the 1st Annual SUPERSTAR CYCLOCROSS SEMINAR.

Saturday December 6th

7 - 10 p.m.

Entry is $21.00 through BIKEREG.COM and at the door.

Location: VFW Hall #907
825 SE Mills Ave
Portland Oregon
(on 9th between Division and Hawthorne)

The event will be a panel discussion, question and answer forum with the audience.

Our Superstar Panel will consist of:

Simon Burney - Coming to our event from England, Simon is the author of the Velopress book Cyclocross”Training and Technique.”
He has been actively involved in the past 27 consecutive Cyclocross World Championships!

Todd Wells - Todd is a 2 time Cyclocross National Champ,and 2 time Olympic Mountain Bike Competitor.A dominant force in U.S Cross every season.

Wendy Simms - Wendy is a 4 time Canadian National Champ,also this season she was the holder of the UCI World #1 points leader title.

Molly Cameron - Molly is a Portland “cult hero” in the Cross scene,also a World Cup Cross competitor.

Joachim Parbo - Joachim is a 2x Danish National Champion,and World Cup Cross competitor.

Plus other special guests!

We will be holding a raffle all night with beautiful hard to find items. Raffle tickets are $2.00

Check the site for more info!

Superstarcyclocrossseminar.wordpress.com

For my part, I had horrible legs today. I could tell when I went to bed last night, fighting a cold or just being tired from the big week of training.

And this morning I did not have my head in the game. I half thought about not starting. I have a bunch of other stuff going on in my life and I was distracted. So I had a crap start and did a bunch of chasing. Almost dropped out after the first two laps. My legs were just not firing on all cylinders.

I did a bunch of work with Shannon trying to keep Solomon in the chase for the series win. Then with 3 or 4 to go I got myself up in the lead group with Sean Babcock, Chris Sheppard and my teammate Kevin Hulick. There was tons and tons of lapped traffic to negotiate.

My teammate Kevin attacked within the final lap. He had a few bike lengths on us and I was screaming at him: “f’ing go Kevin go!” he was just barely dangling off the front. I even apologized to Babs for not being able to do any work. If we got within a bike length of Kevin I’d have to jump them both for the counter attack/win.

The 4 of us entered the final stretch pretty much together and sprinted it out through a mud bog-bull pen.

Sheppard said something about punching the next lapped rider that screwed up his race. I hope he did’nt… the finish was ridiculous, the four of us were screaming at riders in our way.

I got third place in the run in to the finish, did what I could to make sure Kevin stayed away for the win.

And he took it.

Go team Vanilla!

I know, I know… you must think I am living the PRO lifestyle. Lounging by the pool, shooting rounds of golf.

Not so. Loads of email, planning and organizing. Negotiating, purchasing and balancing.

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More Toronto photos. I need to write up a brief report on the races last weekend.

White bikes + good times.

I know it looks ugly. But, I made the corner…

If I would wipe the smirk off of my face, I may have been able to race a little faster.

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I’m in the middle of upgrading my Flickr account. Should be dope to get up a bunch of photos faster than I can put them up here.

So, I posted up a video of a band I was in and a few days later the video was removed from Youtube. Weird, that video had been up for years. Then someone pointed out that the band has a myspace page. Created in 2006 for a band that broke up in 2000. Weirder still.

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Boom’s hair is blowing my mind. More Euro than I can handle.

I write you now from my sweet expensive hotel in beautiful Buffalo, New York.

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A recap. I flew to Toronto, Canada to race 2 x UCI category 1 races.

I got 7th and 9th. Needless to say, I’m pretty happy the legs are slowly coming around. Hoping I’ll be going good for the USGP in Portland and Nationals in Kansas.

I’m f’ing tired. More later.

Toronto race photos here: Thanks Wes!

Go Oregon!

Check out the Kalavinkas on this site.

Any one want to buy an SRM? Got to cover my pre-race pasta expenses in Europe.

Oh yeah, bought the flight to Belgium. Staying at Peter and Stijn’s house in Westerlo. Got a full schedule and contracts set up. Adam just got back from Europe where he did a few races.

attack, attack, attack! For 69th place.

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My long lost twin is getting into some bad shit:

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I love me some urban fixed gear-ery but… thank you so much bummer life for keeping me up to date on this madness:

wow.

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Another thing about Belgium. The Euros take the bike game so seriously! Was reading an article about the latest World Cup selection. It is a huge honor to make the World Cup team, let alone get selected as an alternate! Tom van den Bosch getting big props for being selected by Belgian national coach Rudy de Bie to “be prepared to race but, probably not actually race” a World Cup. (I mean, Nys wins races with dislocated fingers and stitches in his forhead, those dudes are not going to miss a WB, no way.) He gets a photo in the news and everything.

US CX needs that. Gullickson (USACycling?) should be putting out press releases before every World cup. Whip up some drama and interest. I mean, those of us invested in cyclocross know Trebon and Powers will go and race some Euro action but, the lay person bike rider does not grasp the significance of racing a World Cup. (not that I’ve done it any justice)

Maybe they already do and I have not noticed… Rambling.

While you were asleep… I was in this band:

My bandmate Mike introduced me to Fela while we were on tour in 1999. That was also the summer I went vegan. If I remember correctly, I started racing bikes in 1999 too. At Heller Velodrome, hell yeah.

Flatted out of the race with 1 lap to go last Sunday (the foreign tubulars, they are not cheap eh?). Just past the pits on an 8 minute long lap. Game over. As I said, par for the course for me this season.

I swear, if I can just actually finish a bike race for once this year, I’ll be stoked!

Sean Babcock was on a roll, I could not quite shut him down. Congrats! Strongest rider won the day.

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The Blackbird flies again in the mud and gravel at Barton park.

I’m not tough like Sven. Though I did not need to go to the ER when I got gravel in my eyes. ouch!

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Dura Ace bearings are pretty tough. I’ve always thought so.

But you may notice some fine bad ass-ery on the race machines this year.

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I’m off to Toronto this weekend to chase down some points and skrilla scratch paper.

Sucks I am not going to be at the SSCXWC but, truth be told… I’d probably just break a few ribs and get a flat tyre.

Spoiler!

I also left the coffee grinder behind in the flat in Astoria so, I had to do my intervals in the direction of the Veloshop, high five the mechanics, pick up the spare espresso grinder, spin over to RCB, drink an Americano, spin home with Tommy, meet up with Cary Miller then finally come home and write this blog report.

CX your fingers for rain, rain, rain.

Amazing. Find a half an hour to watch all of the clips: