PICX 2

Since I was apparently in charge of building the course for this race I mostly just wanted to make it fun. I think that was accomplished. The field ended up being bumpier than I remember but.. hey.

After a "few" of us built the course on Saturday I rode for a little over an hour checking it out. It was fun but seemed harder than I imagined it would be.

Got to the course Sunday morning at 9 AM to finish setting some things up and make sure deer hadn't ripped everything down. Not too bad.

By race time I felt tired a little. Wasn't sure how the race was going to go. First lap everything stayed together. 2nd lap a little more spread out but every one was still close. 3rd lap things were getting thinned out a bit. 4th lap up the hill I some how managed to kick my rear break into the wheel and the spokes sucked it in and pretty much locked up my wheel going up the steep grunt climb right at the top. I thought for sure I had a broken wheel, at least some broken spokes. I got off and looked. Pried the brake out of the wheel and re-attached the cable. I then looked at the wheel and all the spokes. All were there and straight. They all had a little bit of yellow king stop pad on them and my left rear brake pad is ground down pretty good. Just some cosmetic damage. Thankfully.

Got going again but way off the back. At one lap to go I Drew Black back in my sights. At half a lap to go I caught and passed him. He had reserves though. I did not.

He came back around me and pulled away quickly. Finished 6th which kind of sucks for the turn out but not bad considering the people that were there. These PICX weekends leave me feeling like I raced a 6 hour....


Drew's attack face - last lap.


My suffer face - last lap and losing...


Photo's by Mike Dawson.

Gateway X cup

Man, there have been a ton of races already. Gateway is a new race this year on a Wednesday night at Heman park in U-City. When I first looked at the course map and heard rumors of the place being super flat I was optimistic at best. But, the course was great and I really don't think it could have been any better. Didn't suit me by any means as I am not a diesel engine, but it was still a lot of fun to ride and good practice.


Depending on which report you read, there were somewhere between 60 and 65 riders in the mens open race. I am going to take a step further and say there were 84. Ok, there were really only riders in the low 60's.

I signed up kind of late and got a call up for 4th row. Not bad but not great. Lucky me the guy who was supposed to be in front of me missed his call up meaning I had a open slot in front of me for an easy start. Nice.

The race gets going. We survive the first sketchy gravel turn and start the long process of sprinting down a lot of long straight aways. I was running around 10th place for a couple laps. I soon started having some breathing issues. The same issue I have had for so many seasons now. Not sure if it was my lack of preparation, dust, or the fact that it truly was a fit mans course. Lots of hard breathing during the race and not much rest. I struggle on courses like this.


Photo by Mike Dawson

So, I started to gag a little and had to slow up to get my breathing under control. Soon Richard Breininger(Todd Wells mechanic) comes by me and tell me to hold his wheel and recover. Try as I might I could only hold his wheel for about a half lap. Breathing was not back to normal yet so it was a little too soon for that. After I fell off his wheel I eased up a bit to calm down. Soon I was able to get going again but not before a couple more slipped passed me.


Photo by Rob Ballou

After a couple laps riding by myself Bob Arnold caught up to me and we started working together. There was a group of 4 in front of us with a smaller group of 2 just up from them. As the laps ticked down we slowly reeled in the group of 4 but ran out of laps. We finished about 5 seconds down from them.

Me drafting Bob on the run up.

Photo by Rob Ballou

I ended up 16th out of about 64 riders total on a course that doesn't suit me, when I wasn't my best. Paid top 15. Having said that, I'm glad the course was the way it was because that's what I need the most practice on. Drag race, turn. Drag race, turn. Drag race, turn.

Super fun race and am once again very pleased with my result. After our race I got cleaned up to watch the PRO UCI race. Great racing but kind of small turn out. It was fun yelling at the local racers in there. I then killed He-Man. It was caught on video...



The video isnt that good, but the stills are...





Gordon Moore this weekend. Be there!!

Hermann CX weekend extravaganza.

Saturday night at Hermann was my first test for things to come. Last week I was shit and knew it. This week I had time to focus on the race and the race only. Sweet.

Before the race started I was nervous. Nervous that my cat 2 upgrade was a joke. Nervous that I had no chance of being the cx racer I want to be. I lined up near the back of the 32 rider field. The start of this race is super fast being wide smooth pavement. There was a pretty big crash right after the start but it was on the other side of the road from me so I missed that one. Then, just before the grass there was another crash. Missed that one too.

