I think everyone got through ok but at one point my ergo shifter was right on another riders right hip. Kept it upright (barely) and just kicked it into warp drive. Came through the pit in 6th spot. This was disorienting. Granted the field was a bit thin as Burlington had taken the wind out of a lot of peoples sails but looking around the fast guys were there. I locked onto Brian McInnis to just see if I could surf this wave at the front for a while. I was feeling fine which again was making me nervous. I am never this far at the front of a 45+ race. Like ever. Lap two things started getting a bit more frisky but the group was staying together. At some point I got taken into a tree in the woods but it was really no big deal. I just bobbled grabbed my bike ran for about 10 seconds remounted and took off.

About half way through Brian didn't seem so fresh. He pulled through and said hop on my wheel. I was like ok. We are buds its all good. We came through the chicanes and out to the field. He asked me not to drop him. That seemed odd. I just assumed maybe he wasn't feeling it or something. Later he told me he got crashed in the sand pit so that makes sense. So I ease up a bit. But as I peer behind me I see a flying JRA rider locked in on us like a sidewinder missile. Oh shit I think. I take off come in way too hot into a corner and go through the tape. Actually a section was missing. I went through it and am able to duck under the other side and am back on track. But the damage is done. Sling shot has now been engaged. So its me against two highly motivated JRA rides. The heckling is fairly relentless. The Gentleman cyclist is saying some very ungentlemanly things to me. Or maybe it was Bramhall. I try and cling to the hope that I seem to be doing ok in this JRA sandwich. Then they turn the screws and drop me right before the stairs. I bury myself to make it up come in too hot again and yardsale in the corner. Game over.
I am now in damage control mode. Negacoach comes through and is actually pretty nice. I think he says something like bummer dude as I am tangled up in my bike trying to get my chain back on. I do my best to move up or chase down someone. But now its really just keep from losing more spots. But don't get me wrong. This is in no way me complaining. That course was sick. I love turny swoopy cross goodness and this course dialed it way up. I spent the next two laps just trying to rail the course. So many good heckles and cheering sections out there today. I rolled in at 15th. A good day for me. And I am stoked that I had such a good start. I still don't know how I got so far up there. I am going to need to go back and review tape later and see if I can recreate that next weekend. So hats off to my JRA friends. One of the things I love about cx is it is a battle. You need to ride smart.

But the race is just one part of the whole day. It was so great hanging out with the Newbury Comics crew and the whole NECX. That cold beer you see above? That was waiting for me in an ice cold cooler when I got home. High & Mighty Beer of the Gods may be my new favorite beer. So good. Speaking of High & Mighty. This weds night MidnightCx is on! It will be Zank SSCX Trophy series stop #2. Lots on the line for this one. The whole podium is getting pimped out with Beer of the Gods! I have two cases in my garage just for the race! Top 3 men and women get a six pack. That leaves 2 other to give away at our discretion. Hmmm barrier prime? DFL?

I haven't set the prize list yet but am going to dig through my mancave and see what I can come up with. I have some good swag I will say that! Hell week starts now! Tighten up those chin straps, make sure you put your spikes in your sidis. Hup! Hup! Oh and if anyone knows a 45+ master racer who is really, really fast and looking to be a part of one of the coolest cx teams in the NECX I need a teammate. Pronto. Time for some team tactics Belgie style...

So you want to be a CX superstar?

2011-09-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

Photo by Pat Engleman

Which of these images is more beautiful of Firefly CX001? Its a tough call. Obviously the clean version is sick. You can see the beautiful welds and all the details of the frame but the picture taken above? That is to me the far more beautiful image. And what is even more beautiful is what it represents. Grit and toughness. And that a boutique bike built by masters can also be as deadly as an AK-47. This is no handbuilt show one off. It is functional art. And its function is to win cross races make no mistake about it.

So back to the bike and its rider/owner. Its well documented I am a total cross fanatic. Its also well known that I love handbuilt bikes and hold their builders/artists on a level with rock stars. I still after two decades stand in awe of what they do. They don't just build bikes they create vehicles for transformation. Its not unlike what a surfboard shaper does for a soul surfer. The similarities are staggering if you really think about it. And more than ever we need these people and these bikes in our soulless time. The story behind this bike and its owner is truly amazing. I can only believe it is Karma in action. The story behind how Firefly came to be has been related before. I won't go into depth about that right now. But Tyler, Kevin and Jamie made a HUGE leap. And all of New England held our breathe and sent so much positive energy out to them. I think as a community we willed them to succeed. I think we needed it as much as they did. They did all the work obviously. And on their reputations along with their artistry built one of the greatest stories to come out of cycling in a while.
Over those first few months I got to know them all real well. I would stop in any chance I got. They were so welcoming. We rode. Damn I rode to NYC with Kevin. That is certainly a good way to get to know someone I will say that. He rode all the way. I got in the autobus around Bethel, CT. I'll make it all the way to DC this year don't worry. Or maybe I should be worried. But the point is I became really good friends with the guys over at Firefly. And getting to see their work made a huge impression on me.
But to the rider's story. One of my oldest friends in this bike game is a woman named Lucia Matioli. We were on a kick ass mtn bike team back in the 90s. It was beyond rad. She was a badass. We rode together constantly. Had some hilarious adventures racing bikes. Then I moved back east and we lost touch. I should have done better about staying in touch with my West coast friends. But kids, family and the lure of the NECX just got all my attention. I obviously think about my friends from Norcal all the time. But its hard to reconnect. On a drive home from Maine in early spring my wife asked me about Lucia. It was weird because at the time I was actually thinking about her and those days racing for Cal Bike. Pam suggested to check and see if maybe she was on facebook. I mean the fact that Pam suggested I log onto facebook considering her pure and utter hatred for social media points to Karma. Or possession. Perhaps Pam is a medium of some kind. Its possible she is Irish after all. So I stalked errr searched for Lucia on facebook. Voila. I friended her and sent her a message
It was seemless. It was almost like we hadn't skipped a beat. Well she emailed me the next day and wanted to know if I knew anything about this cyclo-cross thing. Ummm yeah maybe a little I responded. What do you want to know? She wanted to know everything! She asked me which bike to buy. I asked her budget and answered back a Firefly. Easy choice. She emailed me back and told me she ordered one. I thought she was kidding. It takes me 6-9 months to make a bike decision. I go back and forth and drive myself and the builder insane. She pulled the trigger in less than 24 hours. I couldn't believe it. I lived vicariously through her order. She got the first cx Firefly ever built. Hence the CX001 on the chainstay!

She came up to have a meet and great with Firefly and we had a great mtn bike ride on Blue Hills. Then she came up to give the bike its maiden voyage on the Ronde 2.5. She impressed the hell out of me. That ride was no joke. 50 miles of tough trails. The fact that it was her second ride on that bike spoke volumes for the bike and Firefly.

Well she had her first race last weekend at Nittany. The picture with all the mud on it is from that race! She hadn't raced CX in about a decade. Thinking back on it I don't know if she even actually raced cx when we were back in Norcal. I only dabbled back then. In Norcal at the time it really was just a fun distraction from Mtn bike season. For me anyway. Well in her first race back she rocked it. Top ten both days! I am sooo stoked for her its not even funny. To me that is what cx is all about. Sure its so easy to be a total narcissist and think about yourself and your race but cx more than any sport can be sooo addictive. And even the smallest push in the right direction can create one more cross fanatic. Lucia is a natural that to me is sooo obvious. She just gets it. That term get's thrown around a lot. To me what it means is she has the mental part down. She is aggressive and has an attacking nature. She is competitive but not type A so doesn't self destruct and become her own worse enemy. She is tough as nails and always stays positive. And she is strong as hell. I am so stoked to have her back in my life as my teammate and friend! And that bike? It might be the sexiest cross machine on the planet

Swiss Powah

2011-09-12T20:51:00.001-07:00

Pain face+glittery legs=cx bliss photo by Toro Loco

The last time I was at a cross race with a Swiss National Champion in the house it was in a strawberry patch in Wastonville, California. Thomas Frischknecht was in town visiting his sponsor Tom Ritchey and decided to give our brand of Jungle cross a go. He lined up at the back of what was the A race. Yes I am old and dating myself. Way back when it was A, B, C. You just showed up and raced. No sweating do I do masters with two kids and dog category. Or Uni-cylist in clownsuits race. You just raced cross. It was a simpler time. And you know what at Quad CX this weekend it was like I took a trip in the hot tub time machine and woke up in 1991. At that Surf City race. Frischi lined up at the back of the A group and gave them about a minute head start. I think he did it to avoid the massive pile up at the 6-pack of barriers that was a mere 100 yards from the start "line." Can you imagine the carnage at a Verge race with a 6-pack of barriers? There wouldn't be enough ambulances in New England to carry off the bodies. Anyway even with the 1 minute head start he was in the lead by 1/4 way through the first lap.

"Are you boys having trouble or causing trouble?" Me, Babydaddy and Boytoy. Yeah we are gonna have one hell of a cx season. Photo by Russ Campbell

I had no idea that Christian Heule was at the venue til afterwards when I saw Stu in the field. Suffice it to say he won the race! Quad Cx was a great local grassroots race. It was held at Middlesex college the last couple of years. I always loved it as it was in Bedford and had such a chill vibe. They moved to the Maynard Rod & Gun club and I have to say the new venue may be my favorite CX course of all time. It harkens back to the days of Jungle CX where you had to be on top of your game. No grasscrit. Not. At. All. After watching so many GVA Trofee series races on the tubes I couldn't help picture those courses every time through the woods. I mean Ted and the whole Quad crew deserve a huge thanks for not only finding a great new venue but for putting together such a demanding course. It started in a field with plenty of room to move up or get smoked at the start. Then a couple of chicanes and a sandpit that was rideable but somewhat tricky. My favorite part was the backside which took you down a smoking fireroad descent and then into some crazy loamy pump track of a cx playground. I had so much fun in there.

Stay on target......photo by Russ Campbell

The crux section was a mini barrier that everyone was hoping then a loose 10 second steep climb and a roller downhill on the other side. It just felt badass to come flying into that hop the barrier and then fly up the climb. It was a punchy course that demanded you stay on it the whole time. The Newbury Comics Pickle Feed zone was pretty rad as well. Newbury had their newly painted (Well Ted's!) barriers set up in the grassy field right before a fun offcamber section. I tried my best to hit those barriers PRO style. Who knows if that was the case but in my mind I was flying over them! I have to say for how nervous I was before the race I had a great race. The result is what it is. 20th isn't anything to rave about but I felt good. To me what matters is how you race. Did you put it all out there. Did you get rad. Resultboy has had an effect on me why lie. My newfound zest for radness is pretty much insatiable. Even if its just hoping mini barriers and lifting my rear wheel 1" off a table top...

Markie Mark shredding in the new Zank kit during the ss race. Photo by Russ Campbell

So I was pretty geeked out when I got to the venue but what is new. It took forever to get one foot in the parking lot as I bumped into so many people. It was so great to see everyone. Maynard is really a great spot for a cx race. I made my way to the Mad Alchemy tent as the Mad Alchemy embro app aka the Magic 8-Ball had said today was a good day for some non-warming CrossVegas embro. Yeah it was pretty much the glitter that I was after. I saw Kyle and Pete and bought my embro. I applied liberally and then put a dash of glitter on. I could tell Kyle and Pete wanted me to make it rain glitter so I gave the fans what they wanted. I dumped the whole packet on my legs. Stuff went everywhere! My legs had sooo much sheen I was blinding people from ten feet away. But I will tell you what each time I saw my knees shiny with glitter I stomped those pedals to pieces....
It felt so good to be back to cx racing. We have waited so long. The bike rode fantastic. I brought the Rhynos cause they were all I had. And they rode great. Bottomed out a bunch of times but never flatted. You could have gotten away with a filetread rear and a grifo front but it was really nice having the edge of a Rhyno to work with in the woods I will say that! So great hanging out with everyone. There was a big HUP contingent on hand. Lots of BLANCO which was totally awesome. I was a bit too shy and frankly the combo of glitter and blanco may have been too much for people. Quad Cx was also the kick off of the Zanconato Single-Speed CX Series. We had 40 men and 3 women. Lots of frankensinglespeeds. Some serious firepower on the line. Matt Myette did some kind of running lemans start which seemed to confuse and intimidate the field. Doug Kennedy won the High & Mighty barrier prime. Its going to be a great cx season. So much cooking. I for one hope we get more promoters to design courses that have more creativity and push us as cross racers to learn to ride our bikes on something other than smoothly cut grass...

So hott! FMB Gripo XL with Zank stamp....so much Zank goodness coming down the pipe

Dirty

2011-09-05T17:22:00.001-07:00

"So shaking out the cobwebs means getting the embarrassing crash and mechanicals out of the way, right?:" From TheJeffreyBramhall.com's twitter feed. Yes Jeff. Yes it does. We all crashed some of the rust off the old cx bikes this past weekend. Ski Ward home of the Night Weasels Cometh last year has become Boston's version of Valmont Bike Park. Seriously. They have welcomed cyclists with open arms and with the help of MRC have a dedicated cx course/playground set up for crossers looking to get their cxey on. MRC moved their training series from Wrenthem to Ski Ward this year. It uses the far side of the course that we used for Night Weasels. The other half of Ski Ward has a sick tubing slide and some kind of summer ramp of xtremeness going on. 30 or so of us showed up Saturday for what we were calling Bandit CX. It wasn't "bandit" in the traditional sense. It was Bandit in that we showed up and ran a off the cuff CX training race. Ski Ward charges by the hour to use the facility but for the training series they charge $10. Pretty good deal for a sweet course with double barriers and no fear of the police descending upon you to kick you off your new "secret" spot.

In all seriousness Ski Ward has been awesome. MRC is doing a great job with their Weds Training Series and I think the future for cycling being a big part of Ski Ward over the next couple of years is for real. Pete and I were talking in the parking lot afterwards about how cool it would be to have a short track mtn bike series here next summer. But back to Bandit CX. Adam Myserson, The Wilcox, and a bunch of fast guys and girls showed up for an early season training race. We did 2 four lap races. Mass start. In one the fast guys started at the front. In another they staged at the back and worked through traffic. Race 1 was great. Except the wanting to puke each time up the steep hillclimb. It felt sooo good to be on a cross course with the bike in full race mode. I brought out the Rhynos for this. At first I thought it was really really stupid bringing an AK-47 to a knife fight. Each time I said that I remembered the beat down I took at Ski Ward last year in the mud. We have had a bit of weather this last couple of weeks and I knew it would be slick. But it was muddy!!! I am praying to the cross gods every day that this trend continues! More mud for this cx season. The Rhynos make you feel like a cx superstar. I mean seriously. The rear was bottoming out every time I hit a bump. It rolled. It gripped and shredded that mucky muck like a chainsaw.

I did learn or relearn a valuable psi lesson. Better to have really low psi in the front than the rear. With Dugasts you really can go low. My rear had 20 psi in the first race. It was a bit unnerving after a summer on clinchers at 50 or 60. But man does it give you grip! The first race was uneventful other than JB smashing his body into the first barrier section. He was unscathed but I think his ego was bruised a touch. No shame in crashing on the barriers my friend. We have all been there! Race two was an entirely different story. We had such a good crew. So there was a ton of socializing etc. The second start we were all bunched up going into the holeshot which was a hub deep mud pit. Dog stacked it on the inside, JB crashed on top of her and then I jackhammered onto both of them in a mudder dogpile. I though I impaled my face into her rear canti but thankfully I just smacked her rear triangle so didn't have a core sample of my face. My first thought other than my looks and teeth was oh god we just broke Jeff's brand new bike. Thankfully this was not the case as Germans now how to build bombproof carbon. Have I mentioned how much I love the Germans?

Both races I got to ride fairly close to Frances Morrison. She is awesome. Obviously. And one of my coaches Proteges. And a total cross Ninja. She is sooo smooth. And reminded me so much of Al. In a weird way it was getting a clinic from Al himself. In those 8 laps I learned more about cornering and flow than all last season. Seriously. Ski Ward is a ski hill. So you go up and you go down. That is how a ski hill is. But the carry over from Night Weasels is that Colin and those boys know how to make the most of any patch of terra firma. It is nice. Yeah you sort of want to puke every lap. But it switchbacks and you have to really work on momentum. Stay off those brakes!!! And for god sake anytime you have some speed carry it over and up any berm or rise you have to deal with. There was some sick mud. I really enjoyed that aspect as I love the mucky muck. It was funny to see some people go all the way around some mud pit. Me? I would just fly into and get covered! It was like a baptism by mud.

Afterwards we all grabbed lunch at the lodge. How cool is that? Ski Ward has a nice lodge that you can hang out on benches grab a veggie burger and an ice cream. Enjoy the day. No need to rush home etc. It was a perfect day and a great reunion with my cx family. So many cool cats were there. I highly recommend checking out the MRC Training Series or just go out some weekend and shred the gnar to get those skills back!
A couple of other quick notes. I got a sweet care pack from Pete! I love his Chamois creme. When I heard he had a new one called Pure I had to try it. It is hands down my favorite. It is very euro. Reminds me of one of my all time faves Sportsbalm. But way, way better. Goes on real smooth and just stays put. Zero friction. And smells like the Ardennes forest.

Lastly. My good friend Jeff told me about a HUGE sale happening this Friday at Pedros warehouse in Haverhill. I will get more details but basically show up Friday or Saturday. You pay $20 or $30. You get either a mini pit kit or the superpit kit and then fill it with all the stuff your grubby hands can pick up and fit into the bucket. Let;'s call it a bucket sale! The only catch is the stuff is labeled in German, Vulcan and/or Korean. In some ways that could be a selling point. I wonder how you say Bike Lust in Flemish?

