Mid-Season break and Giant XTC

Mid-Season Break
So the summer brings a mid-season break to the racing series. I have a few races here and there over the summer and will be partaking in the Draper Weeknight Dirts Crits every Thurs. The dirt crits are an absolute blast and below is a video I shot last week while riding.

Mid-season training is going back to basics so I'll be ready for the fall racing series. We're cranking down the intensity and cranking up the mileage and distance to build endurance back up again. I felt like I peaked at just the right time during the spring series with the win at Roman Nose and am looking forward to some hard work over the summer to be ready for the fall.

Giant XTC

As I've gotten faster throughout my 1st year of racing and still learning and figuring out this whole racing thing, I've been tinkering with the idea of adding a legit XC race bike to the stable. That's not to say the Niner Jet 9 is not a legit race bike.....that thing absolutely flies and is smooth as butter. However it is a full suspension bike and there are times when I can tell the rear suspension is absorbing the power I'm putting down versus it going directly to the wheel.

After a few conversations with Tommy Duvall (fellow Team Phoenix member & also works at Bike One, one of our sponsors) I decided to pull the trigger on Giant's brand new XTC composite 29er. This is Giant's 1st venture into the carbon race xc world and let me tell you they hit a home run with this thing. Chris Drummond and Tommy did an awesome job building it for me and having it ready for the weekend...and then it rained!!

I finally got it out on the trail today and it is fast.....really fast. It's going to take a little getting used to as it flat out wants to go, and will corner on a dime. The best way I can describe it is the Niner is a Ferrari.....smooth, powerful and refined; while the Giant XTC is an F1 race car.....it is "rip your head off" fast and built with one thing in mind....racing XC. I did some upgrades to the bike which help also and this will be my primary race bike for the fall....which gives me the summer to get used to it. After 1 ride I'm over the moon with this bike and looking forward to more time in the dirt with it.

Next race I'm doing is a 6hr endurance event in Warda, TX called the Blazing Saddles Mtn Bike Race. Should be a fun race.

What a day!!!

Between the Thunder and my bike race this day was a crazy exhausting experience from the word go.
Brrrrrrr.....
I was up bright and early headed off to Roman Nose State Park in Watonga for race #3 in the Oklahoma Mountain Bike Championship series. The weather upon arrival there was pretty chilly for May....43F. Registration took a little bit of time to get through and meant I had to hurry my warm up, which consisted of a 30 min ride on the roads at the park.


Getting ready for the race

Away we go...
9am came...and went and the race still hadn't started so my body was starting to cool down a bit. Eventually they got stuff sorted and we lined up. The start of this race is unique in the MTB world as it's a flat out drag race on the road for a little bit, then onto some jeep trail before finally hitting single track.

Getting instructions at the start line

I came into this race with an actual strategy and put some notes to my Coach in our training software that I was going to blow myself up trying to win this race.
I didn't get a great start and was sitting in 4th as we rounded the 1st bend in the road. My strategy was to be in the lead when we hit the single track or I wouldn't stand a chance. So I kicked it into high gear and motored to the front and led the race up the 1st hill. Next we crossed the little spillway over the dam and a guy attempted to pass me here, but again I was determined to be in the lead at all costs when we entered single track so I gunned it to get back out in front. This proved to be a very shrewd moved as I was 1st to the very steep hill into the single track. I got up the hill and behind me people were stopping as they couldn't make it up it, so I put some precious time on the pack.
I held a steady lead heading up the climbs and hoped everyone was suffering as much as I was.
Once at the top of the mesa's I used some training learned earlier in the week and was sprinting out of the corners to get up to speed fast.
As we flowed through the forest area, it was myself and 2 others and I decided that it was time to put some distance in, so again I hammered it on the steep switchback climb, followed by another steep loose rocky climb. Once at the top my strategy was no recovery, so I really pushed my limits.
All or nothing
The last major hill was coming up with the guy in 2nd about 20 secs behind me. I knew he was hurting bad as he wasn't making up any time on me. I also knew after this climb it was all downhill on some rocks to the finish and I could really pull away in those technical sections.
I gave it everything I had left on that last hill and blew up the 2nd place guy at that point. I absolutely flew down the last section, with the Niner's suspension and 29" wheels just floating over the rocks. I was in the big gear and there was no way I was going to be caught.
For good measure I sprinted to the finish.....where there was no one there to record the result or time!!! I rode around frantically trying to find the officials, who came running over stating "we didn't expect you to turn such a fast lap"!!!
Things got sorted out and I beat second by just over 1 min 30 secs, but the official recorded it as a 1 sec victory...cause he had no idea of the time. Turns out the 35 min lap I put in was the fastest in all of the Cat3's...including the young guns in the 19-29 age group.

