Slimen Team work

Kyle & me working together in the Master's Race.









Could also be titled a study in barrier techniques. Kyle carries his bike between the barriers. I push mine between barriers. I used to carry them till I saw Tilford a few years ago using his bike like a walker between barriers. I figured if it worked for him it surely would work for me. Plus it saves my already aching back. Though I can see the beni's in carrying it too.

Big Girl Panties

In the last week or so Mia has decided she wants to start peeing on the potty. We've stocked up on the big girl panties & she's been doing pretty good. Sunday Amber & Mia decided to come up to KC to watch me race so we were going to have a test of the potty training effectiveness. She did great no accidents though you can tack on about a half hour to the drive time for all the potty stops(including one on the side of the road). I'm glad they came because Mia had a blast cheering & playing all day. Plus its nice to have the company on the drive to KC for a change. Anyway on to the races.



I had thought about tripling up for this race. But Saturday night after work I went for a spin on the SSCX. It took about 5 min for the chain to come off twice & for me to decide not to race singlespeed on Sunday(turns out the smartest thing I did all wknd). Master's followed by a quick break, then 1/2/3's.









Master's was fun. My Slimen Teammate KB decided to double up too so I had a game plan in the back of my mind. I got a crap start & had to fight through some traffic. Got near the front & sat there waiting for Kyle to overcome his start. During that time Jeff Winkler rolled off the front. I thought he was in a different age category but the numbering system I guess was too complicated for me. Anyway I decided not to go with him & wait for Kyle. Kyle caught on & it took about a lap for us to work over the Cowtown guy. Then we took turns pulling & basically rolled around enjoying a Sunday ride rolling across the line together to take 2 & 3 in the Master's.

We were then supposed to get 30 minutes before the 1/2/3's which ended up being more like 20 since the ref's had a point to make. I guess they had there pissy pants on so they picked out the highest profile guy they could find, Shadd Smith, & relegated him on the line to the back off the start grid. Nice, piss him off so he goes even faster. He took it in stride & still waxed everyone. It took him 30 sec to get the lead instead of taking it from the gun. Me? I decided to put on my big girl panties & ride around having a near heat stroke for over an hour @ LT. KB duked it out for about 50 min before I saw a puff of smoke & him coming back to me guarding the rear. There were two or 3 guys behind me who were trying to sneak up on the race. Like an idiot I forgot my gloves & managed to wear a nice fat chunk of skin off my right hand. I then had to spend the last two laps trying to see how many different ways you could hold the bars(not enough as it turned out). Anyway I knew it was going to be hard & I need the work because depending on how you look @ it I'm either behind for the season or ahead. I think behind, but I will have raced 7x this season before I raced once last season.



The 1/2's wasn't pretty with lots of people having meltdowns, mechanicals, or crashes, or early season woes.

No races this weekend so honey do's & training for me.

More Cross Vegas

You have to be dead inside not to love Cross!


CrossVegas Cyclo-Cross 2008 from sam smith on Vimeo.

Cross Vegas!!!

I'm stuck @ work on a Saturday, so to be uber productive I'm watching cross vids. Watch closely there are a few KC boys in there. Almost makes me want to get a UCI license & a plane ticket to Vegas for next year....almost. Videos stolen from Gregory Keller @ Mud & Cowbells.



Cross Vegas Run up lap 1 from Gregory Keller on Vimeo.



Cross Vegas 2008 from Gregory Keller on Vimeo.

WED Night CX

Starting to get back into the cross swing. Race on the weekend, wash the bike on Monday, ride CX on Wednesday, race on weekend, repeat. Mia is getting pretty good at washing the bike. She hates the hose("daddy don't spray me") but loves the bubbles & brushes. She even gets some of the bubbles on the bike once in awhile.

Last night was the first go around for the CX practices @ Sac. 3 guys so 1 more than I figured. JJ, me, & another guy from Bolivar who's name I forgot(sorry) once I noticed the Lars Bom autograph on his top tube. He said he apologized to Lars for it being a Bianchi & not a Colnago but could he sign it anyway, which he did. I'd clear coat it & hang that bad boy on the wall. With only 3 of us we decided barrier intervals would be the course of action. 4 x 10 min on a little short course I laid out on the top of the hill. Deep grass made it a leg buster.

Sunday I'm off to Lenexa, KS for the Diamond BlackFan CX Challenge. I'm going to attemept to triple. SSCX, Master's, & 1/2's. It's still early in the year so I'm more interested in racing saddle time than results anyway. This season has started a month earlier than last year for me so I'm still building up, December is a long way away & I have a lot of work to do.

This is interesting, I stole it from another blog:

Challenge Tire Chart

Cyclocross Tires Conditions

Grifo 30- Light rider / Early season conditions (I'm running these)

Grifo 32- All Around Conditions (& These)

Grifo 32 - Seta Unmatched casting material, super supple for greater contact to the ground

Grifo 34 -Muddy Conditions

Grifo XS 32- Fast, hard pack and grassy courses, superb early season tire

Grifo XS 34- Ideal deep sand tire

Grifo XS White/Black 32- Icy conditions – hard ice (also the “styling” early season tread) ((& These))

Fango 32- Muddy conditions (developed with direct input from leading riders of the sport) (& hopefully these)

Fango 34- Deep mud conditions

Donn Kellogg from Challenge tires.

Some people are Hammers other Nails

Guess I'm a nail since I took a beating. One that was expected though. Hey I did get a nice ass pat from Butthead though.

34 hours till CX

5 Days till CX

First "unofficial" CX race was at 12:01 this morning. That is registration for CX Nationals. Once again I got up in the middle of the night to try & get a good grid spot. As soon as it opened 5 people were registered. It took me less than 45 seconds to register & I was 13th. I have a pretty fast Intraweb connection but damn thats ridicuoulus! Oh well 2nd row is good enough.

