Great to ride with Kim

I wish I had a pic of the team riding down the road in our new jerseys and the smile on Kim's face. GC Connection looked like a pro team hammering down the road. People (Farmers) dropped what they were doing to watch us as we road past.
Other than the jerseys looking great as a team it was nice to have big Kim back in the pack. We road from Louie's house to Fremont and back (40 miles). It wasn't the longest sat ride, but it was great to turn around and see Kim drafting off us. Before to long he'll be back at the front pounding away at the pedals.

Thrill and Spills

Question: What happens when you crash at 31 mph?

Answer: Lots of pain and road rash.

Today was the state TTT in Corvallis. We had a very strong cat 4 team, with me as the very weak link of the team. I wasn't feeling very good and the team was cranking it. The course is a 7.5 mile loop, with teams doing almost 4 loops and a total distance of 27.3 miles. Our goal was to finish the race in under an hour. Coming into the end of the third lap I finished my small pull and was on the back. After the next rider, Steven, finished his turn there was some confusion with the second in line Paul. There wheels rubbed and he went down - hard. Paul fell on his hip and hand. Rob was third and fell next. He slid out in front of me and I had no where to go. I was fourth and went right over Rob's wheel, rolling onto my left side. When I hit my legs cramped and locked up on me and I couldn't move. I was in a lot of pain. I had to scoot on my butt off the road to get out of the way of other racers. My bike suffered slight damage, but best of all no one was seriously hurt. I drove the hour home in discomfort, the shower hurt like you know what, and now I am trying to move around the house - pretty stiff. But this is the life of cycling.

Draper

The Draper race that got moved to Wednesday night was painful but fun. I suffered like crazy on the climbs and managed to finish 5th after dropping to 9th the first time up. I didn't "beat Bob" but at least kept the gap under 2 minutes. However, BK smoked us on his home turf.

Tanner had a solid ride and won the 16 - 18's. His group started last and he passed nearly all the Sport riders on the climb, including all the fast 50's. His climbing is impressive and the descending is coming.

Tomorrow is more suffering in a beautiful setting at Sundance. I've had bad days there every time I've race. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I hope so, it's a fun course.

Good job to AT and Doug at the Ogden crit. It's cool to see GC Connection represented. T-man and I will make it up for some family bonding in the B's.

Daren

FASHION SHOW!

I flatted with 3 to go, my carbon rim wasn't supporting me much. my first time with the B's. It was great to ride with the jersey's and we'll be getting the rest out to you all. Ride safe.
Doug.

Adam taking 3rd! Great race.

Adam and I at the start of the thursday night crit looking like real teammates, some guy asked me what is a GC Connection?

The new kit.

BIG MONEY!!!

The jersey almost got me a first. I took third by a bit more than a bike and missed second by a bike (Check the pics above for a better view). The guy who won came on my right (I thought I was on the inside edge of the road) and I didn't even know he was there. I won the big money with the third place finish (3 bills) and the socks were for the prim I won (I got him by a wheel). The funny thing is the guy I beat out for third was the same guy I beat for the prim (same distance I might add). Both finishes were classic Suttlemyre moves. Go EARLY and see if anybody comes and if they do let'm pass and sit on their wheel.

Doug came and road the B flight with me and we looked good in our new team jersey's. Unfortunately Doug flatted out with a few laps to go. Every once in a while he would get gaped work his tail off (with help from Bountiful Mazda) get back to the group and for some reason I would attack (not knowing this until after). Sorry Doug.

Rain

No race today due to heavy rain. It's a good call because the trails in Draper are too good to trash. The race has been postponed to Wed's night at 6pm. Should be fun.

The delay is good for me. My lower back / upper glut is super tight and pinching a nerve. The result is lots of pain and not much sleep. With some luck and lots of stretching, I should be better on Wed. I'll need it because the 40+ Experts are stacked.

Got to like Utah weather in the late spring. Tuesday night I rode home from work in 93 degrees and Thursday night I rode home in 45 degrees.