Hope all of you are getting the rust off! The first official race in the NECX is this weekend in Maynard. Quad CX is gonna be insane. Trust me you will not want to miss it. Race #1 in the Zanconato Single Speed CX Trophy series. High & Might Beer Barrier Primes courtesy of Newbury Comics. And it has a sketchy downhill. Need I say more? Hup Hup

It was a dark and stormy night

2011-08-30T12:36:00.001-07:00

I missed the kick off party for the Tour of the Unattended held at the Ride Studio. I was not going to miss the post ride party. No way. Not even a Hurricane was gonna stop me. So yeah we had some weather here in New England last weekend. The end of dayers love this stuff. Me I am not new to this rodeo. Blizzard of '78 yeah lived through it. Loma Prieta in '89 barely survived it but did. You are going to need to do a lot more than a Tropical Storm to get me hunkering down. But I left the kids at home and did pack a rain jacket and flash light. But the night had that feeling of a dark force heading our way. People were in the mood to party! Rob and Patria had promised a party to remember and that is saying something as the Ride Studio has already firmly established that it knows how to throw a party! I owe the RSC for 90% of the friends I have right now. Most of them I met at a function or event centered around the Studio
In keeping with the Dark and Stormy theme and the Hurricane Rob was serving up Dark N' Stormy cocktails. Take 1 highball glass, add dark rum, add ginger beer, 1 slice of lime. Voila instant party. Sure there was a lot of the usual biker party banter but I think the night and the cocktails and the fact that so many of us are now such good friends added to the conversation. Two of the more highly entertaining conversation centered around a foible I made with Strava a month ago. I may have had my bike on the top of my car when I scored a KOM that blew the whole town of Boston out of the water. Oopsies. I deleted that ride and made it right with the Strava gods. Next up was bee stings along with the Quint like explanation of each attack and the showing off of scars. If Robert was there no way we didn't win that competition. I swear one time we must have run over a hive because we each were stung at least 5 times in the ass in Cutler Park...but I digress
The new Curator of the Studio and QOM of TotU Patria! So great getting to know her over the course of a week. And congrats to her on her new role at the RSC she is going to do a great job!
There were some super cool Star Wars/Hans Solo t-shirts and a Hans Solo cake as well as Star Wars being played continuously on a flat screen tv. Add in a live DJ rocking the beats and so many of my friends. The storm just became a background adding to the ambience of the evening
Everyone had such a good time. It was a great way to end the summer. How do I know the summer is over? Traffic has gone up about 300% in the last weekend, all the moms have a crazed look in their eyes as they try and run me down in their minivans rushing to the Gap and the woods are now my sanctuary for the next 4 months. CX season is here my friends. We have waited sooo long. Get those bikes ready. See you soon. Hup! Hup!

Master says Faster

2011-08-26T19:16:00.001-07:00

And just like that its over. The Tour of the Unattended was incredible. What a fantastic event. Its been a journey to say the least. It came together so fast. Huge thanks to Zac Daab, Rob Vandermark, The whole Ride Studio staff, Patria, Michele Smith and all the riders. We had so much fun. It was soo cool to see how people came together on this. The Ride Studio served as the HQ/Hub for this. The leaderboard was such a great idea. Being able to go into the Studio check the standings, get a macchiato , a couple of gu packs and talk about the stage was so cool. So much gamesmanship went into this. The midnight texts to see when people were riding. The constant checking and guessing about peoples times. Bike doping. Recovery doping. I swear I put more prep into this than any race I have ever done. I also got sooo much great advice from so many people. Congrats to my good friend Matt Simpson! It was sooo much fun riding with him and hanging out together all week. Friends like Matt are a gift. Seriously. He pushed me and inspired me all week. I have yet to see the official results but Matt won it. No doubt in my mind. He got some stiff competition from The Wilcox and Billy Campbell. They both fought so hard to stay close to him. But Matt smashed it. Seeing David and Matt in action has given me pause. Not sure what it will translate to for this cx season but I have a whole new perspective on the bike game. And like war when you go into the trenches with good friends you and your bond comes out stronger. So congrats to everyone who rode all week. Or who took a crack at it and missed some stages etc. It was soo challenging getting all the rides in and managing the toll it took on body and mind.

I came so close to sleeping through Stage 5. My babymomma punched my in the stomach at about 5:45 and told me to get out of bed! The alarm never went off but Pam sensed it. Thank god. I love that woman so much its ridiculous. And the fact that she is willing to punch me in my stomach of anger to get me to complete what I set out makes me love her even more. So I grabbed my kit and tore out the door. The sensation were less than good to say the least. My biggest fear on this one was getting lost. Lexington was/is my Kryptonite in this. I am not fast perse but on home ice I did ok. I studied the cue sheet the night before. I even took a page out of the classics and taped the actual turns onto my tt. But I missed a pretty big detail. In Bedford there was a confusing interchange. I should have put the mileage down at that point so I would know just where it occurred. But back to the stage. David and Matt and I met up. We bumped into Cort Cramer commuting to work on his cx bike. No big right? Wrong Cort is a P.I.M.P. He was on deep section carbon wheels and tubies. On his way to work. Yeah try and top that. He coined me "Black Ice" Love it. That matched my sensations pretty much to the t.

We pounded cofeets, talked shop with Patria and David at the Studio and then tightened up our sidis and went to do one last sick effort. My plan was to try as best as I could to get up the leaderboard. I wanted so bad to get my name back on that chalkboard. But I knew I had to be fast and ride the course clean. We shot out of the start house and hit a detour. We got around it pretty smoothly. I saw both David and Matt up the road go off course. OMG. I couldn't even believe it. Not two miles in and they took a wrong turn. I put it out of my head and got back to the business of smashing my pedals as hard and fast as I could. They caught me on rt 2 and flew by me like they had jets. I got a slap on the ass and a low five. I kept driving and trying to mentally picture the course in my head. Being able to look down at my tt and see the turns really helped. I was going pretty good. Averaging about 21 mph. I came across a Ride Studio rider on the side of the road fixing a flat. I said bummer and just kept driving. I felt bad for him but the rules are pretty good in this case. Your time is based on moving time not stopped so getting a flat or held up at a light doesn't kill your chances. I had the course dialed. I got onto 225 with no problem. But I was getting mentally punchy. I saw some arrows on the road that corresponded with what I thought was the route. They had an upside down w or an m not sure which. So my mind drifted. I got lazy and thought I could follow those. The tricky section was coming up but I wasn't sure where.

I got through Bedford center and saw the w with an arrow pointing left. And took it. Alarms went off in my brain but it looked familiar. I have ridden here so many times before but never been on my own and have always been with someone who knows the area. So I tracked it on memory. But what I am noticing about Lexington is that they don't like street signs. Maybe they don't have enough money in Lexi to buy signs for all the streets or maybe they want to confuse thieves who want to steal all their fancy stuff. I don't know but it makes it real hard to stay on course I will say that. So I am flying. Then I see the VA....oh no I think this can't be right. Then I see Middlesex college. And I stop. I check my superphone to see where Page road is. Its of course two miles behind me. Ok so I turn around and start hauling. I get on Page and am now pretty much just riding as close to the limit as I can. I come flying by the Ride Studio guy who had a flat earlier. I get up and over the Col de Lex and just keep digging even though I am so bummed I missed the turn and blew any chance at getting that number 5 spot and a place in that chalk board in the Studio. In all honesty I probably couldn't have made it up anyway. The riders ahead of me are in a whole other class. I am a cross racer not a road racer.

But you know what? Getting lost is half the adventure. I am learning to be a better rider. This week is going to pay off huge dividends in October. I got to spend the week riding with friends on some amazing loops and learned how to go fast. The real epiphany is I don't go this hard in a cross race. When I was talking to a friend about the week she told me a story about some advice Georgia Goulds dad gave Georgia after he saw her at a cx race for the first time. He said to get better all Gerogia had to do was to pedal harder and faster. Hahahaha that is awesome. Only a dad could say that to one of America's best cross racers. But you know what he is spot on. Other than getting in touch with my inner Black Ice that will be my mantra all cx season "Harder and Faster"

Again I can't say enough how much I enjoyed all the energy everyone had all week. Patria and Michele were so great. They did so much to make sure everything ran smoothly. Their stories from the week were awesome. And the fact that Michele wore a Boston Cross kit on the final stage makes her even more of a hero in my mind than before. Thanks to Matt and David for pushing me so hard and being such good partners in crime! Billy damn fine effort my friend. I am so up for doing this again.

Congrats to all of you! What a great week. Hopefully see everyone at the party at the Ride Studio this Saturday night. I can't to see the podium presentations. I hear they have a really special night planned

Red Dawn

2011-08-25T13:31:00.000-07:00

Stage 4 of the Tour of the Unattended began before most people were even thinking of getting out of bed. My alarm went off at 5 am. I was out the door by 5:30. Now sure the Crack O Dawn riders are pretty much already cued up at Cutler and rolling but for me getting up that early is obscene. But I knew if I was going to have a good day it was going to be this one. I knew this stage like the back of my hand. We rode the Tuesday Night Worlds course in Dover. If I was going to get the 3 minutes (Well 10...) that I lost on stage 2 it was going to be today....So I turned to doping.

Weather doping, embrocation doping, tire doping, bottle doping, course doping, basically every type of doping that doesn't include doping or going out and buying an aero road bike with deep section carbon wheels. And the latter did occur to me for a mili-second.

But back to the doping. The weather report for today wasn't ideal. The Wilcox, Matt and I knew early was better so went with wicked early. This also gave us two other advantages. Let's call them traffic doping and course doping. There was zero traffic. Like no cars. People either don't have a work ethic around here or are on bankers hours not sure which. Don't they realize 9-5 means get in your cubicle by 8? Weird. And traffic doping led to course doping. I have no idea why but man I hit ALL the lights just right. I know you don't get penalized for stopping as your time is moving time but you don't gain anything by stopping and restarting. Well you gain some cx holeshot power but that is it. But man it was something else. The only other time I have made the light at South and Dedham ave was back on the original Ronde. And it was a good omen then. It was a great omen today. I made it in both directions.

But let's get to the real meat of my doping today exhibits A, B, & C in my defense...

Tire Doping: Switching to Conti 4000s for the hillclimb made zero impact. I am not a climber that much is obvious after yesterday. But what may be emerging is I may have the ability to go kind of fast on a wide open rolling power course. Fast tires help here. Damn those Contis where the tire equivalent of a nitrous injection system. They also were tough. I was flying and rolled right over a shattered pile of glass. I think it was a Heineken. Who even drinks Heineken anymore. I let out a fairly loud F' me... as I thought I was done. But I didn't flat. The glass didn't even get stuck in the tire. I think the Germans know a thing or two about tires.

Bottle Doping: I ran out of nuun. I had nothing but some camelback elixir. Screw that I wasn't putting that in my bottle. I wanted some rocket fuel. Behind glass I had a huge can of accelerade. When I bought it the guy at Landry's basically told me its like liquid crack cocaine for cyclists. He wasn't that far off the mark. I filled two bottles with it the night before. I drank every drop. And got faster as the TT unfolded. I may be off nuuns. Its great that you don't get all geeked out on god knows what is in accelerade but do you want to soft pedal or do you want to go fast? Yeah I thought so.

Embrocation Doping: Say what? Its about 80 and humid today. I busted out the Mad Alchemy secret stash. It was basically a kamikaze move to force my sleeping shattered legs to wake up and do what they are supposed to do. Push those cranks harder and faster. The legs won the mental battle on Prospect Hill so I decided to punish them. I massaged that MA in deep. And then the crawling fire ants feeling started to crawl up my legs. I felt like Beavis and Butthead...But I didn't even have to tell my legs to shut up once. They knew I was not messing around today. And every time I looked down and saw them glistening and the sweat balling up and rolling off them I would stand up and pedal harder. And laugh.

The other type of doping I did and probably one of the most important was the soundtrack in my head. Call it Music Doping. I have two girls. We listen to Kiss 108 constantly. On Stage 3 I listened to the old Chip. The old Chip was a typical townie dude who thought Mettalica and Swedish Death Metal is the way to harness your inner stomach of anger and ride with rage. Nope. In the words of Chuck D N.O.P.E. Didn't even remotely work. In fact all it did was give me butterflies and make me nervous. But thank god all weds post-ride I was with my girls and listening to their music. As I rolled out the start house a song popped into my head. Its one of their favorites right now. I dedicate my CRW 28 (26) time of 1:12 to Nicki Minaj and her song Super Bass....man that song just gets me going. I was flying the whole way. Seeing Matt and David who had finished wayyy before me as I came down Greendale gave me even more watts. It was like wolves when they come back together as a pack. It was crazy. So I am a doper. Or just finally figuring out how to do this bike riding thing. Final Stage Friday. I am so stoked. Tonight I am studying that cue sheet all night long. And I am busting out the Hup blues for this one. Belgian Blue really does make you faster.

You can't handle the Truth

2011-08-24T14:10:00.001-07:00

They say that a time trial is the "race of truth." Never really understood that til now. Riding or racing a road bicycle without a draft is pretty much the most painful thing you can do. The Tour of the Unattended has been a wake up call for me. I have some really fast friends. And they indulge me a bit. Ie they actually ride with me even though I am so slow. But I never really understood the work and preparation that goes into being fast. We can look at other guys bikes and think oh they have a lighter, faster bike and that is why they are fast. That is so far from the truth its not even funny. But you know what I have gotten faster. And its been basically by osmosis. Merely being in the presence of fast people makes you fast. It starts to wear on you. You model their behavior. You get rad when you thought you didn't have a shred of radness in your body. But I digress. The point is or the truth is I owe a HUGE thanks to so many people for one of the most amazing summers of riding ever. And the Tour of the Unattended has been the most surprising of all of my adventures this last 4 months. I thought it would be cool but had no idea it would be so addictive and so competitive. The concept has a lot of people really fired up. I don't race this hard during cross season. Which I guess is one truth I should deal with in the coming weeks. But I have loved every part of it. The planning, the texting and tracking of riders times. I have loved all of it.
Today was stage 3. A .92 mile hillclimb up Prospect Hill in Waltham. Prospect Hill is a little slice of hell. It is short but really steep. It flattens out and you can get to about 20mph but then it pops up again at the end and makes you dig deeper than you thought humanly possible. Matt and I met up this am and did some recon. As we were getting ready to go none other than Dave Chiu rolled up! It was so great to see him. He is such a Baller. Matt is one of the most prepared athletes I have met. I guess I haven't seen this part of Matt before. But it has been so nice being a part of his prep. I showed them the course profile. Then we warmed up on the road. I was so geeked up to get this over with I probably jumped the gun. But I couldn't soft pedal around the truth any longer. I pushed myself sooo hard. I tried to tell my legs to shut up but they weren't buying it after these last couple of days. They were pretty much about ready for their own Mutiny on the Bounty.

But I got an ok time. I rolled back down and cooled down a bit. After the puking feeling subsided I foolishly thought hey maybe doing it another time would yield a faster time! That was probably the stupidest idea I have ever had. So I set up and went for it again. This time Dave was coming down and yelled ::" Go Chip!" It got me pretty fired up but my legs were thrashed! I almost quit at the level off but pushed harder and finished it up. About 20 seconds slower. Dave and Matt's times were sick!
It was such a beautiful day out there. Bikes rule. The Tour of the Unattended is such a great way to cap off the summer. We are all taking this really seriously which in of itself is hilarious. But to me its the greatest glory. Almost like surfers. Who cares how you do in a pack at Wells Ave. I mean seriously. How hard is that? Sit in going really fast and then field sprint FTW. Ok actually that sounds really, really hard. But back to the TotU. Its all about suffering and challenging yourself in a way that you never would in any other event. Stage 4 is going to be a good one. Finally back on some familiar turf! Perhaps I can get back some of those minutes I lost up in Carlisle!

Solo Break-Stage #2 TotU

2011-08-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

Stage 2 was a big dose of HTFU. Who knew a 27 mile TT would hurt about 500 times more than a 8 mile one! Matt Simpson, Dave Wilcox and myself were emailing each other and texting each other into the early hours of tuesday am game planning how we would tackle Stage 2. When we saw the leaderboard at the Ride Studio much heated debate ensued as to what we had to do to stay on top or not fall off the GC.

I sadly brought a butter knife to a gunfight in the form of a paper cue sheet. David and Matt both were smart and had Garmins with touch screen mapping. I love my 500 but in this instance its not the optimal tool for the job. That is doing a tt on a route you have no experience with technology is your friend. And the more the better! Pulling a wad of paper out of your jersey pocket at 20 mph to see what turn is next is suboptimal by any definition. So long story short I took two wrong turns. Once cost me ten minutes. The other was no big deal at all. But you know what? I will give that ten minutes away for experiencing what it feels like to get in a solo break and turn yourself inside out for an hour and a half. Frankly I will now have a whole new perspective of the breakaway in a road race. Racing on your own without a draft is insane. I have literally never suffered like that on a bike in my life. But it felt good. I was locked in just trying with all I could to get every second I could out there. And I felt fast. The numbers may not support this but my legs felt good.

When I got back to Hanscom and heard the times that Matt and David put in I couldn't believe it! They were flying! What an amazing course. The TotU has hit a note with me. Its brought a level of excitement to a weeks riding that I have never experienced before. All the riders involved are sooo stoked for it. My failings so far have been poor recon. The smart riders are pouring over maps and memorizing the sectors and turns. They are taking advantage of course knowledge and using it to their advantage. The gamesmanship has been hilarious. There may even be some bike doping/bike kidnapping going on but what happens on the TotU stays on the TotU...
Stage 3 is going to be no joke. I am heading out early in the am. I have consulted the hillclimbing experts and have a plan! Ok maybe my plan includes huge amounts of cofeets and Swedish Death metal. But some plan is better than none right! The Ride Studio has been a great hub for this Tour. We were in for quite a while plotting and scheming today. Huge thanks to Matt and David for being such great companions on this house of pain.....

Tour of the Unattended Stage #1

2011-08-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

That man can lay down some Watts!!! Matt Simpson and I rode out together to do the first stage of the Tour of the Unattended. Stage #1 was the Dover TT. A 20 minute rolling loop. I am not a time trialer. Matt and I went out and did it Cannibal style. But this isn't a normal TT. It is hilly. It has some technical bits. You could get Shlecked really easily if you aren't on top of your game. It was a gorgeous day out. Matt gave me two minutes as he wasn't familiar with the course at all. Luckily he caught me right after the most technical turn so he could see how it was. It was actually pretty bad. 180 with a ton of leaves and sticks on the inside. He slapped me on the ass as he went by. For a second I thought I could keep him in sight. But it was an illusion. He was gone! I tried to keep the pedal on the metal but my legs were toast. I came in wayyy too hot at the end trying to carry some speed and flatted my rear tire across the train tracks. My time was an unimpressive 21 minutes. My garmin was acting up and missed a bit of the mileage out of the start house. The timer worked the whole way. Matt ripped an 18:41. Don't think anyone is beating that.

