Team News

End of Summer ride report

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:32:53 -0600

It's always a short summer season in the mountains, whichever continent you happen to be in. After returning from an 89-day work project in late July, missing the entire spring and getting myself in the worst-possible state of fitness, I've really enjoyed the summer adventures in the high country. I just get the feeling Chris and I might have pushed it more than most trying to get above treeline yesterday. After the hour-long slog up Jones Pass, the several-inch-deep tyre tracks in the snow from the 4-wheelers should have alerted us to turn around. Cresting the ridge to find the jetstream had returned to the Colorado mountains for the winter should definately have turned us around. But this is the dream team (yeah right), and over an hour of pain later, pushing and carrying our bikes through snow up to 2ft deep, we stood on top of Shallow Mtn, 13300ft, and saw the open trail on the melted-out south-facing slope leading off into the distance. And I think we might have grinned. It took a good hour to reach the bottom, the trail varying between open-tundra fast track, flowy dirt in the bushes to wet roots and techy stuff lower down.

Next summer we'll be doing the repeat, but taking more trails back over rather than the I-70 corridor fast-track route home. Have the engines ready, it'll be a long one!

podiums for the team

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:53:20 -0600

Yuki won the Solo category of the 12 hours of Snowmass on Sunday completing 12 laps of the course in 11h.17m.32s ahead of 2nd place by almost 12 minutes.

Eszter was 1st, 1st, and 4th (XC, STXC, DH) at Sol Vista this weekend, and Sarah was 5th/5th/7th. Great job ladies!

Walt finished 4th from last in the men's open DH.

When asked for a comment, he said: “One of the women even beat me. Yeah, I suck.”

Race report from Ezster:

I race my first DH race of the season this Sunday. After having two fairly smooth practice runs down, I decided to go for the fairly conservative (read: lazy) way down the hill for my race run, pedaling only when I nearly came to a stop. Turns out, had I actually pedaled, I would have been on par with some of the quicker downhill ladies. Alas, maybe next time.

I then proceeded to continue to ride the lifts and hurl myself down the mountain at increasingly fast speeds until I hit a tree. Then I hit a rock. Turns out, Fat Walt's padded pants are too big for me and the pads managed to slip out of hip protecting position at the very last second. Then I paid a visit to the Sol Vista infirmary where they were very nice and gave me some band-aids and confirmed that stitches probably were not necessary for the gaping wound.

All in all, Wu JJ's bike is one of the single most fun big bikes EVER to ride and riding lifts uphill is far easier than pedaling up them.

-E

Fall Classic Race Report

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:38:15 -0600

I was in second on the first lap of the circuit race, behind Mike West, and crashed, taking out myself, and the whole posse pretty much, then my wheel fell out, and my chain got all tangled up like when I was 4 and couldn't tie my shoes. then i got a flat, and by the finish it was totally flat. so pretty awesome.

Sunday was a fun one, but unfortunately I was one of many who suffered from flat tires, and although I finished dead last out of most categories, I was third in the flat tire contest with 3.5. Matt Beaton had 4, and some junior buddy of his had 5, and had to resort to tying tubes in knots.

Next year, with some luck and training, i hope to at least win that competition!

Brian.

Winter Park Race Report

Tue, 2 Sep 2008 09:46:32 -0600

I'm sure everyone has been just, well, riveted by my race reports ("So, I was riding 5 mph up the hill for 45 minutes, but this guy in front of me was riding 5.02mph - it was really exciting...") Fear not, this will almost certainly be the last race report of 2008, because the Winter Park series concluded on Saturday with the always-fun Tipperary Creek race.

Tipperary is a great course, but there are a few bits I don't like - specifically, the long flat dirt road sections at the start and finish, and the Flume trail, which is flat or slightly downhill, 8 feet wide, and covered with rocks and roots. Just about the worst possible place to be trying to spin the 34x20, in other words.