After a lap I started moving up alittle in places I felt I could. I soon found myself in a small group of guys I didn't know. We traded places through out the race but we all pretty well stuck together. Little punches were coming from all of us but no one ever really got anywhere. Soon it was only 3 to go and we were gaining on the group in front of us. On the last lap our group had spread out except for me and another rider. The last time through the second sand pit the guy in front of me thought he would ride the second barrier. I ran past him and went into a full sprint down the back straight. From here we were both pretty much sprinting. There was another rider in front of us and I nearly out sprinted him at the finish. We almost caught the group in front of us.

So I ended up 16th. That's exactly mid pack of a 32 rider field. It was a fast group so I was pretty pumped with it. A couple of the riders in the group in front of us were guys that would slaughter me last year.

This is when things started getting strange...

I had 3 or 4 beers after the race and hung out for a while. I then went to find my brother who was camping and he was hanging out with Jim Davis. These two had never met before in there lives and of course found each other some how. Those two hanging out couldn't be a better match.

So then Leslie and I head back to to where out Hotel was. We stopped at McDonald's so I could get a 20 piece mc nugget and a small fry. That shit was good. After dinner we went to check in. The Indian guy at the front counter told me his name was Aljazeera. I thought how weird it was to be named after a news broadcast.

He asks for my ID and I show it to him.

aljazeera: Alton huh. That's not to far.
me: Nope not really.
aljazeera: I used to be a manager there.
me: really? where at?
aljazeera: on the corner of college and central
me:...? at the gas station on the circle?
aljazeera: yep the circle.


I wanted to ask him how many times he was robbed but just took the key and went to my room instead. For those who came to the pride race last Sunday, it was the gas station on the circle right by the park. Not a nice place when the sun goes down. So maybe things weren't that weird...

On to Sunday.

Sunday morning it looked like the course was going to be slop. But, they didn't get as much rain as I thought they did. Warming up, Butthead gave me the best compliment ever.

"Nice job yesterday, I didn't lap you". True. We joked about it..

I now had some expectations of myself for the Sunday race. The course was getting tacky so traction was not going to be an issue. I was able to do a fare amount of preriding so I felt like I was ready. I make sure my socks were pulled all they way up. Notice here. Pulled up to the base of the calf and tight. Perfect.


So the race gets going. I was a little more aggressive at the start this time feeling confident. With in a couple laps I was moving up passing a rider or two each lap. At 5 laps to go I had ridden myself up into 8th place. That's what people were yelling anyway. Then disaster struck. Something wasn't right. My legs started hurting and my back was in knots. Bad pain. Started going backwards. I feel all the way back to 11th and finished there. A great result for sure but I knew something wasn't right. Something serious.


I found out what the problem was. Scroll down to the next pic but I warn you. Its ugly and not for the faint hearted...























Holy fuck. How ugly is that? Its obvious what the problem was. I cant believe no one stopped me mid race to let me know about this. Careers are ruined over things like this. If you look close you can see that my right sock slid down about 1 cm causing a wrinkle in the sock. Good thing I wasn't in the top ten. Looking like this is rude, un-professional, and down right disrespectful to the other racers and race promoters. Looking like white trash is not cool.


Ok. So im joking a tad. The leg and back pain was real though and I fought like hell on Sunday. Pretty happy with 11th too. Less racers but hey.. I will take it.

Finished 12th over all for the weekend and am very pleased with myself. The course was awesome and Jeff Yielding did another flawless job(minus bike wash location;)) and I cant wait for next year already.


I now have some expectations of regular top 10 finishes in Bubba this year. Hoping so anyway...

This is the strangest blog post I have ever posted I think...

Photos by Jason Watkins

PICX 1 - TOAST

The first race of the year is done. The race for me started Saturday morning at 9 am swinging a 4 pound sledge for 4 hours driving wooden stakes in the ground. My right arm is still sore from that. Pretty happy with course. If I had 100% control of how it was built I think there are some things I would have changed, but cant complain.

Sunday morning I got to the course again at 9 am to fix any and all stakes that were knocked down by all the inner city deer that we have. There every were, its kind of weird. Not much damage though.

I lined up for the Men's open race with zero expectation and socks pulled up as high as they would go. This is good and bad. Meant that I had no stress, also meant I wasn't going to be riding good since I was already tired from working at the park all weekend but would still look very pro while going slow. Its amazing what half a day swinging a hammer around while standing will do to your overall fatigue levels.

