Fontana Pro XCT

Lene (Norway) did an amazing job taking the XC win. Mical Dyck (Canada) did a good write up on the XC race here. My race felt as she described her's, so I'll just link to it. The only difference was that I was about 5 spots behind her the entire race. The wind was nuts, I was literally blow from one side of the paved road to the other before I had time to process what was happening.  I saw Aleksandra (Poland) get blown over in the singletrack! It was a great weekend of race efforts and fun to see everyone. Lots more info on MTB Racenews

FRS Clinic, Scalpel

 

I am very thankful to FRS for helping me out with my clinics this year!! As well as all of my sponsors and non-sponsors that donate give-a-ways:

 Need a Stan's Solution top-off? 

Or a sample of CarboRocket?

Thursday's FRS Clinic at the new Incycle store was a lot of fun. 50 second video here. I will continue to provide clinics as I travel, please contact me if you are interested (see upper right side of blog for contact info).

A picture from the Bonelli race two weeks ago on the Cannondale Flash.

My Scalpel! (20.7lbs as raced)

This weekend I tried out the (small) Scalpel in the XC, then rode the (medium) Flash in ST and was back to the Scalpel for Super-D at Fontana. These are proving to be great bikes to choose from. I was a little nervous going to bikes I had never even ridden and I had a hard time deciding on sizes, but I made all the right decisions! Thanks to all the Cannondale, or former Cannondale, girls Sue, Nina, Cass and Jenna for answering all my questions, it really helped and I appreciate it! 

 Super-D (4th)

I am still working on locking-out and un-locking the Lefty, but the ride is awesome. The Flash rear end is so smooth, and the Scalpel can climb like a road bike, which allows some overlap on which bike to choose for a given course.  I un-knowingly chose color over Hi-Mod carbon on the Scalpel, apparently only the red version of the Flash is in the new lighter carbon. I still have a few parts to swap out, the Flash seat collar isn't really cutting it, and since the Flash is designed for 140 rotors I need to go to 140 on both rear ends. Saturday I raced the Scalpel set up with 160 rotors, but had my "spare" (Flash) rear wheel in the Tech Zone with a 140 rotor on it. Had I needed the spare it would have been a fun ride.

Check out some other racer's 2010 rides here.

Cannondale Flash. Oakley Split Jacket, facility, dirt track, and gloves

It has been a crazy two weeks in SoCal. I started receiving all of my 2010 products, built two new Cannondale bikes, found out what parts didn't work or were delayed, searched for replacement bits, met with many of my sponsors (got to ride with a few), trained and even did a couple races. And most of this without Todd!  He is now back and spent the entire last two days doing taxes, what fun.

My Flash! 17.75 lbs with everything (pedals, water bottle cages, bar ends, etc.)

Visit and ride at Oakley!

The facility is huge, thank you to Steve Blick for the personal tour and MTB ride! That was just amazing. This SoCal facility houses everything, from concept design and development including engineering, artistic expression, rapid prototyping, destructive and cycle testing, to the build and packaging of final products in the factory. I saw Oakley watches, shoes, grips, hats, clothing, bikes, and of course sunglasses.

The Oakley website describes the facility as "a place of reinforced blast walls, product torture chambers and the padded cells of mad science. Oakley design bunker is where inventions are conceived, developed, perfected and manufactured. In addition to the hidden catacombs of research labs and proving grounds, the architectural design of Oakley President Colin Baden includes a 400-seat amphitheater and absolutely no adult supervision."   I saw lots of bikes in offices and hallways throughout the day, a gym with a trainer-led boot-camp-style workout class, and a foosball table. I think the only thing that was missing was a Starbucks.

 Oh, and this was out back, just one small part of the new track.

My shades. top left: Enduring Edge, top right: Forsake and the not even on the website yet, I had to take the picture myself, brand new mini-Jawbone-like Split Jacket!

I didn't take a picture of my gloves but am digging the Oakley Factory MTB gloves, white with red of course.
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Last week I attended the grand opening party for the Incycle shop in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. This is the fourth Incycle shop, another huge store packed with anything you'll ever need. My not-quite finished Flash was on display during the party and Tinker and Jeremiah were there as well, go Cannondale!

Jim, Andy and Colin (Kenda)

The Bonelli race was a great time to catch up with even more sponsors and fellow racers. It was also a crash course on my new bikes, quite literally in fact.

I have one more training race in a couple weeks, after which it will be time to see if all this training and new super-sweet gear will pay off as my season will "officially" start.

I now have demo WTB saddles (10 different models). I will have these at next week's FRS clinic (at the new Incycle shop) if anyone wants to try them out. Details on the clinic to come.

Specialized M (17") Carbon S-Works for sale

Specialized M (17") Carbon S-Works for sale. Now has Carbon S-Works cranks, new in June (XTR cranks are also available). 7000 Series Stan's NoTubes Wheelset. New White Cables and Housings. New chain. 19-19.5lbs depending on tires, pedals, etc. New fork, except the uppers, crown and steerer which are almost a year old. All components and frame are less than a year old. More details later, headed to the shop to finish building up my new Flash and Scalpel... edit: $3500 cash. It has ~$6600 in it, all custom.

