The plan was to update everyone almost daily from the race venues thru this wonderful internet and my provider who has “nationwide access” – except in Alpine Valley, Wisconsin and Slatyfork, WV – go figure. Instead, the following is a wrap-up of week 1 and the Norba National Championship race in Wisconsin and when I get back next Monday I’ll tell you about the Norba National in Snowshoe, WV. Day One –Wednesday, last week Up relatively early to finish packing. I grabbed a quick spin on the rollers and a run to Brian Keich’s for a massage with the hope of keeping the legs supple on the trip to the mid-west. And I got a scolding from Brian for not doing enough stretching. My usual prompt self got us underway at 10:00 o’clock Kuhn Standard Time (which translates to about noon for most people). The best part about leaving late was the free lunch – one turkey sandwich and one grilled cheese and pickle by mom (who along with dad is sitting the next two weekends out after spending most of their weekends since late March working the feed zones for Team PA Pension Planners.)

It’s just myself and Christopher Kuhl on the first leg of this one with Zack Blazer and John Cameron to join for Snowshoe. We made Toledo, OH on the first night, found a place to crash, and got in a quick spin. On our short ride we bumped into some rent-a-cops and asked where we could ride some quiet streets and of course there aren’t any in Toledo. Their advice was, “Well, whatever you do just don’t ride over there” with a point in the general direction of our hotel. Nice.

Day Two – Thursday, last week
We high-tailed it out of Tohelldo and made for Alpine Valley, WI. Getting around Chicago was a pain in the butt and disappointing to Chris since the highway wasn’t close enough to the city for him to get a look at the Sears Tower. Not having been to Wisconsin before we were thinking that maybe there would be some small hills or some such thing where the race would take place. As we got closer we still didn’t see any hills appearing on the horizon until at last Alpine Valley came into view. Probably not described in Powder Magazine as a majestic ski area, Alpine Valley is a big pile of dirt and rocks that was dumped into a low valley to get the elevation required to actually ski down a hill. It would be like digging a hole about a foot deep and three feet around and then taking all that dirt and some extra dirt and piling it up in the center of the hole. Make it a slightly larger scale, plant some grass on it, and run a tow ropes and a ski lift and you have yourself an Alpine Valley.

That being said, the course was by no means flat. We did two laps and were confronted by a very twisty and relatively smooth course. Some exposed roots and a few short rock gardens kept things interesting. The best feature was named “the liquid launch” and it consisted of a 20 foot drop down a very steep hillside into a creek and then up the other side – which of course became a huge mud pit. I had various amounts of luck with the “launch.” On this day I rode it fine the first lap and then crashed fairly spectacularly on it the second time around ending up with some brush burn on various parts of the left side of my body and mostly submerged in the creek. I was hoping for drier conditions out here, but found more of that same mud that’s been plaguing us back east all spring. For those of you who race the super series, the course was similar to the Sewell and Hershey courses and just as muddy, but with quite a bit more elevation gain per lap.

We’re crashing at the Crossroads Motel with John MacInnis – it’s a quaint little joint just 10 minutes from the venue and found the perfect dinner in the local town – a “bucket” of pasta for $9 that feeds all three of us well. Stop by the local grocery store and pick up a rotisserie bird and we got our meat for $5 more. Guess what we’re eating every night this week.

John and I are having great fun keeping Christopher in line. John has laid down the law and will be beating Chris senseless next weekend at Snowshoe if he can’t keep his stuff in one pile.

Met our clothing company sponsor today – John and family from DOGFISH. They have a great selection of fun t-shirts and will be offering custom cycling apparel for teams. They support a substantial number of riders in the mid-west and are beginning to develop other cells (such as our team) in other parts of the country. It looks like they will also be supporting Thais as an individual for the rest of the season. John is a really nice guy and really does his best to support all his racers including setting up close enough to the course that he can cheer us all on while displaying his fun wares.

Day Three
The pros raced today and local honches Chris Eatough and Jeremiah Bishop represented well with Chris finishing 15th after a very rough start and Jeremiah in 21st. Nick Waite, a sometimes competitor in our neck of the woods came in right behind Jeremiah in 22nd (and the dude is only 19!). John had a bit of a rough time as the race took over 2.5 hours and came in 42nd. Sue Haywood also had a nice ride in the women’s race coming across the line in the top 10 and was one of the very few women who rode the “liquid launch.” Roland Green and Alison Dunlap won the pro races, yawn.

