Free Ergon Grips...

Hey everyone Dejay and I are helping to give away free Ergon grips. All you have to do is check in with the Ergon website, look at a picture and figure out what trail Dejay and I are Riding... and be the first one to do it.  The plan is to post a new picture every month, so follow our blogs and watch where we have been and send in your entries...  

Here is the link to the first round.

Good luck to you all.  

If your looking for a hint I am accepting bribes ; )

Rolling in the front range.

Fort Collins and Boulder, CO have been our playground for the last week while preparing for the Firecracker 50. I have been very impressed with the trails and the number of people using them. 

I have to admit after riding in Michigan I was timid riding anything remotely technical. It is such a different world here, I think I encountered more rocks in the first mile of riding in Colorado than in all 250ish miles I rode in Michigan. but I think my skills are coming back to me...

I think in our quest to find a new place to live Colorado has moved toward the top of the list.

This is my buddy Steve, on the walker ranch loop out side of Boulder.

Here is Jake on some trail I don't remember the name of, But you might be able to figure it out.

So I am fighting a little cold right now, hopefully I will be well for the race on Friday.

Pictures from the lumberjack 100

Here is another good picture of Dejay walking...

The mud pit.

Another long car ride...

The secret of my success!!!

Well I'm sure some of you would, or have, stumbled upon this yourself soon enough; so I going to go ahead and tell you.

This has to be one of the best investments to go faster after carbon water bottle cages. Amazingly enough it only cost me $39.99,  so here it is, the big secret.... 

The Man Groomer.

Here are some reasons the MANGROOMER Can Improve Your Life
Look and Feel Clean and Manicured – Eliminating unsightly back hair presents a more refined, clean image to others.

Confidence – 

Increase your confidence knowing that you are 'back hair free' and no one will be staring / snickering at you or getting turned off by unsightly back hair.

Romance – 

Start up that spark in your relationship or marriage by surprising your partner with a smooth sexy back – not the ape look…

Summer Essentials – 

When your shirt is off this summer – a must is NO back hair at anytime……

Beach – 

It can be embarrassing to be in public space with strangers and have a hairy back. Hairy backs are not attractive - nor generally appealing to anyone.

Pool parties – 

Don’t be the joke /‘hairy guy’ of the party – not a good image to portray.

Muscle Definition – 

Shaving the hair off your back shows your muscle definition in much greater detail. You’ll look in better shape just by using MANGROOMER.


The list goes on...  for more info check out ManGroomer

Lumberjack 100

This race was day and night from the Mohican of two weeks ago. Being mostly single track, about 98%, there was really no time you could go on auto pilot. Also doing 4 laps of the same thing you could really learn the course and ride more aggressively as the day went on. Another huge difference was this course got better in the rain, except for a section about a quarter mile long that turned into a two foot deep bog.

Another 7:00 a.m. road sprint start, I heard some one saying that we were going 37 miles an hour. Somehow after a mile and a half Dejay and I were in the top 15 turning onto the trail. I’m not sure why but Dejay wanted to sprint to the corner turning into the trail head parking lot. This left him a little winded for the firs “big” climb of the race. As I caught Dejay I could tell he was already at his limit so I did a little push and got in to the the lead group of eight. Harlan Price, Jeff Schock, Chris Eat of a plate, a few others and I did the first 20 miles together before I was removed from the back of the group to settle into my pace.

The course was not suited to my riding style, as I perform better when there are long extended climbs. It was flat with a few short punchy climbs, none longer that maybe two minutes. I picked a pretty good gear that kept me moving at a good clip on the flats but I bogged down on the hills, I guess I need a little more power in my legs if I want to run a big gear like that again.

A few miles into the second lap I caught one of the top 7 who had stopped to get some relief. We worked together for most of that lap(well I drafted him most of the time). Then he got away and I was alone again. Around the same place that I caught the speedgoat rider I had to pee too, I stopped and then I was caught by the second place singlespeed rider. He followed me for most of the lap and dropped me at about the same spot that everyone else had on the previous laps. I took a short section to refuel to make it sure I made it through the last lap.

The last lap was pretty crowded, most of the people were great about getting out of the way but a few slowed me down for longer than I would have liked. All said and done… I finished in 9th place(I thought I was in 8th) 7 hours, 58 minutes and a few seconds. Less that a minute back from the first place single speeder. Only about 50 minutes back from the overall winner.

The weather man....

If you remember from a couple weeks ago I predicted heavy rain for last Friday, well it came a day early.

