Double Cross

I had a great weekend in MI even though the Packers and the Steelers lost. We (Bill Street Player & TJ Woodruff) rolled out of Sheboygan Friday morning. The Hyundai was jam packed with wheels, tires, and gear. We arrived to our host house in Gregory, MI just in time for a trip down memory lane. A perfect bike ride to the old hood in Pinckney. We even got in a little cross practice on the old sledding hill! After the ride it was over the the Reeves farm the scour the barn for goodies! I found something priceless and I'm going to be mailing it to Skyler soon! We completed the ride with a trip through Hell! The Darkness would have loved it!

Saturday DAY One Double Cross:

Second row call up after Marko and I almost got skipped out with our hard earned points from last year. Good start. Tilford was a little out of control in the corners and was having chain problems. The course was really good, but a little bumpy. Page was off the front and Michael Mueller was chasing. The race for 3rd was a group of 8 riders. I rode pretty strong and stayed good position until 3 laps to go. I went to the back just at the wrong time. Marko went to the front and Tilford gapped one too many times. 3 slipped off of our group and I finished up 8th.

We went to Zukey Lake for some Pizza after the race and then wathced LSU vs Auburn.

Sunday morning we had some killer Mexican Omlettes from the Gregory Inn and then headed back to the races.

DOUBLE CROSS Day Two:

After making some adjustments to the bike Saturday night I was much more confident with my position and my brakes. With another good start I was in the mix right away. After 1 lap Page and Mueller were gone and I felt really good in the next group. I saw that Tilford was struggling and pushed hard to separate the chase group to 3 riders. With two to go I still felt strong and was able to drop Garrigan and the Swiss rider and a short climb. I put my head down(visor) and stayed smooth to finish 3rd and land on my first UCI podium.

Pretty good company on the podium! The new Easton tubulars rocked!

After the race it was over to my best friends house for some awesome Chili and some Sunday Night Football in America!

Thanks to all my sponsors - Gear Grinder, Hyundai, Trek, Crank Bros, and Oakley. It was great to see some of the old school MI crew and race on home turf.

More cool pics and here!

X

CX Season is here...with a few more changes I am ready to rock!

Swapped to a carbon bar, carbon stem, some Swiss Stop yellow pads and a sweet 46t DA ring!

Oh yeah and some super light weight Easton EC90's w/ the Tufo Flexus Tyres!

Still rockin' the Ringle Peace Cable Hangers!

Leaving for MI tomorrow AM w/ Bill and TJ. Can't wait to see the old hood!

Chequamegon 40

Too bad it wasn't the Chequamegon 39! Luck plays a part in the triple crown races. This year with one crash I thought I was done for, but got back up and kept going....then the bad shift...

I'll start from the beginning..

Friday AM we loaded up the Gear Grinder Hyundai Sonata and headed north. The leaves were changing colors and it was a relaxing drive up. We arrived at 3:00 with plenty of time to pre-ride the last 12 miles. Unfortunately I flatted on the firetower descent. Demo Ken saved the day with some fresh Bontrager rubber for the race.

Wild Bill was with us and somehow forgot to register! How do you do that?

After registration it was back to Hayward to our hotel and a good nights sleep. Saturday morning came and it was slightly warmer and a little more wet than last year.

The cannon went off and we were racing towards Rosie's field.

The ATV's stayed on hwy 77 longer than in years past which made for a smoother lead out...when the ATV took off so did Cole House who entered Rosie's with a 30 second gap! I was 2nd into the field and after the first crest dropped comfortably to 5th wheel.

The lead group was huge and stayed that way for a long time. Tilford was the first to go with a flat tire. I looked around no Simonson, no Marko, but plenty of company with Doug, Page, Hall the Three Amigos from 212, TJ, Landon and a few others.

Bender launched an attack on the dirt road that set up Hall's podium move. With Jeff off the front I was waiting for the Birkie to follow Page. Just before the Firetower I went down in a blaze of glory. My body was shocked from the crash and the cold muddy water that I slid into head first. I stood up to pick up my bike and my legs cramped bad. I fought through the pain as the group was going relatively slowly approaching the Firetower climb. Finally the legs relaxed and I was back in the mix going up the firetower.

Over the top Hall had 40 seconds, Tj led the chase with Page, Chris P and myself. After the descent Mike P and Landon latched back on....

The Birkie Trail proved to be pivotal as Page easily rode away from the group to catch Hall and win the sprint at the finish. Our group stayed together as we were all hurting. I figured I'd dig hard again and see what happens only to have the chain go over the cassette and into the spokes. I stopped and my chances of a podium ride had vanished. Maybe I bent the hanger when I crashed earlier?

I finished 17th and it took over 5 minute to fix my bike. One crash I could overcome to still have a good ride, but not two major problems in the point to point style racing.