A deluge of rain followed the end of the pro race and preceded our attempt at another run on the course. The rain made the course incredibly slick and we attempted to walk down the “launch” this time. Nope, I took one step, landed on my ass, and slid to the bottom in a heap. Chris tried a controlled slide as if coming down a sliding board and fared no better. Ryan Leech had joined us for this ride and made the smart choice by getting off the trail and walking to the bottom…all the while laughing at the two of us now covered in mud. For as muddy as it was I was riding almost all of it and started to hope it was really slimy conditions during the race because no one else was having much luck. Ryan had enough of it, turned around and headed back to the bike wash. I met him at the bike wash and eventually Chris came along too. That was enough for us. We sprayed off the bikes and Ryan took much joy in shooting Chris and I in the back with the water to try to peel off some of the mud.

Day Four
I did a road ride this morning and then basically relaxed and got my bike and self ready for the race tomorrow. Chris and John headed out around noon to check out the pro short-track racing. They met up with Brandon Ott and climbed up in the rafters of a covered bridge the course traversed and in so doing got a great view of Sue Haywood hitting the deck while in the lead group. Thankfully Sue got up and kept going and didn’t seem too worse for wear. Again, Dunlap and Green were victorious, yay.

Day Five – Race Day – Sunday
I felt great this morning. Got up rarin’ to go. Wasn’t tired in the least at 5am, which is pretty unusual for me. Had a great breakfast at the local diner – 2 eggs, 2 slices of bacon, and 2 pancakes the size of Frisbees. I couldn’t eat both of them so I took one along for John to hand me in the feed zone. Got to the venue plenty early and started my warm-up. Things were looking good.

Other riders on hand from back east to take part in the days festivities included the aforementioned Thais, Brandon, and Ryan, Ransom Weaver, Theresa Richardson, and Andrew Wulfkuhle. Also stopping by on the way home from Colorado was Jay Duffy, who is in fine form from an early season of road racing. The man with the plan and our Super Series promoter, Mr. Don Morrison raced Saturday and turned in a fine performance to finish 6th in the real fast old guy class. (Anyone I missed, sorry ‘bout that).

Okay, back to my day…from there things started to unravel. First, as I’m sitting on my trainer my left pedal decides it no longer wants to be attached to my left pedal spindle and so it leaves. Luckily there is a very nice lady there who says, “As long as I get these back you can use mine.” I thank her profusely then thank her some more and figure that’s my bad luck for the day (I was wrong). I made my way over to the starting line and Ryan gave me a spot next to him. We waited a long time to get underway. The gun went off and I actually got a good start!

No, really I did Zack. I was top 5 off the line and through the prologue loop and top 3 as we entered the main loop singletrack. I made it into second and hit the main climb for the first time in that position. My legs weren’t opened up yet and I fell to third, but was about to top out of the steep stuff and gain back my rightful place when my cassette bent and my derailleur went straight into my cogs. I jumped off, fixed it (or so I thought) jumped back on and my derailleur, which was evidently enjoying its time with my spokes hopped right back into them. Now I was quite frustrated and figured my day was basically over since probably about 40 of the 60+ guys in my field had now filed past and so had most of those who I’d caught who had started in front of me in the semi-pro, Jr. X, and Sr. I categories. I almost quit and called it day, but hell I’d paid way too much money to race for 15 minutes. I was limited to two gears for the rest of the day - my 29x14 and 44x14 neither of which makes much for a climbing gear (unless maybe you’re Les Leach).

I had to get off and run most of the steep stuff and that came back to bite me in the ass too as on the last lap my hamstring said, “that’s enough” and cramped up real good. I suppose I was due some of this since my spring MTB campaign has been pretty problem free. It’s just a little tough to swallow since I was primed for a much better finish. All in all, I was very surprised when I checked the preliminary results and found myself in 10th place in my category. I haven’t checked back to see if my placing had changed at all, but top 15 after my day…everyone keeps telling me I shouldn’t be too disappointed. I’m trying to listen.

Chris placed 13th in a class of about 70 of the nation’s top Jrs.
Thais was riding very well, but also succumbed to a mechanical and had to drop out.
Ryan Leech is on form for a great Tour of Southeast Ohio and finished 4th in Ex. Sr. II
I think the rest of these are pretty close:
Ransom took 9th in Ex. Sr. 30-34
Duffy finished in the top 10 of the semi-pro class and
Brandon was just outside the top 10 in the same class

I’m sure the official results are up by now…if you’re interested you can probably find them by surfing to www.usacycling.org.

Chris and I left pretty much immediately after the race and headed out to Indianapolis, IN to visit Carol McLaughlin, a friend of mine from college. We remedied the missing of the Sears Tower by heading straight thru Chicago on the way south. Carol was incredibly nice in letting two grungy mountain bikers crash at her place, use her laundry, and generally make a mess of things. Thanks Carol!! She even made us some yummy bars for our trip to West Virginia. In fact, as I’m writing this we’re waiting for a little more laundry to finish and are then outta here and headed for the Bergwerksusa.com (my bike sponsor) condo at Snowshoe tomorrow.

Thanks for reading, hope you’re all well. See some of you in WV!

Mike
Team PA Pension Planners