We bumped into Patria and David from the Ride Studio at the Dover common. We were all laughing and smiling at the fact of being out on a sunny monday doing a TT for a stage race. We talked about bike doping as I fixed my flat. I am seriously undergunned for this TotU. I mean seriously. I am now accepting deep section wheels and fast bikes. I will pimp the hell out of your brands....well say really nice things about them anyway. I am kidding. Kind of. My bike is awesome. Its the motor that is maybe lacking

We rode back towards Wellesley with Patria and David. It was so nice riding with people I have met before but never had the chance to ride with. Umm I don't know Patria that well but she is really, really strong. She was hammering the little risers that we were rolling up and descending off them like she had stolen something. I think she had to get back to work to be honest.

It was a great day out there. The TT hurt like hell. Riding with friends was as always the best. Matt and I stopped at a lemonade stand and got free double stuff oreos with our purchase! That my friends is winning. So I apologize in advance. Matt wasn't really planning on doing this and now he is all in. I see no way he doesn't crush us all. But he is such a nice guy I am ok with that. Plus it means I get to ride with him all week!

What a fantastic idea this is. I am actually shocked no one has done this before. Like we weren't crazy enough about riding our bikes. Now we are focused on this challenge for a solid 5-days! Tomorrow is Stage #2 the CRW Hanscom loop. Its going to be a good one. I am taking the 25s off and putting some fast rubber on for this one. And if its as sunny as today wearing full blanco!

Bloody Knuckles

2011-08-21T19:44:00.001-07:00

The cross gods are not some buddy jesus who stands up on stage in a tuxedo t-shirt playing Freebird. The cross gods are like a tempest. Fire and Ice. Honing its legions into razors. The Ronde 2.5 went down this saturday. Not enough can be said about the effort Matt Aumiller, Matt Miller, Ian Whittle and a whole horde of Cambridge Bikes people put into making this happen. It was one of the most creative routes that I have ever ridden. It blew my mind. So many times during the ride I was just losing it I was soooo stoked. Matt did a superhuman job of marking the course. The pink syringes were off the hook. I honestly didn't hear of one person getting lost. That is a miracle. This is the third incantation of the Ronde and trust me getting lost is the price of admission. Not on this one. Matt even rode neutral support. Fixing flats and offering pep talks along the way. Ok maybe the pep talks part is a lie. But back to the gods. Wether we angered or excited them I do not know. What I do know is we woke them up. It started on Firefly Cx001's maiden journey. My good friend Lucia is kind of into cross this season. So much so that she had Tyler build her one of the sickest ti cross bikes in existence. Imagine Tyler as Hephaestus and Lucia as Achilles and well you get the idea. Tyler basically created a weapon of the gods for this cx season. We hadn't been riding for ten minutes when we heard thunder crashing over our heads. And not just hey here is a little storm but Thor's Hammer smashing ice giants type of thunder. We rode it out and had an amazing ride. The bike performed perfectly. It was a great opener and a foreshadowing of how the Ronde would go for us. I personally was so jacked up from riding through the t-storms and the thoughts of the ride that I couldn't sleep at all. I just dreamt of shredding gnar all day long with the NECX.

We arrived at Ian's to see this....the gods smashed his car. Wow. The Destroyer was indeed living up to its name. Everyone was bouncing off the walls and getting ready to go. I said hi to everyone. Hugged soooo many people. Pumped everyone's tires to 50 psi. Or I thought I did...and we rolled out with the Pink Beacons! The Pink Beacons were none other than the Newbury Comics crew. We had 8 riders in our group from HUP. Mike G, Lucia, Markie Mark, Mark Van Liere, Parke, Ctodd, Me and celebrity guest rider Mike Zocchi. Billy led us out on a paceline all through the streets of JP and delivered us to Canto 6. We hauled up the hill and popped into Franklin Park. We hit the first trail sections and then the bad things started to happen. I felt my rear tire bottom out a bit on a chunky rock. I didn't really think I flatted but it registered. At mile two in the most beautiful cemetery I have ever been in with church bells ringing all around us I called out for a tire change. I mentioned it was mile 2 right? FML. We bid Newbury Comics adieu and got down to the business of the flat. Fairly quick tire change and our group of 8 was back on it at full pedal to the gas. I am not going to lie. I was driving a fairly hard pace. Not killing it but I wanted to get to some separation. I knew Robert and his super squadra were behind us hunting us down. We pacelined really well for a while. No problems. Staying on course and railing the little woodsy connecter paths.
We popped out the road heading to Blue Hills and I started to get even more geeked out. The Blue Hills part of this ride was something special. At least to me it was. Sure it was kind of rocky, babyheads, axe heads, hammer heads...gravely in bits. But it had that mountain feel to it. Nice loamy trails in parts, trees rearing up. We climbed a bit. Well we pushed and Mike Zocchi floated up the steepest rockiest climb we had that day. That man has skills that is all I am saying. At mile 13 we had flat #2. Of course we did. It was mile 13 after all. It actually wasn't that big a shocker for how rocky it was. It was at this stoppage that team Camelstache caught us. It was great to see Uri and Jon and the boys. We exchanged pleasantries and they waited for us while we got our act together. We all descended as a group off the mountain...well hill. At some point on the descent we had another flat. Then another. I realized at this point that this was just going to be how the day was going to go. We soldiered on. At one point Matt rolled up in the team car and assisted the boys with one of their flats. He may have burned a smudge stick or through some mojo lifted what ever flat karma from us. As we really only had two more the rest of the ride.

QOTD from my babymomma :"Who was that guy who looked like a porn star?" Damn I thought Uri looked more like Tom Ritchey or Tom Selleck...

The course had such a great flow to it. You would get out on some urban road sections and just hammer then pop into such great greenspace. And all of it in Boston or in its environs. I mean who knew Boston had such a great urban trail system. Turtle Pond was calling my name sooo bad. I seriously wanted to stop and jump in. It was really hot and it would have felt so good. But we were on the hunt. I knew we were dfl and was trying as much as I could to coax as much speed out of our group as humanly possible. When we got to Millenium park in West Roxbury we were greeted to some awesome mud! You could just shred through the corners doing two-wheel drifts with mud flying everywhere! I almost killed a robin fledgling at one point but was able to use some body english to keep it from getting crushed under my front wheel. We saw a huge deer at one point. At Cutler we kept the pace hot. I could hear everyone hooting and hollering at how rad it was. Again one of the coolest parts of these rides is you end up in places you have never been. I ride Cutler all the time. Its never boring but to me its old hat. But for people who were seeing it for the first time? It was like a cx amusement park. We got across the boardwalk and then onto the Island. I was at the front when I hear a HUGE crash behind me. It sounded bad. I went back and saw Lucia crumpled on the ground. She asks me " what does it feel like when you break your collarbone" Hahhaha nah I say. If you can raise it you are fine. At least I hoped she was fine. She like all of my friends is tough as nails. She was in visible pain for the whole ride. We are talking another 35 miles at this point.

Not surprisingly The Wilcox smashed the Ronde 2.5!!!

We roll through to the pump track and rail the berms. We head out and all I can think about is the water stop at the end of Needham Town Forest that my babymomma has set up for the ride. She was sooo nice to set up around 9:30 and wait for riders to come through. It was a perfect spot. At about the half way mark. She had pop tarts, cookies, nuun, water etc. She loved seeing each crew come through and the crazy ass stories they would tell. But in my mind as we popped into the trail at NTF I was praying she would be there. It felt like some type of special forces mission. Would the extraction team be there at the LZ? In the back of my mind I thought damn we are sooo late. I said we'd be in between 9-11. It was close on noon. But as I popped out into the parking lot seeing her was like seeing an oasis. Or Isis I suppose. I gave her a huge hug and a sweaty kiss. She seemed pretty grossed out to be honest. I was pretty much like a feral animal at this point. We stocked up. Filled our camlebacks and rolled out.
We started getting a bit punchy as we headed toward the auqueduct. I think the miles of hard trail riding were started to add up. But still you could tell people were loving it. We rode the loop. Still we saw no one. I still don't know how this is possible. At the Dunkin Donuts on rt 9 we saw a group of Cambridge hanging out. I won't lie I sped up. I could hear the crew wanting to stop and indulge in those donuts and iced cofeets. But I knew if we stopped we were done. So I pushed harder. And faster. I started getting the Jens Voigt I need coffee bit going in my head. Ok I might have been signing it out loud to get people moving. I almost crashed wicked hard on some wet roots up in the S.Natick side of the loop. Who knew mud 2s pumped to 55 psi don't ride so well over nasty slimy roots. Other than looking like a hot mess I pulled it off without incident. We were now flying. Or at least it felt that way. But as we crossed over Great Plain and dropped back into the trail Parke hit a tree. Umm like full on. And he appeared stuck to it. I had visions of the final scene in the John Wayne Movie the Green Berets luckily he only was hugging the tree and slightly stunned. We got him off the tree. Then we started to change his front tire which flatted. Then the bleeding started. Blood was everywhere. On the levers. On the hub. The tire. Parke just shredded the hell out of his hand. Later in the er they took a piece of metal out of it. But Parke is all cool and chill. We get some duct tape and an elastic and tie it off. Mike Zocchi gives Parke a full fingered glove and off we go. Note to self: Carry first aid supplies!

Some nice Belgian tan lines

At this point I have two riders who have taken some serious crash damage, a couple who are looking like they are about to enter bonky town and never come out. So I make some executive decisions. I drive the pace even harder as now all we have is road. The thought being the faster we go the quicker we get to the beer. It sort of works. I float to the back of the paceline and offer up some gu shots etc. I cut out the secret stash in Brookline as I knew there was no way we would come out of that alive. We finally roll back to Larz and the BBQ! We see DJ heading home in the other direction. We were like a pack of wild dogs at that point and I could tell there were some grumblings as to wether we should attack him and eat his flesh...back at the start/finish we shared sooo many tales. Ian had an amazing bbq going. Chris Igleheart was hanging out. Matt came over and congratulated us. And as he sat down on the cooler and asked me how the ride went it hit me. The reason we put on these crazy ass rides, the reason we do these crazy ass rides is for that moment. Matt gave us a gift on Saturday. And like lots of gifts you could tell he got as much from the giving of it as we did the receiving of it. Thank you Matt, and Matt and Ian. Huge HUP hugs to all of you that rode, to CB racing! So stoked to be a part of this crazy ass community of rad bikers in the NECX...

Crank the Zank

2011-08-15T18:49:00.001-07:00

QOTD@24HOGG "Why is the big tent laughing at me?" The big tent was laughing cause it knew deep down in its green heart that this weekend was going to be sooo rad it was going to be ridiculous. Team Crank the Zank aka Team Chamois Cream FTW touched down at the base of Mt Washington Friday to contest the 24HOGG. This would be my third year doing this. To say I was a tad nervous and excitable would be an understatement. To say by the time we laid down in that tent that I was about to jump out of my skin would be an understatement as well. The hardest part or coolest part about 24HOGG is all the preparation that goes into this. Which in my case consists of a 2-day freak out in the middle of all my other usual freaking out about this that and the other thing. But 24HOGG freak outs at least have a purpose. Food, shelter, water, lighting. Actually lighting should probably go to #1 in that list as you could go without the other 3 for the night but without lights you are just going to be food for the bears.

We assembled a super squadra from the NECX. Mike Zanconato and Matt Myette from Zanconato Custom Cycles, Nick Maggiore from Newbury Comics and Leah Pappas-Barnes and myself reping HUP UNITED. We were reg;'d for the 5-person Coed. Nick, Leah and I rolled up in the HUP team sprinter van. We packed sooo much stuff into that van it was insane. We left Boston pretty much without incident. Grabbed the best PB&J from Canto 6 and pointed the van north. We made great time got up and followed Colin's Macpaint masterpiece to where we thought he wanted us all to set up camp. 24HOGG is pretty much a NECX reunion. Sooo many of our good friends from cx are here every year. This year was even more of a gathering of the tribe. Our team was planning on circling the wagons with a pro team of Colin Reuter, Mike Wissell, Greg Whitney and Kevin Sweeny. We were also to be joined by a 2-person 12 hour team from Boston. The MRC crew had a HUGE compound right next to us. Lauren Kling was up with Cary attempting to defend her Duchess of Dirt Crown.

Our tent city was part shanti town part base camp. I mean on paper we looked great! The boys moved all our stuff from being right in front of the porto-potties...(what were we thinking?) to a nice spot boxed in between a bunch of rvs. If zombies came out of the woods we would hear the screams in time to lock and load and have a clear target before they got to us. But I am getting off track...we had a BALLER ultimate stand for our bikes which was under an ez up. That is PRO. We had a huge ez-up courtesy of the Ride Studio Cafe. Again PRO. It even had side flaps. That was our kind of kitchen/den. We had a Specialized ezup for a living room. We had the big green tent and about ten others. We also had more junk food than a frat house. Every year I say the same thing I will eat good food. But then you are walking the aisles of Trader Joes and the peanut butter cup trail mix starts calling your name...

Did I mention a moose almost killed us? Um yeah. So the White Mountains are amazing. I have seen mountains and these ones are gorgeous. When you drive to them you start noticing all these annoying yellow signs along the road. But you tune them out cause talking about what tubulars you are running this cx season is vastly more interesting than the "Moose Crossing" "Caution hundreds of collisions each year" signs. I mean really? My mom loves moose. She comes up here and goes on moose hunts. Has she ever seen one? Hell no. What are the chances of me seeing one let alone hitting one on the highway. Apparently fairly high. So we are descending the mountain at about 65 in the manvan heading to the Red Fox for dinner. For the record I am not tired or brain dead like I am now. If this happened on the drive home Sunday we would all be dead. Anyway I am flying off the mountain lazer locked on the yellow line to my left and the two lanes of traffic coming up at me on the other side of the paint. Out of the corner of my eye I see a big black flash. Then I hear Nick and Leah saying ohhh fuck! The moose ran across the road and just made it past our rear bumper. One second the other way and yeah I am probably not writing this blog post. And frankly had the cars reacted to the moose and instinctively swerved away from the moose. Yeah same story. We live in large part due to the fact that I am like the Iceman behind the wheel. Well that and the gold buddha my babymomma picked up for me at Kripalu last week.

After a fantastic dinner of pizza, nachos and mash potatoes at the Red Fox we get back to the tent city safe and sound. Todd from MRC invites us over to the MRC VIP lounge and we sit by a fire watching the moon rise over Mt Washington...it was a beautiful night. Then Colin rolled into camp and much hilarity ensued. We woke up the next am to a perfect day. We got a pre-ride in and found they had "beginnered" the course. Well thank god because I suck. And am a danger to myself and others on a mtn bike. But in reality the beginner course was pretty challenging. The last two times I did this race I got schooled. Its has a lot of things you have to sort out. A brutal opening climb in the first two miles. MegA coined it Blueberry hill a couple of years back and that is what I call it now. But when I would say that my teammates would look at me like I was insane. I could see the look in their eyes. Why are you calling that horrible torture rack of a hill something as sweet and nice as blueberry hill. Why not just call it kick you in the nuts hill cause that would be a bit more spot on. So you go deep for 2 miles. Like you want to puke deep. Then it drops into a fairly fun single track with rocks and roots and some raised bridges. Speaking of bridges. For the first time in three years I put this whole ride together. Not like the real racers but for me I finally felt like I was racing it. I owe all my strides to Matt, Zank, Rosey, Matt Aumiller and riding my cx bike all over trails for the last month. But one wood bridge still owns me. There was a tiny bridge at the top of the climb. Easy. But there was a pretty big rock crevice that if you botched it you were going into. Way too rich for my blood. CX dismounted that bad boy each time. But what I noticed about that. When you do that in front of mtn bikers. Even fat out of shape mtn bikers in baggy shorts and wife beater t-shirts they now own you. Or they think they do. They think well this guy sucks he couldn't clean that bridge. Yeah well I actually ride my bike so maybe from the sounds of that asthmatic heavy breathing you might want to just forget trying to stay on my wheel before you have a heart attack. I thought it but never said it.
The tale of the tape for me was 6 laps, 60 miles, 7,110 feet of climbing. My fastest time was 44:13. Team Crank the Zank did 26 laps and came in 6th! I am so proud of my team its bananas! This was Nicks 3rd race on a mtn bike. Ever. Dude did fantastic. I had no doubt as I have been riding cx bikes with him for a few years and he is tough as nails and has great skills on the dirt. But that is still very impressive. And Leah came back from Maine just to race with us. Granted all that dirt road commuting up there has made her strong! When I saw her I was like wow it is on now. She is fit! And it showed in her riding. Both Leah, Mike Z and Matt rode single speed 29ers. Leah had a rigid fork. HUGE respect. I can't even imagine. I barely had enough gears to handle the lap. We had a great rotation. We had some adversity. But really so did all the teams. Great Glen is pretty much where bikes go to die. There were sooo many flats it was crazy. At one point in the middle of the night I came across Mike Wissell on the side of the trail. I asked him if he was ok. He laughed and said he was fine. In my head I thought wow this will be the only time I ever pass Mike in any type of bike event in my entire life. Not seconds after thinking that karma bitch slapped me upside my head. I hit a root or a troll reached up from the underworld and wrenched my bike out from under me. I slammed sooo hard. Bike went cartwheeling down into some boulders. I run after and pick it up and see the remote lockout has sheared off the bar clamp. I tie it off to my handlebars I continue back on my way. Seconds later Mike flies by me at warp speed!!

So many sections were horrible. Just brutal climbing on sketchy gravel. But then you would get this sick roller coaster fireroad descents and the Plunge! I finally was able to ride the single track switchbacks and rock the trail that lead up to it. My first time down the Plunge I got such a sick rush I don't think I will ever feel that alive again. I came down it as hard charging as an old cx racer can. Did I enter Gnarlington? Hmmm probably not but in my mind I got pretty rad..at least for me. The fact that I was hanging out in the same camp as 4 of the most rad human beings and pro mtn bikers upped my game significantly. It has always been my contention that to be fast you don't just have to race with fast people you have to hang out with them. Anyone can enter some race and get lapped by fast dudes. Doesn't mean you are fast. Not at all actually. But if you are in a car with them or in a ten foot radius for any extended period of time it will begin to up your radness scale by a factor of 11 for each 1 hour or so.