We were watching the TV show Weeds, when the rain started coming down so hard we could hardly hear the sound the show much less each other talking. Then at about 10:00 there came pounding on the door, amazingly enough they weren't trying to kick us out of our camping spot. As soon as we open the door the guy says, “There is a tornado warning(our second in 2 weeks) and the storm shelter is open”. So we debate on what to do, stay in the trailer and ride out a tornado or go to the storm shelter. I wasn’t convinced either way so I walked(more like waded to the shelter. The first route I stopped and came back after reaching water deeper than my Knees. When I made it up to the shelter, the first person I saw said they say saw a water spout. So I decided to go back and get the family.
We stayed in the shelter for about 20 minutes eating twizlers and watching the lighting show.

It continued to rain all night and this is the lake the campground turned into… the first site we thought about staying is right in the middle of this lake….

The storm ended up being the largest amount of rain that this town has seen in a 24 hour period in the last 60 years. When we made it back to town the power was out(which meant no Cappuccino) and there were boats sinking in the harbor.

Here is an offer….
If your town is in need of rain, put on a race and invite Dejay and I to show up!

What to do now???

The lumberjack 100 is on Saturday, it should be a very good day on the bike. the course is about 98% single track, 4 laps mostly flat with really good flow. I hear the hardest part is passing you car about 8 times during the race, I can see if your having a bad day it could be easy to finish early.

After the lumberjack we planned on going to the Big Wheeled Ballyhoo in Iowa. Unfortunately Iowa in under water and we cant figure out what to do next weekend... We need to be in Denver on the 25th so Dejay can catch a flight to Canada. Does any one know of any good happenings on the way from Michigan to Colorado for next weekend?

Here are a couple pictures of Southern Michigan.
Dejay on the bridge.


A bird that Juda was driving crazy....

Hotter than a hot tub!!! wetter too...

Were finished with Ohio and are in Michigan now. But before we left we had too big days of weather. the First, 4-5 inches of rain, the next 95+ degree heat, a wonderful combo for some good humidity.  I think were passed that now but we have found the mosquitos...

LumberJack here we come...

A great day of pedaling and a bunch of bad luck.

Mohican 100,  NUE series race # 2

Muddy, of course we wouldn't have it any other way. 

the 7:00 am start lead us through downtown Loundonville. luckily for us singlespeeders it was a controlled start, the speed was limited by how fast the geared guys wanted to go. As soon as we hit the singletrack Dejay and I began to pass when ever we got the chance, "on your right"," On your left", sometimes I went on the right as Dejay went on the left. about a mile into the singletrack the bad luck began; as I was passing on the left I was pushed toward the bank and did a super slow motion over the bars endo. That started the theme for the day, Catch up to dejay. by the time I got back on my bike and on the trail 7 or 8 people had passed me. We did a small hike a bike and came ripping down  a fire road,  When I got in to a campground there were about twenty riders riding toward me, and looking confused. We did the whole ride in a circle wagon train thing the group split into two. Dejay went one way I went the other. A minute later we were on the singletrack with 20+ riders between the two of us and Dejay in the lead.

Time to catch Dejay again...

It was 5-7 miles before I could do some real passing and got close to the front of the group which consisted of Floyd Landis(DNF), Christopher Beck, and a few others. Rolling through aid two the singletrack opened up and so did the pace, another hike and I saw Dejay again.

BANG! Flat tire.

Time to catch Dejay again

Three minutes to change a flat and three hours of pedaling I almost caught Dejay again. he goes over a rise then makes a right, I went straight for 3-4 minutes.

Time to catch Dejay again.


I think I saw him one more time but I couldn't be sure. a bunch more gravel and paved roads and one last wrong turn that took me to the finish line the wrong way, a ride back in a truck to make the right turn and a cruised back into the finish. I still finished second in the SS category and 16th overall.

Cycling news coverage

You know it...

Now the rest of the country is starting to think like a singlespeeder...

Why am I writing about the weather..?

Well,  every race Dejay and I have done in the USA together this year we have had a massive downpour the morning before the race. so I just thought I would go out on a limb and make a weather prediction two weeks before the next race... The Lumberjack 100.

Weather forcast....

My weather forecast for the morning before the Lumberjack 100 in Michigan:

Heavy rain.

More photos from Italy.

The day after the race..

Dejay going the wrong way...

Ian playing in a tunnel...
The podium
Me going the wrong way...

Riding through town after riding the trails at the race course

A little intergalactic fun....
...
A photo of our photo shoot the day after the race...
A view from the race course, I got both the sunset and sunrise laps. the view from here was amazing!