Sore as hell this AM. Didn't get home from boating yesterday till almost 10pm, thats after leaving @ 7am. Not complaining though because I got to run Upper Richland for the first in over two years. Premo level at 5.0 dropping to 4.30. Took my creek boat since I thought we were going to hit the steep stuff but some last minute additions to the crew saw us doing Richland. After some quick bartering at the put in I left the creeker on the car & snuggled into a nice play boat for the day.

There were photos & video shot so as soon as I have them I'll get them posted. There is video of me being only one of two of our motley crew to run one of the hardest rapids on the river. Not super clean but I'll take it in a play boat. Its a 3 section rapid. Cleaned the s-move in to ride the pillow into the slot. Got pushed right of a hole I should have punched, but lost a little too much speed. Then should have slid left through a trough of water to miss a root wad but speed loss made me nudge it, leaving me bracing on my left side hard(no shoulder pain after a super hard brace so that was good). Then rode the green water out letting out a big "whoop"!

Hiked up to the Twin Falls to look at them. Lots of water pumping off them. Classic Tim Ernst Photo Op. Wish it wasn't such a hassle to get a boat up to them or I'd have run my second 20 foot water fall.

Tubulars are almost all glued up(1 set glued, 1 set stretching, 1 set in transit). Bike is built but needs a little fine tuning still. Barrier work starts this week in preparation for Hermann. Then its full bore into CX mode.

10 days till CX

ToM Day 2

Autograph mission a success++. Rabobank signed my musette. Plus Lars Boom reigning World CX Champ signed it as well. He's working the car for Rabobank for a vacation. No kidding. That makes two world champ signatures on the same mussete. Pretty cool souvenier of the ToM.

Tomorrow is the TT. Here's a start list spreadsheet with GC on it. My watch list are highlighted you can download & put into excel & do with it what you want.

11 days till CX

ToM day 1

Drove to KC. Froze my butt off. Talked a lot of cross with KB. Saw a lot of Pros. Talked a little Cross with JPow(the weather had him thinking about cross too). Got a good run in @ the feed zone. Picked up a Rabobank & a Rock Racing Musette for my efforts. Warmed up from my run, then froze my butt off once I cooled off. Went down town, watched a wet finish with a finish no one expected. Who would have thought Cavendish would win in a field sprint? Man I guessed wrong there.

Off to Clinton to try & get Boy Van Poppel to sign my Rabobank Musette. I'm wearing a sweat shirt today.

12 days till cx

I knew Hogan was up to something fishy over there. Google says:

What is the current listing status for cutgrassfarm.com/?

Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 9 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 2 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 1 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 08/31/2008, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 08/31/2008.

Malicious software includes 16 trojan(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 2 new processes on the target machine.

Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including 61.155.8.0.

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, cutgrassfarm.com/ did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

17 Days till CX

Holy Crap its getting close & all I can think about is getting wet.

All day today @  work it was all I could think about was going boating.  Luckily I was insanely busy rewiring 3 control cabinets.  10 hours flew by.  Otherwise I would have gone nuts checking guages.  Don't get me wrong Cross first & fore most but a guy has to cross trane right?  

I even hit the trainer so hard last night Amber got to witness my body telling me to harden the F up. 

 

Yep dry heaves followed by a near pass out.  I've got it in my head to do all my intervals (except secrect cx ones) on the trainer for consistancy via the wattage.  It'll either work or it won't.

Google caused quite a stir with Chrome.  I have it @ home & work.  Haven't got to play too much with it yet.  Did manage to get it to hang up tonight though.   I think it may be more flash than anything.  Will take a lot to get me to convert from Firefox.  But I will give it a chance.  I'm definetly one to try new things  ie intervals on the trainer, wattage, all crazy talk just a few years ago.

18 days till CX

First is anyone besides me bothered by the fact that Hamilton is now the US Road Pro Champ? Irks me. Yes he's done his time, but he's not man enough to admit his wrong doing. Pony up, admit it, & I'll have a little more respect(not much, but a little). I'm taking 3 days off next week to follow the ToM. If he's a last minute addition I think I'll make a giant hypodermic needle with his name on the side. Then stand on the side of the road all down the course. Then on Wednesday chase him up the hill with it during the TT.

Pate is the peoples choice for US Pro Champ anyway. The guy is the perennial bridesmaid at US Pro. I really want him to get the stars & bars soon. I loved his off handed remark about doping control @ US Pro's.

I read the live feed on Sunday as the race was going. Huff tore it up! On the front all day. Just wish he would have placed instead of that DNF. But hell he earned that DNF. Now he has to rest up to get ready to take on Cavendish. Speaking of Cav did anyone watch the Tour of Ireland coverage? He made the fields look like a bunch of cat 5's when he took off. Also on the ToI. If Magnus Backstedt has a JoB next year I'll be shocked. Dude has done nothing but DNF this year. His job at the ToI was to lead out Julian Dean. He never made it past the 1 K to go without totally blowing up. David Millar did more of a lead out.

My ToM plan is to watch Euro style. Watch it go by, hop on back roads till I get ahead of it, then stop & watch it go by, & repeat till the finish. I need to figure out how to listen in to the race radio. I found the spreadsheets with ETA's, etc that the UCI uses.

Friday I got in a pretty good MTB ride, first one in quite awhile. Little dry & dusty @ Sac though don't think that will last with all the rain predicted. Enough rain to make me think I might get to do some cross training in the water this week. I hope it rains a ton since I'm tired of feeling like I'm dieing everyday with my allergies. I got in a tempo ride on the Frisco trail yesterday & between the dust & the pollen I felt like death warmed over the rest of the day. Sat on the couch & read the rest of the day doped to the gills on allergy meds.