two races unfortunately. Got 4 more planned early next year. Then throwing my hat in the Crit season!

20's in 3 races. Getting a little more consistant. Lost 5 places as I faded on the 2nd lap. Gotta work on that!

Not a good start to the season. DNF with a mechanical in a mud fest...Can really only get better next time.

It's almost time! All this pain and suffering during training is about to become pain and suffering during racing! The Florida State Championship series starts July 12 & 13 in Gainesville, Florida. Never been to that trail so it should be a blast.

The weekend kicks off with a solo time trial in the afternoon which should help me figure the course out. Sunday is the XC race. The course is carved out of a rock quarry and open only a few times a year. The quarry gives the trail some extended climbs that aren't very common in Florida. I'm hoping they're not going to be as bad as the few that were in my NC race from earlier this year!

Check back for a race report, some pics and hopefully a video!

I’m very excited to give my report for the Cowbell Summer Solstice, the 4th race in the US Cup East, and my first traveling race, especially after the events leading up to the race. After a great trip to Tsali, returned home to find issues with my trusty Sworks Stumpjumper frame. It would have to go out for warranty with less than a week to go before the race.  I was left with a plane ticket, a paid race registration and no bike to ride. Luckily I found a store in nearby Charlotte that had rentals available for a reasonable price. Race was still on!!

I picked up a 2009 Specialized Epic Comp from BikeSource on Friday and hit the trails in the afternoon to get the bike dialed in. I rode the Marathon course that was setup for Saturday’s race mainly to get used to the trails. There were a few technical sections and rock gardens similar to what we have in Miami, mixed in with the twisty singletrack. The rains from earlier in the week had dried up a bit, but there were still some slick sections to deal with. The course ended with 3 extended climbing sections, that just seemed to get progressively steeper with each one. One final punchy climb was thrown in to make the finish exciting in the last few meters.

Rode again on Saturday and the course was drying nicely. The XC course had been marked off after Saturday’s Marathon and I now had a better idea of what to expect on Sunday. I was in for a surprise on Sunday when I learned that some of the technical sections had been removed from my course (bad for me) but one of the climbs had also been removed (good for a flatlander like me).

Sunday came and I was ready to go. The banners were up. The trails were packed with racers. The weather was great. It was a perfect day to race. There were 12 participants in the XC3 30-39 class. All very friendly bunch of guys. We were having a ball in the staging area waiting for it to be our turn to go.

The countdown finally came and off I went. The race was only one lap so I knew I’d have to go out hard to do well. One rider came along with me, and I settled in on his wheel. After about a hundred meters I looked back to see that we had immediately opened a gap. I let him know that it was just the two of us and we pushed hard to get into the singletrack with a nice lead. As we started the singletrack we quickly started hitting some of the slower racers from the other classes, most of which let us by without slowing us. We eventually caught a group of four riders at one of the worst spots, up a short technical climb. They let us by, but we had to dismount to make it around. Unfortunately I lost my footing running up the rocks and lost contact with the leader. By the time I got rolling he had a small gap but was pushing hard. I pushed hard through the singletrack trying to minimize the gap, but we both seemed to be on the same pace, so I dind’t gain much. When I exited the singletrack I saw him about 20 seconds ahead, but backed off a bit as I knew the climbs were coming up, which I knew would not be my strong point.

The Climb that got me....

Sure enough, about halfway up the first climb I slowly lost 2nd place, and there was nothing I could do to keep up with him. Once the course flattened out I did my best to hammer and reclaim 2nd. I managed to catch up to the rider, unfortunately it was at the base of the last major climb. Again I’d watch him ride away. I risked blowing up the climb to catch him and hit it hard, but I just couldn’t keep the pace. I finished off the climb and made sure to not let up on the remaining  sections and finished strong as I didn’t know how far I was ahead in 3rd. I punched it up the final climb and pushed hard accross the finish to finish over 30 seconds ahead of the 4th place rider.

