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Eagle River Here I Come!

Rollin'

Yesterday was hmmmm.....

Not sure what to think. Up at 6am....5 hour drive. WORS #9 Border Battle.

I was not in the best of mental states, still a little bummed from the O2S flat tire. The 5 hour drive and late arrival didn't help. I rolled around the course a little and wasn't thrilled about the start or the following bumpy field. I knew this was bad as I was rolling to the line so I told myself....."forget about it and just go....you didn't drive 5 hours for nothing."

So Don yelled GO......I attempted to move up, but was boxed in....not a good course to be boxed in....midway through the first lap Chris P and I hooked up and started ripping the trails....it was more like a fun group ride as I was judging Chris on his style points(or lack of) until we caught a group of 10 at the end of lap 1. The course was top notch(which helped my mood). Lap 2 Chris and I moved through the field pretty quick and then we checked out with Jesrin in tow. Middle of lap 3 I started feeling really good. Chris bobbled(tried to crash me) and I went to the front.


















(thanks to mountaingoat for the sweet photo)

I started going really good(possibly the best I have felt on the bike all year). Sova was out there giving me some time splits and I caught Mike P just in time to sprint him to the line for 3rd.

All in all it was a good day(really frickin long drive, but the course was cool enough to make it worth it) and the motivation is back to begin the final countdown for the FAT TIRE.

After the race I went to Margarita Loco w/ Bill Street, TJ, SOVA, and WOODY. Nothing like a crazy burrito after a mtb race!

The Rings

My predictions:

1.Absalon

2.Sauser

3.Paulissen

4.Nys

5.Craig

1.Dahle

2.Premont

3.Chengyuan

It's cooler near the Lake

The last few days in Sheboygan have been awesome. Perfect weather with a cool breeze rolling of the Lake right through the front door....too bad this means the end of summer is approaching. The leaves will soon start to change colors, the road bike will go away, and the cross bike will arrive soon. Before putting away the road bike I had to do one last road event of the year. In a last minute decision(only because I didn't know about the race until 3 days before) I decided to do a ride/race around Lk Winnebago.

I wasn't really sure what to expect with open roads, expected finish times of 7 hours for 92 miles, and road bikes, mixed w/ tri bikes, mtn bikes, tandems, and anything else that had two wheels. Oh yeah....there was some money on the line too!

So I rolled out of bed Sunday morning at 3:30am. What am I thinking.... I forked over $90. What am I thinking..... Then loaded up the car for Fond Du Lac. The 5:50am start time had me a little dreary for the ride up the west coast of the Lake. It was a nice steady tempo set by some tri dude who wanted to win it in the first mile. Luckily he was steady enough for me to enjoy the beautiful sunrise over my right shoulder. Soon enough we headed into Oshkosh where it turned from steady tempo to crit national cahmpionships....Andy Crater was crushing it around the corners. It got a little crazy with some grated bridges, cones, and traffic islands. This continued for a while through Menasha and some other towns and then we hit the one climb on the course at High Cliff state park. Crater again crushed it to split the huge group into a lead pak of about 12 riders including Spiro and TJ Woodruff. A group of another 12 bridged 10 miles after the climb and then it was 30 more miles of headwind and 35mph tempo set by dudes on Tri bikes. Crater jumped the sprint early and I reacted a little slow but was able to finish 2nd.

All and all it was a good day. I ended up in the recliner with my eyes shut watching the Olympics the rest of the afternoon! Thanks to Gear-Grinder, Trek, Oakley, and Tristan for the sweet wheel hook up. I'm feeling the pain today after a hard effort yesterday and not enough sleep, but not as much pain as this.

Mid Season Report Card

Hopefully all the bad luck is behind me and my favorite part of the season is right around the corner....my fitness has jumped to the next level over the last month of hard training and I'm mentally ready to start winning some races!

Ore To Shore....with high hopes I set out to Marquette to attempt my 3rd Ore To Shore victory. Everything was going to plan as I started and led the lead group over the first climb of the race. On the following fast descent I hit a rock and was slowly losing air....I was hoping for the Stans to do its magic, but it was a no go. I rode the slow leak for a mile and told Doug my plan...I chagned the flat on the city streets and struggled removing the Stans rim strip and struggled again putting a 26" tube into the 29" tire. According to GPS it took about 3:15 to change. Back on the bike to pass close to 100 riders and make my way up to 7th place. I was consistenly closing on the leaders and even saw Doug on the long pavement climb, but ran out of gas from such a long hard solo chase. Here is the GPS data.... ps...Trek and Fisher had 7 out of 7 bikes in the top of the Mens field!!! Andrea killed it in the womens race pulling off her first ever top 10 triple crown!

Sun Burst.....with high hopes of redemption from yesterdays flat tire I made the short drive to Kewaskum for another WORS race. With all my Gear Grinder clothing covered in iron stained mud I was forced to go incognito! The Ride Club mad its first appearance at the front of a WORS race...I sacrificed a call up, because even Don didn't recognize me.....We were off jus as fast as if we hadn't raced 48 miles the day before and after 1 lap the race was decided. It was either TJ or myself for the win. Half way through the race my headset seized ???? and I had to be very cautious on the descents. TJ opened a 10 second gap while I was trying to figure out what was going on....Stem was tight, steering was horrible...oh well keep going. I bridged back up to TJ and we battled the remainder of the race...on the last climb we changed the lead 3 or 4 times and I almost crashed both of us on the steepest part of the climb with my headset all messed up. Later in the lap my front skewer opened...bad luck continued however I wouldn't have been able to outsprint TJ with a bad headset. Oh well it was fun and the course reminded me of a cross race with a mountain bike climb. Here is the GPS info... ps Fisher Superfly 1, 2, 3!!!

It had to be pretty funny watching TJ and I battle on rigid 29ers....we were both bouncing all over the place and the first lap we descended the singletrack like it was our first time on MTB's. By the end I think we had it figured out pretty good though!

Thanks to all the sponsors...Gear Grinder, Hyundai, Trek, Fisher, Oakley, Crank Bros

Showdown

Today was my first real battle of the season and my first battle with TJ on the bike. TJ won his first WORS race and I was second at Sunburst....yes that was me in the RIDE CLUB kit...all my Gear Grinder stuff is still dirty from O2S. A little redemption from the flat tire, but still some problems with the bike.....full race reports and photos to come soon...

Unlucky Seven

7th at the 2008 Ore To Shore...

5 minutes down on the leader after a flat tire 5 miles into the race. Results are up on www.itiming.com. I am dissapointed with the bad luck this year, but can only use it was motivation to train harder on go faster at Cheq. Maybe I'll get some redemption tomorrow at Sunburst!

SCORE

Check out the new addition to the family. My dad's middle school ride!!!

TIME + MILES = FUN

This past week was pretty good! I put in a lot of Time relaxin' by campfires and sleeping under the stars.

I put in a lot of Time hanging with family.

I put a lot of miles on the car and even a few miles on dad's new kayak.

Kayaking works for Adam Craig right?

Even better was not a lot of time at work and the perfect amount of miles and time on the bike. Mission accomplished in training prep for O2S and even did a few intervals in Cali for some icing on the cake. Here's the favorite photo from the week! Notice the smile contradicting the "Life is Crap" t-shirt!

See you in Marquette!