The Family is Getting Good!

Last weekend was full of riding for the entire family. Andrea and I hit Hillside Saturday and Monday morning early and we brought the entire family to Lebanon Hills Monday afternoon. I get so much enjoyment from watching them progress in the sport I absolutely love.

Andrea has made huge improvements since last year and she now has the confidence to attack any condition. She easily handles obstacles and sections she previously thought un-ridable. Subsequently, her lap times took a considerable drop since last year and continue to steadily decline. For example, last year at Hillside her best lap time was around 1:07. This year she started in the high 50s and has worked it down to a little over 51 minutes. She will soon be turning sub 50 min laps and I can see her getting down near 45 by the end of the season.

The kids are also having a blast. I road with my oldest daughter @ Lebanon Hills on Monday and we did the intermediate loop in a little over 32 minutes. I was amazed at her ability to pick clean lines through the rock gardens, and react instantly to changes in the trail. She executed the technical sections cleaner than I did. Taylor, Devon, and Wyatt had a great time on the beginner loop while Andrea and I watched in amazement. Taylor was all smiles as she weaved through the twisty single track and I could tell she really like the bridges. Devon loves his new "Proline mini" and with the skinny tires and light weight he flies through the trails. Finally, Wyatt (age 4) was able to ride the entire loop with no help from mom or dad. It was awesome watching him navigate through the trails on his tiny bike, even small roots are gigantic to 16" wheels. He even passed one guy who was walking his bike as he entered the beginner trail from the intermediate loop. My wife told me that the guy said, "Sure now I get passed by a 6 year old." She did not have the heart to tell him that he was only 4. I think he completed 5 laps, each time no help from us.

We can only imagine how good these kids will become as they get older. Our only goal is to allow them to love the sport as their "own". Yes, we are proud parents.

MNSCS #1 Erik's Spring Cup

Matt's First Expert Race: Room to improve, but happy with result.



The race is over and I am fairly happy with the result. I knew the jump from sport to expert would be difficult and I did not have expectations of running in the lead group.

The start was fairly ridiculous. Not only do the experts get a very quick jump off the line, but unlike sport the speed continues to build and build.


I found myself at the back of the pack before we got to the water tower and I was trying to get the speed to pass a few people during the prologue. I think I managed to pass two or three people before entering the single track. During the first tight section of single track I felt as if I was getting a little hung up and would have liked to have been further up in the field. Part way through the first lap I made another pass and tried to bridge the gap between a group of two riders in front of me. After lap one I passed another rider on the walkway and made good time through the school fields and past the start/finish line. My legs started to feel good on lap two and I was gaining on the group in front of me, but I could not seem to catch them. I felt alone out there and it was mentally very hard to push at that pace without someone to race with. That changed when the lead comp riders finally bridged the 2 minute gap just the start of lap 4. I held off the lead group of two for a little while and then allowed them to pass, not wanting to hold them up. I held their wheel for next half a lap and was going faster with them than riding alone. The little while later the leading comp rider slid out in a turn and the second place guy got by but I wasn't able to. The first place rider was able to gradually pull away and I was slowed slightly.

By the middle of lap 4 I could tell that my pace had slowed a bit but I was still feeling pretty good. All in all I think two more comp riders passed me by the end of the race, but the expert riders I had passed were no where to be found. I came through the finish line with a good sprint and finished 28 out of 35 riders less than 9 minutes behind the leader.

Andrea's First Sport Race, Well Done!

Well all the training paid off!!! After hours upon hours and miles upon miles of training since November in preparation for my jump from citizen to sport and the first race of the MNSCS season, I had a respectable finish. I finished 3rd out of 7 for my age group and 6 out of 13 for women in the sport category. The race was fast and twisty and technical, usually I would shy back, but I started right in the front and had a pretty good start. I stayed right in the middle of the pack of the women, and for awhile we all stayed together. After a bit the lead women started to pull away, this is where I made a mistake. I was following closely behind another female rider and I should have passed her, but I hesitated too long and when I finally passed her I had to work hard to catch up to the next female rider ahead of me. I finally caught her and stayed close to her wheel the rest of the second lap, as soon as we headed out of the singletrack I put it in the big chainring and gunned it. I passed her and stayed ahead until I noticed my front wheel was shaking, I looked down and my wheel had loosened up I rode for a short time until I knew I needed to stop and tighten it up, I did a quick fix, and got on my bike before she caught up. But I should have spent a little longer tightening it up because a short time later it came loose again and I needed to stop again, this time she passed me and I stayed as close as I could. The rest of the third lap we passed a few people and this is what allowed her to get too far ahead for me to catch up. I still had enough energy at the end of the race I tried to catch her but ended up finishing close behind (the results say 1 minute and 9 seconds I think it was closer than that). All in all I am happy with everything about the race.

