Single Speed Niner Build

 Last year SSusa was on August 18th. That also happens to be the same day I got married to the greatest girl on the planet. I asked Kelly if she wanted to go to Minnesota and hang at a bike race to celebrate, but that was not her idea of a great time.  Then comes the announcement of SSUSA 14 in Copper Habor Michigan and it's not on our anniversary so Kelly agreed to take the trip up with me.

  Kelly had bought me a Trek Marlin SS for my birthday 2 years ago to ride on Thursday nights with the guys. I didn't want to drop a bunch of cash on a bike that I wasn't sure I was going to ride much. I was wrong. In the time I had that bike my Giant Anthem 29er geared bike hung on the wall and the $300 trek became my go to bike. 

   With the entry paid to SSUSA 14 and a friend looking for a cheap MTB to buy, I decided to go all out and build a bike for the race and a legit SS as my go to bike. I looked into frames and decided to go with steel. I had ridden a Niner in a race last year and liked it. With the Niner frame getting the carbon fork is a no brainer. For the drivetrain I went with XO1 cranks with a 34 tooth absolute black direct bolt chainring, a sram SS chain, and a Endless Bike Co. 17 tooth cog. For the wheelset I chose American Classic hubs laced to Stan's Crest wheels wrapped with 2.3 renegade SWorks tires front and rear. I have a set of XO trail four piston brakes with 160 rotors front and rear for stopping power and to match the crankset. The rest of the cockpit is all Thomson, X4 stem with red faceplate, carbon riser bar and silver elite seat post. 

While the trails are in the process of drying out Il just sit here and stare at this thing of beauty.  Thanks to Kelly AKA www.Alexander-Photography.com for taking such great pictures of this project.

And so it begins. Cyclocross. Jackson Park Relay

The start of the Chicago cross race season begins with a relay race in Jackson Park. I ask a good friend and training partner Sean Metz of Sammy's elite road team to do the race with me. Sean is a cat 1 and I'm a cat 4 so our only option was to do the 30+ race. The start of our race was at 10:00 so we headed out at 7:30 hit the park at 8:30 got changed and rode a lap to warm up and see if we were still able to do barriers

   After the short warm up we headed to the staging area where we were going to do a lemans style start.

Sean chose to do the first lap and run to the start. I waited in the transfer area with his bike, we had a great start and Sean came out of the gate in 4th place. Sean held his position till the first set of double barriers misstepped in the middle and tripped over the second falling and knocking the wind out of himself. After the mishap we had a smooth exchange and only dropped a few spots.

Then it was my lap and let's just say relays are fast there are no easy laps because you rest every other so it's all in every lap.

I had consistent laps not the fastest but I'm not the fastest and I know that.  I was racing against  a friend  who was synced to the same lap as I was so that pushed me a bit thanks Chris Jensen . We ended up in 7th the first time I checked the results but the next time I checked we were tied for 14th with Chris. I feel we were in 7th but it was more of a fun race so I wasn't concerned where we placed. As I write this on Wednesday I'm still sore as shit and just able to walk without pain. Was it fun? Yes. Does it hurt? Hell Ya. I can't wait till the real season starts maybe this year I can podium. One can dream. 

Thanks Sean Metz for trying to compensate for my slow ass. 

Almanzo 100 pre-race.

    So the time has come for the Almanzo 100. The day started off as usual with the wife and kids then packing up all the bike clothes and normal clothes and getting the bike gear packed in the car. I left the house at the time desired 12:00 to meet up with Jon Schratz my Co-pilot. We headed out from his house itching to get the trip started maybe a little to quick about 15 min into the trip I got pulled over by Aurora's finest. He told me to slow down that I should know better having a cld good thing because a 20 over ticket would have made this trip expensive. After a short stop in DeKalb at North Central Cyclery to drop off a few beers to a friend and pick up a frame bag we were on our way.  

    Five hours later we rolled into Spring Valley MN the packet pick up was at the community center. As we walked up to the door Chris Skogen was out front shaking hands of the riders entering the building.  I must say the guy is a class act. We went in to get our numbers and sign over our life's. I was given number 69 kind of cool. After checking in they had an all you can eat spaghetti dinner for 8 dollars well worth it. 

