You knew he'd come around, right? TRP EuroX Magnesiums...

Hamme-Zogge. Probably my favorite course to watch. See it live here on VT4. And it's SNOWING already!

OK, let's get the wussiness out of the way first. I hab a code. I hab boogies ib by nobse. But seriously, i felt the joints starting to ache something fierce Thursday and Friday and when I woke up the AM, the throat was all nice and swollen. But moreover, the boogs were fierce. I mean, I had a veritable plate...not unlike an orthodontic retainer of booger...that I somehow extracted from my pie hole and shot in the sink which, when it hit the porcelain, created an audible klink!

Hell yeah I am racing today!

Today's race was in the land of God, Guns, the Air Force and Olympic Training Center: Colorado Springs. 2 hour drive there (and back) from Boulder for a 45 minute race. I've clearly got to love this sport.

With my sinuses pounding, I did some warm ups and ironically the legs felt responsive. I pushed a bit harder on the warm ups and still....good sensations. Game on boys! The course today was interesting. Classic CO course with lots of dry dirt paths, massively bumpy singletrack with bumpy apexed turns and run ups with potentially ankle turning pot holes. There was an opening loop they threw in from the start line that measured a 1/2 mile I'd guess which we'd only do on the opening lap. It was a long dirt path that I KNEW would actually set the order of the day (and it would turn out to be that way...) if you did not get good positioning before the loop finished ad threw you into the courses. I pre-rode my Challenge Grifo XS file treads but it was an absolute day for 34's...so I ran the Typhoons on the A and B bikes.

We had most of the hombres there today save for Pete, Whit, Jon, Jeff W. Hogan and Timmy. More importantly, my main man Karl Kiester, all around hard man and a guy I truly look up to, toed the line with us.

We lined up in lines of 3...literally Ward, JJ and Jared were the front row, then the Spike team's Brian M and David O and my main hombre Matty Opp....and finally me in the 3rd row. Oy. Upon the tweeeet, we actually had some rational thought up front with Ward set a sensible tempo around the start loop (which included quite a bit of elevation gain)....but I am STILL in like 10th or so around this large loop. Dennis Farrell is behind me and the guy is like a Jedi Knight. You ALWAYS pay attention to Dennis 'cause his race smarts are longer than ANYONE's and he gets it done. So I mark him and he jumps and I follow....essentially moving into the top 5 into the single track and essentially the 'beginning of the race'.

We all funnel into the singletrack and motor through to the first barrier. Dennis bunny hops this thing...on an uphill slope...and me, Ward, JJ follow and essentially get a gap right there and then. We traverse the whole course through the start/finish and I am with Ward and he turns around to see me and gives me the thumbs up. I am getting feelings of re-living Chatfield from a few weeks ago...replacing Whit for Dennis. 1/2 way through the 2nd lap an attack goes of... a punch of about 5-10 seconds and man, that was THE gap. For the rest of the race. EVERY lap I saw JJ, Dennis and WB in nearly the exact place at the exact ti,e...roughly 40 seconds by finish. By mid way through I am racing extremely clean and I am happy. I star to take chances through this massively bumpy apexes and madly 'burp' my tubular....by burp I mean roll this thing so heavily over that it makes that God awful....fraaaaap noise. Every lap after that I take it gingerly albeit carving smoothly and the Dugasts never fail (mainly BCS's Mike Doyle's glue job never fails!).

2 to go and Green Mountain's Ross D bridges up and like a pro punches it at exactly the right time and holds his 10 send gap amazingly. I was waiting for ANY slip or bobble and I'd attack but homie was smooth and kept his gap consistently. Again, when you race 35 A's, let's just say speed + experience = extremely tough situations to gain places.

Last lap and my good bud Stephen Oliver bridges amazingly. A great effort. We come through the start/finish together and I give him a slap on the back and let him pull through. We come through that up hill barrier together....we all by this time followed Dennis' lead and bunny hopped it lap after lap...but as we come n to this section, we are about to lap a rider right at the barrier. I get Dennis-like Jedi thoughts to not hop but run it as this was going to be dicey...three abreast. I hop/run through a clean line and Stephen t-bones the guy and I hear 'that sound'....frraaaarghooomph! Stephen gets the wrath of the barrier. So (sorry Stephen) I punched it. I try to bury it to Ross and he finished that EXACT 10 seconds in front in 4th, me in 5th.

Not a bad day considering the booger plates and sinuses. I'll take it.

Click on Matty Opp's picture below to see more of Ultra Rob's stellar photos. All photos above are also Ultra Rob's!
And Jim from SRAM was out racin' and shootin' and sent me these great pics!

My hombre Peter of NY Velocity has posted some of his insane pics from the Mercer Cup this weekend. While Peter shoots color *and* B & W, the images are reminiscent of those the PDXCross crew in Portland shoot on their race weekends. I just love the 'non obvious' shots...e.g. anything that shows a focus on the things going on around the race....not just the prototypical shot of the racer. Details of the course (note the out of focus racers but in-focus mud shots), the fans and the way they go OFF yelling at the racers to dig deeper, the insanity of the pits as bikes get cleaned, and pit crew hustle to get the bikes ready for the hand off. THOSE are the things I want to remember when I am old and fat.
Check out Peter's collection from the Mercer Cup here and subscribe to NYVelocity feeds!

So my Google Alert picked up this nice story about the growing popularity of 'cross in Utah. It's growing everywhere, huh? The article also published some pictures which is always cool, but why oh why do these guys have number plates on the front of their bikes??? This isn't BMX and having complete visibility in front of your tire/bike (especially coming into barriers hot) as well as for folks who port their bike Belgie-style with the arm around the head tube would go INSANE with this practice. Why can't you guys in Utah tell your race officials to allow numbering on your uniforms?

Ah, cold early mornings of the fall. Must be 'cross season. (Record scratch...): It was 65 degrees this AM! Obviously this is madness as it's mid November and it feels like late Spring. We know the hammer is being cocked and we are about to get pummeled. States will, I predict, be a debacle....either snow or mad mud. We'll see. It'll be epic. Either way, I'll keep my pretty white dancin' Sidi's all purdy and such.

It was a massive pre-work group again today. You can see the fitness swells coming back amongst us all now that the Boulder Cup weekend is passed and ramp ups are emerging again to peak for States. Wednesday Bike Practice is hilarious. It is this massive family of elite pros to newbies all communing at random parks to get their hup in before 'the man' calls us to our respective offices and places of work. We meet up every week and it is EXACTLY like when you were a kid coming out from your classroom at recess. You see your buds....many which you race against every week....and you chat about last weeks race drama, gut laugh, geek out on someone's new trick equipment....you know: commune. Or, yes, recess.

Today we rallied at a few of the fun haunts for practice. We all started up our second 'ride' and then the police came on in, lights blaring. Busted? A group of us went and spoke with the officer (who was initially irate) and this is when I knew we'd done right: we had a permit. Starting last season, spearheaded by our own vegan machine, Cat-J, we legitimized the rides by working with Parks and Rec and established a permit for our group ride. With it stamped and approved, we are designated on certain parks to practice an it took the officer about 6 seconds to make a call and he was utterly supportive once confirmed. That and our level-headed conversation with him...even supporting him by empathizing and assuring him we understand and this is why we got the permit...etc etc. It was rad. Clearly we have some more work to do to communicate our group, where we'll be and when, but it was so clear we'd done the right thing (with cat's leadership). I don't know what it is like in your town, but Boulder has a group of 70+ each Wednesday to get the training down in the early hours. If you are thinking growing like we are, then stay ahead of the curve and legitimize...if you think it's going to cause contention.

'Crossers of the World, Unite! Or something like that....

Valmont Bike Park from Valmont Bike Park on Vimeo.

November 15th: The last day round in the BoulderRacing Series and an extremely hard course was the call for the day. My warm ups fired off some feelings that brought smiles. Things felt right and maybe as we near States and Nationals, things are coming around. Unbelievable with the lack of training! More importantly, today was a HUGE day as Brian Hludzinski input a Tots Race at High noon....with its course designed by none other than VeloNews' Matt Pacocha. My kids were PUMPED!

The course at the Lousiville Rec Center is known as a tough one. The entire course is woven around this giant bowl...literally it looks like a dried out man made reservoir of sorts. So Brian and Matt Pacocha decided to use as much of the property to ensure LOTS of elevation gain. Making it a very hard course. Combine this with extremely bumpy conditions and equipment had to be perfect for your day. Tire size and pressure was key. I ended up running my 34 Typhoon's at about 37-38 psi and it seemed perfect.

As I finished up my warm ups I look at my watch and see there's about 15 minutes before the start so I make my way over to the Start area....a SUPER long drag strip roughly a 1/4 mile of dirt road. There's already a scrum assembled and I see that call ups are already happeningg! I get there at the precise moment my name is called so I fall in. Everyone gets assembled and then we wait. I notice that the ACA official is someone I've never seen before. Finally, the course is clear and we're ready to go. He indicates out of the blue 30 seconds and everyone clicks in. "10 seconds" and before you know it 15 or so dudes on the front left just drill it BEFORE the official even says go! I yell at the official and he's like "I'm not callin' 'em back..." and so I just drill it to get in the Top 20 or so. I am furious.

The course opened up with said drag strip launch up and around the bowl and through a sand pit. It was mad congested so I see Timmy un-clip to run and I do likewise, we braaaap through the sand running passing what seemed like 5-7 people outright. After exiting the sand pit you are sent directly down hill....an extremely bumpy slog that at its bottom turns HARD right directly back up hill. I am flowing into the apex when I am bombarded by that same group we braaaped past in the sand pits and bumped into and through the course tape! Swoosh swoosh swoosh dudes are overtaking me and running up the hill in packs as I am yanking pulling are ripping my bike away from the tape and finally run up the hill. Back AGAIN in like the top 20! So now it is a game of 'pick 'em off'. I am a surly man at this point and lap after lap I ride consistently and smoothly focusing in on riders wheel. Head up, see it, bridge to it, over take it...next one. I claw my way back into 13th or so and on each lap I can see the leaders....Cariveau, WB, JJ, Jeff Wardell, Whit J....and it's virtually the same distance every time. Same exact place EVERY lap. It's a stalemate. I'll NEVER get up there today. So I settle in with two good buds and great racers, Stephen Oliver (Yeti-CoMotion) and Glen Light (Moots). We continue to beat the snot out of each other, all three of us dangling by this point in 9th, 10th, 11th. Timmy is just in front racing smoothly and consistently looking behind to judge where we are while eyes forward to see if he can pull forward. Everyone is flying today. everyone is balanced. If you were not in that initial punch after the 1st lap debacle, you were not at the super pointy end.

Lap after lap up the mountain bike style climbs and down the dodgy gnarled descents we all remained consistent...wheel's nearly rubbing we're right with each other. I'd attack a bit then Stephen and Glen would bridge back, then reverse. On it went like this. Super fun to say the least but I think all three of us wish we'd been able to make an earlier selection and stuck with it! We finished up the day in basically that order, Stephen 9 Glen 10 and me 11. Tough day at the office given the course and what everyone said was a really crappy start by the official. (Apparently every category had the same experience at the start...). JJ from Spike was on great form taking the W with my team mate Whit 2nd, Jon Cariveau and Mike Hogan rounded out the top 4.

With our race over, on came the kids! It was SWEET! There was a little course set up with obstacles, teeters ... a run up! (OK a slight incline...). The kids were out of their minds! Everyone got medals and my boys were stoked. My big man opened his 'W' account taking his first victory in a late race move....mostly motivated that he'd have a snack after the race and get back to playing Transformers. My little man came undone under the pressure of the fans and yard-saled his way around until I had to go rescue him. Bike racing. I digress. A fruit wrap and a hug remedied all that sadness.

Pictures of the kids event by Zach Lee can be found HERE.

Beckham Faia ripping it off the front....

Boulder is very much, as you'd guess, a cycling-mad town. Now that this inter-webby thing looks as if it's going to be here for some time to come, more people are getting their stuff out there for people to consume and enjoy. Thoughts, images, you name it.

Two buds of mine have started some cool cycling-related web services. One a full up new reporting service on cycling goings-on, another a new and rad photographer capturing the fields in digital celluloid as we hup up, over and through Colorado's courses.

303Cycling.com is Mix1 Racing's Kris Thompson's site of all the cycling happenings in the 303. He's bring some old school beat style reporting to the local cycling scene. Check it out!

David Kutcipal is also from Mix1 and is out there every weekend banging out GREAT photos of all of us wanna be Sven Nys's. He's a racer so he know just when to hit the shutter,. capturing our mugs in all our suffering glory. He captures some great photos from this Saturday's BoulderRacing No. 4 at the Louisville Rec Center.

(Yeah, Jon C: You KNOW you wanna buy this photo of you gettin' your hup on!)

And if above ain't proof enough, just click on these two thumbnails of me below to see how GREAT and hi-resolution these photos David shared with me to ensure you know what they're like (just check out the detail of the snot on my leg.) You will not be dissatisfied! Hup hup!

The one person who can rip your legs off any time of day, any time of year is sick my friends. This is the one person we all literally, not figuratively, look up to for so much inspiration. He guides us out of the shit more often than you know, and for me personally has influenced my career and spent the time helping guide me. And now it's time for us to do what we can to guide him as he gets up out of his life's saddle to crest this fairly sizable hill.

It's just another hill Jerome. You've crested plenty before. Plenty.

This beautiful vid was put together by Just Keith at the Boulder Cup. We all had "Get Well JC" taped to our stems that day. We hope you felt the energy JC. Just a little push from your domestiques.

We love you Jerome. Be well and your family is here waiting. Mostly to try and drop you.

Jerome Contro Day at Boulder Cup 2008 from Andrew Unkefer on Vimeo.