Nervous

Nothing really exciting happening this week which is probably the reason that I haven't posted much. As far as riding goes it's been a bit hit and miss this week. Monday was a bad ride on my mountain bike through wilderness which is really overgrown and was super damp in the early morning hours when I was out there. Tuesday I did hill climb intervals in pioneers park. I kept thing pretty casual on Wed. since my legs were feeling really sluggish. Thursday was a day off the bike but we took the kids to worlds of fun in KC and had a great time. My son tackled his fear of heights and roller coasters and we rode them all. Tonight was just a quick one hour spin with Rick and Sean from the team to talk a bit of stragety for this weekends races.

This weekend is the Omaha Cycling Weekend. It contain three different races. A time trial tomorrow AM. A criterium race tomorrow night and then a road race on Sunday. I'm not doing the TT but I am racing in both the crit and road race. This is a bit different than I'm used to cause I'm going into this race with some expectations from people. I need to have a good race especially in the crit to prove to everyone that the state champ result in wasn't just a fluke due to the rain, hail and shortened race. I'm lucky to have the support of one of my teammates in both races. I'm going to have my canadian teammate Rick there to keep things chill and in line during the crit. The road race is going to be his if he feels up to it and I'll be filling the worker roll in that race. Right now I'm just feeling a bit nervous but the body and the legs feel good and I'm working on getting my head straightened out.

Now I need to get to bed and get some sleep. I'm opening up at the shop tomorrow before heading to the race. Here's a pick of the new decals for the bikes that all of us at the shop and the team are using out of respect for Greg Dunbar our shop owner who passed away earlier this week.

Again

I haven't posted in the past couple of days cause I really haven't known what to say. On Sunday I went to work at the shop and while I was there a bomb was dropped on me and everyone else working. Greg Dunbar the owner the shop passed away on Sunday morning. This came as a shock but at the same time it didn't. Greg had been battling Parkinson's for years and lately seemed to be having other problems and complications. The last time I had seen him was about a month ago and he didn't seem well but I had been told he was doing better but that is what he wanted everyone to know so that they didn't worry about it. It was barely over a year ago that we lost Bryan his partner and co-owner of the shop and know to lose Greg it's pretty rough around there.

Greg was a phenomenal mechanic. Kind of like one of those bike guru guys. Pretty layed back and quiet and new everything there was to know about bikes and how to ride them. I was always amazed at how he would look at a bike. He seemed to look at a bit differently than everyone else. I would always think about how fortunate I was to have someone like him helping me with my bikes and taking a bit of time to tell me what was going on and how to fix it. When I got my mountain bike in last year and was getting it built up he said that he would true the wheels and everyone said that it must be nice to have the best wheel guy around truing your wheels. His handbuilt wheels were always a work of art. He was an Olympic caliber mechanic. He was supposed to be the lead mechanic for the 1984 Olympic cycling team until the US boycotted. It was nice to work with someone like that who was a mentor to me and was always giving me advice on my riding and racing. He had a great love of eating seafood and shellfish and I will miss those slow Saturday morning chats about food and bikes.

I always said I was fortunate to race for his shop and for him to always be excited and interested in the racing we did.

Harp

Rough day on Gravel

Yesterdays gravel ride did not go as planned 5+ hours on the bike and I still wasn't at my destination. I don't really even want to talk about it so here's a shot of my legs to give you an idea of how it went. One of these will definitily be in my future.

Branched Oak day 2

This morning I was up early again with the plan to head out to Branched Oak Lake for more riding on the race course. Things were looking good when I got up and got the bike on the car and had everything else ready and then I came inside and Ryan called and said look at the skies and as I looked out the window I noticed it was starting to rain. I was waiting for Sean to get to my place so he could follow me out there and it just kept raining but I talked to everyone on the phone and said I'm going to go out and do something. Shortly after that it stopped raining and when we got down to the singletrack the grass and trees were wet but the dirt was in prime shape so we road. Justin also met us out there so the 4 of us road a couple laps and then Sean and Justin had to take off and me and Ryan headed back out for a couple of more laps in the opposite direction. I'm hoping to find out what way the course is going to run this year for the race so I can focus on one direction and finally be able to have the home field advantage like everyone else does at all the other races out of town.

I did have my first couple of crashes on the new bike today though. I was really putting out some effort on the second lap and I was flying down a hill which goes slightly into a turn and as I hit the turn there were all the sudden 4 people on the trail running. I grabbed both brakes hard but coming down the trail I was going over. As the rear wheel came up I was able to jump out of the way off the bike and land pretty much on my feet. Nothing damaged to me or the bike luckily. The people were real appalogetic and so was I. The second one was after another big downhill with a turn I was going into it fast and the wheels just slid out from under me. Again nothing hurt for me or the bike.

It was wet out there today though and with the bikes and us getting wet the dirt clung to us and the bikes leaving things covered in a big layer of mud. Here's a couple of picks:

my cool mud sock lines

the rig with the thin layer of mud covering it

As for tomorrow I'm going to go head down to the hometown on the bike via mostly gravel roads. I have my course planned out on mapmyride.com and it looks like it is going to be about 59.5 miles house from my house to my wifes uncle's where we are hanging for a while. It should be fun. I've never done this long of a ride before on my mtb. Here's a link to my route. Later.

Harp

Branched Oak Testing

Early this morning I met up with Ryan at Branched Oak for a little singletrack to start the day off right. It took me a little while to get going. The legs were feeling pretty stiff but once I got warmed up on the humid morning (thanks to a light sprinkle) I was feeling really good and ready to really test the new frame out on some real trails.

As far as the frame goes the things I noticed today is that the position it has me in is slightly more aggressive and I notice that the most coming out of corners. This frame has a bit more snap coming out of the turns and once I pair that with a new set of wheels it's going to explode out of the corners. It also climbs slightly better. I found myself wanting to keep getting up out of the saddle and really power up the climbs which is sometimes good but if I do that to much in some races it will actually hurt me. I kept having to tell myself to sit back down and put it in a higher gear and spin up the hill.

Other than those two things I found the ride feel to be very similar to the awesome 08 Indian Fire Trial frame I have been riding. Very happy with this new frame and I can't wait to really race it plus it looks super sweet. The combination of Black and Blue has always been a favorite of mine. I acutally used that color scheme for a restaurant I was working on that I about opened but decided against it.

My original plan was to only do 4 laps of the course 2 going each way since I'm not sure which way they are going to run the race course this year. When I finished the 4th lap though I was still feeling pretty good so I decided to do a 5th. Tomorrow I'm going to head out with Ryan and Sean (team manager) for some more time on the track. Can't wait.

Harp

The New Ride

I got the new Team Marin HT frame built up today (big thanks to Paul at the shop) and was able to take it out for a test ride tonight. I can say that I'm not disappointed with how it rode. I'll have a better idea of how it really performs after tomorrow when I head up to the Branched Oak Lake trails to see how it handles the climbs and descents. Here are a couple of pics and a short video I got on the ride tonight.

No Time to Ride but I got this Today

I had a long day of helping my dad painting at his house and didn't have time to get out and train but I was able to pick this up today. Can't wait to get it built up tomorrow.