Leaving Tucson

The winter is over and we are moving on, however the cars did not want to leave Tucson!

Saturday we had a MTB ride planned with Scott Morris (our Tucson tour guide). Todd and I almost made it to the Starr Pass parking lot when the van decided it didn't want to go any further. It is now in the shop. In Tucson. But we did get the ride in thanks to Scott waiting on us, transferring all our junk into his car and giving us a ride home afterward. Thanks Scott!!

Sunday we had to pack up and head to CA. It rained all day and the truck decided it didn't want to go anywhere.

If the little 4WD pickup could sink into the mud what was the 32,000 lb RV going to do?  We finally decided to give it a shot, the trick was to just get going and not stop till we were clear of all the mud, a bit of an adrenaline rush trying to navigate the tackroom, branches, turns and gate with speed. We got everything on pavement, hooked up the truck and finally hit the road late Sunday night.

I dropped Todd off at the Onterio, Ca airport ~1.5 hours before his flight Monday morning. Whew.

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This afternoon I set up the house, had time for a nap then met the Incycle boys for dinner after their Monday night MTB ride.

 

Great photos of Saturday's ride by Scott, a camera quick draw artist.

Camera phone shot of Scott and Todd

Nick Rode Across the US

Okay this update is way late, but Nick made it to the east coast on Feb 13th (he started in LA, CA).  For more details visit his Spot page. Way to go Nick!

Nick is bringing back the postcards:

 

It was pretty cool getting postcards for updates! 

We were also included on the emails, the stories were pretty entertaining, one was talking about a "road" in NM to a town called Gleeson "...and the down was super sketchy, causing me to dab more than once.  And when you have the trailer on the back, high speed sand dabbing is less than ideal.  But, I made it across, and finally got to the pavement and that pretty funny sign."

24 Hours of Old Pueblo 2010

 1st (155-199 co-ed team)

24 Hours of Old Pueblo 2010 Results

 Cindy, Stan and Mike with all three Stan's NoTubes teams

Every year the promoter of the event (Todd Sadow) chooses a person in the sport of mountain biking to dedicate the event to. This year Stan Koziatek (NoTubes.com) was honored and put together three teams, all of which placed 1st; my team a 155-199 team (22laps), a 200+ team (21laps) and a female singlespeed solo Karen Rishel (13 laps).

 

The Hippie Ninjas of Stan's World was our team name and included Fuzzy Mylne (Niner), Dejay Birtch (Niner), myself, Harlan Price and Jake Kirkpatrick. A great group of guys for sure!  We raced in the co-ed 155-199 category against the Team Topeak - Ergon (Dave Wiens, Yuki Saito, Sonya Looney, Jeff Kerkove and Rebecca Tomaszewski (Niner)). Todd and Andrew came out to support the team which was cool, since they would probably rather be racing.
 

This was my second time to race The 24 Hours of Old Pueblo. Two years ago I was part of the Kenda Team (blog post), it snowed, the nights were really cold, and we had flats every lap since our mechanic at the time did not believe in Stan's. Yes, we actually ran tubes that year. Never, never run tubes on the OP course, especially in this race. Cactus is knocked into the trail, if you are racing fast you cannot avoid it, if you are able to outrun your lights you will miss turns and run into cactus, and if you have to pass 80 people in one lap you will run over cactus. Obviously I was thrilled to go back knowing flats would not be an issue this year, but Stan sponsors the Ergon team too, so we knew they wouldn't have flats either.

I believe I got both fastest day and night laps for the women (1:05:47 and 1:10:16), but don't see those results posted. The best part of the weekend was being on such a fun/fast team and having Stan and Mike so involved with our racing. They knew lap times, who was up next, when the next racer was due in, etc. 

 Mike

It was awesome standing in the exchange tent getting ready to go on a night lap and have Stan himself give me the strategy, adjust my light and make sure I had everything I needed, then when I finished my lap Mike would meet me. Mike knew everyone's lap time right away as he walked around with his iphone and kept an eye on the live results. Todd loved it too and went to bed for the entire night.

 Dejay's final lap done. Stan, Cindy, Mike sitting at the table with Todd.

SSUSA 2010 Results

 

Roll-out 

See how wide my bars are? What I lacked in power against these boys I planned to make up with leverage.

 Tim Allen's new carbon Niner (17lb SS), picture by Fuzzy Mylne

Here are some of the SSUSA Results. 

Racers continued to come in after those listed here, in fact riders were still rolling in past dark. Only a few finish times (time of day) are listed. The race officially started at 9:45am after a 7.5 mile neutral roll-out to the dirt via paved roads, staging of bikes, removing front wheels, singing happy birthday to Dejay, running back to and assembling bikes. 