I had such an amazing time hanging out with everyone. The boys won the PRO and the Overall. Lauren Kling is the Duchess of Dirt for a second straight year! Cary is so rad its ridiculous. He not only did such a great job supporting Lauren but he pumped us all up every lap we went out. He did the best bike exchanges ever! Each time I did it I got more and more stoked. A huge thank you to Rob Bauer and Todd Prekaski aka DoubleHop and 20#Skull for the use of the photos! Todd took that gorgeous panoramic. Rob took the action pics. Dr Jay was looking so badass. He did the 12 hour 2 person and cracked me up soo many times. He is such a cool dude. So much more to talk about. But that is all I have for right now. Further topics for discussion will be parts 2 and 3 of z HOGG. On tap will be single speeders. Yes they are wayyy tougher than you. And solo riders how are they so tough and are impervious to the zombie plague? HUGE HUP HUGS to everyone up there. Coming off this weekend I just realize once again how much I love the NECX and how lucky I am that Boston is my home. You all kick so much ass...thank you for that. And thank you for helping me get rad...Hup! Hup!

The Destroyer aka Ronde 2.5

2011-08-08T18:11:00.000-07:00

The bike can take you places. Places you would never even know existed if you stuck to your car or your neighborhood. I am sooo guilty of that. I grew up here. I spent sooo much of my childhood in a multi-family home in Roslindale every Sunday with my cousins. But in all my years I have never even seen one tenth of what Boston is about. But once again my friends, the NECX, Boston they push me. When Matt Aumiller of Cambridge asked me about putting together a Ronde 2.5 I was like "Hell Yes!" When he started talking about his vision of it I got even more stoked. We did a couple of recon rides. Mainly showing him the sectors I know sooo well. Stuff Steen taught me. And then trying to plot and scheme how to make the whole loop. Matt wanted this Ronde to be hard. And to have a lot more dirt sectors. This one is probably 75% trail 25% road. And the trails are the real deal. And they are mostly all in Boston. That blew my mind. The fact that a city as urban as Boston can have soooo much greenspace and actual trails is incredible.

Matt coined this one Ronde 2.5. Makes sense to me. But frankly after the track record of destruction that has been accrued just doing recon I am calling this one the Destroyer of Bikes. At first I was calling it the Black Market Three Peaks. But as Matt said to me climbing up some nasty trail on Blue Hills "the British know nothing about cyclo-cross" Word! I laughed out loud when he said it. Frankly what I have come to realize with most of my friends who are total badasses is that they all have this sense of gallows humor. Its probably merely to keep me from cracking completely out of my head but what ever the motivation it has sure made for the best summer of riding in my life. Bar none. So after Matt put the kabosh on the 3 peaks analogy, The Destroyer just made sense. This ride ate tires and tubes. Baby Heads, Axe Heads, wood bridges. They all create a minefield of potential flats. Especially when you are rocking cx tires at fairly low psi.

On Friday. Matt and I set out to do the whole loop and get a good garmin file so we could create something useable for the ride/race. I met Matt at his house in Hyde Park and we rolled out around 8 am. Not gonna lie I was a tad nervous. But I also had a boatload of hubris. How bad could this little urban cx ride be anyway? Goat Hill, Kings Highway, etc etc. This was going to be a piece of cake. But Matt is tough as nails. And he was coming off Darkhorse 40 and 6 Gaps. Me I am old and fat and just did the FUNdo. Yeah you can probably guess how this was going to end up. Anyhoo. We roll out and I am feeling good! We get to Canto 6 (which will be were we stage up on August 20th!) and we hit start on the Garmin! We roll up to Franklin Park and I of course am having flashbacks. Franklin Park is where it all started for me in a way. It was my rebirth into Boston's bike culture. You can race and be a "part" of the culture in a way but until you embed yourself into it and give back to it you aren't a part of it. That first foray was a New Years Day cx throwdown hosted by Adam and John Bruno. I think there were 6 or 7 of us. I think we did three icey laps drank some beers and left before someone broke some bones .

We rolled up into the park and then dive into some sick trails. All fun stuff. Swoopy, loamy cx goodness. We pop out on a street and then head into one of the coolest cemeteries I have ever seen. We rock through there on our way over to Blue Hills. We end up doing a great loop in Blue Hills. Lots of what you would expect. Rocks, gravel nastiness. One seriously steep climb. That was when I made the 3 peaks comment. Perhaps Iron Cross would be a better analogy. But a lot of the stuff in Blue Hills is nothing like you would expect. Just beautiful loamy trails. We come out of Blue Hills and roll down into Hyde Park. We pop out right near Firefly and I of course must go in and talk to Jamie, Tyler and Kevin. They have a gorgeous road bike in the shop that they are finishing up. I once again vow to get my name up on that white board. Hmmm Road bike for sure. Ti or Stainless....that is the question. Tyler and Jamie show us the new stainless tubeset that came in for their cx bikes. Gorgeous. So much cxey curvy goodness. I am thinking a check point at Firefly is a must!

I am feeling a little rough around the edges but nothing too critical as of yet. Just kind of off. I blame the hot yoga class I did the night before with my babymomma. What was I thinking doing 1.5 hrs of hot yoga before this death march? We roll out of Hyde Park and pop into Stonybrook. Thankfully at this point one of Matt's earlier points saves both the day and my ass from an enormous walk. When we first cued up at Matt's house he mentioned that for most of the ride we were only about 2-5 miles from his house. Thank God. So we pop into Stonybrook. Again super sweet greenspace right smack dab in an urban neighborhood. Matt warns me about some nasty poison ivy right after the gate. The trail starts to head up a bit. I stand up to climb and then Kablaam. No chain. My mad watts snap that campy POS to pieces. Freak out time. Actually we were both strangely calm. I was calm as my brain was so hypoxic and had visions that being friends with Matt Roy and the Wilcox would by osmosis allow me to McGyver the chain and ride to glory. No such luck. F'n Campy. Really? Neither of us could get a rivet out to fix the chain. And thinking about it. Even if we did get a rivet out no way it was going to go back together and be functional. So Matt in his never surrender way says " I will push you back to my house" I am like what? But yeah he pretty much did. And it was fucking bananas. I hiked for a bunch of it in the woods, then would like-a bike down the trails. Then when we popped out onto road with great risk to his personal safety he pushed, dragged me all the way back to his house.

Have I mentioned how short I am? Like Little Tommy Voeckler short. Have I mentioned how tall Matt is? So yeah he lends me his Big Boy mtn bike. I slam the seatpost down and can pedal but am now in a crazy ass superman position. We ride back to Stonybrook and restart the Garmin. We ride like ten miles from Hyde Park to West Roxbury to Cutler. I almost die soooo many times in Cutler because the bike is so big. We roll through Needham Town Forest and I beg Matt to go to my house so I can get my clown bike. We pop out of NTF and rock to my house. We burst in and chaos ensues. I am like a feral animal at this point. The big bike broke me. I am rummaging through the fridge drinking juice, eating bananas, bars just stuffing what ever I can in my mouth. My smoking hot wife comes down and is appalled. Thankfully Matt starts showing her his tattoos and its distraction enough that we can get back out the door without getting in too much trouble. I cross remount onto my Seven Sola and ahhh yeah. Now I am ok. Getting on that bike after ten miles on the torture rack was like nothing I have felt.

I was a new man. We rocked back to NTF. Started the Garmin again and hit warp drive. We shredded Ridge Hill and the aqueduct. We did the loop. Stopped at Dunkin Donuts on Rt 9. No we didn't get the frosted ones with sprinkles even though its what I really wanted. We split a huge ice cofeets and had a couple of glazed sticks. Matt almost dies dropping in on one section of the loop over by South Natick. The rest of the ride is uneventful yet insane. Matt shows me the secret stash in Brookline. It is like riding in Wonderland. We roll through the rotaries and to the finish at Lars Anderson Park. How fitting. This will be the best Ronde ever. Its true. The fact that it starts in Franklin Park and ends at Lars is amazing. Those are the two crucibles that we use every cx season to hone our skills and find our form. It is going to be an amazing day of riding on August 20th I will say that. The tale of the tape? About 60 miles. For us it was about 5 hrs. But we lost an hour with the bike change. If this sounds like something that you are into you know where to find us. Thanks Matt for making this happen. And thanks for dragging my sorry ass all over Boston....

Putting the Fun in FUNdo

2011-07-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Powers JAM FUNdo is quite possibly the most off the hook group ride/fundraiser/NECX reunion/D2R2 lite/Battenkill-esque fun ride in existence...This is what riding is all about. Rapha has been beating this drum for a couple of years now. And while the JAM FUNdo is more technocolor than black and white the idea is very similar. A soul ride. Go push yourself but have fun. Support each other. Live off the land. Get rad on road bikes. It can happen. That was clearly proven today. Jeremy, Al Donahue and Mukunda deserve HUGE props for this. Not just for their cause/foundation which is set up to support and develop new riders to the sport but for the effort they put into this ride. Last year was awesome. It exceeded all my expectations. I mean if you can't have fun on a dirt road ride in Noho that ends at a pig roast and hosted by some of the nicest people on the planet you just clearly do not know how to have fun...but this year they took it to 11. And I remembered my shoes...so I could get that extra ten miles I missed out on last year. Although my garmin was acting all jonky and ended up reading 5o miles...so I still kinda lost that ten miles in a virtual way...but I digress. The good news is I remembered my shoes!

Ahhh the Trophy even made an appearance! That is some pig...I will say that. Coach Al is the best. I love seeing that man. So this year was sans the crazy rushing to the venue and avoidance of the lost shoes. I was not that guy this year! I drove up with Michele Smith and Steen. It was so nice to go on a road trip with good friends and just enjoy the drive and catching up. We got to the venue wicked early. Got all kitted up and rolled out with 300 of the coolest bikers in the NECX. It really was a reunion. There were a few missing peeps. But everyone was there! Mo handed me a vegan cookie almost the second I rode back after the ride. How cool is that? So back to the ride. We rolled out en masse with a police escort this year! See I told you they took it to 11 this year! Ed Hammel is so nice to offer up his farm as the staging area and party central for the ride. It is one of the most gorgeous spots I have ever been to. 300 riders rolled out and then blam...28-30 mph right out of the gate...ok maybe they didn't get the memo about FUNdo...it was a tad how do you say sketchy so Parke and I start moving up to avoid getting crashed out. But we of course up the pace way past what I would call fun. Not red zone but damn two years ago we rolled out from Battenkill at a slower pace.

Parke and I are locked together riding really nicely. We surf up a bit and hook up with Chris McKernan from ECV all decked out in Weiss. I had to get a photo of ECV Weiss and HUP blanco together! It was a fantastic sight to say the least. The three of us rode for most of the 65 miles with my good friend Steen and Todd Prekaski. Other riders would filter in and out. And poor Dana Prey had the flat bug bad...I think she pretty much got the flat KOM with at least three flats and one new tire. Yeah how cool is that. She had a torn up tire and the SRAM neutral support guy just gave her a new tire. That is how this ride is. Top notch...This year was way harder than last. It was partly due to the fact that our "gentlemans" agreement kept getting breached. The first ten or so miles were insanely fast. We cracked pretty hard on the first big climb. I recall us all agreeing to take it easy from that point. I guess take it easy includes pacelining at 25 mphs, attacking for the Ice Cream Truck KOM and crushing all of us for the "win" Yeah Parke I am talking to you buddy? But you know Parke showed me something today. He is what HUP is all about.

Shows up rocking FULL blanco. No HTC split kit. And he looked tight. Almost on par with Yash. The skinny guys always look great in blanco. Then he says all the right things. Oh I just want to have fun. Etc, etc. Music to my ears. HUP is a zero drama squadra. We don't have time for that. Seriously. Parke gets this. But what he showed me today? Damn he can attack senselessly and make it stick. He can descend like a demon on dirt. He is a great "breakaway" partner. Parke, welcome to HUP my friend. I am really stoked you are part of our team...I had to give Chris a couple of the "happy" pills at mile 40 or so. But what happens on the road stays on the road. I had a few moments. I hit something and went all Dukes of Hazard at one point. Left leg clipped out, sliding across the road but I was able to pull it out and keep it upright. Todd didn't seem to follow my wheel as closely after that though...weird

I took this picture for Dana. She rocks. But you all know that. I mean she had some bad luck. And we lost her after "helping" her at the Ice Cream Stop. Help is in quotes as I kinda made a disaster out of trying to fix a softening rear tire for her. Thankfully Kenny was on hand with the SRAM car to make it all right.

So once again an amazing day up in Noho. Is there ever a bad day in Noho? I have never experienced one. Ok that time my cousin invited my to Zoo Mass when I was sixteen...yeah that was not good. But other than that? Noho always just gets me sooo stoked for bikes!

HUGE HUP hugs and shout outs to JPow!!!, Al, Mukunda, Ed Hammel, The pig roasters and all the nice people who made the food and served the food, High and Mighty for the beer, The Ice Cream Ladies, all the NECX for always representing and keeping it real. To my good friend Steen. Safe travels...damn I am gonna miss you my brother. I will think of you every time I go and shred the loop. I might have to get a plaque made and put it out there somewhere as a token of my appreciation for all the great trails you have shown me this last year. Keep it cxey out there in PDX!

Can't Stop, Won't Stop on wet grass

2011-07-27T06:47:00.000-07:00

Do your tires talk to you? Mine were certainly talking to me this am at a wet Larz Anderson park. It was the sound of 66 tpi screaming for mercy. Not unlike the sound velcro makes when you rip it apart. Some really good yard sales today at Worlds. Yeah wet grass is merciless. It was really good for practice. How far can you push the corners? Do you remember all the stuff Adam and Al have drilled into your thick skull the last three years? Surprisingly the answer to that is yes. I only would have destroyed one section of JDs tape today! That is an improvement!
Ok that man right there. Mike Wissell. Badass with a capital B. That really isn't a shock to anyone. But what may be a shock is he is possibly one of the funniest human beings on the planet. Might be my hypoxic brain but man lately he has been just cracking me up. And giving me lots and lots of good advice for next cross season.
Hahah it was such a gorgeous day this morning. Seriously. Sure the grass was a bit wet and we were sliding out all over the place but it was cool and had a slight hint of Fall in the air. Now I don't want summer to end. Who would. Savage tan lines, weight loss comes easy, so many great rides with friends, bikinis, ice cream, camps, surf, the mountains, swim meets. I mean seriously. There is no better time than summer. But Fall and CX are just the pinnacle.
We had 3 Cambridge, 2 HUP, 1 Newbury Comics and 1 Boloco smashing it today. Practice hole shots. Mike obviously owns the holeshot. Although he gave one to Cambridge cause he was laughing so hard at their attacking...or maybe he was just feeling generous. Probably felt bad cause they had crashed so hard previously. We did 1 recon lap, the 2 "hot" laps, the 3 "hot" laps. About an hour of work. For the record Hope from Cambridge is going over the barriers right now like Luke Keough. She had some bad luck with a flat but man she was flying over the barriers. I am a disaster right now getting over the pvc pipes. My entry/dismount is ok but man its like I can't even drive my knees up to get over them. And then its like 6 steps to get the bike back down on the ground and remount. Sad. But its not even August. But much respect to Hope. Seriously.
MVL rocking that Nu Bleu!!! And with the HUP team issue Lazer helmet. Very nice. Great way to get the morning going. No need for the cofeets when you have Worlds at the crack o dawn. So same bat time, same bat channel from now til December. Deets are: Lars Anderson Park in Brookline, Weds mornings 6:30 am at the top of the hill. We go for about an hour. Its sick but I am seriously considering going back and running the hill about ten times. Maybe next week...Hup! Hup!

Fight Club

2011-07-20T14:56:00.001-07:00

Rosey's Worlds aka Larz Worlds aka Fight Club almost turned into Cambridge Bicycles Racing Worlds this am...thankfully I didn't hit the snooze button and Stewart rode up on his white horse of the Hupocalypse...But it was pretty cool to see equal numbers of HUP and CB mixing it up at dawn on July 20th...I guess we know what teams in Boston are thinking about cross right now. I had to ask Seth how many kits Cambridge has. He said 3 road, 3 cross...from a team that is pretty kit crazy I say spot on to that...it also dawned on me as I watched the TDF today that I think Sky finally got sick of copying HUP and decided to copy Cambridge. I mean that team car paint job is awfully close to the kit Seth was wearing today.
I wanted to do a photo shoot of all the kits present on hand but some people don't share my enthusiasm for having an iphone shoved in their face at 6:30 in the name of blogging. Oh well another day perhaps...We had a nice mix of riding. We pushed the envelope of what clincher cx tires can do on freshly cut grass. We destroyed the barriers a couple of times. But that is the beauty of Larz. This is where you want to get those skillz back. Turning on grass has to be one of the hardest things to do on a bike. And probably one of the single most important skills for doing well in the NECX. We race on a lot of grass crits errr courses so you better know how to rail it on grass or you are gonna be off the back after a lap.
I couldn't resist taking bike pics. We had a couple of Iglehearts, a HUP Honey built by Seven, Rosey's ti Seven and my Rock Lobster. That is a pretty badass showing of cross bikes! I know a lot of people will mock our getting out on the CX bike before the TDF is over. Frankly if you aren't thinking about cx right now you should be. This week felt so much better than last week. But really its about shaking out the cobwebs, getting used to riding and turning on grass, running with the bike, closing the door, getting knocked off, getting back on. All those skills that are so key to doing well in a cross race. We aren't racing. Trust me. I did almost puke after we did 3 laps fairly hot. Rosey asking me why I was breathing so hard was pretty comical and a good heckle. RMMs secret poop start was less than comical. Maybe he ran over dog shit. Either way it made for a malodorous attempt at the hole shot. The hole shot was never in contention. Mike Wissell owns the HS at Larz. Granted even he is human as he crashed on the 3rd grassy corner....
We had a longer practice this week. Mixed it up. Raeanne from CB looked like she was helping some newer riders with some skills which makes her a rock star in my mind. To me that is what Larz should be all about. Come out. If you need skills let's work on those. If you need to get in some hot laps we do that too. So its on from here on out. While we don't want this getting too big its nice to have a good group. If you think this sounds good to you. Reach out we will get you the details. While we like to call it Fight Club...we don't necessarily stick to the rules of FC....if you ask about it we'll tell you about it...

How Rosey carries that bag of barriers with him on his ride over eludes me! It is a lot heavier than it looks. Huge thanks to Rosey and DJ Roberto for championing this and being so open about it. Not a lot of people love cross more than those two I will say that...oh and so you are all warned DJ is clearly gunning for the Zanconato Single-Speed Cyclo-Cross Trophee series! He was out on his ss today mixing it up with us! What is the ZSSCXTS? Stay tuned lots of exciting details coming soon. But just to be a tease a series with one goal-have fun. OK maybe one more goal-create mayhem on the cross course.