Standing atop the podium!!!

All in all I was very pleased with my strategy actually paying off, and I was completely spent when it was all said and done. The win has given me a decent lead in the overall series now as we reach the halfway point more or less.

After the awards ceremony I hopped in the car and hauled to make it back to OKC to watch the Thunder beat the Grizzlies. I managed to yell myself horse and am completely exhausted....but an amazing day overall.

Next race is at Turkey Mountain in 2 weeks in Tulsa, but I'm still undecided if I'm going to race that one.

Mellow Johnny's

This past weekend myself, Mark, Jeff and Tony headed to Austin, TX for the Mellow Johnny's classic. This is a race that is a part of the Pro XCT and also is a UCI event meaning the pro guys get points towards Olympic qualifying.....in other words a lot of REALLY fast guys show up.
This would be my 1st race outside of Oklahoma and what an adventure it was......

Pre-Ride
Friday afternoon we packed up the bikes and headed out to pre-ride the course. We had to wait a little bit to get our racing numbers before hitting the dirt. Once that was complete, off we went. We did both loops, the Pro/UCI course and then the Cat1,2,3 loop that I'd be racing......both were technical, hilly and like nothing we have in Oklahoma. The whole point of doing a pre-ride is to see where on the course you can attack, what sections you can make time, where you need to be careful etc...etc. Conditions for the pre-ride were not good....hot and humid so I was pretty spent by the time we were done.


The famous Pave....from Paris-Robaix

Race Day
Race day arrived bright and early with a 6am alarm and headed out to Lance Armstrong's ranch for my race at 8:45am. When we pulled up to the gates, the place was already packed. We parked the car and I got my stuff together and headed out for a warm up. I was pretty sun burnt from the pre-ride the day before and my legs weren't very happy with me for riding again, however once I got the 30 min warm up done I felt much better. Did my usual pre-race routine of drinking a bottle of EFS and downing a gel before the start.
I headed over to the staging area and pushed my way towards the front, then they called us up by name and number. Luckily I got a spot on the 2nd row. While waiting on the rest of my group to get lined up the officials told us they had 9 more people enter the race for a total of 90 racers!!!!
At the start line I chatted to the guy next to me who came over from Australia for the race....then another guy who came over from England......turns out there would be quite a few sandbaggers in my group.
The whistle blew to start the race and I didn't get a great start being in the middle of the row. I was trying to be careful and not wreck instead of hammering it to get out front. By the time we hit the single track I was probably sitting about 12th overall. The front part of the course was pretty technical and it was here I started to pick people off.....going around them as they hoped off their bikes on the rocky sections. I'd made my way to 4th place as we went down into the bottom of the course and the guy in 3rd flatted and all of a sudden I was holding a podium spot!! These guys were flying and I was pushing myself really hard......on one section of downhill on the backside of the course we were hitting the turns and a little table top at 22mph....a little scary for me!!!

Super fast downhills...

Eventually we came to a point in the course about 4.5 miles in when my body had had enough......I'd pushed it too hard and the heat from the day before took its toll. My speed and output started dropping dramatically and the guys I'd picked off started passing me along with a bunch of others. I had nothing left in the tank and my goal was to spin it out for the remainder for the race.
I settled in with a couple of guys who I figure I could pace in with, when we came over the hill to climb the last big hill of the day.....there was a good crowd of spectators gathered there, which was pretty inspiring and somehow I found a second wind and attacked a couple of guys up that hill which was a really cool feeling.

About to attack on the hill


Giving it all I got on the hill about to pass that guy..

The last section pops you out of the trees and into an open section to the finish and Mark was there waiting and I knew he was about to get on me to sprint finish, so I hit the big ring and hammered it before he could yell. I managed to beat out 1 guy in the sprint in my category and catch the guy who finished 2nd in the 40-49 category.

Sprint finish

In the end I took 29th out of 90 riders from across the nation and a few from overseas. This was such a cool experience, course, race and I will definitely be back next year. I left came away knowing I totally spent myself and left everything on the race course.

Sat afternoon was the UCI/Pro event that Mark was racing in against some of the biggest names in the cycling world......these dudes show up to the start line wearing ice vests to keep cool!!!! Unfortunately Mark snapped his chain right off the start line and DNF'd. Below is the video I took of the start of their race......those guys are fasssssssst.




Next race is in 2 weeks at Roman Nose State Park which is another technical rocky course which suits me just fine.

Redbud, Race Tactics and Ardmore

Its been a couple of weeks since I've updated the blog and a few things have happened since then. So lets start at the top........

Redbud

The 2011 Redbud Classic got a record number of riders (over 1500). This event is classified as a tour, but usually the fast guys go out front and race it. This year I decided to see if I could hang at the front in the 50 mile tour.

It all went well until about mile 30. I was in the main pack when a guy directly in front of me hit the ground really hard. I managed to swerve, bunny hop and avoid killing him at 27mph. Unfortunately the guy behind me wasn't quite as alert and rammed straight into my rear derailleur. It completely destroyed the back part of my bike and ended my day......I was not hurt, but not happy at all.

Well crap.....

Red River Shootout - Ardmore

This race is somewhat unique in that being equal distance between OKC and Dallas it gets racers from both states and hence a very strong field.

I lined up at the front with 2 full rows of riders and got off to an awesome start, tucking into 2nd as we hit the trail.

Myself and eventual race winner to my right

From the minute myself and the race leader hit the single track we gunned it and opened up a large gap from the rest of the field. The course itself was extremely fast with some great rock gardens that setup perfectly for the 29er to float over.

We started to pass the 20-29 age group and moved through them pretty quickly and settled in with the knowledge it was just he and I. Something I learned during this race is that my race tactics are not great.....that will develop with more races under my belt. Since I sat behind this guys wheel for 95% of the race I was not able to see the good lines over the rocks and was playing catch up after riding over them. Also I probably sat behind the guy for too long as I had plenty of power and energy left in the tank that I could have powered away from him much earlier in the race and put distance between us with an open trail in front of me.

We got up to the last major rock section and the race leader got stuck and had to hop off his bike to get over the top, which forced me off the bike to follow suit. Once I got to the top, he had opened up a 30 second gap on me and we hit the last mile of the course which was a big chain ring flying section. If I had pre-rode the course I would've known this and might have been able to reel him in there......might have.

Burying myself for the finish

All in all I was very happy again with 2nd place, and am learning more and more interesting things in the races, such as how to use other slower riders to your advantage, when to drink, when to pass, where to put in bursts of speed. Technically I'm way ahead of where I thought I would be floating over rock gardens, rolling drops, cornering at speed, etc..etc.

Next up is a power test which is simply 20 mins of pure all out suffering, to figure out what your power to weight ratio is. I should see some improvement there from the last time I did it.

After that is my "A" race for the year down in Austin at the Mellow Johnny's classic. This race is run on Lance Armstrong's Juan Pelota ranch and is a national event with a lot of competition.

The HorseOutside is rollin a little faster!

Postponed Races and Training

Well its been a while since my last post and that is for good reason. Mother Nature has twice decided to interveen in the Team Phoenix race at Osage Hills. Unfortunately when an MTB trail gets wet, it should not be ridden at all as it will get destroyed.....so imagine what 200 racers on a wet trail would do to it.

Training Stuff
Ones of the things I've discovered is that focus on training is extremely important to making progress. You cannot go half-assed at all......if I find myself doing that I'll stop as the time isn't worth it.
These past few weeks, I've been training on the Computrainer a lot. This is basically a torture device into which you place your road bike. The laptop controls the grade (hills) and the power output. The cool thing is that there is zero place to hide on this thing......you're either hitting the workout or you're not.


Pain Cave (AKA Computrainer)

Mark has developed some pretty cool workouts on it, and if you're interested in more info around those contact him http://www.speedworkscoaching.com/

Today I did a singlespeed training ride around Draper which was awesome. Essentially you keep the bike in the same gear the whole way....hills & corners included! What this does is forces you to generate a lot more power up the hills, which I had in abundance today.....it was a lot of fun.

Next Race
The next event on the horseoutside schedule isn't actually a race but a bicycle tour. Every year since I can remember I've participated in the Redbud Classic and this year will be no different. On Sat I'll be doing the 52 mile tour, which I expect my time to be significantly better than it every has. On Sunday I'll be organizing & directing split timers on the course for the runners who show up in force for this event.
If you haven't registered, go here: http://www.redbud.org/

Hopefully next week I'll have something more exciting to post with pics of the Redbud.