Dax (1st place) did not know his time and in true SSing fashion no one wrote it down. Scott Morris who was crazy fast today after just converting a SS came in ~4th in about 4 hours. I was in ~13th with a race time of 4:13. Todd and I were on the same pace until he broke not one, but two eggbeaters. Some riders, including Todd, skipped the Chiva (right) loop and presumably did not sign in at the finish. With one broken pedal Todd waited for me to complete the very slow 17-mile Chiva loop. While waiting he borrowed a pedal and drank a Dales Pale Ale, or two. Going down Milagrosa he broke his other pedal.

It was a great ride, we had a blast and it was really cool to see the Durango singlespeed crew so well represented. I hope to post some good race pictures, once I find out who took them...

2010 Sponsor Update

I am excited for 2010!  I was lucky enough to line up every one of my first picks when it came to companies and products this year! My goal was to build the sweetest bikes possible after looking at all Interbike had on display in September. Thanks to every company listed on the right side of this blog I was able to do it!

Cannondale and Incycle are my title sponsors, most of my other sponsors will remain the same as in 2009.

New Frames:  For 2010 I think my hardtail will weigh ~ 17.5lbs and my full-suspension ~19.5lbs. hmmm that will be really cool! Of course this is on paper, we'll see what the scale says. My 2009 S-Works carbon hardtail was raced just over 19lbs and I thought that was light!

 Flash Frame

 Scalpel Frame

Picture them with the Lefty forks, Cannondale Hollowgram SL 2x10 cranks, SRAM XX drivetrains and the rest of the builds looks like this:

White Jagwire Housing with red bits

 1210g Podium NoTubes Wheelset

 Kenda Small Block and Kenda Karma tires

 Magura Marta SL Mags

 WTB Silverado Saddles

Racing Singlespeeds, it's a great date.

 SS ready

Friday night Todd and I loaded up the van with dogs and bikes and headed to Suprise, AZ just west of Phoenix for the MBAA White Tanks race. We pulled into the venue late and and most racers were already sleeping, it was cool how many people camped Friday and Saturday night.

Men's SS Open Race Start. I'm on the left, blue and white helmet. (photo thanks to MTBR Bikedad)

Todd and I raced our first XC race of the year in the Men's SS Open class (there were two men's SS classes). Results are here. We placed 6th and 7th of 18 (I was 8 seconds out of 5th). We will be racing these guys again next week in the SSUSA race. Check out my cute little 205 gram UVEX FP-1 helmet! I am in love with that helmet, I have a red one on the way, and a red Boss Race as well, too cool!

Saturday morning came way too early, they started setting up registration before sunup with floodlights, I always wonder why AZ folks do things so early, but with 100+ degree summer days they always get started at first light or before, even in the winter.

Registration was the quickest of any race I have ever been to, I didn't have to fill out any paper work. I walked up, told them my last name, was handed a pre-printed waiver form to sign, given a race packet, told to pick up my timing chip and that was it. They didn't give me a hard time for racing in the wrong class, but made sure I knew that I was signed up in the Men's "Open" class. Great folks, well organized. The races started on time with the Marathon racers going out 30-minutes ahead of the XC Men Pro/Cat1 waves.

a picture for no reason

With no call-up I stood on the front line, that may be one of the only times all year I get a front row start. Todd got the hole-shot and I found a nice spot a few wheels back. When the course pitched up Dejay launched an attack that splintered the group while we were catching geared riders, so at that point I had no idea what position I was in.

The course was fun, it felt like a big social ride. The guys were very nice, almost everyone called passes; basically we were talking and passing the entire race (there was a lot of yo-yo-ing with Cat1 geared riders). Todd and I went back and forth a few times and talked about the race, we have never raced at the same time and should probably wait till after the race to compare notes. The last time I passed him he was on the side of the trail holding a can of Big Air, something about burping his tire. I guess that was all I needed, we finished 6th and 7th and he was ~one minute behind me.

After our race we watched the Marathon racers finish up. My old Kenda teammate Danielle Musto (MI) just got into town for a week of warm weather riding with her friend Juli Allaire from CO and decided to race, placing 1st and 3rd in the Women's Marathon race. Marathon Race Results here.

Saturday evening Dejay led a night ride, there was a BBQ and a pretty big group hung out around a propane burner "campfire" till late then camped again.  Sunday morning we made breakfast and watched the short track race, then Todd and I headed out to ride the Sun Valley Parkway on road bikes.

The inner loop on the Topofusion map is the White Tanks MTB race course, the other is Sun Valley parkway, a divided four lane road with a shoulder as wide as a car lane and almost no traffic. This map shows the Phoenix sprawl on the right, Sun Valley Parkway was built for further expansion, but it stalled out.  They did call this the road to nowhere, but since they recently connected it to I-10 (bottom left) it actually goes somewhere.  It is a little bumpy as cracks have developed and been filled, but I was comfy on my carbon Cannondale road bike with Ergon grips.

We spent Saturday afternoon with my Aunt and Uncle at Happy Trails RV Park, which is where we parked and started the ride on Sunday. We rode out to I-10 and back.

White Tanks course profile.