So I started at the back and made no efforts to pass anyone for the first lap. I was able to start picking off a few riders going into the second lap but I wasn't sure which race they were in since the masters race was going at the same time. Tried to find my zone and stick with it. About the half way point I was riding about 10 seconds ahead of Christopher/MESA, and about 20 seconds down from the 3 man group of Dust, Stover, and Wamsley. The gaps stayed the same for some time but the 3 man man train started pulling away a little each lap. Fairly certain if I had started faster I may have been able to get in that group and stick with it.

My lower back and legs were hurting pretty bad by 3 laps to go. The grunt climbing at the beginning of the lap was getting harder each time up. My right arm was almost as bad as my back. No strength left in it from all the hammering. Shottler and Johnson both ended up lapping me. Kind of bummed about that but like I said, I was really only trying to survive the race.

I ended up finishing 9th out of 14 in the men's open race. Good enough for me and it was a pretty fast crowd. Yielding would be proud, I did that entire race with no water. I did have some in the pit just in case though.

After the race we had to tear the course down. Took a couple hours but was home by 5:30. Super exhausting weekend. There is really to much on my mind from the entire weekend to give a better report that this. The race was really pretty uneventful for me. No major mistakes or close calls even. I call it a good race considering.

I also must note how well the Typhoon tires gripped. I really expected to feel them slid around a little bit but none what so ever. Very confident in them now and cant wait to give my Rynos a rip.


Fist lap on the back. Photos by Mike Dawson


Probably the worst turn on the course. Big tree roots on the far side of the tree.


Fastest part of course by far.


Top of the climb. Christopher in the back ground was never far behind.


Barrier. Photos by Katy Lynn.


Fast downhill section with the Wild Trak crew sitting on my left shoulder. Sam, I know your 70 but take off your helmt.


Cool pic from back half of the course.


Bummer this one is blurry. PG is really laying it over inside of me. Guess he trusts his tires.

Ok.. thats literally almost every pic I could find of me.

Looking forward to next weekend. Shit, the next couple weeks are cross crazy.

Are you ready to Rumble?

CX starts in 3 days. Really hoping for some rain so hammering stakes isn't a nightmare. Hoping for a lot of racers to show up. Hoping for some awesome racing. Hoping for lots of wrist snapping. Just finished gluing my last set of tires about 20 minutes ago, hoping that's good too. Mostly just hoping for some superfanning, excellent beers after the race, and an awesome kick-off to this years CX season.

Going out for course recon tomorrow after work. Building it Saturday morning.

Crit season over.

Notice the socks are correctly positioned....



See you all Sunday.

Benton Park Crit. Is it CX season yet...?

Went a lot like yesterday. Only not one big crash, but many small ones. Felt good. Breathing, legs, riding in general felt good. Stayed near the front most the race. With 3 to go crashes were happening every were and it seemed I was having to bridge back up to the main field a lot the last couple laps. That wore me out.

Finished 42nd which sucks. 43rd yesterday. Consistent I guess but not in a good way. Feeling fresh after the races is frustrating and motivating. Hoping that means my fitness is building and that I will have a great CX season.... One could hope.

Giro dell Montagna

Felt good. Rode near the front all race. Big crash with 3 to go stopped the race. Race restarted with 5 to go put up on the lap counter. The time sitting there left my legs heavy and stiff and got going slowly when it restarted. Last 5 laps I didnt feel great. Tried to move up but it wasnt in the cards. Not sure where I finished...

Today is the last day of Gateway racing at Benton Park. Probably the best crit course ever. Cant wait. Tomorrow tire glueing will happen on my C35's since it will be a rest day. Then two hard days followed by rest for the FIRST CX RACE OF THE YEAR!!!!!! Sept 11th. Write that down.. be there...

Tour de Lafayette Super Speedway

Quick Post. Nothing much to report on Lafayette. Started on the front and stayed there for the first 5 or so laps. Faded to the back for a bit then moved back up. About 35 minutes in I went to the front following the wheel of Christopher of 708/MESA. As soon as I did that I found myself in a break with 4 or 5 guys. But, its Lafayette and breaks never last here. At least in the 3's they dont.

After we got re-absorbed I faded to the back again and stayed there to the finish which is pretty lame on my part. Never been a fan of mixing it up in the dark. Cant see shit after the sun goes down.





Not racing today. Going to a fish fry for my grandpa. He turned 91 this year and still keeps busy building decks and fences. Usually by himself.

So today will be a bit of a rest day and should have me ready for The Hill and Benton park on Sunday and Monday. Looking forward to these two races and really looking forward to ripping my road tires off after the weekend and finishing up getting my cross tires glued on. Shit... only 8 more days.