Tour de Troit 2011 Recap

Well. You guys missed out on one excellent Saturday morning in the D! Highlights of the Tour de Troit included awesome weather, a different route, lots of people watching, hammering it on Belle Isle, running into Bratney and his wife at the rest stop, riding three hot doggers abreast behind the lead vehicle's bumper while their photo and video guys snapped countless photos of us, and stopping in for lunch at Slow's BBQ after our ride. (Their mac n cheese was insane!!)

Larry, Tim, and I had a really good time. Thanks for coming out fellas. Enjoy a few of the pics below:

Proof I showed up and did this thing

Tim in an all too familiar pose

Getting our roll on

Sweet ape hangers

Larry calling his congressman

LOL!

Ridiculous lunch! My Centennial IPA was reloaded right after snapping this pic. That mac n cheese though, dear God!!

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Cross

In case you haven't already noticed, there's a change in the air. It's starting to get colder, the leaves are changing color, Cider Mills are firing up their sweat Donut-Making Machines of Destruction and Cyclocross season has begun!

Tailwind Cyclocross Training Race from Hans Nyberg on Vimeo.

For Team Hot Dog, there's no better time to be alive. It all started with the Tailwind Cyclocross Clinic two weekends ago which was attended by JRAD, Shaun and Myself. We honed our dismount, remount, pedaling, stopping, turning and Orange Crush Bunny-Hopping skills and ended the day with a mock-race. I did not win :( We celebrated our defeat with a nice Pizza Pie and Frankenmuth Oktoberfest from Mr. B's.


Last weekend was the beginning of the 2011 Tailwind Cyclocross Series and a Double-Header of Cyclocross Madness. Saturday's race started out a little cold and overcast. In the C class 39 and under Men's was about 25 guys. In the Old Guys class, JRAD and Myroo were eagerly chomping at the bit to get a piece of me. I'd gladly give you a race recap but when the bell went off, I don't remember much more than pedaling, pain and more pain. Thankfully we have photos! I came in 19th Place....a solid back of the pack finish like I expected. Not too shabby for a chubby guy! Jrad crushed the Old Guys Class in 17th place followed by Cooper in 19th. Shaun is fast and did well, so poop on him for being a chicken weigher. We drowned our sorrows again at Mr. B's with Burgers and more Frankenmuth Octoberfest.

• Waterford Double Cross Day 1 Results

Here is a photo of the 40+ C Class. Look at how old they all look!

Day two seemed to bring out half as many racers as the first day thankfully. Since I felt like I had been run over by a gigantic flying boat from Saturday`s race, I was looking forward to another 30 minutes of torture. The bell rang and I pedaled and felt the pain. JRAD brought the pain and passed me up on the last lap. I tried to chase him down, but the Cyclo-Wiz was just too much for me. I found myself in 9th place in the 39-Under, JRAD scored 15th and Cooper rocked 18th place in the old-farts category. Shaun did really well but, again, chicken weigher. We drowned our sorrows and celebrated the fact that we did not have to race again for two more weeks at Buffalo Wild Wings.

• Waterford Double Cross Day 2 Results

Cool down lap, tHD Style!

I do want to give MAD-PROPS to the following tHD fans who came out to support us this weekend: My Lovely Wife, My Mom, My Mom In Law, JulieRAD, JRAD's Mom and Dad, Mango and Shaun the chicken-weigher. Having that many fans show up was awesome and we are very thankful that you waited until we were finished racing to ask for Autographs!

- Steve

P.S. If you've never done one of these races before, I highly suggest you suck it up, come on out and have some fun.

Shenandoah 100?

What to say? My year of finishing a couple of the NUE races didn't really work out the way I wanted it to. What I ended up with is the year of the NUE 30 milers. Lumberjack 100 I managed to squeak out a mere 33 miles in 4 hours of riding while totally feeling like death warmed over. Well I managed to practically do the same at Shenandoah. I made 31 miles in just a bit under 5 hours. Below is the details of my demise.

The weekend starts out on Thursday for the wife and myself. We drive down to Virgina and set up camp on a portion of the race course called Braley's Pond. This is a nice quiet place to camp. Below is the THD Subaru ready to head off to Stokesville.

Friday we drove the half hour over to the Stokesville campground and set up. We spent the early part of Friday in Harrisionburgh. We picked up some water at the Walmart and headed back for a nice day of lounging around the camp. Saturday morning we woke up and went out for a nice 20 mile spin of the Virgina back roads. I felt well on this ride. Managed to pick a couple of long climbs in the route and became very comfortable with my gear selection.

From this point it was all down hill. See we had these neighbors that had 3 dogs and a gaggle of kids. The dogs liked to bark and the kids liked to yell. Kind of hard to chill out on the day before you are going to attempt a hundred. So darkness fell and we went into our tent. I managed to fall asleep around 10:00 pm only to be woken by the barking dogs at 1:00 am from this point on I never fell back asleep.

5:00 am came early but the race bike was ready to go. But was I?

I made some coffee took care of other business before making my way to the start under the cover of darkness.

The start was slow and painful they made every rider go under the start gate. The gate itself only accomidated about 5 riders at a time.

From there came the 2 mile roll out to the first climb. I stayed to my plan and kept a nice 90ish RPM cadence. This put me right around 11 mph in my 32 X 20 gearing. As all the gearies flew by me I knew that I would soon be passing them on the first hill. Shortly after this point the road started to kick up to the first climb. Which would take us up 978 ft in 9 miles. I felt good, I felt really good. I made it all the way up this climb and I felt strong. Down the hill and off the next climb. The second climb of the race is a whole lot oof hike a bike. This one takes us up 1500 ft in 5 miles. On the way up I started to notice a few things. First off I was sweating like Jared in a spin class. My jersey was completely drenched and I felt somewhat clamy. I just pushed on and ignored this. I rode across the ridge to the downhill. This is where the next issue came along. I developed a headache, not just any headache, but a monster sized headache that pounded even harder with every bump I hit. Then came the leg cramps. My legs siezed as I was going down the hill. I was hoping that on the road section my body would begin to cooperate but it just wasn't my day. So I packed it in at aide station 2.

Here is a piece of fungi for all of you.



I also came home with some little presents to be shared with THD to celebrate an unsuccessful 2012.

$8 Grunge Brush

Peepz Movie
by: gearswhatgears