Full up report coming after tomorrow's race but ho-lee-poop it was....AWESOME! My team ROCKS!! The pit crew was so PRO it as nuts...clean bikes every 1/2 lap! Here's a pic from The WK as a teaser. Lots of drama in the last lap for a top 10 position...riding on a flat Dugast! Ha! Double hup...

Dale from Crossin Colorado once agian has kicked some butt...simply by being out in the freezing cold at the wee hors of the AM and capturing video! Thanks Dale! Scene's from our race this Sunday at the Rez...which will also be the scene for this Sunday's battle for the Boulder Cup due to the weather-forced course change.

Lap 1

Boulder CX Series #3 - SM 35+ open - Lap 1 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.

Lap 2

Boulder CX#3 - SM35+ Open Lap 2 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.

Lap 3

Boulder CX #3 - SM35+ Open - Lap 3 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.

Lap 4

Boulder CX #3 - SM35+ open - Lap 4 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.

For me cyclocross is a string of memories dating back to 2nd half of the 90s, living in the Bay Area with each winter bringing a worse El Niño than the last. Cross was an ALL day event, most of which was spent after the race, tearing bikes apart to clear out the Santa Cruz mud deposits. A very critical piece of equipment that was in every car that showed up was a roll of duct tape…to literally hold your shoes on as you hupped through mud bogs lest they get sucked off your foot, forever trapped in the terra firma.

Moving to Colorado was a shocker. Entirely different racing which amounted to dirt crit racing. Faster tempos, faster courses, cool temps and maybe ‘Colorado Mud’: Snow. But for us it is a typically dry and fast affair.

Until this weekend that is.

Week 6 of the ACA circuit brought us one new course and one old ‘standard’.

Saturday-Castle Cross, Castle Rock CO

Saturday I awoke with a smile. The crappy weather the day before…a combination of snow and some rain….would surely not disappoint…and she didn’t. The only unknown variable was the course, a new one put on by the Green Mountain Sports crew.

I pre rode with Timmy the Truth and honestly I felt flat. Not, bad, just flat. The course was really fun, albeit long and not even remotely a course in my kill zone as it had mad elevation gain. I make no claim to be a climber and these were fairly sustained climbs. The weather had created super greasy corners and slippery off cambers so I was confident that if I rolled, I could flow and try to stay away from folks to maintain my position. I ran Typohoons at stupid low pressure, 30 front and 32 rear which proved decent…although I kind of wish I had Rhynos for the day.

The course designers had us do a start circuit, never used again in the course. It was tight with a 100ft parking lot sprint to a sharp left, into trail, back onto pavement and finally onto the course for good. I punched it a bit to win the hole shot only so I would not be part of any mêlées that would ensue (luckily there were none). I carried on for a bit not necessarily going hard…just hard enough to put people into difficulty. I could hear breathing behind and Timmy likely did too. He punched it and Chris P jumped to cover. It went like this for two laps until the climbs started taking their toll on me and I could not push it up those things. Powerless. I decided to forego placings and let folks fly and save a matches for what I thought would be a harder race the next day, the Boulder Reservoir. All in all I’d call the day ‘OK’ with an 8th place. Timmy had a good day taking 2nd to a strong Phenecie. I had some mechanical issues that I needed to work out with the bikes but no real bearing on my ride. No pictures from the 35 A’s. Sorry!

Sunday-Boulder Racing No. 3 ‘The Rez’.

(All pictures below from the lens of Dave Weber unless noted)

The town watched the weather roll in Saturday with temps dropping by 30 degrees and rain and snow in the forecast. The weather and the brutal course would make for an epic. Talk to any racer in the Boulder/Denver area who've raced here over the years and they will tell of their love/hate relationship with this Resevoir or 'Rez'. It’s literally 45% sand…super tough on the bike, body and minds of the competitors. Compound that with the terror of Colorado, the goat head weed, and your tires are bound to get toasted either wrecking your winning ride with a flat or perhaps providing you the mercy head shot you needed to DNF.

Pre-riding the course effectively had the same lay out as some of the Boulder Cups of years past. It has everything…and sand. Did I mention sand? The warm up felt pretty good with my legs coming around after Saturday’s efforts and thanfully saving some for Sunday. Even with the potential threat of goat heads, I ran my Tufo File treads and had my backup bike with an old pair of Dugast Typhoons, both pumped with 20ml of Stans. Giddy up.

I took the line and given the massively long straight away, did not want to be out front. The ACA official blew the whistle and Timmy nailed the hole shot with my main Oz-meister Michael Robson sitting behind and with me 3rd wheel. 

We flowed nicely and evenly around for a 1/2 lap pushing a nice tempo to separate us from any danger..until I heard a pile up. I nudge Timmy and Michael to punch it and we have a gap and we carve out almost 10…who would effectively dice it for the rest of the race (some more at the dicier end of the dicing than others! Ha!). Brian Hludzinski, Michael Robson, Timmy Faia, Jon Cariveau, Jeff Hartman, Ryan McFarling, Mike Hogan, and yours truly.

By the sand on the first lap we are all still tight. My teamie Brian H takes a flier and Timmy and I back it off. We come in to lap 2 and I can see the pace push. Coming into the barriers I was able to get around Jon C, Robson and Timmy as I know it was going to happen right there. Jon was licking his lips (I got som eon me...). I cooked the barriers, got to the front and proceeded to sloooooow down. The Moots powerhouses, Jon C and Robson and I had a laugh with Robson saying “Ooooh! So that’s how it’s going to be!” True team fun at the front.

For the next few laps it was attrition. Like WWI Ypres Salient  attrition. Timmy Jon C, Ryan and Michael Robson pushed the pace and broke away for 20 seconds. Hogan and Jeff bridged to me and I sat in until I felt over cooked. I did feel fantastic through the sand running but would lose momentum on the some of the straights and that got compounded. I floated between 6th and 9th over taking some, then being over taken. I still need that extra wee bit of fitness to make the breaks then stay there. Right now, it’s just within reach. I’ll see if I can get there without putting the three part teeter totter into a bad spot.

By the last lap I put in an effort with Dubba screaming at me in the pit to grab Hartman. I bridged to Jeff who was suffering a bit. There was a group if 3 coming up behind us so I thought it best to bridge to Jeff then continue to punch it to try and break free as the sand was coming and I knew everyone was dying. Jeff turned turned himself inside out and was able to stay within 20 feet or so of me in the sand. As we exit I punch it on the pavement to determine if he would settle or fight. The quiet big man decided to fight. I sat up and and he closed the gap when we essentially slow to a crawl. Full on cat and mouse. It was clear it was going to be a drag race and so it was. We started our sprint at a few hundred meters sharing pedal stroke for pedal stroke with Jeff taking 8th in a throw at the line. I forgot I was going up against one of Colorado’s best sprinters. Oops. It was as fun as hell though. 

So 9th place on the day which belies the effort. These races are insane with the same crew flogging each other week after week. Knife fighting in the trenches as I like to say. I am convinced it some of the best racing to watch as it is incredibly fun to be in it. Pumped that Timmy pushed hard for the win with a savage Jon C never making it easy.

Up next: Colorado’s BIG cross weekend! The Xilinx and Boulder Cups which are guaranteed to go off!

(See photos from the Rez through the lens of Bryan King here. )

BOULDER CYCLE SPORT'S DEDICATION TO CYCLOCROSS CONTINUES...

Back in double-ya double-ya two, there must have been this certain style that penetrated the ranks of the soldiers fighting in the forests of the Ardennes, the skies above the English Channel, the seas of the Pacific and of course in the dank jungles of the Philippines. Absolute bad asses all of  them….but I have no idea what it was about their lids…e.g. their ‘covers’, helmets or dress hats. All tilted to the side; all exposing foreheads; all just….well un ‘PRO’ or in this case ‘un GI’.

So as I looked at young Prince Albert (do the Belgies actually know what the endearing term they have given their young star means?), something looked familiar…picture after picture I observed of him and I couldn’t nail it. Then suddenly…the helmet!

Homie has got to figure his stuff out. Either he’s got a maligned skull or he hasn’t figured out how simple it is to use the Bell Volt’s adjustment system which is one of the simplest and easiest to use on earth. Or…maybe it’s his style. Don’t know. It really could be that his forehead is just obscenely large….an even more prolific need for better all around head protection for Belgium’s new Zoopastar, lest he fall into the guy on the left’s situation. Perhaps due to flowing off course and into some of those infamous hedgerows that cause the US Army such drama when storming through Belgium and messing up his cute little mug.

To be fair to Niels, I’ve seen Erwin V rock his helmet sideways…quite often. But then again, that home boy has mad troubles with his headwear.  

OK, I am done with my PRO bashing for the day. Resume your regularly scheduled programming.

There are times in life when everything comes together. Everything is perfect. Set up just right. Some analogies come to mind like "setting the ball up on the 'T'". Or perhaps for baseball fans, how the moment Bill Buckner let that infamous ball roll through his legs , it set up jokes for more than 2 decades between Mets and Sox fans.

Such is my current situation. And like any crusty east coaster, I just had to turn the screws to another crusty east coaster.

So my mom is cleaning out boxes in her house back east and came across some old Mountain Bike magazines from the mid 90's. She sent a few of 'em on out along with the kids Halloween goodies. Flipping through then was amazing to re-read all these old articles. I remembered so many of them! Mountain biking was HUGE in the 90's. The money was there and the racing was top notch. In fact, the racing was pre-dominantly a US affair with all the talent like Cadel, Rune and others choosing the States to race than Europe.

And then I flip the page and my Westmalle shot directly out of my nose. An uncontrollable and maniacal laughter erupted from the depths of my gut.

But let me set the stage a little more. Moving to Boulder in 2004, I was amazed at this town and its collection of Olympians and professional athletes. As an example, at my first Wednesday Worlds, I show up, all wet nosed waiting like a lost puppy behind this coffee shop as I was told by friends who had heard of the 'cross ride. Who shows up but Travis, Gully a gaggle of hardened pros and yours truly. D'oh. But, it made me faster...

One of those guys was this tall quiet dude, Pete Webber. We developed a friendship over the years and with each year, the onion unpeeled itself to allow me to learn about this amazingly smart and driven character from an awesome family and growing an equally awesome family of his own. And he was fast...and still is. Pete's given me such great advice over the years and our countless hours of training rides, fun rides and beer drinking escapades.

So with all that history under our belt, and the fact I've seen Pete throw up from swilling too many adult beverages, I feel compelled....no responsible....to provide you a glimpse into this PRO's past.

Behold! Pete's glory moment in all of its homo-erotic grandeur.

Get some Pete.

Pete's six-pack and full-body wax pose aside, the same 1997 issue of Mountain Bike yet again provides Pete some air coverage (Jeeze, Pete, you like had a name or something back then). Pete speaks of this thing called 'watts' and using it for training....

Webber, I'll let the picture above be forgotten as you are still my hero. Truly.

It was a 72 hour interval of sorts…squeezing a boat load of work into a Thursday AM, boarding a plane that afternoon for Vegas, doing my thang with my company then getting back on the plane Friday evening and getting home at the crotch of dawn only to wake in a matter of hours to somehow summon the racing mojo.

Breath…lay back…feel your wife next to you in bed as your ears ring and finally the sleep comes…

Beep!  Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! 

The alarm clock registers, my eyes flash open, sunshine already outside, and I jump up thinking I am late for my meeting. But I see where I am. I smell the coffee being made downstairs and I smile. I’m home. I made it. And while waking was near heart attack-instigating, what motivated me to put both feet down on the floor was the most exciting day in Boulder for me personally since moving here:

The Ground Breaking Ceremony of the Valmont Bike Park! Oh, and a cross race…<wink>

I spent the AM with the fam fueling up on home made pancakes and thinking about the day ahead. I’d just got in from a trip, have this huge day ahead of me and then need to flip it back to the homestead to immediately get showered, dressed up and out the door with my lady for a surprise night out in Denver.

Breath…

The DBC Events crew, Chris Grealish, Brook Watts, Joe DePaemelaere and an army of volunteers spear headed by Pete Webber, Bobby Noyes and work crew chief John Bevans slaved for two days to assemble the exhibition course we’d be racing on. I rolled in later in the morning as the activity was already under way and simply looked around. I could not believe my eyes. Even while under construction, with bald mountains and tons of dirt still needing to be placed and shaped, I could see it. I could see just how magical this place will be…

Pre-riding the course we all had smiles. If you were a mountain biker you were in heaven on this fairly technical course. Big tires were a necessity and this past week I had Mike Doyle at BCS dial in a pair of Tufo Dry file treads in 34 for me. Balloon tires! They felt like they were made for Colorado and this course in particular.

After my warm ups I sat silently in the BCS tent and just took it all in. The people were happy, kids were everywhere, we were crossing on ‘hallowed’ ground. Life is good. I sat back in a folding chair and popped open for the first time ever…

OK, typically I’ll have a gel, maybe a bar before a race. I literally had this can of Monster collecting dust in the fridge for months. One of those artifacts from an event in the past that I never used and sat neglected out of site in a tray in the fridge’s nether regions. I popped that beast open and put some back. It…tastes like….burning. By 10 minutes before the race I feel like I am on meth, not certain if I’ll hear the official say ‘go’ off the line let alone if I’d do a simultaneous vomit/diarrhea while waiting for the whistle. Heed my advice: this is the devil’s elixir.

I line up with all the boys under the Clif start. It’s a big field and everyone is amped to go. There I am on the start line like an addict. Head humming, leg twitching due to the green poison I’d ingested. Friends are talking to me and I’m responding like a coked up fiend with quick answers, laughs and general idiocy.

We get the whistle to go and I have one thing on my mind: Go! I’d been complaining incessantly of having cleat/pedal contact issues on remounts and occasional starts and well whaddya know, it happened again…

I thankfully recovered pretty instantaneously and give it a go. The course was a mixture of freshly dug out trail plus sections of bush whacked forest. It made for a hard yet twisty course albeit with tons of bumps and the continuous need for control and flow. On the first lap, Moots strong man Glen Light took a flyer and strung us yet I could feel the hounds on us. I decided to up the tempo and pulled the group around for a lap. Fairly instantaneously it was me, Ryan, Dennis, Brian, Mike and Jeff. We were gone. 

And then I got stupid.

Lap 2 it’s the same order. I am still pulling. Lap 3 same thing. Nearly all of lap 4 the same. I feel good and turn around to take stock. No one is coming around. What I fail to realize is that this is Colorado. And the guys I race every weekend are…fast. And more importantly…smart. I’d put in an effort, turn around see heads down suffering and attack again. These guys would claaaaaaw back every time. Regardless how hard I’d hurt them, they’d bridge back. Bulls.

By the beginning of lap 5 I suspect Dennis had had enough of the interval session and got out front. We all were a giant train sitting fairly OK until some new and significant attacks came and I paid for my earlier sins and faded. Jeff was with me and we traded work on lap 6 and he put in a punch and with it a gap. I clawed back got back to him and push passed with Jeff saying “…Nice!”. That was rad Jeff.

Last lap Jeff and I converged on the run up, crowds cheering and we both gassed it trying to scramble for that precious inside line. Jeff squeaked passed and got the gap when I freeeeking bunged the remount with another slipped pedal! ARRGH! That little gap was it. The group of 4 (Dennis, Brian, Mike and Ryan) pushed it to the line with
Dennis taking a hard earned “W”, Jeff floating in for 5th with me trailing in seconds thereafter for 6th. What a rad race.

I sat afterward and could feel the effort and my head swirling with the green crap still floating in my veins. Keller and Cospolich drill it. Not sure if I’ll ever do that again. Moreover I though about all the little pieces that have to come together. It’s amazing to think of all the little tiny parts of a race when you decompose it afterwards…especially those parts you contribute. Each little mistake adds up and those that make the fewest win. It’s an awesome game we have.

See more of Jeff Cospolich's awesome photos of the 35 A's here.

This park is going to shine. It is going to be the place I get to do hot laps with my boys. Where many Wednesday Worlds will be held with no hiker.dog walker conflict. It is ours and we pushed hard for it. Racing on it was so sweet.

And yes, I made it home in time to scoop up my beautiful wife wife for our Denver night out. And it was gooooood. I knew you were keeping tabs.

I'll have a race report coming up shortly but this is from Boulder's local paper, the Daily Camera. Have a look see. Some of my favorite people interviewed including Brooke Watts of Cross Partners (e.g. Cross Vegas) and Bobby Noyes...who has pushed this Park selflessly over the last decade and then some.

I did it. I spoke to ‘my people’: bloggers and all those passionate about social media and getting the(ir) word out. BlogWorld, in Las Vegas….back again after my CrossVegas fest just a few weeks ago.

As I engaged with bloggers from around the globe, I was able to get out of my 'little' shell of cycling and learned of the content they write about and it's diversity. And it is as diverse as…well, anything on earth. It ranges wildly from politics to sex to sports to health to hobbies. When talking with another blogger your subject matter wasn't the core of the conversation as it was universally accepted between you as you engaged with other bloggers that you were sincere and focused on your area of expertise. You were sniffed out quickly if not. It truly was refreshing. You vibed on the passion of the other bloggers….1000’s of them. The counter balance were all those blogging for sheer profit. It’s not looked at as evil per se, just insincere. It’s an odd balance to strike when you are trying to be taken seriously.

So I reached out in my presentation to bloggers who were ‘long tail’ primarily. Those with limited visibility and trying to learn more about how to get their word out for various reasons…some related to monetizing as a side income, others that they feel in their heart they’ve got something to say.

The “Top 10 Blogosphere Trends” is what I went on about for 45 minutes breaking down some really interesting data….data which was used earlier in the day by Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra for their  ‘state of the blogosphere’ report we contributed data to.

So how is all this relevant to Mud and Cowbells and cyclocross? Well it’s about obscurity, actually. And the fact that obscurity (a.k.a. the long tail) is becoming more and more mainstream. The community has voices and some voices become authoritative…whether controversially or with general agreement from the blog’s readership. I look at M & C as a voice with a passionate reader audience who contribute to the discussion…and thus the authority we collective create ion our subject matter: ‘cross. It’s truly inspiring. A really fuzzy line is being drawn between professional journalism and layman authoring. Much talk of the ‘professional blogger’ occurred at the conference and it is a term that I am just not comfortable with….yet by analysis of the data I fall directly into the demographic believe it or not.

So for those that are bloggers, I give you my preso from BlogWorld. It was recorded and I’ll get that media as well but here’s my deck. Enjoy!

I'm heading to BlogWorld in a few days where I get to wax poetic on some cool trends we're seeing about bloggers and their readers who visit their sites. But secretly I'm trying to bust my way into the raddest group of bloggers on the planet my friend Micah intro'd me to: The Blogs with Balls crew. One dude who is responsible for capturing video at the Blogs with Balls and BlogWorld events with his ninja-like viedography skills is Ben Eckstein...and Holmes just filmed his first 'cross at Gloucester....and he NAILED IT! My god Ben captured a 'weekend in the life of...us' And he's already contemplating his assault on the 'cross scene himself next year! A new disciple. 

Have a gander at his video below and the accompanying blog post on how it was made.

Gran Prix of Gloucester - A Cyclocross Film from Benjamin Eckstein on Vimeo.