The start of the race, as always, was pretty mellow. I think the pro field loses a minute or so to a lot of the expert (and maybe even sport) categories because everyone knows they're not going to win the race on the initial 3.5 miles of flat dirt road, so we all just sit in and chat until we hit the Tipperary climb. In any case, I ran my trusty 2x2 drivetrain (38/34 in front, 16/20 in the rear) which allowed me to stay with the pack for the flat section, then I got off and swapped to the 34x20 for the remainder of the race. Some folks once tried to give me a hard time about this setup, claiming I wasn't being a "true" singlespeeder (since I don't have any facial hair or tattoos, and I don't like cheap beer, I probably don't qualify anyway). But I'm not racing the singlespeed race, nor do I care - it's a setup I enjoy riding, and it lets me hang on for those first 3.5 miles and still race with my friends the rest of the way.

So, as usual, I was dead last onto the climb, and I spent the whole climb chasing and passing people - I think I was up to about 5th at the top, but hadn't managed to catch Paco, who is usually my rabbit for the starts of races. That was a bad sign - the legs didn't really have any snap, and I was having a lot of trouble just keeping my head up to look ahead on the trail. I rode terribly on the descent and Mike West (who I had dropped by about 30 seconds on the climb) caught me and passed me easily towards the bottom. Then Flume started, and I started going backwards - Nick caught me and blew by me with about a 5mph closing speed on his 3" travel 29er, and I think about 7 or 8 others passed me too.

That set the tone for the rest of the race. I would catch and pass Nick and several other people on every smoothish climb, then get absolutely crushed on the flat bits and descents as I desperately tried to keep my head (and motivation) up. I finally caught Nick for the final time about 2 miles from the finish, and he gamely put me on his wheel and pulled my sorry ass past one last rider before the finish line (thanks Nick!) as I was aiming for the series podium and every point was important. Alas, it wasn't enough - I finished 11th (of 42 finishers) and was 4th overall for the series, just 4 points off the podium. C'est la vie. Next year, next year. I was happy to take 2.5 minutes off my time from last year, at least.

The ladies had a better race and did quite well - Sarah raged the first half in front of some of the pros before blowing up (she raced on only a couple hours of sleep and forgot her camelback) but still took 7 minutes off her time from last year to finish 3rd in expert and win the overall for the series. Eszter also rode well and finished 2nd in the pro race, and snuck onto the podium in 3rd for the series.

In any case, a great season, even if I did miss my goal of making the final podium. I think if I'd managed to race the 2nd race (I was ill) I would have done it. Not getting hammered the night before the SuperD would have helped as well, of course. But I have no regrets - I went for it, and I had some great races as well as some very poor ones.

Walt.

Winter Park Race report

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:51:01 -0600

The team: Decimated (as an aside, check out the etymology of "decimate" - pretty crazy!) Fuentes and Nick were racing Eldora, Rusty has a slipped disc in his back, Miguel is gone to who knows where consulting on a water project, Jung's hand is still broken, and Eszter wants to "ride for fun" or some such pansy nonsense. So it was just me, Sarah, and Taryn representing.

The course: Technical. And by technical, I mean similar to operating a jackhammer for 90 minutes. We did three laps at the top of the mountain (accessed by the chairlift) which were some of the rootiest, rockiest singletrack I've ever seen. Then we descended a trail called Icarus, which featured a whole lot more rocks, as well as a couple of terrifying 40+ mph fire road sections. Throw in one last "f-you" climb just before the finish (which I think everyone walked at least some portion of) and you've got a really nice race course. I guess my description doesn't really make it sound that great, but in actuality it was fun - the mental focus required to hold the right line and hang on (no resting on these descents!) was crazy, though.

The start: As usual, I started at the very back. The opening climb was only about 3 minutes long, and it wasn't very steep, so I spun out and drifted backwards until things kicked up a bit. Managed to hit the singletrack in about 10th, though, and passed a couple riders on the first descent, then a few more on the climb.

The rest of the race: My good friend Paco (actually, Matt) and I rode together for most of the first and second laps, with him dropping me like a bad habit on the most technical bits, and me making the time back up on the smoother stuff and climbs. I finally managed to drop him halfway through lap 2 and I spent the rest of the race looking at the fabulous ass of my arch-nemesis Mike Mathers. And, as usual, while I was able to keep him in sight virtually the whole way to the finish, he prevailed again, by 10 seconds or something. I ended up 5th, not too shabby, but given the depleted field (Brian Head epic and Eldora MSC were on this weekend as well) I wasn't all that impressed with myself.