I chose to ride the Fuel in a world littered with rigid 29ers and would choose the Fuel again next year! Is riding a full suspension old shool now?

Andrea had a great ride and finished 13th amongst the women!

We skipped Sunday fun day and headed back south to Sheboygan in the morning. We listned to Larry and Wayne call the Packers game on the drive home. A little early on the dagger call guys! Packers are 2-0 but scared me in during the 4th quarter in both games. Steelers are also 2-0 and look solid. Back to reality for a couple days before heading to MI for the first cross action of the season!

I feel bad for Jesse. I think he would have repeated with his fitness if he would have been in the front group. Sorry man.

check out skinnyski.com for great photos!

Flat Tire

The bad luck started during Fridays pre-ride when I flatted coming down the Firetower descent. It continued Saturday 25 miles into the race somewhere past Smith Lk when I crashed in a big mud puddle. Then with 1 mile to go my chain went between the spokes and cassette. 5 minutes later after hoping to squeek out the last podium spot I finished 17th. Full report soon.

Destroyers

From the Old School to the New School; George Thorogood would have been proud!

1997 Team Jackhammer

an aluminum custom frame from the BSG garage

2008 Team Gear Grinder

an eco friendly casual clothing line inspired by cyclists

with products such as these and this (made from that flat tire at O2S)

Thanks Sponsors!

Smokin

4th yesterday at the WORS race in Rhinelander. It was kind of a weird race! An early arrival to Eagle River saturday night after a day at work and some VO2 intervals. A relaxing Sunday morning and a quick 40 minute drive to Camp Tesomas. Perfect fall weather and a great race course. A long dirt road lead out was just what I needed after a subpar warm up. Settled in the top 5 or 6 to watch TJ hit a rock and almost highside and Chris P. flat. The race was settled. 4 of us off the front. The same top 4 from last years overall WORS points. After a lap Mike P was opening up gaps in the singletrack. I went around to the wheel of Marko who was following Jesse like glue. We came to the option in the course and I went around(didn't preride had no idea what was on the otherside and didn't want to end up like this before cheq) and the 2 second gap was enough to turn into 5 then 10. I had to settle down and they were gone. I felt saturdays efforts the whole first lap and as soon as I started feeling good I got dropped straight up! I love races like this where the best mountain biker wins. Jesse was the best even though we finished a lap early due to a freak hail storm. It was an abrupt finish and a sprint would have been weird so I sat up. Andrea was 4th in the womens race and is getting closer to scoring a top 3. She had a blast racing in the hail!

After the race Andrea and I went back to the cabin for some BLT's and a relaxing evening with Rosco and some Sunday Night Football in America.

The short race plus some hard efforts Sat should be perfect for next weekend! I'm pumped. I've heard rumors of Lance racing, but now I hear he's going back to the Tour. Who knows???

Labor

So Labor Day has come and gone and I did my fair share of pedaling the new bike. It started off with some hill repeats on Mt. Hingham Thursday. Followed by a couple hours at work and the north to Eagle River. First stop. Snuddy's house to pick up the XO1 and the XO2. Andrea bought a cross bike and might just do some racing this cross season.(She's in Madtown at cross practice as I type.) Everything goes smooth in Green Bay or so it seems. back on the highway and over the river to QDoba for a burrito and another 3 hours to the cabin.

We made it to Crandon and panic set in real fast. After about 4 root canals, 6 hours of ortho work and lots of pain killers Elicia 'Jaws' Hildebrand was already hurting, but then she realized her baby blanket was MIA. Oh Shit, I think to myself I put E's pillow on top of the car at Snuddy's. How could five adults not notice a pillow on the car as we pulled out? More panic as the 5.0 behind me flashes his lights and I get pulled over for speeding. The night went south real quick in the five minute time span.

After a few heroic attempts by Snudden to locate the pillow and blanket(yes she is 31 and still has a baby blanket and so does Andrea????) we decided to go to the cabin and get some sleep.

To make a long story short it was back to Green Bay Friday morning for a successful rescue mission of the pillow and blanket. Back to Eagle River to have a sweet campsite dinner and build cross bikes.

Saturday morning was some northwoods mountain biking, followed by a 2 hour nap. Andrea and Elicia picked a gallon pail of wild blue, black, and rasberries. Sunday was a 4 hour epic on dirt roads shaking down the new XO2.

Followed by a drive home.

Monday was another 4 hours on the cross bike and a definite scare as I thought Dano was dead on the side of the road. Back to work now....stay tuned another old school update coming soon!

Oh yeah...we had some home made wild berry pie when we got home! Mmmmmm

Why do I always think so hard about the title...who really cares? Just read the post.

