Chequamegon 40

Fun times in Wisconsin this past weekend. Rick and I headed over to Hayward on Friday night and met up with Brian and his secret weapon for the Chequamegon 40 on Saturday. We went and registered and had a few plates of spaghetti to tide us over until the morning. Rick found us a great little cabin to stay in at the KOA. It was chilly until the heater warmed us up. The nighttime low was 25F. We were up bright and early to witness the cold temps at 4:30am. We headed over to the start line and got some sweet starting positions on the second row. Then it was back to the cabin to thaw out until the race started at 10:00am. We all decided to wear the long sleeve insulated TBB jerseys as the temps weren't supposed to get over 55F. They worked out great. Plenty warm at the start and on the fast downhills. We all had great races. Brian did the Brown Bears proud with a 235th placing and a time of 2 hours 38 minutes. He even beat Greg Lemond and Gary Fisher. Way to go Brian! I came in at 731st place overall with a time of 3 hours 4 minutes. A half hour better than the last time I did this race in 2004. Rick was towards the back of the pack making sure everyone else made it to the end : ) A very respectable 1673rd place for the Mangan with a time of 4 hours and 39 minutes. Great job Rick on your first Cheq 40! I bet he shaves at least 45 minutes off next year. Now on to the pictures.

Our accomodations for the night.

This was the most comfortable swing ever.

Brian's secret weapon for the race : )

Brian on the internet and Rick reading it.

Our cozy beds in the heated portion of the cabin.

"The Mangan"

The doublemint Brown Bears : )

One last picture off of the Chequamegon race site. It is the best picture to date of "The Mangan". Click here for a full screen shot of terror : ) There's evidence of Rick's bushwhacking skills as well. Outstanding Rick!

Afton and the "bike fund"

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. I'm just cutting back because I know that I'll have a bunch of winter/pugsley posts coming up soon : ) I can't wait for the snow to start flying. Speaking of which I better get registered for the Arrowhead. Registration is open so come one come all to the greatest race on Earth! Greatest that I've had the priveledge to participate in at least : )

Well I survived the 24 Hours of Afton. Only one crash, that wasn't too bad, and some numb thumbs. Try saying that 5 times really fast : ) The course this year was the best ever in my opinion. It just seemed to flow a lot better than previous editions. Still lots of climbing though. You're either climbing or flying down a rocky, rooty descent. Fun stuff. Anyway, I finished the race with 11 laps. I'm not sure exactly what place I got yet. Waiting for the results to get posted. I was in 11th place around the time of the finish, but I'm not sure if anyone went out for another lap or not. I don't think I was any lower than 15th if that's the case. Very happy with that result. Leaves a better feeling than 24-9 did that's for sure. The race went well for all Brown Bears. Trent surpassed his all time record for laps at Afton with 7, and Brian had 8 "just taking it easy" laps : ) Great job guys! A BIG thanks to our solo support crew of Tonia and Mario! Tonia is the best solo supporter around! It was nice to see Dick and Alane again too. There are some nice pictures that Alane took on the TBB blog. Thanks Alane! Here are a few more pictures from Trent and Tonia. As well as a couple I took. Enjoy.

Number 838 for the 8000 this year.

The VeloPlush saddle is the new must have Selle Italia : ) Very comfortable. Thanks again Rick! The new Anti-Monkey Butt powder sticker is a nice touch as well.

The best pit crew at Afton, "Sleepy Sally" and myself : ) I gotta get one of those winter jackets that Tonia has on.

Mario doing his best "Snoop Dogg" impression.

The number one 24 solo race tip - Sleep while eating : )

Brian was getting delerious in the middle of the night. He took off all his clothes to "cool down". Yeah right. He just wanted to show off those sweet thigh tan lines : )

Trent was enjoying the show! You never know what you'll get to see at the Team Brown Bear pit area.

They were both all smiles the next morning : )

As for the "Bike Fund" reference at the beginning of this post.... It has been replaced with something much much better : ) Look below!

24/9 weekend

Last weekend was a lot of fun even though the race didn't go as well as I had wanted. Kind of makes me want to push it at Afton in a couple weeks : ) We'll see what happens. That is one brutal course. Talk some sense into me Brian and Trent.

Some highlights of the race were: Seeing fellow bloggers, laughing so hard on Friday night that I got a painful case of the hiccups, watching Paddy crash an expensive looking off-road version of a Segway into a fence, breaking my seat completely off the rails and finding out that compulsive over-packer Rick had indeed packed a spare, getting cramps in both the backs of my legs and stomach at the same time, listening to Dallas and Endurosnob puke their guts out, getting lapped by Eatough 4 times in seven laps, and many more that I can't think of right now.

That's what's most fun about these races. It's not just about riding your bike, but all the friends and memories that are made. Awww : )

Here are a few pictures from the weekend. Enjoy.