Battle at the Bird and Redline

Today was the 1st race in the Oklahoma Mountain Bike Championship series, otherwise known as Tour De Dirt. Lake Thunderbird in Norman was the location for this season opener and the weather was kinda poopy......overcast, grey, chilly....perfect for me!!!
I didn't get much sleep Sat night due to the excitement, so I spent some time doing something I've carried over to bike racing from my soccer playing days is visualizing, whereby I know exactly what I'm going to do and when.

The Birdy

Springing forward sucks. I sleepily arrived at 8am to offload my bike and help setup the Team Phoenix tent. Slowly but surely folks started pouring in......this was going to be a large turnout of racers for the 1st event of the year.

Team Phoenix area

Race time was at approx 11am for me so I set off to get a good warm up in 30 mins prior.....I knew that the start of this circus would be a flat out drag race for a while and I'd need to be good and warm for it.

The Main Event

Around 10:45am I headed over to the start area to get a spot on the front row as this would be crucial to a fast start. It was here that the race organizers explained we'd be doing a little detour to start the race.....ummmmmm ok??

As more and more people lined up, I started looking around and seriously thought my chances were diminishing rapidly here for my top 5 finish. The Off-Camber team had a big presence and chatting to the guy lined up beside me, it was clear we would be competitors for the day.

Eventually the race got under way and I got just the start I wanted.....3rd heading into the 1st corner. Unfortunately this was the little detour we were told about and all of a sudden there's a guy whacking his wheel into my bike, followed by another crashing to my right. I came out of this pile up in 7th place, pissed and headed to the drag strip. I gunned it and flew down this section passing 3 guys to put myself in 4th headed into the real singletrack.

It was me, the Off-Camber guy, black and white shirt guy and a dude from New Zealand racing for Schlegels Bicycle store.

I knew I had to patient somewhat through the 1st section or so and stuck on these guys wheels and settled in for a bit. The 4 of us had already put a substantial gap into the rest of the field, so it was clear this was the competition.

Race Results Posted

White shirt dude had pulled away at the front and was out of sight, so I knew I had to make a move as Off-Camber guy and the New Zealander were starting to lag a little.

We came out of a corner and Off-Camber guy went a little right and I shot past him and started to hammer. I was on the tail of New Zealand and we played cat and mouse for a while with each other. From the training I've been doing and skills practice I knew I had a substantial advantage when we hit the technical sections in the gold.

Sure enough the 1st sets of roller coasters and wooden ramps, he was over cautious and I flew past him.

At this point my sole goal was to chase down white shirt guy and I pushed myself into zone 5 of my HR and stayed there for the duration of the race. It's amazing what training and practice can do.....I hit every line that we went over with Mark, floated over the rocks and flew down the single track. I honestly got into such a flow that the last 1/3 of the race was a blur......I was hammering it and absolutely loving it. I knew I was a different racer when I started going through the 19-29 year old class that started a full minute ahead of us.

I knew I was gaining on white shirt guy in the final section of the race when I could finally see him, but he had too much of a head start for me to catch.

Crossing the finish line I knew I was spent and left it all on the course........my goal was to get a top 5 finish, so getting 2nd and reeling back in the guy in 1st was a huge bonus. All the hard work, training and time spent on the trail clearly paid off.

The best compliment I got was from the New Zealand guy who after the race told me that he thought he could catch me on the flats, but the minute we hit the hills I pulled away big time and he couldn't react.

I now know how much I can push myself at redline.......and thats very important in these XC races.

Podium

Next we're off to Osage Hills in a couple of weeks for race #2 and a very rocky technical course....right up my alley!!!!

The HorseOutside is rollin!!!

Leadville, Mayhem, Rocks and Flats

Earlier this week I received the dreaded email:
Dear Leadville Race Series Family,
We regret to inform you that we are unable to accept your application for the
2011 Leadville Trail 100 MTB race. In order to offer the nation’s highest quality athletic
experience with the utmost degree of safety, medical care, and racer support, we are
unable to accommodate every interested rider. We do not offer a waiting list, and are
unable to accept entries for 2012.

Blah blah...whatever. I wasn't too bothered about it as I've said before just entering Leadville was the catalyst for spawning so much more.

Training this week went really well and I felt ready to tackle the race that was the "Mountains of Mayhem". I was really curious for this pre-season game to test out just how far I'd come and where I was.

