Monday, May 07, 2007



Dirt Sweat and Gears
If you only do one race, do this one next year.

I have to say this was the best race I have ever attended. The only bad thing I can say about it…I have to wait 354 more days to do it again. My hat is off to Clay Higgins and all his wonderful crew, friends and family, you are amazing.

Not only was this event great or the participants with all the great swag, perfect timing, as many top endurance racers as you will see at any race, a great award ceremony and party after the race. It was also a great event for the spectators; it was very to see the racers at many points on each lap with little effort. There were also Trials stunt shows, live music, kids races, great food and the party after the race ; )

A huge complaint most racers have these days, or at least the ones I talk to, is courses are becoming way to easy. Courses are created in places that are spectator (and roadie) friendly. Little or no single track and nothing technical, courses that you can run slicks. This was a true mountain bike course, tough climbs (911 hill… to name one) lots of single track and cool features like some small “North Shore” style bridges. What makes this race absolutely perfect, is the combination of an incredibly fun and challenging course, and as I mentioned a great race for spectators/media to watch. This was a true national/world quality event!

See you all there next year!!!

Sunday, May 06, 2007

If you have been looking for me I’m back….
It’s been almost two months since my last post; boy did it go by quickly. Here is a quick update on what has happened.

Injuries: Three weeks off the bike due to Siatic nerve issues. I wish doctors were as god like as they thought they were! “ Take these Vicodin and rest, if you’re not better in 4-6 weeks we will try something else” that’s what the doc said. No luck it just got worse. After doing a little research I found that exercise helps. (See Sea Otter Classic below) Oh yeah, a little help for the rest of you…If you ever take as much viacidin as I did, take a laxative as well ; )

New toys: For those of you that know me I have been traveling around in a VW Golf (powered by Biodiesel) for that last many years. Unloading it is like the cargo van the clowns use when they are traveling 20 to a car. So, I finally decided to get something a little bigger, A Sprinter, it needs some customization but it is a great rig, so roomy and great biodiesel mileage (about 25mpg doing 80) as well.

Racing: Wow!!! I have shocked myself and a few others…
Sea Otter Classic, As I mentioned before I was off the bike so long that I wasn’t sure if I could even finish one lap at Sea Otter. I planned to get there early to preride to see how my back would do…. I picked Dejay up in San Jose on Thursday, and planned to pre ride on Friday. If you know Dejay (and I’m sure you do…) he know everyone, before our preride we took a quick lap through the expo, 6 hours later it was dark and we had not seen the dirt. Plan # 2 early Saturday morning, get up ride then relax. Is 10:30 early, it is for us… We got up, got ready got on our bikes and made it about a mile before the clouds opened up and let loose an inch or two of rain in about 2 hours. I guess I’ll see what my back can do during the race…Plan # 3, 7:32 a.m. Sunday morning, start the race, and try to finish. I took the first lap easy, my back was pretty stiff, but by the time I got to the track my body was ready, I decided to go for it on the second lap. I passed about 7 singles and about 200 others, ending with a faster second lap and a time of about 3:02, about 10 min behind Travis Brown. My confidence was back, and I was ready to go to Tennessee for the Cohutta 100 and the Dirt sweat and Gears 12 hour.

Cohutta 100, this was a cool race…on the starting line with the big boys. Chris Eatough, Tinker Juarez, Mark Hendershot, Harlan Price, Ernesto Marenchin and many more top riders. It was a long race and Sea Otter was the longest ride I had done in a month. Plan # 247, Start easy and finish…strong. It started with some fun single track that made it hard to pass for the first hour, but it was perfect, I got a great warm up. I hit the first double track and started to move… Not knowing it, but I had passed the singlespeeder in the lead. I keep a strong pace and rode like I was in second place until the last aid station and they informed me I was in the lead, I had to finish hard. No problem, I finished first in the single speed category 18 min ahead of second place. And 23 overall with a time of 7:47.24.

Cohutta 100


Dirt Sweat and Gears 12 hour, what a great event (more to come on the event itself).

8:00a.m. To 8:00 p.m. Plan # 1, Let everyone go out too hard and POP!!! I had three Singles in front of me for the first three laps, Jake Kirkpatrick, Dejay Birtch and Lee Unwin. I don’t think they ever got more than 5 minutes ahead of me but when I passed them they seemed to be going backwards. Five laps into the race I hadn’t eaten enough and was starting to slow, and Dejay had a very good lap, my lead went from 15 min to about 5, I got a little scared. Not far into the 6th lap Pua caught me and I decided to try and stay with here for a while. After a lap I had my legs back and was on the move again. 11:47.03 later I was finished with 11 laps, 1 more than Dejay Birtch (2nd place Pro single speed), and 7th place solo overall.



Coming soon…
New sponsors
Up coming races
What I liked a bout the Dirt Sweat and Gears 12 hour race!!!