Interbike 2006

Chris and I had the opportunity to attend Interbike in Las Vegas this past week...oh man, it was SWEET! Ben Portilla was out there for REI/Honey Stinger and was our walking bike encyclopedia/bike catalog for the week - he knows more about the latest and greatest than anyone I know.
Days 1 and 2 were at the outdoor demo where we test rode about 15-20 bikes...here are a few of them
-Dual Suspension BMC XC bike
-Dual Suspension BMC with 6" front and rear travel
-Surly Pugsley
-Santa Cruz Nomad
-Trek Fuel 8
-Orbea Carbon Ht
-Scott Scale Carbon Hg
-Fisher Race Day
-Remedy 66
-Fisher HiFi.....

Days 3-4.5 were spent walking around a massive exhibit hall in the Venetian. It was like living in Mountain Bike Magazine world...

Pictures:

A view of the Demo

Everyone reconizes this hog...lots of looks when you wizz by someone on this thing, up hill=)

On to the show

I took no less than 10 pictures of the new crossmax SLR wheels...can you tell I am excited to get mine?

One FAST Bike

Me with Stan, yes Mr. NoTubes himself

The opulent BMC Time Machine - 4 picture here, crankset, water bottle (seriously!), front view, and, well, a sick price tag

MMM Carbon shocks

Thor and I

One huge bike

Kenda's new mud tire...I will have some next year so watch out Jeff Hall!

Us with Emma the Booth Babe...she was selling helmets=)

A wicked looking Cervelo

Season Ender

I headed up to St. Cloud to race today because I couldn't find a good excuse not to...other than I knew I would have to completely rebuild my bike afterwards. I don't have time to write much, as I off to Vegas early in the morning. Here is a one sentence synopsis: it was slippery with Jeff Hall getting away early, and I ended up 3rd because Paul slipped away at an inopportune time and held the gap to the finish.
Pictures are more fun...
My drivetrain

Chris and I trying to stay warm afterwards...

A Rosie Mechanical

This happened in Rosies field, which is ~3 miles into the Chequamegon Fat Tire 40. I was right where I needed to be (in the front) and my legs felt good. This was my first DNF in 4 years of racing. Enough said.

Ben had his left pedal fall off, and there was a burr in the crank thread so his race ended about 33 miles early. A bad day for the Moore brothers.
On a more positive note, Chris Fisher got 14th and Jen Meyer got 8th.

We stayed sunday this year to do the Cable Crit, a short track event. The course was brutal and short...just up and down hills. I managed 2nd just behind Doug Swanson in our age group. For the overall Crit Championship, which you qualify for based on the age group times, I was lined up with Travis Brown on my right and Tristan Schouten on my left. Further down the line were Chris, Ben, Paul, Doug, Aric Harland, Cole House, Ian Stanford, etc... a very strong 20 man field. I ended up 6th in the Crit Championship.

Next Saturday is the last MNSCS and then Sunday Chris and I are off to Interbike in Vegas...sweet!

Proof

In case you though my wife was just eating too much...proof that there is something in there.
The Doctor couldn't explain this one...

Update from Ben - UW Cycling

This is an update from Ben who is riding for UW Madison again this fall where he races A's (top collegiate level). What he doesn't tell you in his report is that 6 of them packed in a minivan with 6 bikes, and 6 of them stayed in 1 hotel room with 1 bed=)

Ben: Just raced at mizzou this weekend. It was pretty fun. the course was really rocky and technical but there were no sustained climbs really, just short steep ones. Anyways, the xc started pretty fast and I settled in at the tail of fast guys from Lindsey Wilson College in kentucky(they have a varsity level cycling program) and one fast non-collegiate dude from st.louis (this particular race was open to the public). The first lap of five was pretty fast but I was very comfortable, and I felt the pace was just a little too slow so as we entered the start finish area at the beginning of the second lap I attacked. soon I found myself in the lead. I began going really hard and I soon dropped everyone. For the next three laps I kept a steady fast tempo and was able to avoid cramping, flatting and crashing. No one was ever able to catch me and I won by about 2 min. It felt good to win.
After the race we were all pretty tired and hungry so we hit up Great Wall SuperBuffet before lounging around for the remainder of the night. Sunday brought the short track race it was basically a really steep climb followed by a really technical descent followed by a short flat section before starting the loop over. Lots of climbing meant I could potentially put the hurt on some flat-lander roadies. The start for the race was fast and again I latched on to the lindsey wilson train as my legs were tired. some of the riders from our 5 man group began to drop due to the tempo until it was me and this dude mike from lindsey wilson. He was hammering and I was having trouble keeping his wheel on the climb, but I just kept a good steady pace and started to feel stronger on the climb as the race went on. Then finally less than half way into the 30 min race I was able to bridge the gap. We road together for one more lap, then I dropped him on the climb. In the following lap I began to lap people until eventually I had lapped everyone in the field at least once, even the dude that was dropping me at the the beginning. In the end I won the race be a entire lap and a half over second place. That one felt good too. With two victories in a weekend, i'd say thats a good result for UW cycling and Velo Rochester!
Yes, that is Ben in half UW and half Velo Rochester taking the win!