   After a short drive to where we are staying it took about 45 min to set up the bike and pack my bags with food, cameras, water,and tools. With the bike set up and ready to go it time of a beer and hit the sack and see where tomorrow takes me. 

My rig

-foundry cycles auger canti 

-50 mm carbon clinchers

-continental speed cross tires

-garmin 500

-GoPro hd Hero 2

-Nikon AW100

-banjo brothers top tube bag

-Revelate Tangle frame bag size large 

-2 16 ounce bottles and a 50 oz bladder in the frame bag

-Honey Stinger waffles and chews for food

-Skratch Labs hydration mix in the bottles

IVCA Dirty Mudd'r

The Weekend started with work on Saturday. If you have watched any news or live in the Midwest you know there was been massive flooding. I am a garbage man so my day consisted of lifting wet rolls of carpet into a garbage truck. Then the rest of the day and into the night my wife and I were going to a friends wedding. So needless to say Sunday morning when Brent showed up at 7am I had slept for 6 hours and felt like my legs were going to fall off.
We loaded up the truck stopped at Mc Donald's and hit the highway for the hour drive to the ride. The coffee helped wake me up but the legs were a different story. We got to the race I got ready as fast as I could knowing I needed to get a good warmup in to wake the legs. My plan was the usual I have for this type of race go hard at the horn try to stay with the lead group as long as possible then kick back and find a group to pace the rest of the race with.
The horn sounded and we were off. I was fourth out of the gate and stayed up there for awhile. As we got about 12 miles in I was in the middle of the lead group and started to see people were starting to get a little out of control so I sat up and dropped back. Then at the next corner there was a crash in the part of the pack I was in. Feeling lucky I rode up to make sure everyone was ok and pedaled on to hook up with a group from half acre beer until the first check point. Once there, I filled a bottle, grabbed a cookie and hit the road solo. I continued this way until the last 10 miles when I was getting the feeling like I wanted to chop my legs off. At that time I looked back and the half acre guys were there the bring it in as a group. I was thankful to see them. It went form 11 mph solo to 20 working as a great team. We stayed together to the end picking of a couple solo riders on the way in.
So after a late night and sore legs at the start I ended up having a great ride. There were a couple of guys that were riding that I wanted to come in ahead of. This wasn't a race but when you get 100 plus guys together it ends up that way. I did finish ahead of Rob Neff which I have never been able to do on a mountain bike and was my motivation for the ride.
After the race they had pulled pork sandwiches and home brewed beer. The guys at IVCA ran a great ride and had great beer and food. Thanks for all the hard work.

Barry-Roubaix 2013

 This would be my second year racing this event.  My goal was to have a great weekend with the wife and finish better then last year.  I started to (annoy my wife) I mean prep for the race on Monday with the crazy spring weather I wasn't sure how conditions were going to be.  So on friday Sean called and asked what are you packing I responded I have packed every piece of clothes and set of tires I own and should probably go buy a few more.
    On race morning I woke up with a major head cold so we loaded up and took off planning on stoping at a pharmacy that didn't happen they dont open till 9:00.  So we continued on to packet pickup. Once in the lot I had 45 min till my wave was to start the race was all ready on in my head to get ready and get to the line.  So the wife helped me get my stuff together and Sean and I headed to the line.  Getting there late would leave me no time to warm up or think about changing tires so on the line I sat with file treads hoping for the best.

    My pace plan was to get with the lead group and try to hang as long as I could then go ten miles or so at my pace and kill the last fifteen miles. I hung on to the group for a bit but I felt the strongest on the icy descents due to MTBing in the snow the file treads were money.  I was also helped out by getting into some very fast pacelines at one point we were hitting speeds close to 40 mph on the pavement sections.  After the last section of dirt came to an end I knew we were close and it was time to empty the tank.  I was in a group of about ten riders coming to the finish as we rounded the final corner I sprinted to the line along side one other rider. I finished in 2hours 5min twenty minutes better then last year.
  We hung out and had a few beers and watched the podiums then packed up drove back to the hotel showered up and went bowling (payback to the wife) all in all a great trip and can't wait till next year.