Been a while since my last post and race for that matter. The BNG was my last race for this year and from getting married and football season starting (still have the oustside linebacker in me) I have fallen way off the wagon in terms of staying in racing shape. Now that winter is fast approaching, I have started back riding 2-3 days a week (including night rides) and running 3 days a week as well to get ready for an awesome and jammed packed race season for 2010 with Bike Link Racing. Of course cross training with weights too.

Also, there will be trail building at Oak Mtn and Tanneyhill State parks in the upcoming months.

Until then, I'll post some good scenic pics from my future rides/trail building visits on the upcoming months and support team BLR at local cyclocross races in the area.

2009 Bump N Grind

Man, where to start. First of all we'll get my update out of the way. I have been doing a lot of half ass training and some fun traveling instead leading up to this race. So, to say the least I wasn't and still am not in peak condition like I was back in Feb/March time frame. Hey, I don't get paid to race so of course I have to dip into life's other fruits! Anyhow, what I'm getting at is that I have in the past month fell off the wagon a little more than in years past for me this time of year.

So, with that said, I had a middle of the pack time of 1:24:23 at this year's race. I also experienced the worst cramps (both quads) that I have ever had in my racing years including all endurance races.....OUCH! They still throb as I set here typing.

The weekend began with me meeting Matt, Andrew, and Paul at Oak Mtn on Friday afternoon for a preride. They all came over from MS and I was eager to host/put them up at my crib for the weekend. Cecilia decided to crash at my mom's in Childersburg. No way was she going to put up with 4 mtn bikers on edge for 2.5 days (can't say I blame her either). After a quick easy preride, we all head to Cahaba Cycle to meet and greet some pros. We got there while a Q&A was going on with Gary Fisher/Subaru Mtn Team. We got signatures from Willow, Sam, Heather, and JHK....KEWL! Had to get a pic with Willow of course. They all were very down to earth. Then, wings and brews at Hooters.

Saturday: We decided to sleep in a little (at least me anyhow) the rest of the guys got up a little earleir and went out for breakfast. Me, all I need is a cup of coffee and a breakfast bar. We found that Andrew cracked his frame (Giant Anthem) at the top tube/seat tube weld. We go by my bike shop to let the mechanics for my race team take a look........verdict=yep, cracked frame and unrideable. Now Andrew is wondering if he is going to be able to race. I mean the guy is 6'9" so it isn't very easy to find a bike to fit him. We squash that for a while and head to Oak Mtn. Everything started with us walking to the Kona trailer and start chatting it up with Ryan Trebon. Andrew tells Ryan about his misfortune and how it's hard for him to find a frame to fit since he is so tall. Trebon relates because he is like 6'6" and tells Andrew that he will hook him up with one of his old frames when he returns to CO. How friggin' cool is that??? They swap contact info and we'll see how things pan out. Just cool to offer I think. Next I go by the Luna Trailer and spot Georgia Gould, I wave while she is eating inside.....she acutally stops eating and comes out and begins to have one of the greatest BS sessions with us. We all went on for about 20 minutes and she is very passionate, comical, and humble! After that I went out and performed my volunteer duties with BUMP as course marshal for the pros practice. All went well...............then, fajitas for dinner. We get home and I set Andrew up with my Felt Solo Nine SS. It a large frame with a 410mm seatpost so it fit fair enough. He did ok with it during the race. It was better than watching for sure according to him. So all that was good stuff.

Sunday began early. Race time for me was 9:00am. It went well, fast pace at the start then after settling down and got the heart rate at 175ish I was good to go until the cramps mentioned earlier. Other members of Bike Link Racing had a great day. Geoff finished 7th in 35-39 cat2, JD got 2nd in 25-29 cat2, and Gavin kicked tail with a 2nd in 25-29 cat1. He turned an awesome 2:22:54. Not far behind in 25-29 cat1 was Xterra standout/friend/coworker, Omar Frasier, in 5th with a 2:27:34. Those are killer times for 2 laps at Oak Mtn. Congrats fo sho! My boy Matt got 16th out of 25 in 34-39 cat2 in his first ever BNG. Andrew on a borrowed, too small, first time on a SS, and first BNG as well got a very respectable 9th out of 15 in 19-24 cat2! Below is my after race pic. I didn't do my personal best but I left it all out there on the trail and was the fastest I could be for that day. LOL!