Race Day:

On to the day of the event. Myself, Mark Orton and Jeff Sikes all headed down to Ft Sill nice and early and it was freeeeeezing. I'd loaded my bag the night before and put my warm weather gear in just in case. We were 1 of the first there and went and registered, took care of some nature business, then got back in the truck where it was warm.

Me stripping off my warm weather gear (Thanks Tommy!!)

Eventually we decided it would be a good idea to start getting our crap together for the warm up etc. So bikes were unloaded, gear put on, and off we rode to warm up. I decided to tackle the 1st hill as part of my warm up.....holy crap!!! It was steep, loose, rocks the size of some small Japanese cars!!! I was a little nervous at first, but this crap was not stuff I was used to riding on nevermind racing on.

The Race:

At about 10:45am we lined up to start this Mayhem (now I see why its called that), and I moved towards the front of the pack as I didn't want to get stuck behind people who would be walking their bikes up the hill. Come 11am (or so) they shot off the huge cannon and the race was underway. I pushed hard to hit the hill as part of the 1st 1/3 of people and starting climbing......this hill was nasty, gnarly, steep, and loose rocks everywhere. One thing I discovered quickly is that I now have a climbing ability.....holy crap I can climb!!! A 60lbs weight loss will give you a new ability to be faster (who woulda thought that).

I cruised up the hills pretty comfortably, and headed into the meat of the course. One thing I don't do well is descend on loose rocks....so for this race I made it a point to fly up the climbs, bomb the flats and be very careful on the descents.

The Flats:

No I'm not talking about the fast parts of the course. Prior to heading down to this race I had been warned to bring 2 spare tubes and 3-4 Co2 cartridges, which I did but never thought I would use them. About 2/3 of the way through the race I ran over a pretty big cactus....and of course air starts pouring out. Luckily I got the wheel spinning enough that the Stans sealed the hole (yeah for tubless and Stans). After that I started speeding up on the descents a little, and of course I hit the sharp edge of one of those Japanese cars. This cause about a 2 inch gash along the side of my front tire (booooo for tubeless and Stans). So off I got to fix that one by putting in one of my 2 tubes and burning a Co2 to inflate. 10 mins later back on my merry way. Crested the last major hill and riiiiiiiip....another rock rips open my front tire again in a different place and pops the tube.......seriously. Another 10 mins later and telling one of the course marshalls that "no I wasn't going to quit because I flatted", I was on my way again.

I pushed really hard for the last 1/3 of the race to make up time and ended up coming in middle of the pack overall with a time of 2:14:00. If I take away 25 mins for the flats my time would have been right at 1:50:00 which is impressive to me.

Post race conversation regarding flats

Overall I was really happy with the race despite the flats and it was a fun race to do as there are not any others quite like the Mountains of Mayhem.

Next week is the start of the TDD series with a race at T-Bird......with a bit of luck, I'm shooting for a top 5 spot in my category.

Below is the race video I took with my helmet cam. Its not great due to the helmet mount I had setup but you get the general idea.

Its 1 week to go until the start of my 2011 MTB race season. I have been training hard all winter under the coaching of Mark Orton (a pro MTB racer...check out Speedworks Coaching link at the right) and made significant progress. But....right now is kinda like a boxer who has been training very hard for a fight, but has yet to actually fight. I have no idea how I'll do but I know I'm enjoying every minute of the training and will enjoy the racing even more.



For this season, I'll be racing the Niner Jet 9 which is an absolute rocket with full suspension. The bike has won a number of awards over the past few years, so hopefully I won't let it down!!!





Below are 2 very interesting pics....1 of me 6 months ago weighing close to 240lbs, and the other taken a week or so ago weighing 185lbs. My goal weigh is 175lbs.

Fat Elvis!!


Skinny Elvis!!


This week's race is the Mountains of Mayhem (former 12 miles of Hell), which is ironic cause it's never ever been only 12 miles.....usually 15-18 miles. The course itself is an extremely technical course located on the Ft Sill army base near Lawton, OK.

My goal in this race is simple....survive in 1 piece. The season is long, and the races I'm hoping to peak for are the longer endurance races (think 60-100 miles on a bike) along with a few Tour De Dirt races (6-8 miles).

I'll post up later in the week how my training and preparation went this week for the race, then next Sunday with a race report.

Oh yeah....as to the horseoutside blog name.....I may reveal where it came from through the season.