Saturday we pre-rode the Draper course and got into lots of sticky mud on the dirt road. It clogged my chain which ripped off my rear derailleur. After coasting back to the parking lot, I jumped on Eric's light hardtail for the rest of the ride. It was fun to ride and got me thinking about a hardtail again. I've toyed with building a light HT for some time. Well, Eric had another HT frame available, so I jumped off the cliff and switched over the parts from my Epic. I now have a light HT to race. I plan to use it for a while and see what I think.

Cold and wet in LV

35 miles into what was going to be 60 mile ride, the Heavens opened up and we road another 7 until we could find shelter. We came to LV to get out of the cold, but ended up freezing at a rest stop until the sag wagon came to take us home. I have never been so wet on a bike in all my life (except Lotoja 05). I hope this was not a great training ride for what could be Lotoja 08.

Here is a pic of us just before the rain a few miles past red rock.Up around 6000 feet just outside of LV
A quick photo just before the rains came down. Look in the background to the left
All in all a day on the bike (even in the Cold) beats a day on the couch, and a ride with your wife on the back......Priceless

It's Finished

Thanks to many of our GC Connection brethren the black beauty is back in action. It is now the only Specialized Tandem I know of or have ever seen (Vinyl stickers are great). It once was a purple trek, but now it has been raised to become a bike of champions (I couldn't ride a bike that wasn't Specialized).
The actual pics of the bike can be found on our family blog (Adam's Family), but just know I didn't have enough Specialized stickers to do it justice. So I will have a few more made as to make sure the "S" is visible from every possible angle. Thanks again to Doug, because he was the man that made it happen and to my wife who now get to spend more time with me.

at the Hollow

Good to see Doug, Brady and Robbie are having fun in the not so cool Northwest. I need to make the journey someday to enjoy the great riding.

Yesterday was the MTB race at Soldier Hollow. It's always cool riding at an Olympic venue. However, my prior races there have been disasters. I've completely blown and finished way back. I was determined to have a good ride this year and things turned out well. I actually enjoyed myself and finished a competitive 6th in a very good field. I faded a bit on the last lap after I closed to less than a minute to BK, but it was a fun race. Bob had a super day and led start to finish. He beat me by close to 7 minutes. I'm happy for him. He deserved a good result.

Tanner had a really good day to finish 2nd. He was the strongest climber in the 16 - 18 experts, but lost time on the descents. It is deceptively hard to go fast downhill at Soldier Hollow. The kid that won, Keegan Swenson, is very good alpine ski racer and can go fast downhill. Tanner continues to improve and is a very good climber. I think he'll give Robbie, Sut and Bubba all they want on a road climb.

It's a busy time of the year for racing. This is the 4th Saturday in a row we've raced. There's races every week through the first week of July. I'm taking it one week at a time and trying to avoid going too deep. I hope to do some mid-week races either on the road, TT or mountain bike. However, recovery is the primary factor. If I'm feeling worked, I'll just focus on Saturdays. It's a good time of year to be a bike racer in Utah.

Wolfe Creek

It is hard to see, but Doug is riding on the road in this picture.



Bicycling magazine ranking the Wolfe Creek ride as the number 1 ride in Oregon. It is absolutely beautiful. The pictures I took will not do it justice. Doug is out helping Alissa move to Portland, so he stopped by for a few days. We got to go ride Wolfe Creek on Saturday. It is a 65 mile loop with 35 miles of it on a paved logger road. We had maybe saw 2 cars for that section. It has some pretty good climbs, but the worst part is going down. It looks like it is going down, but you are actually going up. It is a weird feeling to look down and see that you are going 16 when you think you should be flying down the hill. Doug got a little dehydrated (an unheard of 95 degrees today) on this section, but we stopped at a small gas station to get a drink and were off into the head wind. I love the wind. It just slows everything down and makes it so much more enjoyable. All in all it was a beautiful day out on the bike.

HOT!!!!!!