Final thoughts: Whereas at Crankworks I was able to really make myself go for it at the end of the race, today I felt distinctly unaggressive and really felt like I could have gone faster. Bummer. Maybe it was the roughness of the opening laps, maybe I've just given up on ever beating Mike, maybe I'm getting burned out and ready to spend the fall doing fun epic rides. Who knows. In any case, I'm in reasonably good shape for the series (I could conceivably be 2nd, and I have a good shot at 3rd), so hopefully King of the Rockies will go well for me next weekend.

Sarah was suffering today but riding well on the descents and finished mid-pack in the expert women's race. I don't yet know how Taryn did, and the WP website has yet to post any results, so hopefully she did well.

-Walt

Redcoat Checks in....

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:11:57 -0600

If there's one thing I've learnt in three years of playing in the mountains of Colorado, it's that getting above treeline rewards you with the greatest views, the sweetest (looking) trails, easily the best ski experiences and the worst weather. And if there's one thing I've learnt about capturing good shots on the camera in the mountains, it's that you need to be up there when the sun comes up. Since the powers-that-be decreed we have to reside in Mountain Time, it is with much annoyance that this occurs at 6 in the morning before anyone is awake, leaving the day to end all too early to get in long rides after work. But that's another story.

For once, I dragged my sorry, tired, self out of bed at silly-o-clock to join Chris for a photo shoot in the mountains of the Front Range. We'd managed to beg Walt and Sarah for their DH machines for our 5-day 'weekend' up in Winter Park, and Chris had the unenviable task of pushing what is apparently a light downhill ride up a 1000ft climb. I tagged along with two stills and one vid camera, a tripod and a lot of warm clothes. Chris was more than a willing subject... I only had to suggest he go and try something again and he booked it back up the mountain. It is substantially easier to get $$ photos when you have several chances, so cheers to Millatime for the efforts. We messed around with several different angles, lenses and so on, all the while Chris was learning the trail so he could make it look good for the video cam.

So if there's one thing I learnt from doing all this, it's that the likes of Sterling Lorence (google him) have the best friggin' job on the planet. I hope you enjoy the photos.

RC

Final Report from the Far East (of Boulder)....

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:27:06 -0600

Hello all,  So I'm wrapping up my summer here in the DaCity (D.C.). There have been ups and downs, strikes and gutters, but all in all I have enjoyed my stay. For sure the highlights have been spending time with my lovely girlfriend, working at the Army Research Lab, and going to a few races. I should be racing today actually, but I have developed some sort of nasty cough, sinus thing. Coincidentally it started after receiving my new chamoises from Mr. Stevens who himself had an illness in Boulder. Team WW/FD is notorious for cross-pollination of illnesses, so here we may have a case of long-distance infection.  Since I don't have a race to write about I'll just pass along some photos and cultural learnings. This report is broken into two parts. First a part on the city, second a part on 'away from the city.'  Part 1: In the city: a commentary on the personalities, transportation, and cuisine.  1) The city is home to its fair-share of mentally challenged people. Anyone can read about these people in the newspapers and on the web. But wouldn't you know it, D.C. is such a warm, loving place, these handicapped folks are institutionalized at a prime residence overlooking the city on Capitol Hill. The most 'challenged' person and his family is given an entire white mansion.  1a) The city is home to lots of crack addicts, these people can be found on most street corners and offer free advice on almost any topic.

 

 2) The people here are very giving. They give up their money in the form of gasoline by flooring their SUV's to the next red light one block away, they give up their time by sitting in enumerable traffic jams, and they provide audible assistance by incessant horn honking.

  3) The city is efficient…: The traffic lights here are not timed. In Colorado, you can make a string of traffic lights and thus save gas by not having to stop and start. Here, the lights are typically timed to be against you. i.e. your light turns green, the light one block away turns red.  4) The metro kicks ass! I really like the metro. Give me a bike and the metro and I'll get just about anywhere, and I'll do it for the almost no cost and in a fraction of the time of driving there. Driving here sucks, it sucks so bad. I don't know why anyone drives here, it's so awful I would think people would just give up.  5) Parking: About 10 times as painful as driving. Parking tickets: $100. Yes, $100, as in 100x$1. You may as well as abandon your illegally parked car and go buy a new one.  6) They grow some good sidewalks here. I think the reason is they water their sidewalks even more than we do in Colorado. Check out the photo of this guy. I watched him water his plants, then move right on to watering the sidewalk. Well done!