Next we all got geared up for the Pro Women's race and it was everything we expected. Me, C, mom, Matt, and Andrew ran up and down Pevine Falls road cheering and taking pics. It was a great race. We made it down to the start/finish line to catch team mates Georgia Gould and Catherine Pendrel sprint for the finish. Catherine egded out Georgia right at the end to take the top spot. Katerina Nash (also with Luna Chic and pictured with me below) came in third.

Next was the men's race and me, Matt, and Andrew spent most of the time on the single track cheering on Pro's that we usually only see on the web, in magazines, or on TV. We were indeed like little kids all over again. It was a good feeling to have such elite athletes at my very own home trail and to help promote the wonderful sport of mtn biking in the south. Below is a pic of Adam Craig and Ryan Trebon cranking it out.
The men's race had a great sprint finish with Sid Taberlay with Sho-Air/Specialized edging out Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski at the end. 2009 BNG is something to remember for a while. I was getting not so into riding/racing unlike I use to be. It's great to have an event like this to get me stoked back up. A special thanks to BUMP, which I am a proud member of, for putting on such a great show. Also, I can't forget how good it was to see a lot of good friends from MS and a few from LA.

Next up for me should be a couple of SERC races. One at the end of this month in Chattanooga, TN and one next month in at Mt Cheaha in Anniston. I'll keep everyone posted. Ride on!

Oh yeah, Matt busted his ass again! Sweet.............

Swayback

Well, I finally got around to my first MTB race of the year and was stoked. I had Matt and Andrew over from Hattiesburg, MS for the weekend and we all were looking forward to an awesome time. We went down to Swayback on Saturday after riding Oak Mtn on Friday for a preride of the course with Omar and Josh. After a good lap preride we were good to go and looking forward to the Sunday morning race.

Luckily the B'ham weather man/men were wrong again as to when the storms would hit our area and down in Wetumpka where the race was held. Weather turned out to be perfect by the 10:40am race time. I was looking forward to a good "base race" with at least a top 5 out of 18 for my sport/cat 2 class.

I enter the woods 5th and got caught up on most of the 1st lap behind the 4th place rider that I eventually passed (after I scrubbed his wheel 3 times) with 1 mile left on the 8.7 mile first lap. Turned a 0:41:52 on the 1st lap and now right on the 3rd place rider 2 miles into the 2nd lap. Then, I start hearing that dreaded "hissing" sound and yep......flat......good ole pinch flat. I new I had taken a bad line. My mojo is drained and I jump off the bike and get the tube changed out and realize that a 16 gram c02 cartridge only puts about 10lbs of pressure in a 29in tube. So, I wound up cruising around in the woods for 6 miles almost on the rim and an 11th place finish out of 18.

Legs/endurance felt good. Lessons learned........switching to tubeless tires this week!

Still Training....for now

Well, the past few weeks have been good as far as riding/training goes. I finally got my weight back under 190....sitting on about 188 now. So, at least things are paying off and I should be at 180-185 by my first MTB race this year in Wetumpka on 04/17.....but there is a huge IF! Part of the company I work for may go on strike this weekend and if that happens I'll have to fly to Cleveland, OH to work until who knows when. Something like that will throw a huge damper on the riding but I still should find time to run and make the best of it.