While I didn’t hang on to 2nd place, I came accross happy with my result. 3rd place is my best result in XC3. I was riding a new bike, on trails I’d never ridden, with climbs that I never train on. With a little bit better strategy I truly feel I might have been able to hang on to 2nd and even compete for the win. Most importantly I had a great time, my competitors were a great group and the event itself was awesome. Thanks for reading.

http://eclipseracingteam.com/blog/?p=206
With nothing but training going on for the next few months, we took a break from the monotony and did a road trip along with the Club Mud regulars to Alafia River State Park and Balm Boyette, both just southeast of Tampa. Both trails are maintained by the Swamp Mountain Bike Club, and maintained very well. They were in excellent shape, well marked and a blast to ride.

Our first stop was a Balm Boyette which had one of the most fun sections I've ridden in Florida. It's called Ridgeline and it just opened in December of '08. I sadly forgot the new Stealth cam so we didn't get any new riding footage but here's a video I found online from some of the locals.

Ridgeline Trail @ Balm Boyette Scrub Preserve in HD. FL MTB from ProEdgeBiker on Vimeo.

 After exploring Balm Boyette, we all packed the cars and took a short drive over to Alafia for a quick bite and back to more riding. Alafia is considered one of the best parks in Florida and it didn't let us down. We rode for about 90 minutes there (after about 2 hours at BB) and were pretty beat, but did make it to the better known Moonscape and Roller Coaster trails.

The day wasn't without mishaps though, too bad they were mainly by me. Alafia was pretty uneventful with crashes, but something about Balm had me uneasy most of the time out there and I took quite a few silly spills. By the end of the day I wound up with a black and blue big toe from the strangest endo I've ever done, and a small gash just below my calf muscle. A trip to the Doctors' on Sunday left me with butterfly bandages (went too late for stitches), antibiotics and a TETANUS SHOT to remember the day by! Still had a blast though! Next time we'll make sure to get some better pics and footage!!

Had a fun weekend. Played hookie from the road bike for the trails this weekend to avoid some insane winds that came our way and to play with the new Stealth Cam. I was pleasantly surprised by both. First it was probably my first mountain bike only weekend since February. With all the hours I've been putting on the road bike, I was curious to see if I'd notice a difference. And I sure did! Seems my endurance is progressing nicely. The legs felt fresh all day on Saturday and Sunday, heart rate was lower than usual, and more importantly my lap times were consistently within 1 minute of each other, whereas in the past, each lap after the first was always progressively slower. This wasn't race pace of course, but still encouraging.

Now on to the fun stuff, the STEALTH CAM! This little thing is great for easy videos. This isn't dvd quality we're talking here, but for making fun videos to easily put on the web, I can't imagine an easier way to do it. The camera is pretty simple with a power/quality button for both video and still shot settings, A start/stop button and that's it. Works off 2 AAA batteries which are claimed to last between 1-4 hours. I'm up to about 2 hours on a set of rechargables. Files are stored on a SD card. It can support up to a 4gb card which provides 100 minutes of recording. The kit came with a 2gb card, several mounts and a waterproof case. The best mounting option for me was with the included foam pad, mounted on top of my helmet. The videos come out a little jumpy when mounted on the helmet, but I'm working on a way to mount it on the fram, which should stabilize things.

I was able to easily edit files and convert them to more manageable sizes with Windows Movie Maker. It's not the most advanced video editing tool, but it's pretty quick and easy to use. Ok enough talk, check out the video below. There's a little surprise at the end. Enjoy and come back for more!

Not much exiting news going on lately. Still training mainly on the road. Just started reading one of the more popular training books on the market, The Cyclists Training Bible by Joe Friel. This is a no frills, technical guide on how to design a serious training program. Hopefully I’ll be able to design a structured program so come September when the MTB season starts I’ll be peaking.