Wild weekend at Maplelag

What a fun and hard weekend! Jen and I left for Maplelag, the destination for a TT, Short Track (STXC), and MNSCS XC#8, around 4 pm on Friday. After a stop at the slowest Subway ever, we arrived around 9 pm. We basically went to bed, as I had the TT at 10am.
TT: I was lucky enough to be at the front of the field because of when I registered, but I was unlucky enough to have Doug and Dan Swanson behind me by 30 and 60 seconds respectively. Darn…if the was any Time Trialist I didn’t want behind me it was Doug. He was top 10 in the Nature Valley Grande Pre Prologue (Pro National road stage race in the Cities here) and can put out some mad watts. Anyway, the race really hurt and I held Doug off. However, Dano put the hammer down and beat me by 9 seconds. I was second and Doug was 3rd by a few seconds.
STXC: The race started at 5:30 so I had some time to eat and rest after the TT. The field was big at about 20-25 and very strong…most of the MN fast guys were on the front line. The laps were just shy of 2 minutes, so we ended up doing 10 of them. The turns were very slick - not mud pits but greasy. From the gun, Doug took off. We followed for a couple laps. Jeff played it cool at the start, but eventually, it was he and Doug 20-30 seconds of the front followed by Justin and then Chris and I about 5-10 seconds back. I was riding cross-eyed until they said that we were on our last lap. Chris had slipped out on a corner so I was safely up on him. I sat up just a little to make sure I didn’t crash out on any of the last corners. Fisher came in behind me for 5th.
XC: Wow! I had a bad race! It wasn’t because of bad legs …they felt good/fine. The course is full of challenging tight and twisty singletrack. There are some open XC ski trails, but 75% of the time was spent in the woods. I had NO handling skills…I hate to make excuses – I almost never do but feel justified this time – however, my braking was way out of whack and thus I just couldn’t find a groove mentally=( What I did wrong was that I raced the 9.9 (with disc brakes) for the TT and STXC and switching to the fuel (rim brakes) for the XC. I never switched this close to an event before because of accidents/mistakes made in training when switching between bikes. Basically what happens is my front brake modulation goes through the crapper because of the difference in pressure on the brake lever needed to stop, and I definitely needed perfect control on this course….sorry, enough whinning. I was riding so bad that I had the Swanson brothers, Sam O, among others making fun of me afterwards for bouncing off trees=) One way or another, I will be riding a dual suspension bike with discs next year! I ended up 4th on the day with Jeff, Paul, and Chris in front of me.
Omnium: The combination of the three event times were used to determine the overall champion of the weekend. This is crazy, but Paul won followed by Chris and then me. No, it isn’t crazy that Paul or Chris beat me because they are very fast….what is crazy is that Paul beat Chris by 8 seconds, and Chris and I were separated by 1 SECOND! After 3 events, 9 seconds separated the 3 of us=) Wild, but a good result for our Velo Rochester team.

This is getting long, so I will stop now. I want to thank Jay for putting on a great event. The whole weekend ran flawlessly.

Next up is Chequamegon in a couple weeks….
Here are some Pics:

Blur of Chis in STXC Me on "the climb" in the STXC..pretty steep (photos from Skinnyski.com)

On the lake drop in the XC (this one from Skinnyski.com too)

Getting out of the lake drops takes some power

Top 3 in the omnium

Paul is sure proud of his ribbon...