Monday, November 26, 2012

Short visit to North Bend Rail Trail

A few weeks ago I had the fortune of being able to stop mid-work travel and put in a short ride on the North Bend Rail Trail. Here's photos of a few of the many tunnels you'll see along the way.



Ooh, it's spooky dark! Tunnel #8 entrance

Don't know who thought spray painting the sign would be cool. Probably some kids. Ugh.

Tunnel #7 entrance is a little cleaner. Wonder who they paid to sweep the leaves from the trail over here?


Nice autumn day. Trail here was built up over a ravine or hollow or whatever they call it around here. Great scenery, whatever it is.


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

More racing, more sponsors. More cyclocross goodness!

With more racing and training than the last several years it leaves me less time to pound away at the keyboard like so many monkeys looking to finish that last sequel to Shakespeare. Nonetheless it is my duty to try to keep up so here we go.
The annual Uncle Steve’s Halloween race: As it is with every year, Uncle Steve’s means dressing up in your Halloween costume and having a good time – nay, a great time. The weather never seems to quite cooperate and this year wasn’t much different. Chilly temps started the day with threats of rain that were fulfilled during our race (Masters). It dampened the ground (turning spots into greasy slippery or all out mud-holes) but it didn’t dampen our spirits. My Cyclocrossworld.com teammate Rich Hamrick got halfway through the race and at the far side of the course found he had a completely flat tire. The decision of running with bike back to the pits OR calling it a day and getting to the barley-pop drinking early resulted in NOT running to the pits. 
The CX-Rated Cowboy. Photo courtesy of Meredith Gabriel
I did go out in full regalia, as a CX-Rated Cowboy. It being a play on “CX” being standard abbreviation for “cyclocross” as well as a local band that goes by “The X-Rated Cowboys”.  All was well and good but multiple times I had to stop and fix my chaps until I gave up fixing them and just stopped and took the time to take the chaps off so I could finish the race. This of course did not yield the best finishing results. Nonetheless this was a fun race with full on hand-ups of the adult variety. 
Displaying my assets. Photo courtesy Meredith Gabriel
After that we (Rich Hamrick and I) headed over to participate in the Kings’ Cross/Lionheart Invitational race, part of the Cincinnati UCI3 races. The UCI3 is a full weekend of big-deal racing and are top-notch events. Once again Rich had horrible luck, this time in falling onto a barrier during warm-up. Landed squarely on his thigh and created a huge bruise. He started the race in a massive amount of pain and while he couldn’t generate much power in being so wounded, he never gave up and finished the race. Kudos, mate.
Early in the day, before racing. Love that Unicorn. It's located on Heckle Hill.
I didn’t fully commit until the Thursday night before (about 9pm). I knew this mean I was not going to get a good call-up (starting place was way in the back row). However, on the Friday before I just made up my mind that Saturday was going to be a good day to race. I start in 86th place and it started to rain during my race (Cat 2/3 Masters 45+ & Cat 3 Masters 35+) making the course very slippery in spots. Staying upright was the main plan. I only fell three times. I had a decent start and slowly worked my way up from 86th to a finishing placement of 47th. Now 47th place is normally not something to brag about but having passed almost 40 other racers I’m going to call it a good day. Cold, wet, muddy – that’s a good race day!
The run-up at Heckle Hill. Photo courtesy Julie Sroka
This past weekend was supposed to be back in the Columbus, OH area for Darree Fields #1 on the Cap City Cross schedule. However there were a few issues we ran into while setting up the race course and Cap City Cross felt it best to postpone the Sunday, Nov. 11th event in order to make sure we have all the details squared away.  Please watch the website (www.capcitycross.com) for updates.
In the meantime we’ve also picked up a few more sponsors. Fluid (www.livefluid.com) is a maker of exercise and recovery drink mixes that I buy and am now very happy to be associated with. Beljium Budder (www.beljumbudder.com) are makers of an all-natural anti-chaffing cream. I’m certainly in favor of their all-natural angle but the product has to work which Beljium Budder does well. Along with IgY Nutrition, Feed The Machine and Duro Tires I think this year will finish up quite well.
Next week we may be back to racing, maybe in two weeks. In the meantime, be sure to thank a Veteran for their service on this Veteran’s day. Thanks for reading.