Omloop Stow

2011-07-18T10:08:00.001-07:00

Dirty Gloves by Russ Campbell...as if there was any doubt that Russ was one of the best photographers in the NECX. He made my dirty gloves look like art!

All hail the Epic. Not The Epic but that which is epic ie "dude that road trip was epic!" Epic has a slightly different meaning in cycling. I prefer the surfing vernacular myself. More fun to be honest. My good friends at MRC specifically Gary David, Russ Campbell and Scott Sweeney hosted an epic mtn bike ride last saturday. Its hard to say where all the drive to create these non-racing rides is coming from. For me the inspiration has always been the Grasshopper series out in Norcal. But I think its just as simple as we all want to get out and ride together without all the bs. Pinning numbers on is fun but why drive four hours when you can get 20 or so friends together and have just as good a time out your back door?

Gary invited 19 MRC and its friends to his house for a nice mtn bike ride and BBQ. He and his family were fantastic hosts! Huge thanks to them and MRC for being so nice to the 3 interloping Hup riders in the mix. To me there really is no better way to get to know someone than to ride three or four hours with them. After the first mile or so of bushwhacking a persons real personality starts to come out. We rode some amazing trails. What was even more shocking was we had 19 riders of varying abilities riding on pretty challenging trails and no one died. We had zero flats, one tiny mechanical, no injuries, only a couple of crashes and one time where riders got lost.
I could go on and on about the ride itself but I am wayyy too fried for that type of blog post. I will go clif note version. Camelbacks are awesome. I had to ask my good friend Ron Steers how to put it on and use it but man I am glad I did. Stow has some amazing trails. Hope saying that doesn't get me in trouble. They are technical but not kill you technical. Fun swoopy stuff with margin for error. Perfect for me. One of the funniest parts of the ride happened about mid-way through. We were grinding up a hill and I hear Russ yell from the back "Chip this is a strava KOM!" I took off like a shot! Cause I am a strava addict. Gary David took off as well. And I thought I was being smart pacing him up the grinding wall. I felt like we were going pretty good and at the top I threw the bike over the pitch hopeful that I had taken the KOM. Doooh 4 seconds. I lost it to Russ by 4 seconds. Gary was clearly blocking as a good teammate should..next time I will find a better line and get those 4 seconds...
We did lose 3 riders ever so briefly right before we stopped in at Scott's house for a water break. Still not sure how we did it but it was only for a minute or two. And of course the guy we lost was the one guy who had been cracking the whip all day about making sure no one got lost...oopsies. But what a great day. And as much as I love racing this trend is something I can really get behind....Thanks Gary, Russ and MRC for a great day out there.

KOM stravagasm

2011-07-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

I hate data. Riding has never been about numbers and following a structured program for me. I just ride. Strava isn't anything totally new to me. I had heard about it before it just never really resonated with me. Tim Johnson talked about it before the Ride on Washington and Rapha talked it up before the East Coast Gentleman's Ride but I just didn't get how easy it was to use and how hooked I would get on it. I have a soft addiction to the interwebs and twitter etc. But strava? Its like crack cocaine. It brings the virtual into the real world in ways I never would have thought would even remotely work for me. The first time I saw its potential was on a ride with Billy Campbell and Nick. Billy took off like a shot after the strava KOM on Strawberry Hill. Then Rosey signed me up. Now every segment of road is a townline sprint or a KOM. You can track how you do against other riders. It brings a focus to the ride that to me is perfect for the non-structured rider. It also keeps track of your mileage etc. My coach is awesome. But I swear he must be like "dude, if you kept track of your rides I could actually like do the job you pay me to do..." Well maybe he is too nice to go there but I wouldn't blame him if he did. With strava its all there. And yeah Tim Johnson gave me a kudo for Larz Worlds the other day. Pretty much made my day. God I am such a dork.
Worlds started this week. Dear god it was brutal. Is it "too early" to be doing cx practice? Laugh all you want we'll see who is laughing in September. But I digress. This wednesday at Larz was really just to shake off the cobwebs and see if we still remembered how to turn on grass. Umm its a lot harder than I remember. Rosey set up the traditional course. Including the nasty runnup and the grass climb of death. We had a small but solid crew. On the first lap I was so out of it I didn't recognize Mike Wissell without his beard. Seriously as I am running next to him my ADD brain is like why are all these Bolo Loco guys so damn tough. And they all just seem to be able to corner as smooth as Mike...he must coach them all up or something. This went on for a full lap until we stopped at the barriers and I woke up from not having any cofeets and being Hypoxic at 6:30 am and realized it was Mike afterall. Morning Mike. I only ended up doing 4 laps. Pretty pathetic. I got one good lap in where I was able to close the door on DJ Roberto when he was getting frisky. Good times. Rubbin is racing and its better to practice with teammates than getting all hot and bothered when some stranger tries to take you into the tape at Sucker Brook.
This last weekend I was also able to go up to Loon for a quick mini-vacation. I brought the road bike with visions of getting up early and riding the Kanc. A bunch of good friends gave me some riding ideas. I ended up going out towards Woodstock and over 118. It was amazing. I really fell in love with Loon. It is a beautiful area and has a lot of history for me personally that I won't bore you with. But suffice it to say it really was a bit of an epiphany ride. Not to rip off Gary Erickson but we all have epiphany rides. I just haven't had one in a long time.
Us flatlanders forget the power of the Mountains. We have hills, and bumps but no mountains. We say the Ocean has a pull and we want to be near it. Sure its pretty and I do love it but the mountains hold something very different. Maybe its because I haven't been around them in a long, long time. But as I was rolling down the Kanc my heart rate spiked. Like really spiked on a flat where it should be like 100-118 it jumped to 160 at the sight of another small group of riders. As I was rolling on the flat heading out to the mountains rearing up all around me I was nervous. Maybe a bit scared. Not scared of could I do it etc. But just awed by its power. This may sound lame but that is what surfing in big waves feels like. You sit on the beach and watch the waves. You feel the pounding of the surf on the beach. You see what the sets are doing and look for the channel.
Then you leap. You run in and dive into the water and commit. No turning back. You have to swim out past all the white water and then get out past the break. Then you sit on your board and wait for the horizon to get blotted out by the huge mountains of water moving towards you. I haven't had that feeling in ten years. It blew me away. As I climbed and climbed and climbed. I had to keep calming myself down. It was amazing to climb for what seemed forever. It was only about 50 minutes and probably 2,600 feet. But it felt like an eternity. When I got to the top I knew I had to turn back as I only had two hours. But the views and the excitement of the sick descent that was waiting for me was so similar to when you paddle in and then drop down the face of a heavy wave. I pushed the bike over the lip of the pass and dropped in. I haven't descended like that in so long. Felt amazing. As I rolled back into Woodstock and headed back towards Loon all I could think is I need more of that. And with friends.

Summer Break...

2011-07-06T10:31:00.001-07:00

Is ovah. Its July and the cross alarm clock should be ringing really loud in your head right now. 8 weeks. That doesn't even count Rosey's Worlds, all the August cx races and all other manner of cx radness that is going to be going off any day now. Doesn't mean we aren't going to get jacked up on the TDF, ride dirt bikes in woods with aliens and create general mayhem. But start thinking about it. Is the bike ready or is it still encrusted with beer from Ice Weasels?

Summer to me means riding with friends. Racing is cool. If you are a hardcore racer that is cool by me. I love racing. Just not so much in the summer. Me I like riding with friends. Checking out new trails and loops and talking bikes and beer and such without all the type A bs that goes along with racing....
Billy busted out the new CBracing kit the other day. My plan was to do a solo cx loop in Cutler but I saw Billy and Nick heading back from Wells and couldn't resist riding with them. Was no easy task hanging with them on fat tires at 40 psi but they are good friends and rode piano. Good times to say the least
Brass knuckles! Love all the little details on the new kit. It was a great ride and was pretty hilarious to see the power of the interwebs in action on a ride in the real world. As we approached Strawberry Hill Billy got pretty quite. As we turned onto the climb Nick told him to go get that strava KOM! He took off like a shot man. Not sure what the tale of the tape was but he went up that thing like he had a jet pack on.
Nick has got to be one of the coolest guys in the NECX. Just a chill and totally rad dude. I could ride with him all damn day. Frankly the entire Newbury Comics crew is like that. Super cool, super strong, solid bike riders. I got a chance to ride with Roger twice down the Cape in a forest that is as close as you can get to the Ardennes without the plane ticket. We had a ton of fun on the cx bikes and got to laugh at all the pathletes and groupetos. We are plotting and scheming a Wizard Staff CX training camp. It will be off the charts if we ever pull it off. Even if we don't I am putting a red star over Veterans day weekend. Looks like a Cape cx weekend is in the cards. We'll see if the promoters lock it up but it could be Veterans Day= Eco-cross ; Sat= Plymouth; Sunday= Plymouth. That would be radGet your bikes ready. Set the alarm. Rest up. Rosey's Worlds are coming sooner than later. And we have some other things cooking that will be cxey as hell. I leave you with this. If Dorothy had to follow the Yellow Brick Road you are gonna want to follow the cockroach...'nuff said stay tuned. Hup! Hup!

The Tick

2011-07-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

Ticks 2 Velocb 0....I am a tick magnet right now. And the ticks they are kicking my ass. I got one embedded in me back in April. Had to have a Dr "remove" it. She gave me a double dose of Doxy and sent me on my way. Its been on my mind as I didn't want Lyme sneaking up on me right before cx season. So I made a follow up appt for when I got back so I could get a blood test. Well the other day while down the Cape I spotted a weird bite on my arm. Then it turned to a bullseye. FML. Great. Nature hates us humans. You can't really blame her. 6 billion people is just too much. She has to fight back anyway she can. And why not use one of your tinyest little servants to take down one of your biggest pests?

I tweeted about it cause that is what we do right? Share. Not ten minutes went by and a good friend reached out and took care of me. The internet rocks. Not even kidding. Dr Feelgood is hired as Team Dr for Hup. His day job may pay better but Hup has its benefits. There are the Hupcakes after all. He is soooo much better than my actual dr its not even funny. And he is not afraid to crack the whip. So the good news? Caught it wicked early. Treating it with antibiotics. Bad news? No beer. Oof. And no sun. No dairy either if you follow the instructions on the meds. And lots of sleep. Wait that whole list is actually a recipe for cx domination. I will become fueled by the power of the Tick this cx season. Sure I am going to have to train like a vampire and stay out of the mid-day sun but I already have a savage tan as it is.

Hmmm the Tick may be the perfect cx superhero. And he does wear a blue skinsuit. Nice.

Bikes! Bikes! Bikes!

2011-06-25T05:31:00.000-07:00

This Broadway Bicycle School t-shirt makes people LOVE bikes. Seriously. It is now my new favorite t-shirt and is a bit of a litmus test about bikes in my mind. A 70 year old receptionist at my vet started chatting me up about it. Random Barista's, housewives, pizza men, everyone I bumped into had only good things to say about the t-shirt and about bikes. What does that say? It tells me two things. One: Its a rad design. Two: People respond to the Hippier side of bikes than the racier side of bikes. The women at the vet was proud to say the bike was invented in Springflield, Mass. And while I am not sure if that is true or not its amazing that she shared that info with me and had a positive conversation with me about bikes. The times they are a changing.
I have been doing some recon with a good friend lately for a super fun ride that is coming up in August. Put a big red star on August 20th....Cross bikes, dirt, trails, all the sick secret paths, Ronde 2.5 is going to be amazing. 65 miles give or take most of it on dirt. And not just fireroad some real gems. The trails have already been Christened with our flesh. Dorothy followed the Yellow Brick road you are going to want to follow the cockroach...stay tuned...

Firefly

2011-06-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

Boston has such a long history of bike fabrication. I had to move 3,000 miles away from this mecca of bike culture to find out just how rich New England is in bike builders. Bike building contrary to some people's mindsets is not a business. To be frank business has no place in bike building. To some extent obviously one has to be smart about these things. You can't not think about the bottom line entirely and you have to stay in business to continue to live the lifestyle and to pursue your craft. But building bikes should be more modern art meets the dark art of forging samurai swords for Ronin than a numbers crunching exercise in profitability. I have known a lot of framebuilders in my time. To me the great ones are a sort of modern day Hephaestus, the Greek god of smiths and fire. Its not a coincidence that many of them hail from Art Schools around the country. Some its a smooth transition from sculpture to bike building. For others they have a more design background. Either way having a passion and foundation for art makes for a solid base with which to hone ones craft in bike building. Again not to beat a dead horse but the kinds of welds that stop people in their tracks are made by artists. Just the same way we look at a brush stroke from a master in the halls of the best museums in the world.

Firefly like many new bike companies in Boston was born from the ashes of another company. It is almost a rite of passage in New England. Someday someone needs to create a family tree of bike builders in the Boston area. It will blow minds. Most times the next generation moved on to pursue perhaps another material or perhaps they just wanted to spread their own wings. In other instances something new was born out of the destruction of something old and revered. When Firefly was created I have to say I was so stoked. Two of my really good friends Leah and Clint are really close with them. I have known Tyler and Jamie in a six degrees of separation type of way but never really spent a whole lot of time with them. The first time I met Kevin was right as we were about to embark on a 5 day exodus to Washington, D.C on bikes to help promote Bikes Belong. He was on Firefly #001. That is some kind of field test! And speaks volumes about what great builders Tyler and Jamie are. That was a great way to get to know someone I will say that. We left Boston on a day when it was 17 degrees out! He navigated our small band of riders to Hartford, CT without getting rattled at all. That was no small task trust me. For a young guy he has such a great perspective. You could call it an old soul. He is probably the most mature young person I know. But he still has that excitement that only someone in their 20s can have. I'll leave it at he is just a really solid guy and a ton of fun to hang out and ride bikes with.

The creation of Firefly kept that Boston bike building tradition alive. Tyler, Jamie and Kevin made a HUGE leap of faith. But they did it together and they did it with the backing of the whole cycling culture here in Boston. After meeting Kevin I made it my personal mission to learn more about the bikes and Tyler and Jamie. They get it. They really do. They have been so open about what they are doing. And so excited to share what projects they are working on. They bring a playful energy to the bike game that maybe has been missing a bit lately. It is so nice to see artists pushing the edges of what they can do.
As I said before Firefly were big backers of Tim Johnson's Ride On Washington. They donated a frame to be raffled off with all the proceeds going to the fundraising. That is a lot to ask of an established bike company let alone 3 guys who just risked their life savings starting a bike company in a down economy. But it was just the type of commitment that you can tell these guys are all about. They believe in bikes and believe in being a part of the community. They have used social media to show off their work in a way that is both artful and very savvy in today's fast moving marketplace. But in the end it all comes down to the bike. I stumbled back into the shop as I was "training" for the Rapha East Coast Gentleman's Ride. I have the training in quotes as my training consisted of riding up the access road at Blue Hills twice. But I stopped in and once again they were so welcoming and glad to see me. It was really nice to be able to see the new bikes they had going. They have such a passion for each one and they love to tell you the story behind each bike and what the customer was looking for. I spent more time oogling the ti bikes and chatting up the boys than doing hill repeats. It was worth it.
Not to get too off track but people who scoff at bike culture clearly have never been a part of it. It is a real and organic thing. I can't even really put it into words. It is not unlike a wolfpack. And not in a Hangover 2 Wolfpack but a real wolfpack. If you let it it can transform you. I had one of these moments not to long ago. A old friend of mine from another lifetime ago (Norcal) popped back into my life. It was like we never missed a beat. She was one of my oldest and first teamates. We raced mtn bikes all over Northern California. We still talk about the Bontragers we rode with reverence. This was pre-Trek Bontrager. Made in Santa Cruz. What was even more awesome about this trip back in the hot tub time machine was that other than reconnecting as friends etc the topic quickly turned to cross. It always comes back to cross....Lucia wanted to know if I knew much about cross. Nice. Yeah I like the cross game..So we talked a lot about bikes and the races etc. It was a great exchange. She then asked what bike to get. I asked how much was her budget. She said $7,000. I sort of thought she was kidding but played along. I said if I had that kind of money I would buy a ti Firefly. She emailed me the next day and said she bought one. Fantastico! I was so jealous yet pumped for both her and Firefly. Such a great match. Here is this amazing artist (Lucia) who is possibly more passionate about bikes than I am hooking up with some of the coolest bike builders on the planet. It was surreal!
So the next plan was to get Lucia to meet Tyler, Jamie and Kevin and have a tour of Firefly. She came up for the weekend and we met up on a Friday night. It was sooo much fun. The Firefly crew set up a nice mtn bike ride for us on Blue Hill. We rolled out with one of the wildest dudes I have ever met in my life! He was on a 29er single speed and just was non-stop. He showed us such an amazing loop that I seriously have to get back there at least once a week. Long story short we rolled from Firefly on z bikes, made our way over to the access road and then were in a wonderland of rolling fun trails with some crazy mixed in for good measure. Tyler saved Lucia from certain death at one point as her pedals got stuck and she rolled back down a steep up. The only thing keeping her spine and head from the roots and rocks was Tyler's front wheel. Ok maybe it wasn't an intentional save but hey it counts. What blew me away was that Lucia hadn't been on a mtn bike in 16 years! She was on a loaner with pedals that either wouldn't hold the cleats or kept her clipped in like a death trap. She rode just like I remembered from way back. Hard charging, no fear, take no prisoners. I rode pretty well for me. I suck as has been well documented. But what I am noticing is if I ride with a good crew and I follow their lines I can ride way better than by myself. So I was flowing pretty good.

That is until we hit this crazy drop in berm. Now it was dirt and Kevin rode it. Damn I should have rode it. But anyway two of us were sort of eyeballing it. Do we go, do we not go. And while we are having this internal debate Lucia crashes through the trees with that look in her eyes and is like " What the hell are you guys doing?" And rails past us laughing her ass off as she drops into mister toads wild ride. Classic Lucia. She is such a badass and such a good friend. I am so stoked she is back in my life after all these years. That is the sign of a true friend. You can pick up right were you left off.

The rest of the ride was straight up hilarious. The ride leader got funnier and funnier as we uncovered more and more singletrack. We got back to Firefly so stoked on life and bikes. I can't even wait to see the cross bike they cook up for Lucia it is going to be insane. It is also going to make me so jealous it is gonna be crazy!