Lemans start. I took it easy on the run this year. Definitely felt better to start slow.

Even Rick couldn't resist running : )

Trent getting going on his first lap.

Some of the Brown Bears between laps. From left to right: Brian, myself and Rick.

Jen and I went to Madison after the race and stayed the night with Brian and Heather. We went and toured the capitol building and the Trek factory on Monday. Thanks for the tour and putting us up for the night Brian and Heather! It was fun!

My little mouse of a wife. She loves her cheese : )

We stopped in a little gift shop on State Street in Madison and found this cool little jar. I think it's a sign that I need a new bike for next year : )

I'm here. Just been busy unpacking and at work. I'll get some pictures of the race up later today. Until then Brian pretty much summed up the weekend for me. Later.

Maplelag Mayhem

Trent and I went out to Maplelag this morning only to be skunked by the formitable deer fly. About halfway through our first lap we were being eaten alive by deer flies and mosquitos. It wasn't too bad when we were on the ski trails, but in the singletrack, of which there is plenty, it was unbearable. Speaking of bears. It was like that old cartoon where the bear goes looking for honey and a swarm of bees attack and chase him through the woods until he jumps in a lake and uses a straw to breathe under water. Yeah, it was just like that except instead of bees it was deer flys. On our way out of the woods, on the ski trails, Trent said he could see a cloud of them behind me. Like they were drafting off me. It was crazy. So we went and found a nice gravel road just outside of Maplelag to put some miles on. That made up for the misery in the woods. Overall a good time was had by all. Here are a couple pictures.

Trent tried to get a picture of the chasing swarm, but all that showed up in the picture were a couple deer flies biting my right butt cheek.

Trent passing me on his cush ride.

There he goes, never to be seen again : )

My artsy shot of the ride.

Rick and I went out to Turtle River yesterday for some Nine Mile training. Rick brought his 98 Gary Fisher Kaitai. A very sweet bicycle. I have dibs on it when you decide to retire it Rick : ) Anyway we did three laps in the 90+ heat with the heat index at 106F. Very sticky. Rick got the Kaitai dialed in and ready to rock at Nine Mile. Watch out Trent : ) Here's a picture tribute to the bikes and riders of old : ) Enjoy.

Hope everyone had a good Fourth of July. I know I did. I ran the 10k race up in Grand Forks in the morning. At a blistering pace of 56:15 : ) 61st out of 88. Not too bad for zero running in months. I think the guy who won did it in 33 minutes. That'll give you some perspective as to how slow of a runner I am. Anyway, I just wanted to finish something this year. Mission accomplished. Had some good burgers and beans in the afternoon and watched the fireworks go off as a rain storm rolled into town. Crazy stuff. Here are a couple of fireworks pictures I tried to capture. I especially like the last one. Happy fifth of July!

Fun ride with Trent up at Turtle River State Park yesterday. The new jerseys were snug, but I think that made us faster : ) Less than a month until Nine Mile. Here are a couple TBB pictures.

Went out for a leisurely Sunday road ride yesterday. I figured I'd work on my heat tolerance so I headed out for Grand Forks at 1:00pm. It was hovering at or above 90 the entire time. I had a nice tail wind. Which was good and bad. Good that it helped push me along. Bad that I was going about as fast as the wind so I was in dead air most of the time. My shorts were all white with salt when I reached GF three and a half hours later. A 23mph average for the 78 mile ride. Not too shabby considering 25 minutes of that was dealing with traffic in Fargo. I went through four 24 oz bottles(two water with Elete and two with Enervit straight outta Canada), a 70 oz camelback of plain old water and two GU's. Training is coming along just right for 24 hours of Nine Mile in July. It would be nice to not DNF at a race this year : )

Team Brown Bear was sporting the new jerseys this weekend. Brian and Brooks at an Omnium in Wisconsin, Heather at a Olympic distance Tri and the Mangan girls at the Nature Valley Grand Prix. You can see pictures and stories on Brian and Brooks' blogs and here is a few of the Mangan cubs : )

Getting the legs ready for the big race!

Gots to stay hydrated : )

All smiles before the race.

Bigger smiles after the race and big medals to match. Great job girls!

While writing this post the mailman knocked and had a box full of Brown Bear jerseys! They look fantastic! I think I'll go for a ride in one now. Thanks Brooks. Later.

Not much new here. Felt pretty good this week considering the long ride last weekend. If anyone hasn't read Charlie's race recap. You should. It is very entertaining! Time to start focusing/training for the next race. 24 Hours of Nine Mile at the end of July. Hopefully it isn't as hot and humid as last year. No tornado warnings would be a plus as well. A big GOOD LUCK goes out to the brave souls tackling the GDR starting today. Go Dave Nice! I thought Nathan was nuts for doing the RedAss on a fixie. Dave is trying to be the first to finish the GDR on one. Ouch! Should be fun to follow those guys on the net. That's all for now. Have a great weekend!