I was almost derailed my summer last weekend when I took quite possibly the nastiest spill I’ve ever had. Hadn’t been to Markham since the Hospice 100. I lost it going down a drop that had eroded quite a bit since the last time I was there, and proceeded to practically wrap myself around a tree, ribs first! I swore I had broken some ribs, but once I was able to breathe again and calm my nerves I rode back to the car to inspect nothing more than some bruising. It hurt quite a bit for a few days to cough but other than that I was fine.

Not much other than training planned until June where I'll be taking 2 trips to NC. Once for fun, and once for the Cowbell Challenge. I'll have more interesting posts then. Thanks for reading!

Well now's the slow time of the year in Florida when it comes to racing. Florida State Championship Series doesn't start until September, so it's 7 months of training. There's some SERC stuff I could do, but unfortunately I work for a living, so if I can do ONE that would be lucky. I do still have the Cowbell Classic scheduled, but that won't be until June. So I have a few months of focused training to do. Not the most exciting time, but time on the bike is always fun. Also gonna give running a shot. Not long term, but just for a month. I signed up for the Miami Corporate Run along with some coworkers, and then have a 10k in Charlotte, NC at the end of April. (Bet with my girlfriend....) Considering I've never run more than a 5k, this will give me a goal. Stay TUNED!!!

What an event! For those that don’t know, the Hospice 100 is a 100k Mountain bike race for charity, with proceeds going Hospice Care of Southeast Florida. With this being the first time we’d participated in an endurance race. I knew we’d be in for some surprises. We prepared reasonably well for some first timers. Ate well starting on Thursday, topping it off with some delicious Mexican food on Saturday night (more on that later.) We had plenty of food and drink, shade in the pits, and our own pit man (thanks Dad). We got in early, but spent so much time preparing the pit area, it was almost race time when we were done. Riders meeting gave us our first surprise. This was going to be a MASS START, but not on the bike!!  We had to lay the bikes about 50 yards from the start and we’d do it Le Mans style and run to the bikes at the horn. We got in a 5 minute “warm up” but then figured we had at least 6 hours to go so we just found a nice spot and propped the bikes up.

The start was madness. Running in bike shoes is not easy! Many racers had higher aspirations than we did, so we weren’t trying to be the first ones on the bike. Got off to a clean start and hit the first fireroad into just what I expected, a bottleneck getting into the first trail. No big deal, everyone just patiently waited their turn.

After that it all seems like a blur. Lap one felt like a regular race, with riders bunched together, stronger and weaker riders working to get into better position. The course wasn’t as technical as it could have been, but this is Markham, so it was still tough as hell. a few sections felt like cyclocross obstacles. Luckily, with 10 potential laps, there was plenty of tries to get them right. I finished the first 3 laps without stopping, but by the end of lap 3, I definitely needed a break. After resting for a few minutes and drinking up and eating something, our old friend the Mexican food came back to visit us. Without getting too detailed, it took a few different pit stops before we were ready to race again. (Mental note, never eat Mexican again before a race)

I started lap 4 and felt ok. Managed to put on the game face a few more times for the photographers, but as I finished lap 5 and went back to the pits for another break I was definitely feeling exhausted. 20 minutes later I got back on the bike for #6 and definitely didn’t feel great. I managed to crawl along at what felt like a snail’s pace, finishing the last half of the lap fighting to keep the cramps away. I’d finish the lap and go back to the pits and wasn’t sure I could make it out again. Shortly after that, the 1 hour cutoff time was announced and that would seal the deal for me, my race was done.

My final result was 6 laps, 38 miles, 10th in class and 28th overall. I’m pretty satisfied with the result considering it was my first endurance race. I learned that I need to eat more while riding and take shorter breaks in the pits. I definitely had time for one more lap, which would have potentially put me 22nd overall. If anything it would be for personal glory. It was a fun race, I was able to raise money from my work (www.mbafcpa.com) for a good cause and I made some new friends, and now I have my 2nd Top 10!

Thanks for reading, enjoy some pics at the jump below.

Hospice 100 2009