Firefly is going to do amazing things. Frankly they already are. But just like those companies before them they will bring Boston's bike culture to a whole other level. I am counting the days til I can put my deposit down on a sick gravel eating, townline sprint winning rocket ship of a road bike. In ti of course.

*all the photos are from Firefly's Tumblr except the one of Tyler, Jamie, Lucia and Kevin

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin

2011-06-05T17:03:00.000-07:00

The Big Ring Rumpus in Auburn NH, is like an early wake up call for NECX cross racers to shake off the rust and get ready for Fall. It is a "mtn bike race" that has a cx category. The quotation marks aren't ironic. It is a flat fireroad dirt crit. Mtn Bikers loss is crossers gain in this case. This a beautiful area. With really nice trails and a fun atmosphere. It felt like a family reunion of sorts rolling up and seeing almost the entire NECX for the first time since Ice Weasels. There were a few peeps absent but there was a solid crew from Cambridge and Threshold and all our other favorite teams. I got to get a nice ride in before the race with lily, Billy and Andy. We half-jokingly said we should just bag the race and go for a 2 hr Ronde style ride. The trails are that sweet. Need to make a trip back to check this area out more. There were some funny cultural quirks. Lots of grumbling about having to zip tie the numbers to the front of the bars etc. I do get it. Nothing looks less PRO than a number plate on the front of drop bars..But you deal. I will say this though Mtb promoters and racers are chill. When Nick pulled the 420 raceplate we all cracked up big time.

The cross field was the biggest category of the day with 50 riders. To deal with the surge of cross racers they split the field. Thankfully I was able to stay next to Billy Campbell, Nick, Andy, Mike Golay and the Threshold boys. We also had some serious Old man power on the front line courtesy of Mr Eric Carlson. He is basically the Clark Kent of bike racers. He seems so unassuming off the bike. On it? Holy shit. That man is gonna do some damage this cross season. We got the 30 seconds to go and the "GO!" off we went like a thundering herd down the jetway towards takeoff errr the holeshot. Have I mentioned all I have been doing riding-wise is endurance for the last 6 weeks?

My first mistake of the day was trying to stay on Billy's wheel. The speed was high but not totally unmanageable. We were all locked in in a 10 person paceline. Nick was right beside me, surfing up and down the group. At some point Eric, Billy and a few other riders put the hammer down and rode us off their wheels. We were now a chase group of about 8. Mark Suprenant who started a minute back joined us mid-way through the second lap. At this point I was starting to feel it. Legs were getting loaded up. I started to ride "smart." Usually I just get on the front nose in the wind and damn the torpedos. But I figured hey let's let some of these guys do the work. That is what Resultsboy would do. What could go wrong when you have 8 dudes on cx bikes flying down a fireroad with small rocks sticking up all over the place at 25-28 mph like it was tuesday night worlds? Apparently a lot. As the paceline worked through its rotation my spidey sense went from "attentive" to "eject" I just knew the rider at the front looked sketchy as hell. Not 5 seconds later it was like someone threw a hand grenade into our groupetto. KaBOOM!

Dude hits a TINY rock and goes down HARD. Taking all of us out. Bodies and bikes are going everywhere. I see a Threshold rider do a total endo/flip. I hit the deck hard and slide over bikes and bodies. Its like something you see in Paris-Roubaix. We all get up except for one poor Paradise rider. He is in the fetal position groaning. I ask him if he's ok. Everyone gets on their bikes and takes off. I look at him again he kind of waves me off and I hop on my bike. The bike won't move. Shit. Ok I take the wheel off and check the dropouts. Wheel is totally fubared. So taco'd I can't even turn the wheel. I start running. Everyone goes by me. I get some oh shits. And are you ok. And damn Chip. Lots of good vibes. At some point it hits me. WWMWD. Ie., What Would Mike Wissell Do? He would smash it that is what he would do. So I take the wheel out of the dropouts and smash it back into some type of trueness. I unhook the rear brake and get on it. I am now STOKED to be pedaling. I ride back to the start/finish and get a new wheel and head back out.

I am now in full on hunter killer mode. How many can I catch? Can I catch anyone? Not really. I did all 5 laps. Flying and was pretty much a solid DFL. But I learnt a lot. You do not surrender. Never. Never quit. There was a lot of collateral damage to say the least. But we all had one Hell of a time I will say that.

It was so great seeing everybody. I even saw my fave CCB rider. So good to see Chandler. And Pete. And Mike Zocchi. And Dog...awesome. I am counting down the days til Sept. I may even have to break my no racing cx in August. I will talk with Coach Al about that. He knows these things. Damn I don't even know how to sit in on a paceline...

Picture Perfect

2011-05-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

No words needed for this photo. It was taken by my good friend and world class photographer Chris Milliman. It is from the Rapha East Coast Gentleman's ride held in the Lehigh Valley of PA. I can't stop thinking about it. Thank you Chris for this amazing picture!

Lost Boys

2011-05-22T20:23:00.001-07:00

I consider myself someone who has a good sense of direction. I don't get lost. At least not for very long. But I remember reading somewhere in Outside magazine about how our reliance on GPS devices was eroding our natural ability to navigate a landscape. Why use your actual sense of direction when you can just follow the little blue dot to your destination. Well guess what sometimes the blue dot lies. Sometimes it is not where its supposed to be or the whole device just decides to crap out and just die on you. Hup United was invited to the Rapha East Coast Gentleman's ride held in lovely Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. When I saw the invitation I was sooo stoked! Hup United is a cross racing team. I am not built for endurance riding. But I have learned to love it. Maybe it is the fact that I am not built for it and am not really good at it that attracts me to it. I suffer. A lot. But these types of rides change you. They change you as a biker and a person.

The RGR is such a special event. If you are unfamiliar with it it is an invite only team endurance race. 6 person teams start and finish together. You must work as a team. And not just in the road racing sense but in a way that requires you to take care of each other. The unsaid rules are never ditch a rider, ride with class, help out other teams if they need help. Hence the Gentleman moniker.

Hup had a great crew consisting of Mike Golay, Markie Mark, Ctodd, DJ Roberto, myself and Rosey's doplanger Matt Aumiller. Matt rides on Cambridge and is one of the strongest and coolest guys I know. We transferred a large sum of money to his offshore account in the Cayman Islands for his team transfer for the day. Seeing him in Noir was worth every euro...in all seriousness it was so cool to have one of the nicest guys in the NECX riding with us. What better way to get to know someone than to spend all day suffering with them. The fact that he busted out hardcore rap tunes on the climbs made the suffering that much more bearable.

One of the biggest revelations of this ride is the amazing ability of one's body to surprise you. The entire week leading up to this huge undertaking my body was a disaster. I still have no idea what I did. I assume it was a combo of laying down 5 yards of mulch, putting in some big miles to get ready for this, an insane amount of life stress and getting a bit to jiggy with it at yoga. Yeah I am old. I pretty much injured myself almost beyond repair by trying to stretch. That by any definition is both ironic and hugely stoopid. I am way to old to be trying to get limber. So I started to panic. I emailed Coach Al and he talked me off the ledge. He had to deal with both my and Mike Golay's aged bodies (knees). Hup owes Al big time as he got us both ready. I'd be remiss if I didn't thank both Tim Johnson, Molly Cameron, Pete Smith and the makers of Saran Wrap but that is perhaps better explained in another blog post...

We left Boston early on Friday and rolled out in the swaggervan from Brighton with Ctodd and Robert. Robert took the first shift and things got how do you say hectic. Damn I haven't seen grown men argue about directions like this in my life. At one point we were up on a median strip in Whackoff New Jersey playing semi-tractor trailer roulette trying to decide between north or south on 17...of course we picked the wrong ramp. It really was a harbinger for just how monumentally directionally challenged we would be for the rest of this trip. We made it down to the lovely Bear Mountain Resort in time for a nice opener ride. Did I mention my body was a disaster? Holy quacamole. Have I mentioned that the Lehigh Valley is really just one rolling hill after rolling hill? And not like Boston rolling hills. Boston has no hills as I was about to find out. We rolled out of the resort and just flew down a descent. We rode for about 30 minutes then started back to the hotel. Half way up the climb Ctodd gets a flat. Ok no biggie. I do my usual quick change with a CO2 for him. But I am so spooked by being on the side of a road with no shoulder and all of us exposed as trucks and cars fly by us at like 60 that I rush it and something slips into the bead and flats the new tube within seconds. Literally. I inflate it give it to Ctodd and it starts deflating. FML.

We decide its best to move up the road to a driveway. In PA's defense while the cars and trucks were hauling ass they never did any of the usual Masshole bs we deal with every day in Newton, Dover and Lexington. If anything they obviously had a ton of experience (and patience!) being around cyclists and never beeped yelled or generally harassed us in any way. In fact the Lehigh Valley may be the most cyclist friendly region I have ever had the pleasure of riding in. The whole weekend I never heard one negative comment about a driver. So we sort that out and finally get back to the hotel. In spite of the flats it was just what we needed after 6 hrs sitting in a car.

When we got back to the hotel we got a call from the Rapha guys and Bill Strickland of Bicycling magazine inviting us down to happy hour in town. We didn't really know where we were going but when I saw a bike shop with a super sexy black Ira Ryan in front of it I knew we were in the right spot. We went in and met Bill and his wife Beth who had laid out the route for Rapha. The whole staff at Rapha and Bicycling deserve such high praise for how welcomed we all felt and how at ease they made us. Even though we'd really never met each other before they made us all feel like we'd been friends forever. I think that is what the RGR brings out in cyclists. Its like a shared history. They were so excited to show us the roads and the area that they get to ride every day it just became infectious. Even when Gerben was telling us how hard it was you couldn't help just feeling relaxed about it. Well maybe we didn't believe it could be as bad as he said it was...

We went out to dinner afterwards with Hup OG and international photographer Chris Milliman. I love Chris. It was so good to see him and to be able to take the time to talk with him and catch up. Usually we see each other at Gloucester. Talk about the sickest new Dugast tubies then we have to race off to get to the start grid and maybe share a quick beer post race. We talked a lot about cross (of course) and Flanders.

I have to say traveling with the crew we had was so great. Matt Aumiller rolled in around 12:30 and we discussed what badass Cat 2s we all were. Not Cat 2 in the USCF sense Cat 2 as in Cats with 2 kids...I went to bed praying to the baby jeezus in the gold lame diaper that he heal my broken body so I could bring Hup glory instead of crawl up into the fetal position on the first climb and be abandoned and have my bones devoured by the zombie hordes of the apocalypse. Race day as we got the 5 minutes to the start at the line Mike Golay flashed me his Garmin. It said take a U-turn. I had no idea what foreshadowing that was. We made one correct turn. Well two correct turns then I proceeded to lead us out onto an onramp to the highway. You can't make this up. We turn around and go back down the onramp. Again we somehow do not get killed by oncoming traffic due in no part to our superior cycling skills. We get back on course and get onto a really nice gravel road across a huge field. I have Wagner's Ride of The Valkyries in my head...and choppers. You can't pretend you are in Paris-Roubaix without the choppers.

The first 40 miles were probably the most brutal 40 miles I have ever done. Between my body just not being right to the course profile it just made for a sufferfest. But we got some great words of advice from the Godfather the night before we left. ZD (Zac Daab) said to use the word "less" as a mantra. And we really embraced it as it was brilliant in its simplicity and genius. I took it easy. Which was no easy task consider the 4 "bumps" on the elevation in that first 40. One hill called Goat Hill was brutal. It was dirt/gravel and possibly the steepest thing I have ever seen. I got about 3/4 up and was just like what am I doing. I have a 100 more miles and I am about to rip my knees out of my sockets trying to hump up this wall. So I got off. Yes I did. Quick hike a bike and I remounted and joined my mates. After that the good sensations came around. We made it to the first (and last until mile 90) stop for water and refueling. And this is where things came apart. There were a ton of teams at a quikie mart. We socialized a bit. Grabbed some food and water. Then we did a quick head count and we were missing a rider. What happens on the road stays on the road. It was just a communication mix up and a necessary search for a suitable nature break gone bad but we watched all the other teams leave us behind while we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally I went up the road and got a real PB&J sandwich from quite possibly the nicest British women at a coffee shop I have ever met. Finally the Rapture released our sixth rider of the Hupocalypse from its clutches and we were back on our way. Rumor is that The Wilcox returning to racing stopped the Rapture in its tracks. You can thank him for saving the Universe next time you see him ; )

Shortly after that our not so trusty Garmin decided it would crap out. Luckily we had cue sheets and super phones. And the Amish. And the really, really nice farmers. Even though we got lost more times than I can even remember that actually became part of the adventure. We used our wits. Matt and Rob were great navigators. The route we ended up doing was 105 miles, and about 7,500 feet of climbing. Our ride time was 7 hrs. We were out there about 8. I hope this doesn't sound like I am complaining about getting lost because that is sooo not what this is about. I love adventure and that is what this was. Every time we talked with Bill or Beth or Gerben about the ride the night before they would get all excited and say just think of it as a ride. They wanted to share this amazing cycling Mecca with us. They told us not to worry if we got lost. Their advice was if we got lost just look around enjoy the scenery find some new roads and tell them all about them. I love how much enthusiasm they have for their local roads. I get it after being on them. I can safely say that was one of the nicest loops I have ever done. People say they like dirt and gravel roads but sometimes I think they are just saying that cause they think its the cool thing to say.

But Hup loves gravel. We really do. And we can ride it. We shredded the downhills. For every super tough climb there was an amazing roller coaster waiting on the other side. Huge Hup Hugs to everyone involved. Riding the Velodrome at the end and seeing all our friends from the NECX and now PA and beyond was priceless. This day will be in my memory banks forever. We made some great new friends, reconnected with some old ones and forged some bonds that are stronger for the suffering. Thank you so much to Rapha, Gerben, Slate, Jeremy, Bill Strickland, Beth Strickland, the whole Bicycling magazine staff who I was blown away not only by how strong they are but how funny, nice and welcoming they were. Can't say enough about the event. It was one of the most well run events I have ever been to. Oh and yeah a Tandem won it. Think about that. A tandem did the whole 140. Well crushed it in fact.

Blue is the new Black

2011-05-02T16:43:00.001-07:00

Quick photo post of some faves from the last couple of weeks. Gilbert owning the brothers Schleck at L-B-L. After this Classics season I think it is safe to say who cares about the Grand Tours. Classics are filled with so much drama and mayhem. And the races are won by bike racers not Manerexics....and frankly when the Belgians win we all win...
I don't get enough Evil in my life....so I ride with the Dark Lord on a regular basis..
The 2011 Hup United Bleu B Sample dropped and my mind is blown....
The "new" Bleu is a departure from our old design and brings Noir, Blanco and Bleu all together and makes it look so clean and PRO its not even funny. Plus the new Bleu adds at least 5o watts. True fact.
Sometimes it does not seem possible....and yet....Spring is here my friends. Hup! Hup!

The Power of the Bike

2011-04-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

It may be hard to believe but I was once a punk 20 year old kid with a pretty big disregard for my and others personal safety. I'd say that is common for that demographic but a bit out of character for me. Mtn biking in Northern California where I happened to be residing at the time is a very different style of riding. It is mountain biking. Aka you ride on mountains. East Coast style probably should be called woods riding or root and rock riding...but I digress. But back to my days as a punk and mtn biking in Marin County. The beauty of those mountains is that if you are funemployed and get to ride during the week it is a ghost town. You can shred the mountains at will and pretty much with impunity. Descending on a dirt bike on a switch backed fireroad at 25-30 mph is a lesson in faith and stupidity. I had a few close calls with ranger vehicles being parked in the middle of the trail or huge washed out rain ruts but never a "conflict" with another trail user.

Until I met Marylin Price. Marylin Price is an amazing woman. And she changed my life. But back to that meeting. I was shredding the fireroad descent into Muir Valley when I came across a blind corner and there was an older women pushing her bike in the middle of the trail. Luckily I was able to avoid hitting her and crashing myself and her out. But it was close. Like a hairs breath between my right shoulder and her helmet close. Well. Marylin lit into me. Yelling at me as I took the next turn. I was a jerk. No doubt I deserved every word she yelled at me. But instead of just blowing it off and being an even bigger jerk for some reason I stopped. I rode back up to her and apologized. She went from yelling at me to explaining to me in a very calm voice how precarious the trail access situation was in this area. She also invited me to come to lunch at her outreach organization called Trips for Kids. I think that might have been my last act as a punk 20 year old. And its just one of the many examples of the Power of the Bike. It can transform you. And the connections you make change you and make you a better person.

I was never a philanthropic person. I was 24 after all. But one visit to Trips for Kids and I was sold. It became my own personal cause. If I had extra bike parts I'd donate them to TFK. I always made sure to donate some money to them at least once a year. Any chance that I had to help I did. If Marylin ever needed anything I tried to help. But back to the present. My good friends Adam Myerson and David Wilcox are very involved in Bikes Not Bombs. I have helped with fundraising for BNB through the Ronde de Rosey the last couple of years. My babymomma even donated her old orange Stumpjumper to BNB. But I really didn't know much about the organization. I assumed it was very similar to TFK. But while it may be in some ways it is very, very different.

David and Adam were table captains at a fundraiser for BNB this week. Again I went mainly to support my two friends not out of any philanthropic ideal. I sort of expected it to be similar to that first lunch I had with Marylin Price about 2o years ago. Small scale downhome outreach. What I was a part of was totally not what I expected. There were at least 100-200 people in attendance at the breakfast held in Franklin Park. The NECX was well represented with three full tables. But we were only a small part of the participants. The other contingent were professional people and people clearly impassioned by the cause. The organization is much larger (and professional!) than I expected and its impact not only on the local community it serves but the global community is far greater than I anticipated.

They did such a great job of presenting what BNB core mission is and talking about the impact they have. There were so many highlights of the presentation. I wish I had been more journalistic about it and taped all that was said as it really had an impact on me. But two stories to me framed up the day. A young woman named Zacorah Jackman spoke to us about her personal experience at BNB. She is 18 and has been a part of BNB for a while. She will be the intern for BNB Girls in Action Program this summer. I was sooo impressed not only by her ability to stand up at a podium and address a room full of people as I was by her story.