Some RedAss300 pictures courtesy of Rick Mangan. There are also some great links to race reports and pictures on the Red Ass website.

Charlie's rocket Kelly CX bike!

Nathan's rigid fixie! I still can't imagine doing this event on that. Great job Nathan!

My trusty Poprad. I wish I was more trusty : )

The U.S. hopefulls (Nathan Bartan, myself and Charlie Farrow). Notice how Charlie correctly predicted where he'd finish.

Tinker Creek checkpoint volunteers. Super nice people. Apparently the water is responsible for that rockin' red Canadian mullet! I love it : )

The most impressive single speed malitia! Great job guys!

Nathan at Tinker Creek. Anyone want to guess what he's thinking. Great effort Nathan!

Hanging out in the shade at the La Riviere checkpoint.

Dallas sucking down one of many RockStar energy drinks. The weekend before this race he had a 24 hour trail running race and this coming weekend a 100 mile trail run! Three weeks of endurance madness! You are an inspiration Dallas! See ya at Nine Mile.

Half a RedAss The Red Ass 300 was a blast. At least the first half of the course was. The race started at 6:00am sharp with a easy rollout through Winnipeg headed for gravel. Everyone stayed together at first then I found myself in the lead group of five flying down the dirt roads at 30+km/hr into the wind. I stayed with those guys for about 70km then I had to let them go. That was just too fast a pace for me. I slowed way down to recover and stopped to stretch out my screaming back. Lindsay's group came down the road shortly after that, and I jumped on the back of that train until just before the first town. I took a nice 20 minute break at a gas station and ate a big sandwich and a frappacinno. Refilled my water bottles and I was off again. Not to far out of town there was a stream crossing. On the cue sheets it said "dry river ford" : ) It didn't look too bad. I saw some tire tracks riding right through it. I decided to take off my shoes and socks and carry my bike. I didn't feel like riding all day in wet shoes and socks, or worse falling in. It was only knee deep, and it felt nice and cool on the legs. I then pushed on to the first checkpoint at Tinker Creek. There I found some very friendly volunteers and Dallas Sigurdur chilling out. I filled my bottles again and loaded up on some tasty bars they were handing out. Me and Dallas took off and just as we were leaving the single speed malitia came flying by. This was a group of 6 or 7 really fast single speeders. Including Nathan Barten from Grand Forks on his fixed gear bike and Tomek, from Winnipeg, who thought it would be fun to oversleep, start 15 minutes late and chase everyone down! Very cool! Anyway, Dallas and I were off to checkpoint #2 about 90kms away. It was great riding with him. This section was along the Pembina River and there were lots of fast downhills into the Pembina Gorge. I hit almost 70km/h on one of them! Unfortunately the fun downhills meant lots of climbing out of the river valley in the heat of the day. I was doing really well until I ran out of water about a hour from the checkpoint. Dallas was kind enough to give me a few drinks of his. Thanks Dallas. We made it to the checkpoint just before 6:00pm. We were on a 24hr pace! I needed to recover and rehydrate so we headed over to a restaurant and had a tasty cheeseburger with fries and gravy. Perfect endurance nutrition : ) I had a chocolate milk and a gatorade with lots of water too. After about an hour and a half rest, and some egging on from Dallas, I headed out for checkpoint #3. There was rain on the horizon, but I didn't think it looked that bad. I started a climb out of the valley and it started to sprinkle. Then about 3 or 4km down the road the sky opened up and the wind started to howl. I was going with the wind, so it wasn't too bad but I was soaked. Then I made a turn and the wind blasted me from the side with what felt like pellets of ice. It was cold and stung. There was lightning going off all around me. Too close for comfort at times. I started to think, "I'm riding in a thunderstorm on a steel bike this can't be good". So I pulled over, threw my bike in the ditch and dove in after it. The ditch sheltered me from the wind, but I was still getting dumped on. I waited for about 15 minutes until the storm let up. Then I hopped on the bike and flew back to checkpoint #2. I was cold, soaked and muddy. My bike was a mess and wasn't shifting very well. I had 140kms to go before my next drop bag which had a change of clothes and my jacket. I decided to call it a day and leave the rest of the course for next year. This was a great race eventhough I DNF'ed. I felt strong other than when I ran out of water. I had a great time, met a bunch of nice people and got to ride my bike through some beautiful country. I'll definitely be back next year. A huge thanks to Lindsay Gauld and the folks at Olympia Cycle and Ski for putting on this beast. You guys did a great job! Also a big thanks to all the volunteers who helped out. Thank you, thank you! And last, but not least, another BIG THANK YOU to Rick Mangan for chasing us around Manitoba and taking a bunch of great pictures. I nominate Rick for Director Sportif of the year! I'll post some of those pictures later after I go through them. Until then check out the play by play and some pictures at http://www.olympiacycle.com/redassprogress.htm. Later.