  7) This is the only coffee you will get here. Its costs like a million dollars for a small cup of regular coffee and they don't have internet unless you want to pay for it.

  8) Groceries: Whole Paycheck: A complete ripoff. Trader Joes: quality, manageable prices. Safeway: you'd be better off hunting the rats that roam the streets at night.  9) Alcohol: "Our finest beer sir, Budweiser, served chilled in a plastic cup. Yes sir, that will be $6."  10) Getting to the airport is so easy. The metro drops you off at the terminal, security is a breeze. If only the damn airlines would stop operating like a third-rate carnival, flying could almost be enjoyable again.  11) There are a lot of ladies here. There are business ladies, sporty ladies, studious ladies, doctor ladies, lawyer ladies, and they all seem to stay pretty fit because I see lots of jogging ladies, gym ladies, and bike riding ladies. It doesn't seem like there are so many dudes here though (you know if you were looking for that type of thing.) But seriously, the ones that are here generally wear penny loafers and khaki shorts or maybe a sweater around their neck, I guess in case it mysteriously drops from 100 degrees and 90% humidity. Bottom line, even if my long-distance lady wanted a new guy, she wouldn't be able to find one. That and well, who would compare to me anyway..have you seen my legs?  Part 2: Out of the City  1) The woods here are really cool, and when you want to go mountain biking you are treated to singletrack. No dirt roads, not even much double track, just real, raw singletrack. Sweet!

  2) The people that enjoy the trails with you are very friendly. The race crowd is especially nice!  3) There are lots of streams, rivers, and lush vegetation. Some are clean, some are not:

 4) The races are extremely well done and cheap. I won't go into it too much, but after racing this summer, clearly there is no connection between quality and USA Cycling involvement (well maybe an inverse relationship). See below for a photograph of a table stocked with “prizes” and “schwag” for every category, concepts that are apparently foreign to western race promoters.

 5) The states are small: You can travel through 3 or 4 states in a only a few hours.  6) There are no mountains. Definitely a bummer.   7) If it is hot out, and it always is, you will not feel a cool breeze when descending, no matter how fast you go. It is too humid.  8) You may have to jump over turtles on the trails.

  9) You will have to learn how to hop over fallen trees/logs.   10) There is limited traffic on the weekends, no I-70 type traffic jams...probably because most people are still stuck in a traffic jam inside the city.

Collin.

Leadville 100

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:14:36 -0600

I finished in 21st overall and 3rd in my age group with time of 7:58:10. The race was absolutely brutal, but super fun at the same time! There were about 1100 racers! That was cool to ride with Lance Armstrong and Dave Wiens for a while, but I blew up badly and had to back off to recover....

A good video at superhumanmag.com. Lance was drafting me!
http://www.superhumanmag.com/content/view/763/92/

Another cool video.
http://velonews.tv/?articleID=2359

Yuki

Colorado State MTB Champs

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:12:39 -0600

it felt like a group ride with my friends, until i thought we were all going to die together, the lightning at the top was super close, simultaneous lighting and thunder, and the ground shook and my hair was standing up, and kelly mc. told me he was "legitimately freaked out" at that point and we were racing just to get off the mountain at that point, i knew they were calling it!

Short track report + Winter Park

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:10:54 -0600

Wednesday was Sarah and I's final short track of the year, as we're headed to Vermont on monday morning and will miss the finals. Temps in Boulder have been running in the mid to high 90s for like 3 weeks now (no joke, it's cooler in Moab!) and I'd just had a cavity filled at the dentist (joy) so my enthusiasm wasn't high. I managed to talk myself into twist-tying on a number and rolling over to the course, thinking I'd probably just watch (a toothache plus race-pace suffering is a bad combo, methinks).

As usual, though, once I was at the race, I couldn't help but get excited about it, despite the dust, sun, and furnace-like air. Sarah raced the women's A race and did quite well, beating everyone but the pros, and doing some sweet jumps that none of the other girls would hit. She definitely had the game face on as well, and I gave her some good cheers from the gallery, since "warming up" seemed painful and redundant.

