Bloomer XC Race Spring 2008

photo by Tom Lining

by The Biz (not Bisquick)
Well here it is the first race of the season for me, it came up quicker then expected. The temperature was in the low 60’s and the week prior to the race had been warm and for the most part dry so the course should be good. I decided on a small gear for the race do to the trail setup lots of technical short climbs and not a lot of long fast sections.We lined up for the start of the Race the SS class in front; I was competeting against 7 others in my class. My plan was to hang back and pick them off 1 by 1 on the climbs. Here we go! I fall to the back of the pack and watch the group, I am in 7th out of 8 right now, we come to the first downhill and the group packs up, I now wait for the climb to come, we round the bottom of the downhill and I see the first climb two of the group in front of me are struggling on the climb so at the top I easily pass them I am now in 5th spot.I keep up a good pace and notice a friend of mine in front of me and decide to ride up to him, He is racing in the exp/elite SS class so I now I don’t need to pass him we work well together and catch the 4th place rider, we stay behind him using his draft and pass him on the next climb but he stays with us, we put some distance on him and ride away.At this point I am trying to catch the lead pack but never come in contact with them. My friend says to me “don’t look now, but he’s back” sure enough; he was right so now we are all 3 in a line. I know from the past encounter that I can take him on the climbs, we stay together mid way thru the 2nd lap where the climbs start and that is where I lose him, I look back to see him “pushing” his bike up the climb Ba Bye!
The last lap! Finally my legs are screaming, my back is sore and I am ready to be done. The 2 of us keep on going switching who is leading, no one in sight so we can just ride out the race and not worry too much about the competition. We make a last big effort to catch the pack but never see them, at this point we are encountering slower traffic from the beginner Classes and decide to finish the race where we are, I came in 4th in Sport/Beg. SS and My friend ended up 3rd in Exp/elite SS…..Great racing with a Friend!!
The Biz

6 Hours of Addison Oaks 2008

by The Biz

It was a cool dry morning, perfect day for a long race endurance race. The singlespeed class had 9 racers in it so I knew I had alot of work to do. We all started at 10:01 after the team riders went off, here we go a large group of riders taking the trail at once always gets alittle scary but everyone was patient and we had no problems.

The group started to spread out after about 2 or 3 miles so I was able to get into my race speed I was looking to turn between a 32 and 33 minute laps, i came thru lap 1 at 32:16 (perfect) felt great laps 2-5 were all in the 33 minute range.I stopped at the beginning of lap 6 to stretch my back out and take off my shoes (my feet were hurting bad) I stopped for about 5 minutes and hopped back on the bike finishing laps 6-8 in good times between 33-34 minutes still feeling pretty strong.

My pit crew told me I was in either 2nd or 3rd at this point and kind of knew who I was racing against a friend of mine from another team,so I tried to keep an eye on him he took off and after my short stop to stretch and grab a water bottle I did the same. I thought I could reel him in and was able to get close on lap 9 and even closer on the 10th and finally lap but he ended up beating me by under 2 minutes, I finished just after the 4 pm cutoff point so I was unable to go out for lap 11 and try to move into 2nd place.

Well not bad for my longest race/ride of the year 65 miles in 6 hours, my back,feet and behind are sore but overall I felt good. The 1st place racer had 11 laps and I know he is an exp/elite rider so I did pretty well. The trail was perfect, racers were very nice no problems passing or being passed just a great day of racing at my favorite trail, can’t wait until the fall XC race.

Biz!!!!