It's actually just a quick post. Home from vacation with lots of good stories. Lost blankets on the lonely streets of Green Bay, sweet singletrack, cyclocross bikes, and wild berry pies! I'll do a proper update as soon as I have time. Until then feast your eyes on this!

???

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!

Quiche

Quick update following the WORS race yesterday at Alterra. I finished 5th and Andrea was 6th. My race was pretty good! I had a good start and was following Jesse on lap 1. On the climb a few guys passed me. A small gap opened in the last singletrack and going through the start/finish I was in no mans land. Coming off a rest week I didn't have the gas to jump across so I set a good tempo and cruised in for my best WORS race of the year.

In other news Bennet Vandergenugten won the BNS Tour De France point competition...then he did a sweet blog update...check it out!







Now we are off for some secret training for the week at Firefly Lk...next up O2S!!!

BNS TDF Points Competition

In the 2nd annual BNS TDF points competition its all coming down to the final TT. After TT#1 it was EVIL E Hildebrand. After Rest Day #1 I took a commanding lead. After rest day #2 it was Mike Ver who took charge. After todays queen stage the reigning champion took charge and holds a solid two point lead over the rest of the field. After picking todays winner I moved into a 2nd place stranglehold with BVDG Can Andrea hold on for her second consecutive win? Saturdays TT will hold all the answers. Stay tuned......

All aboard!

Check out 1 WORLD 2 Wheels and do it for real!

Also check out the all new live Gear-Grinder Website and buy some new clothing. I was lucky enough to get some free samples and the stuff is awesome. Recycled cotton and recycled bamboo t-shirts, and recycled bicycle tubes for wallets and belts. Do it for real!

Also help IMBA save some sweet singletrack. Do it for real!

I'm gonna!

Can't take the heat...get out of the KITCHEN

Busy at it...but sweet to take a day off of work.

"It's a Jelly"

A quote from Strange Brew one of my all-time fav's. Really when thinking about this blog update I was going to title it jealousy, but that's not the right word.

About 1 month ago I entertained the idea of going back to the East Coast for some NMBS action. Yesterday I talked with TJ after the race and it made me think a little. The last time I did a Norba was 2004. I crashed out of the race at Mt. Snow with a separated shoulder and then had to watch the Short Track from the sidelines the next day. That's not really how I wanted to end my Norba career, but I followed up that crash with some rest and with a W at Ore To Shore and the rest is history.

One of these days I will head out for another national level race, but the timing wasn't right this year. With the purchase of our new home, and a late start to the season, I needed these two weeks to complete a good training build. I also had to paint the kitchen! Today I got some new shades that will be enough motivation for this week of hard training and the Holy Hill road race on Monday.

I hope the WI crew rips it up in VT.

Fact: I have done the NORBA in VT 10 times~ I still know the race course like the back of my hand. I have only done the nude crit in VT 3 times. It's not quite as technical.

It's all good!

As my good buddy Glenner the UPS man would say, "It's All Good!" That's what I was thinking as I was driving home from Eau Claire last night. I was not thinking that as I was descending towards the small river crossing in the race and very quickly losing tire pressure. I rode as far as I could hoping it would seal and looking for a place to pull off the lengthy singletrack section that would not impede other racers. I quickly attempted a shot of big air in hopes the bead would seal, but no go again. So I went for the tube, poored stans all over my front rotor, and was off and running again. Needless to say I was pretty far back being so early in the race and needless to say my front brake was not the best with a liquid latex coating. Anyway I knew I needed to race to I put on the game face and made the best of my situation. I raced hard the entire race, had high HR numbers, and finished in the money. Take away the 3 or so minutes it took to fix the flat and I could have been racing for a top 5.

Andrea killed it! Once again she made the podium and brought home more money that I did!

I'm not liking the view from the podium way over here, but I'm confident the fitness is getting there and the training is going good. Good luck to the top 5 who are heading east this week for some national racing.

Hangin' @LT

With no race last weekend I have had some time to do some quality training. Lots of 20 min LT intervals. Yesterdays session almost ended in a blaze of glory as I finished in a crazy lightning storm with power lines shooting sparks like it was the 4th a few days early. Not cool.

I also had a little time to relax and finally got to watch KLUNKERZ in full. It was sweet and brought back some of my old school memories...first one was this....Sport Overall Champion 1994 w/ the man himself.
















Or the days of racing in T-Shirts against Mesko...
















Or my first World Cup in 95 Helen, GA...



















Can you name the top 3?


On the homeowner front it goes like this: Painted a kitchen ceiling, mosquitoes, raked a small pile of leaves, mosquitoes, thought about mowing the lawn(didn't), and more mosquitoes.

New Gear Grinder apparel is almost ready along with the website...soon to be seen on a podium near you! Off to Eagle River for the holiday weekend and then over to WORS for the Firecracker!

As spoken by HB himself, "LATER DUDE"