The guys race had about 30-35 - not a huge field, but a lot of fast folks were there. Because we're all so competitive, we had some fairly hilarious start-line creep (people kept trying to get in front of each other, and pushing forward) until we'd only left ourselves about 50 feet of doubletrack to the first (sharp, loose, horrible) turn. Nice work, everyone. The efforts of Abby the short-track goddess to get us to move back to the _original_ start line were unsuccessful, so the sprint to the corner was a little crazy. I had to lock up both wheels at one point, and I know there was some crashing behind me, though luckily no one went down in front.

I don't know what my story was, but I felt great - picked off rider after rider and moved up to 5th or 6th place by the end of the race. I was making tons of time on the steep downhills and hip jumps - which made me feel good about my bike handling. And I felt like I had power to spare - Brady and Fuentes (the lead group) finished only about 20 seconds ahead of me, whereas in a typical race, they'd have had put 2-3 minutes in by the end. So essentially my best short track race ever.

Eszter ripped it up in the women's A race and took 4th (and she's solidly on track to win the series) and Fuentes looks like a lock to win the men's series, so we're looking at a nice sweep by team Waltworks. Sweet!

I spent Thursday and Friday suffering in the heat in the shop and trying to get things wrapped up before Vermont (Lorne, if you don't email me your address, you're not getting your fork until I get back!) But we did a good job preparing for Saturday's Crankworx (gah, I hate substituting X for ks, don't you?) race - rode hard but not too long on Friday, drank lots of liquids, and stuffed ourselves with homemade lasagna (anyone want me to post a new recipe? Or is everyone glad that I don't do that anymore?) I was feeling confident after the short track success as well, and we even managed to make it to the start with 10 minutes to spare (I'm notorious for missing the starts of races that begin at the Frasier end of the valley)

The field, to be honest, was totally stacked. Jay Henry, Colin Cares, Rad Ross Schnell, and Andy Schultz were among the super-super fast pros that I was pretty sure would absolutely crush me. We had about 50 guys on the start line, and I was gunning to beat my 3 rivals for the final series podium - Brady, Mike, and Micah. The course was pretty brutal - 24 miles and a solid 4+k feet of climbing, including some nice steep technical stuff - WTB, upper Elk Creek, D4, etc. Here's a profile of the course (stolen from the WP race site).

The race started SUPER fast and I could see a lead group off the front immediately - though of course I was way at the back and could do nothing but watch in awe. I knew it was going to be a long race, though, so I kept it a bit below max and tried to really pace myself up the massive 2200 foot opening climb. That strategy paid off, as a big chunk of the field blew up and I rode into about 15th place by the top of the climb, passing both Brady and Micah (both of whom I would end up beating, albeit not by much) by the top. The descent was awesome and I caught a few more people, though they got me back on the flat/rolling descent of some fire road and the Zoom trail.

For most of the middle section of the race, Brady and I swapped places in around 12th position, with me passing him on the climbs and him getting me back on the flatter descents and road sections where I was spun out. At the bottom of Chickadee (the base of the final 1000 foot climb) I knew I had to go harder, so I attacked and quickly got a significant gap. Over the course of the climb, I caught up to another rider just before we turned onto singletrack to descend to the base, and I actually managed to outsprint him to the trail. Then I caught and passed a Tokyo Joes rider on the descent and came within 8 seconds of catching my arch-nemesis Mike. I was really letting it all hang out on the descent and even have a nice bruise on my shoulder from getting friendly with a tree, but it was worth it, as I snuck into the top 10 and finished 9th, probably the result I'm most proud of for the whole season. I only lost 7 minutes to the eventual winner Jay Henry, and I was within striking distance of a number of really fast guys, so I'm super happy. Might have to put some gears on next year... but I doubt I will. The singlespeed is way too fun.

Sarah also had an excellent race and finished 2nd in the expert women, and Eszter rocked it and took 2nd in pro (and I think she got a big fat check, too!) Rusty had a hard race and was 21st in sport, and I think Taryn was 7th or 8th in sport. Great racing all around!

I think they were paying out 10 deep, but I figured I'd only get $50 or something, so we ditched out just as the rain was starting to fall and the slopestyle comp was starting. Crankworx was really a great scene this year, with a HUGE crowd out to drink beer, eat brats, ride their bikes, and watch the pros throw backflips and tailwhips off of huge dirtjumps. Definitely something to check out in 2009 if you're in Colorado.