She told the story of how she came to BNB and about her mentor Elijah Rodriguez. He sounds like an amazing person. Like Trips for Kids they teach the kids bike safety, how to work on bikes and then the kids can earn a bike. She told the story of the day she finally earned her new bike with so much pride I almost shed a tear. The other things that hit home were what an impact BNB has on her community. In her own words she talked about how it helped her to learn about other people as she mainly only interacted with a small community within her neighborhood.

She also had the quote of the day. She said she sometimes "feels like a shark in a goldfish bowl." But now with BNB she feels like a shark in the ocean. She meant this as she now can see the possibilities. She is never bored, she loves to ride and work with other kids. She loves that BNB lets her be free and to grow. Its obviously such a nurturing and empowering environment. She loved that she could be herself and that she didn't have to conform. But she also said that she knew when one day she become a CEO or worked in business she might have to wear a suit. It was pretty amazing for an 18 year old to have that type of introspection.

On a more serious note Samantha Wechsler BNB's executive director told the story of a young man who was part of the program. He had been coming for about a week when they heard that his cousin had been killed in gun violence. They knew this would be a crisis for him. When he left that night Sam asked him to please not retaliate. He promised her he wouldn't. They worried about him obviously. When he came back they were all thrilled to see him. Sam asked him what happened. He said he and some of his friends went looking for who killed his cousin. But he left early. She asked him why did he go home. He said because he promised her he wouldn't retaliate. That is Power to change people's lives.

I came away from the breakfast so inspired and awed. Bikes Not Bombs is now going to be my cause. There are so many causes that need help and are important but this one is something special. I am so lucky to have friends like Adam and David who push you to be a better person and to be a bigger part of the community. And the beauty of those two is they don't beat you over the head with it or hop up on some soap box they just offer you an opportunity to open your heart and reach out. What a great morning. And to say I was impressed by the professionalism and warmth that I experienced from BNB would be an understatement.

And of course in the end it all comes back to the bike. Most of my good friends rode their bikes to the breakfast. I wanted to sooo bad but the timing was tight. But it was so cool to see Mo and David and Colin all on bikes. And as a bike geek I found myself checking out Mo's sweet commuter machine and Dave Chiu's basket bike. Hilarious when I am barely looking at resultsboys sick Spooky road racing machine to check out basket bikes! I also saw a huge group of Crack of Dawn riders heading back to the burbs through Jamaica Plain on my way home. Great day and again can't say how much it moved me.

The Lion Will Roar Sunday

2011-04-04T16:26:00.001-07:00

Yes the Flags of Flanders will be all over the course at Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. Will it be another surprise victory like last weekend or will one of the big guns take that cobble and raise it high above his head....hard to say. But when I said the Lion would roar I meant in the NECX. Ronde de Rosey v2.0 is this Sunday. We rode the Rosey pain train for 5 hrs while you were all sipping machiatos and watching Flanders. The course is not one for the weak of body or heart. We were all crushed by the time we got back to Brighton. Even Rosey got all quiet after we hit Wells. When Rosey gets quite your legs are about to be ripped clean off your body..trust me on that one.

These two photos of Rosey and Yash are from last year's Ronde. It was a success by any definition. But I thought with so many new faces on the start list we should go over the Rules of the Ronde. Rule #1. If anyone asks if you are on a race the answer is no we are just out riding. Kind of like Fight Club okay. Rule #2. No complaining. That may be the most important rule. This is a bandit/adventure race. Its meant to be fun. If you aren't having fun maybe peel off and get lunch or do some lawn bowling. Rule #3. You will get lost. Racers will get really, really lost. Trust me. They tend to just put there heads down and go really really fast. Guess what the course is marked but this is not a race its almost like orienteering. You need to keep your head up and look for the lay of the land. If you do get lost don't freak out just plot your own course and get back on track. Half the fun last year was seeing all the different Garmin data about the routes people created. If you do happen to find some sweet trails out there please tell us about them so we can ride them later!
Rule #4. No swearing, bike throwing, pushing shoving, menacing or general poor sportsmanship. We will disown you if we here about any of that okay? We are rolling through a lot of conservation land do not yell at dog walkers, drivers, nice old ladies, bird watchers, man rapers etc...live and let live or just put on the blinders for this 5 hr ride. What you do in your neck of the woods is your business. Rule #5 Use your head. Kind of like a Zombie attack. Use your head cut off theirs. Kidding. Be safe. Do not cross the yellow line. Pacelining will be key but try and not piss of cars or put yourself in danger in any way. Rule #6. Tip. Tip? Yes at the Washington Square Tavern and Ride Studio Cafe if a nice barista makes you a coffee please give them a dollar. If a nice bartender opens your beer for you at the WST please tip them a dollar. Thank you for that. Rule #7. Ticks suck. I don't want to relive my own personal horror but put some deet repellant on your shoes and socks/leg warmers. When you get home sunday night do a tick check.
#8 Leg warmers. Speaking of leg warmers do the right thing ok. Those knees have a long season be nice to them...#9. Trestle Bridge. It is safe. But back to #5 USE YOUR HEAD. You want to ride it? Fine go for it but its your call ok. I'd walk it. Its over in second a bit of vertigo but thats it. #10. CFR. Cross does indeed F'n Rule. This is why we do the Ronde. Cause you the NECX rule and cross bikes rule. #11. Plan ahead. We do have some checkpoints etc. But you are on your own. The beauty of rides like this is you get to rely on each other. But be smart. Bring a full set of tools etc. Last year we had some great stories of people converting bikes to single speeds and riding the whole course. But they couldn't have done it without tools. Also bring lots of food. 5 hrs is a long time. You need to eat or you will bonk. Bonking sucks. Drinking beer after bonking is just a quick trip to happy nappy land. One PRO Tip. If you feel a stick in your rear wheel stop pedaling. Your rear derailler will thank me.

See you all Sunday! Hup! Hup! A HUGE thanks to our sponsors! Washington Square Tavern, Ride Studio Cafe, Harpoon Brewery, Rapha, Raleigh, Mad Alchemy, Newbury Comics, Zanconato, Pedros, Lazer Helmets, Schwalbe. At the end of the day this is all done as a Benefit for Bikes Not Bombs. All the proceeds from the event go right to Bikes Not Bombs! Thanks for your support

Ride Studio Cafe Club Launch Party!

2011-03-15T12:32:00.001-07:00

The Ride Studio Cafe is launching their new cycling club with a party on Saturday, March 19th from 6:30-9:30 pm at the Studio in Lexington. I have been working really closely with the RSC over the last couple of months and everything they have been coming up with has been so thoughtfully and stylishly designed. From Dave Chiu's team painted Seven to his RSC branded S3 to the sneak peaks I have seen of the Rapha team and club clothing everything just has an incredibly beautiful sensibility to it. The team and club are going to be something really, really special. It will capture the soul of the cycling on so many levels.

In speaking with Dave Chiu and Rob Vandermark there are some really exciting things in the works. All the things the RSC is becoming known for and much, much more. If you haven't heard about the club here is the information that was sent to me:

The Ride Studio Cafe Club is a collaborative of cycling enthusiasts and racers that congregate around all aspects of performance cycling and the camaraderie that brings out the best in us. The purpose of the Club is to engage riders to be more excited about riding; to ride more often and to enjoy it more; to find riding routes--and routes to cycling--that are more enjoyable; to push each other to ride more; and to increase our enjoyment and camaraderie of cycling.

At the party we'll share the details of the Club, including:

• What you get for joining the Club-its a long and unique list

• Rides we are planning for the season-some rides that we hope most cyclists have never even thought about

• Exclusive club gear and clothing--more than 20 items we've designed

• Details about the Club Team-The Cafe Racers-and their plans for the season

• Team Bikes-Two types

We've already have about 40 club members, and the Club hasn't even gone public-until now!

How To Join

If this Club sounds like something you'd like to be a part of you can join at the event on Saturday night--and you'll receive a special limited edition gift. Or, email us to join ahead of time so we can have your club gear and welcome packet ready for you on Saturday.

Some additional reasons to come to the party

• Sample our limited edition Club Coffee--an amazing coffee!

• Great food and beer--as we do at every RSC event

• Opportunity to purchase club gear at a special discount for the event only

• Opportunity to purchase Rapha and Cervelo products at a discount--for the evening only

Its going to be a great beginning to a great season of riding. We hope to see you there!

Please RSVP at rsvp@ridestudiocafe.com

The Dover Demon

2011-03-13T14:49:00.001-07:00

Here I am pictured with my good friend and Pedro's president Matt Simpson. Pete Smith called us Wounded Soldiers. Damn it has been a rough winter for the NECX. It sounds crazy to say we are lucky but we are. In the span of a week four of us ended up in the ER. I feel so bad for everyone who has been hurt. My crash was sooo stupid. It really defies all logic. What makes it even more bizarre is that my crash and Matt's crash happened at almost the exact same time. Just his crash happened in Baltimore and mine happened in Dover. I really have no explanation for my crash.

I blame it on either the Dover Demon pictured above trying to sneak up on PVB. Or on some weird mind meld with Matt. I am pretty superstitious by nature. Its part of having an Irish heritage. I love the Irish but they are crazy. There I said it. But I find it really odd that Matt and I crashed at the same time. I think the night we spent at the Hudson hotel in NYC some crazy black magic must have been performed on us. The Hudson hotel is crazy. Its kind of like Fangtasia in True Blood. I would not be surprised if we were turned that night. Thank god I didn't let the couple who came to our door in around 2 am. I probably wouldn't be out in daylight as we speak.

So while Matt was locking bars in a townline sprint in Baltimore I was crashing on my face on the safest road in Dover. Again either we were somehow linked and when he went down I hit the deck in some kind of sympathy crash or the Dover Demon grabbed my front wheel and smashed my face in the ground just to remind us bikers that the DD is the landlord on those roads. All joking aside heal up my friends. Be safe out there.

Day 2 on Tim Johnson's RoW

2011-03-10T06:26:00.000-08:00

"I am the Nightrider!. I'm a rocker, I'm a roller, I am the out-of-controller!" from Mad Max

I am not even going to lie I didn't know how far I could go on this ride. When I first heard about it I jumped all in. I wanted to help out as much as humanly possible. My first plan was to be the "fighter escort" out of Boston to Providence. The original plan was for day one of Tim Johnson's Ride on Washington to go Boston-Providence-Hartford. Riding to Providence and back seemed no biggie. But like a lot of things with my biker friends I got sucked deeper deeper into their nefarious plans the more I got involved. For me its like an addiction. I can't help myself. Luckily cycling is a touch healthier than most other addictions

So I quickly went from "Fighter Escort" to putting on a fundraiser and riding to NYC. Day one was really hard. Mentally and physically. But like I said the level of support on this ride was mind blowing. And not support in the Pan-Mass sense. There were no rest stops, we didn't have cue sheets but what we had was each other. And we had Butch Balzano and David Wilcox in follow cars. It was more an Air Cavalry team than Patton's 6th armored division. We moved fast across the landscape even when we got lost or riders had a spot of bother. Day one will forever be there when I am on some crazy epic ride this summer. But day two was different.

I seriously didn't think I could do Day 2. I roomed with my good friend David Wilcox in Hartford the night before we set out to ride to NYC. If you don't know David while he is an amazing cross racer, mechanic and advocate for cycling what he does best is endurance. He saved me that night. I used a lot of tricks. Short of thawing blood bags in the room I did it. When I woke up in the am I was tired but good to go. That said Day 2 was a big day. It was being dubbed the Queen Stage. That is the longest and toughest. I put that out of my mind as I knew I couldn't make it 140 miles. I had Bethel, Ct home of Cannondale HQ as my goal. That in itself was basically like doing Battenkill after doing 120 miles the day before. But you know what after doing Day one I felt like I could do anything. There was only one moment on Day 2 where I almost cracked. It was a WALL of a climb. On a highway so when you looked up it just went on seemingly forever. The horizon was basically blotted out. And what I learned right there is your mind quits before your body does. Mentally I had been spit out the back and dropped but physically I was still in the peloton turning the pedals over with my wingman Dave Chiu. But I can't overstate this point enough a rider sensed I was about to crack and before I could pull the rip cord a rider put his hand ever so slightly on my butt and pushed me for about 20 seconds. That slight push saved me. I got on top of that gear and was able to stay right where I was for the whole climb. That man was Peter Smith. Love that man. And owe him big time.

After that climb I felt fine. There was some crazy town line sprints and shennanigins along the way to Bethel. Who knew CT was soooo damn hilly? I mean seriously? But back to the start a bit. The ride into and out of Hartford (and into NYC) were both an epiphany. As sketchy as riding in an urban environment can be the response we got from pedestrians and drivers was nothing but positive. Yes I heard a few things from the riders on the streets of the Bronx ( I was in the car riding shotgun) but they survived and it is the Bronx afterall! But back to my point. In the urban centers we were welcomed. I can't even repeat the things that were screamed at us on the suburban and rural roads in Ct. You know what I am taking about though. What was shocking to me is that someone would hate a group of bikers on the other side of the road so much that they would beep at us from the opposite side of the road and yell at us. Who does that? People who feel entitled that is who? I could use other words but clearly the urban centers are where we need to put a lot of our resources. Can you imagine the difference a bike can do for a City kid with very little resources?

Rolling into Cannondale HQ in Bethel was amazing. Felt better than any cx race I have ever done. Felt better than any race I have ever done. I am hooked now. I need to get into endurance riding and this type of riding. Unsanctioned, an adventure and with a purpose. Cannondale welcomed us with open arms. I got changed and switched into Bjarne Riis mode or Mike White or Sean Yates I suppose. This was and will always be Tim Johnson's ride. He is an amazing Patron on the road. That in itself was an education. How he was able to keep us all safe and moving was the most PRO thing I have ever seen. He would go from cracking the whip to cracking jokes in a blink of an eye. But he kept the group moving and safe at all times.

So what is the big secret to doing a ride like this? Peter Bell (pictured above) taught it to me. Eating. Eating lots. And eating right. You need food. Real food. Yes you need the sugary stuff but you also need the real stuff. Although here I think he is inhaling a KFC chicken sandwich in between Bethel and NYC. Getting in the van was almost one of the most fun parts of the whole ride. David and I were a great team. He drove like a man possessed with Butch locked in right behind us. Dave and Butch were incredible. They followed close enough to keep cars from running the group down from behind but far enough off that cars could get by and slow and then safely pass the cyclists. We did a ton of bottle changes. I have always dreamt of being in a team car at one of the Classics. Well I think this pretty much checks that off the bucket list.
Lyne Bessette was amazing. Such a solid rider (obviously) but also one of the nicest people I have ever met. If TJ was the Patron on the ride she was the Uber Domestique. She did so much work for the group. Pulled. Brought up water bottles. Etc. She even won a ton of town line sprints from the boys! This ride has been called a "pub crawl" and in some ways it was as each night we went to a pub or Brewery! But it was a hardcore ride. Townline sprints were contested with a vengeance. Sometimes almost with too much spirit as we had a few close calls and one actual crash along the way. But the point is Lyne didn't just let the boys be boys she got after it and won a bunch of them. So great being able to finally meet a legend and then have that legend far exceed your already lofty opinion of her. Thank you Lyne! I am a fan forever!
Kevin Wolfson. Our guide throughout most of this. Kevin is a young gun of a bike racer. Skinny as hell and really, really talented. He is also 1/3 of the team behind Firefly Bicycles. This was the maiden voyage of Firefly #001. How many bike companies would build a bike one day and then have it go on a 5-day 500 mile bike race/tour without any stress testing? Well Kevin is clearly now in charge of R&D at Firefly from now on! That bike was insane! So gorgeous but also so dialed in. Obviously the rider is what makes the bike work but would you hop on a bike you have never even tested out and ride for 5 days on it? Much respect for Kevin and Firefely. Both are going to do great things in the future of this much I am sure.
Butch. What can I even say about Butch and SRAM neutral support. I am a campyphile through and through but frankly Butch's support on this ride has changed one thing in my mind. If I ever don't have money to burn on Campy I am going to SRAM. No questions asked. But back to Butch. He is the nicest, most solid guy on the planet. Nothing rattled Butch. He was the backbone of this whole ride. Without him it never would have happened. He washed all the bikes each night, he fixed bikes, he kept all the riders safe on the road and was just such a force in keeping us all going. How unflappable was he? Day one we had a bit of a "miscommunication" ie we gave Dave and Butch the wrong cue sheet. Dooh! So while the ride was heading towards the Blackstone Valley and out of food and water and starting to bonk Butch and Dave and the support cars were in Providence wondering where we were. Well Butch didn't even blink he and Dave hauled ass and met us in about an hour at a gas station. AmazingHahaha. Oh man. I look like a naked mole rat in this picture. Jeremy Powers met us about halfway on Day 2. It wasn't that easy either. The plan was to meet him in Hartford and to roll all together for a bit. But we left earlier than planned when it dawned on us that we had 140 miles to get to NYC and it was very hilly. We all knew we'd never get to NYC before dark and were just hoping we could minimize the damage. So we missed the connection with JPow. Well that didn't stop Jeremy. He hopped in his car and with Butch and The Wilcox's help tracked us down. Now what happens on the road stays on the road but let me just say from Wilcox's view behind the wheel trying to follow JPow on the twisty rural CT roads when this bike racing thing is over JPow may have a future as rally car driver. And anyone who thinks a mini-van doesn't handle well...yeah it does...

The Bronx and NYC need a post of its own. For now I leave you with this. Night fell just as we headed into NYC. It was insane. It was the longest 20 miles of our lives...but everyone got in safe and we had an amazing night in NYC. Thank you to TJ, the entire crew on the RoW Hartford CT, Cannondale, Pedro's. SRAM NRS, Mad Alchemy, Firefly Bicycles, Ride Studio Cafe, Rapha, Light and Motion (oh god thank god for L&M!) and Bikes Belong!

Welcome to the Urban Jungle

2011-03-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

The original title for this post was going to be "With A LOT of help from my friends." That basically sums up my three days on Tim Johnson's Ride On Washington. No way, no how I could have done this without a lot of help from my friends. Literally as Peter Smith, Peter Bell, Lyne Bessette, and David Wilcox made sure I not only survived riding 200 miles in 2 days but that I actually enjoyed it. A couple of the photos of me that may pop up here or there I am not looking fresh but trust me even if I look like I was at war on the outside, on the inside I am having the best time evah. I don't have time for a full on post but I wanted to put up some photos from Day one. We left Gov't Center in Boston at about 8 am. It was around 14 degrees out. We made a stop at Firefly where they had a really nice reception for us. Then it was off to Hartford CT! Wow. 9 hours later we made it!