Just a quick travel up date. I am on Brady's computer writing this update. I had nothing but fun helping Robbie and Alissa move. I drove the big U-haul pulling the car with Robbie driving their van behind. Robbie and I unloaded the U-haul and started putting things together. Alissa, Betty and the girls took the Southwest suttle to Portland and we all worked hard to get things unpacked and in some order. They live in a great area west of Portland with great riding areas everywhere. I rode all over the area and it is beautiful. We came down to Eugene today to spend the weekend with Brooke and Brady. I rode over the Brady's school and we rode home together. It is 95 degrees today here in the cool northwest. The last two days are the first riding days I haven't had to wear some kind of cool weather gear. It was nice to sweat.

I have been hammering the bike shop all day to get the Sutt's big wheels done. It is hard to motivate them. Hopefully soon. Brady and I are going on our favorite ride in the morning, I can hardly wait. I wish I could stay up with my son on the climbs, but I have learned to enjoy the solitude (as I am always left behind). I have raced two crits in the past few week and it was alot of fun to stay with the groups. In the state crit I got dropped on the last lap of the 35-45 group. I felt good about the effort. In the Ogden Crit I played the strategy right and came out of the last corner in third right on the wheel of who I thought was the best sprinter. I was right, but just not good enough to pass and was a close third.

Kim had another set back yesterday as he went back into A-Fib and was carido-converted today again,(shocked) and was off to California. He stayed in for 1 week, and was abit discouraged, but hopefully with the new meds he will stay in longer. There are other more invasive procedures they can do, but hopefully he will stay in. Betty and I will be home on Wed, and looking for some down time as we have been moving kids for months now. Hopefully Brady and I will get some pictures tomorrow and another up date to follow. Ride safe.

Doug

A never ending hope

Just imagine every day as the day that you might get a new bike. Sounds great doesn’t it. Now think of that feeling everyday for a month. We (meaning Doug, myself and Mindy) keep hoping that tomorrow will be the day that we can bring a old but rebuild new (not purple) bike back into the world. We have plans for the first ride, but it’s almost like a dream that won’t come true. I’m starting to wonder if it’s all been a dream. I can see it in my mind, so close but yet so far. The min I get the bike home I’ll post a picture of our big and some what new family bike.

Eugene TT

So I did my first TT yesterday. I have had some clip-on TT bars for almost a year with the thought of doing one, but never did, kind of sad. But I decided to clip them on and give it a try. The TT course is a 15 mile loop out on the country roads. There was a good headwind on the 2nd half of the course. I have heard many horror stories of people going out way to fast, only to die at the end, so I think I conserved a little too much. Also, towards the end my left leg started to cramp. But overall I think I did fine. I know I didn't win, far from it. I did the loop in 37 minutes, with an average speed of 24 mph. Hopefully this will help for our TTT at the end of the month. Ride on!

Reminder

Tanner and I hooked up with Tri-Geek AJ for some sweet single track in Corner Canyon rather than doing battle at RMR. It was a good reminder of why I love riding my bike. Great company, conditions and trails. I need to do this more often.

Soccer Dad

Now the snow isn't falling I have been on the bike a bit more. It's still cold, but at least no snow. We had a good group ride on sat (myself, Doug, and Russ) and then I was off to be a soccer dad. Noah is on a team that includes 4 2nd graders, 1 1st grader and Noah(K). His team is really good and great with Noah. Saturday the team wanted to let Noah play forward in hopes that he might score a goal and he DID!!! Yea, the score was already 8-0, but it was great. He went on to score one more goal and the team gave him the game ball for the week. He had a smile to light up the world. He missed a few other chances to score earlier in the game, but when he did all of the parents on our team went crazy. The parent on the other team even gave him a hand. He just never gave up. I was so happy for him. He came over and gave me five after he scored and told me he knew he was going to score.
I can't wait until he and I can ride like Tanner and Daren.
In other news...
Still no tandem and only 116 days to Lotoja.
Ride often

Sherwood

Goods times at Sherwood Hills yesterday. The course was VERY soft and muddy when we arrived at 10am. However, it dried out enough to be damp, but not muddy by the time we raced. However, it was really soft and felt like riding on a pillow most of the time. I keep looking to see if my tire was flat or something. Even though it was slow going, I really liked the course and the temperature was perfect. Much better than the heat when we've raced at Sherwood in July in past years.