I tried my hand at my 2nd road race this past weekend at the Tour de Tuscaloosa. And, for the 2nd time I didn't enjoy it that much......now begins my list of lame excuses. To begin with I was running late. Start time was a suckass 8:35am and I pulled into Lake Lurleen State Park at 8:20am. I had to rush to registration all the way across the parking lot then get back to the truck and start getting ready......then ahh hell, no safety pins in my registration bag to pin my two race numbers on (reason 1 why MTB racing is better, we zip tie one number on the bike). Cecilia was a sport and ran back to registration while I get ready at the truck. She gets back with only 4 pins but we need 4 more. So whild I'm putting on my layers of clothing and hearing the lady with the bull horn tell all the pro/cat 1 riders to get to the line I know that it's getting close to 8:30am which was their start time. I hear Cecilia bumb some safety pins from some guys parked close to us(maybe rodies do have manners).

We finally get me ready and I'm still shaking from the 45 degree temp and the howling 20+ winds coming off Lake Lurleen. I roll up to the group of cat 5 racers about 3 minutes before roll out which means the legs are still cold and it's time to race, yuck. I find my fellow BLR (Bike Link Racing) teammates and chat it up for a few secs.......time to race,we start rolling. The course was a 10 mile rolling course with a couple of good climbs. We were to do 3 laps. The beginning was pretty quick for cat5 and I'm sitting about mid pack out of 28. Then, classic cat5 road racing begins......guys start slicing and dicing half way into the 1st lap (way too early) and slowing and going. I was almost at the point to where it was getting annoying and I hear "SLOWING".....which is a common term heard in road racing......uncommon is the guy in front of me just slamming on his brakes at 20mph. Since I'm right on his wheel, my reaction time is in no way quick enough. So, my front wheel goes all the way up into his right foot/pedal, I pull right to keep my spokes out of his rear derailleur and I go of through a red clay/rock filled ditch about 10 ft off the edge of pavement for about 20 yards and some how save it with out crashing. I manage to get back on the road without incident. I get a few cheers and congrats from the riders in the back of the field that I am now riding with. After the near miss, I just sat in the back and fought the wind and eventually got dropped from the lead pack. (reason 2 MTB racing is better)

I spend the last lap pulling the back group (reason 3 MTB racing is better) and eventually finishing 25th out of 28. I'm not much disappointed since I only road due to the team being there and I wanted to ride with them. So, I got 30 miles of training in.

The MTB training is going well. I'm turning 1hr 23min loops on my single speed bike and 1hr 18min loops on the geared race bike at Oak Mtn. My goal is to get to the 1hr 14-15min time frame for that trail. Living 10 minutes from the back gate certainly helps when it comes to riding it often. Time change helps as well to get some good rides in during the week. Can't wait to see how I peform in some competition in a few weeks.

The coolest thing I've done since my last post was a night ride at Oak Mtn. Hard to explain in words!

The Hoover Crit race is this weekend at Spain Park High School. It should be fun. But, you'll catch me at Oak Mtn/Lake Lurleen taking in some single track!

The Kick Off

Hello to all........I'm Jeremy (aka: Hambone or Hamm). I love cycling and this is my BLOG!

Well, with Cecilia (my fiancee) away in NC for work and me with plenty of time on my hands and taking in the account my love for fitness, cycling, and passion of mountain biking......I've decided to get on the BLOG bus and ride it for a while........this should be more to my liking as that I usually get on Facebook to check out friends but I wanted something more dedicated to cycling......plus, a BLOG gives you the option of looking at someone's status because you have to go there. Unlike other sites like the before mentioned and you have to read about someone's political, religious, personal probs, etc..........my path down this road is for those that love the outdoors and will mainly focus on mountain biking with some road riding, triathlons, and training thrown in as well. DISCLAIMER!!!-----You will run accross the occasional mspd word and some crude humor as well.

I'd like to first let everyone know that for this year I will be with Bike Link Racing and I'm stoked. I couldn't ask for a better bunch of guys/gals to race with. Sponsors for the '09 season coming soon. I'll be cat 2 (sport) for at least the beginning of the season in XC Mountain Biking. Hopefully I can move up to cat1 (expert) towards the second half. I'll remain cat 5 for road racing (I usually just use it for cross training anyhow). And for cyclocross I'll be cat 4.

With that, my first post is over and I can't wait to share my riding and racing experiences from this year with all my friends and those bored enough to read my postings. Peace out for now.............