Dave Chiu was such a great wingman! He's such a great friend and when we got to NYC and it was clear the crew needed some extra help he volunteered to stick around and help get them to Philly. It was huge on his part and he really helped them in a tight spot. That is really the whole defining mantra of this ride. Everyone just helping. No questions asked. When I called David Wilcox to see if he'd drive the Hup team car from Boston to NYC and back in support he didn't even hesitate. This even though he had a broken left foot. He drove amazing support and is and always will be one of my heroes. The fact that he doesn't even own a car is mind blowing. Team Sky should hire him post haste as he can drive a team car like a man possessed. Although I do think Butch from SRAM neutral support somehow did some kind of Vulcan mind-meld technique on David. There really is no other explanation for the type of driving I witnessed through the streets of the Bronx.

Firefly Bicycles had cupcakes and cookies waiting for us at a reception at their brand new shop. Frame #2 was in the jig. It was great seeing Tyler and checking everything out. Kevin Wolfson was long hauling it all the way to the Bike Summit in DC on Frame #1. It is a gorgeous machine.

Peter Smith of Mad Alchemy looking like the Cheshire Cat in this one. I think he may have had an idea of what a wild ride this was going to be. Pete helped me so much. One of my funnier memories of this ride is rolling into the last couple of rolling hills towards Cannondale HQ bonked out of my mind talking with Pete about Mythical creatures. We agreed that Unicorns are pretty lame and that Griffins rule. Griffins it is a known fact are protectors. It may seriously be time for a Griffin tattoo in honor of this ride.

The Wilcox aka David Wilcox aka "The Cleaner" When I told my wife I wasn't worried about the ride because I was bringing the cleaner with me she once again thought I was nuts. The Cleaner if you aren't familiar with the movie Pulp Fiction was a character played by Harvey Keitel. Basically when the shit hit the fan he came in and cleaned it up. He saved the two main characters in the movie. No doubt in my mind David is The Cleaner. Ice runs through his veins. No matter how nuts things got he took amazing care of us. I love that man. Not even kidding about that.

Jeremy Dunn of Rapha/Embrocation Journal Magazine brought some serious Sachs appeal to the Ride On Washington! It was great seeing Jeremy. He is a rock star in so many ways but also such an advocate for so many facets of the sport of cycling.

My good friend Matt Simpson. What can I even say about that man? He is the President and GM of one the most iconic New England bike industry brands. He has pumped sooo much energy into Pedro's and the cycling culture over his short tenure at the helm of Pedro's. He's also one of the most involved family men I have ever known, rides like ten men and just takes care of his friends and supports so many good causes. Spending three days with him was so awesome.

Chandler DeLinks. Oh man. You think you know him. Sure you do. You don't. He has a HUGE personality and has inserted himself into cycling in a big way with Das Pro and Das Rookie. That in itself was a huge accomplishment but that really is just one piece of the puzzle. I was so impressed by him. Granted you may not get his sense of humor or he might piss you off or whatever but if you don't get it I feel sorry for you cause you are really missing out. He is hilarious. And really is just a solid guy. He cracked soooo hard on day one. Do I blame it on the crazy ass Starbucks frapucino he inhaled at mile 40? Yeah pretty much. But he fought back. And then on day two just rocked it. He is a seriously strong cyclist. If he ever learns how to carry a bike and do all those little things that make cross so maddening and beautiful at the same time he could do some damage.

Ok I know this has been a ramble. But bottom line The Ride On Washington was a life altering event. I learned so many things over the course of three days. I am a changed man. I really hope this builds into something even bigger next year and more people can experience first hand what you can do on a bike and what the bike can do as a vehicle of change.

Ride Studio Cafe Kickoff Party

2011-02-28T07:35:00.000-08:00

On Thursday March 3rd from 6:30-9:30 pm at the Ride Studio Cafe in Lexington the raffle to end all raffles will be held to raise money for Tim Johnson's Ride On Washington to support Bikes Belong! When I say its the raffle to end all raffles I am really not exaggerating.

I have done a few raffles in my time. Frankly I am beginning to think the real reason people are so nice to me is that I somehow have an ability to create a prize list filled with serious swag. And not one XL t-shirt from the early '90s but a prize list worth winning. Wiis, Ipods, etc. But I digress. This raffle blows them all out of the water. And I have personally been blown away by how everyone I have talked to has been so enthusiastic and supportive of Bikes Belong and this event. It really has resonated. And for this I tip my hat to Tim Johnson, Richard Fries and Bikes Belong. I hope the Ride On Washington gets the attention outside of our circle of friends and cyclists it deserves. The fact that Tim and Richard and an ever growing list of supporters are riding their bikes for 5-days to the National Bike Summit speaks volumes. I got caught up in this same wave of enthusiasm about it and I know lots of other people have as well.

But on to the night at the Ride Studio Cafe! This Thursday drop everything and come to the Studio! The kick off party will be so much fun. Tim Johnson and Richard Fries will be our celebrity quests for the evening! Harpoon has donated the beer for the party and the Ride Studio Cafe has provided the space, the food and coffee. Raffle tickets will be $10 and all proceeds will go to Tim Johnson's Ride On Washington and Bikes Belong. Our goal for this 5-day advocacy mission was $100,000. The pledge funds that each rider who has committed to the ride has raised over $10,000 to date. The other pieces of the fundraising puzzle will be these fundraising evenings we will be doing in each of the 5 stops along the way.

Ok so what does your $10 raffle ticket get you a chance to win? For starters and I honestly can't even believe Tim agreed to this is a piece of 'cross history. The biggest news is that TJ is donating one of his Cyclo-cross National Championships skinsuits to the raffle! I may have to buy every ticket we have to ensure I have that for my cross shrine! I know I am a bit of a crossfan superfreak but that is a huge part of American cross history right there!

Also being raffled off that evening:

Cannondale donated an autographed Nibali jersey

Pedro's donated an MTK Tool Kit

Rapha is donating some pieces of their always stylish clothing

Mad Alchemy is donating some Tim Johnson's signature blend embrocation and their new hot of the presses Start Oil

CXmagazine is donating subs to their fine magazine

Embrocation Journal is in the mix

Light & Motion is donating 3 light products

and we also have a Wii, an Ipod, and a garmin (non cycle computer style)

Dave Chiu is donating one of his framed pictures

Harpoon has added some swag as well as their great beer

The list keeps growing daily.

On Friday, March 4th at 8 am Dave Chiu and I will roll out from City Hall with Tim Johnson and a small peloton of riders heading towards Washington DC for the National Bike Summit. Dave and I are planning on riding two days. 100 miles each day. Thank you so much to everyone who has stepped up and supported all the riders efforts and Bikes Belong's mission! Dave and I will be flying the brand new double secret Ride Studio Cafe's race team kit made by Rapha. I am so honored to be such a small part of this ride and to be able to ride with Dave and represent the Ride Studio Cafe.
I had to post up some spy shots of Dave's customized Cervelo R3 Ride Studio Cafe team bike. The attention to detail and the sense of design of everything that comes out of the Studio is amazing. The R3 is a sexy bike on its own but with the RSC's design treatment it is just stunning. But its not all about good looks. It is going to be a great machine for the ride. Granted it does remind me of the original Hup Noir so I am biased.
If this is how nice the bikes look I cannot even wait to see how stylish the Rapha Ride Studio Cafe team kit is going to be. If you have never been to an event at the Studio you will be in for a big treat. The Studio is all about Coffee, Bikes and community and these events are a big piece of that. Again a huge Hup Hug to everyone who helped with the fundraising, who donated to the raffle, who agreed to help with the ride and for everyone who makes this cycling community so amazing!
And a special thank you to all our sponsors and supporters including: Bikes Belong, Pedro's USA, The Ride Studio Cafe, Firefly Bicycles, Red Bull, Bikereg.com, Strava.com, Rapha, The Marriott Corporation, SRAM, Cannondale, Light & Motion, Harpoon and Mad Alchemy

Tim Johnson's Ride On Washington

2011-02-20T07:52:00.001-08:00

Bikes Belong. Its not something we hear a lot in the press and from our Government. But Bikes do belong. If you are reading this you probably get this. Because there is about a 100% chance that if you are reading this you ride a bike. Or are at the least very interested in cycling. And for this I applaud you. Its not easy being a cyclist in the United States. We have to fight for our right to exist on roadways all the time. And we need people to fight for us where it counts. We need people to lobby for safe routes to schools for kids, and to make sure cycling is part of every community with safe routes either via bike lanes, or bike paths and/or proper city planning. Cycling is the answer to so many of our societies problems right now.

* How do you lower our reliance on petroleum? Cycling.

* How do you turn an unhealthy population into one that is healthy and fit? Cycling

* How do you fight depression and ADHD? Cycling

* How do you build walkable and rideable cities? Cycling

The list goes on and on. I have a really good friend named Richard Fries. He certainly wasn't the first friend I had in cycling but he is the one I have been friends with for the longest period of time. Richard and I have been good friends for over a decade. He has been and still is a mentor to me and a role model. He makes me a better person. And he definitely has forced me to look outside myself and give back to cycling. He is the one who taught me that a bike can be a transformative thing in your life. And that it can change not only you but a culture and society. He walks the walk as well. He is a year long commuter, a fierce bike advocate and really gets it. He has changed how I look at the bike that is for sure. When Richard took his role at Bikes Belong I was so stoked for him. Because it is him. He has done an amazing job spreading the word and fighting the good fight to make sure Bikes Belong!

When he told me that he was planning to ride with three time national cyclo-cross champion, International bike racer and local cycling icon Tim Johnson to Washington, DC to the National Bike Summit the first words out of my mouth were "how can I help?" Just spread the word he said. I did that the best I could. And the more people I talked to I realized its time for me to walk the walk. Tim Johnson's Ride On Washington resonated so much with me that I decided then and there I would join the ride. I signed on with a friend to do two days. 100 miles each day. From Boston to Hartford and then Hartford to NYC! I have committed to raising $1,000 for the event! Thanks to my generous friends and family I am already half way there. If you can please donate anything to any of the riders pledge funds! One of the things that has impressed me so much about Bikes Belong is that "it manages to convert every dollar it receives into $1,800 in Government funding for bike paths, bike lanes, bike programs and bike facilities*."*From Meredith Millers Blog
I have been blown away by peoples support and enthusiasm about this. Tim Johnson is the nicest guy you will ever meet. He is a fierce bike racer but is one of the good guys. He gives back. Obviously as this fundraiser proves. There is a great article in Velonews that talks about his commitment right here. He has gotten 100% behind this and has gotten his sponsors Cannondale, Lazer and Redbull really excited about the event and the cause. Bike racers don't usually do advocacy. I am not talking about the PROs they do a great job in my opinion. The modern athlete really gets it. Its not just about winning races anymore. Its about winning the hearts and minds. And you do that by being a role model and being a great spokesperson and human being. The racers I am talking about are the rank and file. Its the 800 pound gorilla in the room of bike advocacy. Bike racers race and advocates fight for our rights. And the two never really work together. Well this ride may be the game changer that flips that paradigm. Bike racers are flocking to this because of people like Tim Johnson and Meredith Miller. Meredith is another pro cross racer. She just signed on to be a part of the ride! That says so much about Meredith as well as the power of this ride. Both their presence will send such a message. That you have to give back. If they can do it how can a Cat 4 road racer or expert mtn bike racer say they don't have time to do a trail day or help with Bikes Belong?
The ride will leave on March 4th from Boston. It will be a 5-day ride. Along the way we will do fundraisers to raise funds and awareness for Bikes Belong. Tim Johnson, Meredith Miller, Richard Fries, and a group of dedicated riders will embark on this journey together. We are getting amazing support from our family and friends. We have already received amazing support from our "sponsors" including the Bikes Belong Foundation, Red Bull, Bikereg.com, Strava.com, SRAM, Cannondale, Thule and others. The riders from the bike industry who are doing the ride reads like a who's who of bike culture: Jeremy Dunn of Embrocation Cycling Journal, Slate Olson of Rapha, Matt Simpson of Pedro's, Pete Smith of Mad Alchemy, Kevin Wolfson of the newly launched Firefly Bicycles, Dave Chiu of the Ride Studio Cafe and many, many others.
We met Tim Johnson and the Pedro's boys at the Ride Studio Cafe in Lexington the other day for a bit of a tune up ride. We talked a lot about the event. I was blown away by Tim's willingness to do what ever he can to help spread the word about the event and to make it a success. There are so many exciting things coming to bear on this ride its hard to put it down in one post. I will do my best to get the word out but for now save the date of March 3rd! The Ride Studio Cafe has been generous enough to allow us to have a send off/fundraiser night at the RSC! If you have been to one of these events in the past you know how much fun they are! And in this case it is for a really great cause. I will get all the details together and get the word out but for now put a big red star on your calendar. It will be a night with Tim Johnson at the Ride Studio Cafe for Bikes Belong! We will have a fundraiser with a raffle. We will serve all the usual great food and yes Harpoon beer has agreed to sponsor the night! It will be a ton of fun and I hope to see you all there!

For now I just want to say thank you to Tim Johnson, Meredith Miller and Richard Fries for making this effort to bring so much awareness to Bikes Belong...because they do! See you out there on the ride!

Cheers

2011-02-14T06:39:00.001-08:00

It hit me this Sunday while meeting up for a ride with Dave Chiu and the newly formed Ride Studio Cafe race team that the Ride Studio has become like Cheers. Not the lame tourist attraction but the show. Granted this is now dating me. And the kids will be like Cheers what? I loved that show. But this isn't about a trip down memory lane of pop culture its more about the concept of Cheers. A place where you feel at home and welcomed. Where you are all the same. Pubs can be like this. That's why regulars are regulars. But why was the theme song to Cheers running through my head as I was getting ready to ride outside in 20 degree weather with 4 foot high snow banks and the possibility of certain death or at the very least laying it down on the pave nagging at the back of my head?

I have talked about my love of the Ride Studio Cafe and the parties and gatherings that occur there on a regular basis. But what's beginning to reveal itself to me is the pure genius of the RSC. Is it a high-end bike store/fit studio? Yes it really is that and a mighty fine one at that. Is it a Cafe with a real flavor for celebrating the finest coffee in the world? Oh yes it is that and more. They really go deep to find new blends and roasters. Since partaking of their pour over coffee I literally cannot drink Starbucks. And that is saying a lot as I am a total coffee addict. But now I am an addict with taste. So it is both those things and clearly outpaces any bike shop or coffee shop in its respective discipline. But what they have done that in my mind has never been done before is create a space for cyclists and coffee lovers to just be themselves and to feel at home. And that is why the Cheers theme song kept playing in my head all Sunday.

I'd made a ride date with Dave Chiu to meet his new team and learn about the Cervelo bikes they will be riding. Dave and Rob Vandermark had given me some insights into what they were putting together. A solid squad with some Rapha like qualities. They are a strong group of road racers and will be very competitive on the road racing scene but they are more than just a road team pumped up on adrenaline and testosterone. Hence my Rapha reference. They will also celebrate the riding, they will bring that same culture we love in cross to the road scene, they will put energy into endurance rides and just spread the love of riding road bikes and being ambassadors for the RSC.

But as I was sitting in the Studio Cafe pulling my shoe covers over my sidis. Biker after biker kept rolling in for a coffee post ride or were getting a ham and cheese croissant before heading out. Richard Fries rolled in, Jeff Bramhall and Katherine Snell were there. In talking with my Hup teammate Michele Smith she said she had bumped into Rosey and Mike Wissell on the way to Lexington. It is a hub and its a place for us. Bikers who love to ride and love good coffee. I mean it was 20 degrees out and at least 40 riders where in the studio talking about how great their ride was and chatting and enjoying having a space that is our own. We don't have to feel like we are grossing out the general public in a cafe or restaurant. Gone are the stares of annoyance from patrons at a coffee shop of all our gear being strewn across a bench. What occupies the space at the RSC is total celebration of the ride and rider.

There are so many layers to this story and I will try and dig into them to better communicate it both for the reader and myself as I am still digesting it all and its meaning. A couple of things really put an exclamation point on this feeling I had Sunday. The Ride Studio Cafe does feel like a second home. Rob is so welcoming. Andrea is the coolest bike mechanic in the world. And she is nice enough to not mock me even though I am the most hamfisted biker on the planet. But what I loved about it was just the total and utter bike geeking that was going on. I met a guy with a beautiful DeSalvo. We talked about steel bikes. He checked out my Sycip. We connected the dots back to Yash. We all kitted up and headed out for a really nice winter ride. I met friends out on the road and we all came back to the RSC.

After our ride as we were all hanging around I was in a group talking about the ride and catching up with some friends. The door opened and someone came in with the pimpest Look race bike you have ever seen. Totally over the top. Lightweight wheels etc. No expense spared. The conversation stopped. All eyes locked on the bike. Heads turned. Hushed whispers about the bike. Then the cacophony of voices and conversations kicked back in, the rider was welcomed into the hub and we once again reveled in this amazing culture and the space that now has become a haven for us on a cold day.

Spring will be here soon. What was a 6 foot high snowbank is now a 4 foot high snowbank. Lots of really cool stuff percolating at the Ride Studio Cafe. Before the RSC we used to have to wait all year until Fall to get that same feeling we get from cross season where we have this big sense of a community. Not anymore. And we get to check out really fantastic bikes and great coffee at the same time.

Shout at Il Diavolo!

2011-01-31T07:55:00.000-08:00

I think we just found Chandler and Todd's next kickstarter project...get Marco Aurelio Fontana to New England for CX Superweek next fall. Can you even imagine this man at Night Weasels? Any man who flashes the Devil Horns at CX World's as he finishes 7th is my hero. Not since Joe Namath wore a fur coat at the superbowl has this type of style been thrown around on the World's stage. I am creating my shrine to Marco in my mancave as we speak.
I will leave this to the professionals but we need to create a fund to get him here for the Gloucester-Night Weasels-Providence week of cross. Back to back C1 weekends, Night Weasels and Marco? Dear god. Do you think we could get him to a skinsuit party? As if he would even say no to that..we may have to sell all our souls to him to make this happen but it will be worth it...Oh and he is a Cannondale team rider...you couldn't even make this good a cx story up if you tried. Cross season clearly "Can't Stop, Won't Stop." 2011 is gonna be a good year I can feel it.