Jordan's jump from kids comp to citizen also went very well!!

Jordan finished 2nd out of 7 in the 10-18 women's category and 7 out of 15 for all the citizen women. She started with a bang. She was lined up right in the front row of a huge wave (all women, men 40 and over, clydesdales, and single speeders) right after the start the girl next to her got pushed and fell over right into Jordan and then she fell over. She quickly got back on her bike and was looking good. After her prolouge lap and lap 1 she looked deteremined, and she looked great. She said the race went well. She is ready to go for the next race.

Taylor jumped into the kids comp category and did great! Matt rode with her to give her pointers and encouragement. She had a great race and only fell over once. It was a bit cold on Sunday and she was wearing gloves and had a hard time shifting into her middle chain ring so she was a bit frustrated by the time she came in. She finished 3rd out of 3 for her age group and 15 out of 18 overall. She is ready to race the next race. Good Job Taylor!!

Race Results

Pro UCI MTB Race @ Maplelag

Jordan and I had a chance to watch the pro men and women race at the UCI Spring Opener at Maplelag resort today. Because of the schedule and being a new venue the turnout was smaller than normal, but the racing was really good.

Women's Race

The women went out at 11:00 AM to perfect conditions.

Men's Race

BMX Park

As always the kids spent some time at the BMX park and were performing some pretty "sick" moves. The boys from Canada were down again and keep getting bigger and faster. Jordan even got some air on some of the jumps, but didn't get up the nerves to hit the 8 foot gap jump.

Course Pre ride

Later in the day Jordan and I went out for a pre ride and I took her on the lake side drops. I was impressed with her ability to handle the rocks and roots that are strewn all over the trails. She even handled the tough climbs that twist through the woods. Tomorrow should be much easier and Jordan says she is ready for the race. I know she will do really well.

First Race of the Season

Tonight the family will be heading out to Buck Hill for the first race of the 2007 MTB season. Andrea will try sport, Jordan citizen, and I will be challenging myself in expert. Conditions are just about perfect, and the heat (86 F) will be good for acclimating to the conditions yet to come. I will provide a complete recount of the race later tonight.

Race Report (Matt):

Let's just say that it is probably not good to feel as rested as I was at the end of the race. I think I finished 39th out of 47 in the Advance field. Not what I had hoped for but not last place either. Since there is no Comp class at the Thursday night races it is somewhat hard to tell how this will stack up in the MNSCS series. The drive in from Hutchinson takes a little over an hour and a half so we did not have much time to get all the bikes down, register, and have a decent warm up before the race start. After the race meeting I headed down to the start line to find I was nearly the last person to arrive. I did not have a good starting spot because rec and beginners classes were all bunched up behind the advanced riders. Therefore, I picked a spot near the back on the far right side of the road (in the grass). Mentally I had no ambition to push it hard at the start, but in hindsight it would have been a better idea. The race starts with a gradual hill on a gravel service road then veers to the right and down across the base of the ski runs before entering the single track. As usual there was a fairly large pile-up at the entrance of the single track at a short steep section. I had to get off my bike for a few seconds to run up a short section and quickly remounted. The pace was slow, however, and the leaders were gone. There was virtually no place to pass in the single track sections, therefore, I just followed at the pace of the riders in front of me. I feel confident that I could have rode the single track sections faster and with a better start. The conditions were extremely dry and dust and it started to take a tool on my lungs. By the end of the first lap I started to ca ugh really bad and it go worse any time I started to push it. This continued into the third lap and I never really felt good for the remainder of the race. I was actually having trouble taking in air; I have never experienced this before.

Near the end of lap two I came up on Jordan who was nearing the end of her lap in the beginner class. She was standing off the trail and I could see she was upset and frustrated. I stopped to help her out as she explained that the bike was making some weird sounds and it was making her worried. I gave her some much needed encouragement and she was able to get back on the bike in a fairly difficult section and ride like a pro. I will have to look at her bike to find out what the problem is; I do know that her chain is too long and needs to be shortened. After Jordan got back on her way and was out in the open I resumed my race. Despite the problems with my lungs I felt I could push hard and I could hang with most racers on the hill sections. For some reason I didn't feel as though I was going fast enough in the single track sections though. The remainder of laps 3 and 4 were fairly uneventful and I just put it in cruse control for the remainder of the race.

Race Report (Andrea):

Summary:

All in all I finished in about 1 hour 6 minutes with the leaders finishing in about 53 minutes. A full 13 minutes behind the leaders or about 25% off the leaders time. I will update the results when the are posted on the Penn Cycle site. I placed 39th out of 47 riders in advanced.

"Mud Madness" Cancelled Due to Weather?

After all the careful well laid plans for the weekend Mother Nature put a wrench in the plans. The 2007 Mankato "Mud Madness" was cancelled due to bad weather. After a a brief period of rain Saturday afternoon, the clouds lifted slightly and the rest of the day was fairly nice. The weather forecast at 10:00 PM looked promising with the rain supposedly holding off till later in the day on Sunday. We woke up early morning on Sunday, however, to the sound of wind blown rain against the hotel window. We quickly turned on the weather channel to see a "sea" of yellow and orange heading strait through Mankato. Not knowing what to expect, we started packing up and grabbed a quick continental breakfast in the lobby. On the short drive to Mt. Kato there was a lot of lightning and it started to rain harder. When we pulled into the parking lot we had a good idea the race was going to be cancelled. We talked to the race promoters and they had decided to reschedule the race due to lightning. Andrea and I were a little bummed, but neither of us wanted to race in a mud fest. We packed up the kids and had enough time to make it to Sunday morning church.

Since we are still actively training for the MTB season, we now had to find out what type of workout to substitute in for the missing race. Fortunately, Hutchinson had not received much rain and we were able to go out later in the afternoon for a simulated race at Stahl's Lake. We set up a combination of ski train (double track) and single track to set up a race course. The outer loop of the ski trail is 1.1 mi in length and the single track is 3.1 miles for a total length of a 4.2 mile loop. Andrea and I warmed up on the inner ski trail and then went our separate ways. I turned 4 laps with average times around 23-24 minutes and Andrea completed 3 laps at around 26-27 minutes. Andrea said that the her second lap was her best and despite the slick conditions cleared all the climbs. By the last lap my lower back was getting really sore and I could tell my speed was slowing down. I need to continue to ride more on the trails to get the rest of my upper body ready for race efforts.

Getting Ready for the First Race

This weekend (May 6th) is the first race of the season at Mt. Kato. Although we have listed it as a B priority race I approach each race with the same level of enthusiasm. Last time I checked there was a possibility of rain Saturday and Sunday so the race might live up to its name: Mud Madness. This will be the first time that Andrea has ridden in the Sport class and I have ridden in the Expert class. Andrea has put in a huge training effort and should do very well in Sport. I have also put together a much more structured training effort; time will tell how well it pays off in Expert.

Last week was a R&R week after the final build phase of the training. Therefore, we rested by spending 9+ hours at Stahl's Lake Park blowing, raking, and clearing the local MTB trail. The legs got a rest, but the upper body got a very good workout. Today I turned a couple of race pace laps out at Stahl's lake turning lap times of 16:30, 15:56, 16:32. I had planned on riding 5-6 laps, but the work schedule and lack of planning on my part prohibited that. Andrea managed to get up at 4:30 again this morning for some intense criss-cross thresholds. She was able to get her heart rate above the 165 mark for her high intensity intervals (great job!). That ability to push hard, recover at a high intensity, and push again is very important in race situations.