Tanner was a solid 2nd but didn't feel great. He just couldn't get going but hung in there for a good finish. We was about 25 minutes better than last year. I think much of his speed increase is due to the weight savings from his recent hair cut. It was like upgrading to carbon wheels.

I felt a little better than at 5-mile pass and put in 4 solid laps. My lap times were within 35 seconds of each other. The result was being in last after the 1st lap (there were only 5 in our classes, but 5 good racers) and 2nd at the finish. Bob put the hurt on for 3 laps again, but blew a bit so I could catch him on the last lap again. This is the 3rd race in a row for this. However, I think as he gets more fit and we get to courses with more climbing, my days of catching him late in the race maybe over. The race ended up being a lot of fun and very close. All 5 of us were within sight of each other during the last lap and finished within 3 minutes.

It is always interesting to me how the various types of cycling can be so different. Mark Skarphol raced with us Saturday and he is a super fast roadie. In fact, the few times I've been in road races with him, I've not been in the same time zone. However, I was fortunate to get by him at the start of the last lap Saturday and stay away. If he ever races MTB more frequently and figures out the pacing and the technical stuff better, he'll smoke me on dirt as well. Cross is the same way. I can occasionally beat guys in cross that destroy me on the road. In the end, I'm glad there's disciplines in cycling that are more technical in nature to make up with my lack of power and speed.


Starting out on the 3rd lap.
anner heading through one of the snowbanks.

Tanner heading out for his last lap.

Before.


After.





The best news of the week was Kim's heart is back ticking normally and he was able to get out on the lunch ride. I saw him for a few minutes and I've never seen him happier on the bike. Hopefully, things will stay normal for a while.

Lastly, we got to talk with Erin today. It was a great Mother's Day gift. She's doing well in Uruguay and will be home in less than 3 months. Hard to believe. We're very excited to have her home soon.

Only in Eugene

Eugene is a very eclectic place. In the grocery store you might be standing next to one of the best surgeons in town, and he's wearing a tie-die and sandals with long hair in a ponytail. Living here you get to see some interesting things. I saw this the other day on my ride home and had to share. I guess this person doesn't like Bush to much. All I can say is, "Only in Eugene!"

What a sport?

Sometimes I wonder about this sport. Cycling is taking its anti-doping policy a little far. I was reading the velonews article about Alessandro Petacchi and that he was banned from Nov. 1 to Aug. 31, 2008, nullifying his Giro wins and any other wins during that time. Why? Because he had an elevated level of Salbutamol, an asthma inhaler. Petacchi took too many puffs and now is losing out because of it. I understand that the sport is trying to keep the riders clean, and sublatumal is a drug that helps riders, but the guy has asthma and he made a mistake. It seems pretty harsh to ban him for that.

5 Mile Pass

Another 5 mile pass MTB race is in the books. As always, it was hard and very dusty. Apparently, none of the recent rain or snow made it out to 5 mile. My bike was making very unhappy noices the last hour.

Tanner had a good day and battled a really strong junior racer to finish 2nd. Tanner is going great and enjoying riding and racing. I'm proud of him and we're just keeping it fun. He doesn't "train". He just rides everyday how he wants and races on Saturdays. The best part is we get to spend so much time together doing something we love. It reminds me of all the time my Dad and I spent on the golf course when I was Tanner's age.

I never felt good on the bike today, but battled hard. It was a fast group with Fred, Chris B, Glen, Dork Bike Brad, Bob, Doc Cross and others. Bob went out fast and Brad, Fred, Chris and Glen followed. I tried but just couldn't go with them. However, I kept at it the rest of the race and caught Bob late when he kind of blew. Sounds like Darrell and others had machanicals in the race that took them out. Too bad. It's great when we have good, competitive fields.

The good news is I was about the same time as last year with not feeling good. The bad news is last year I was a close 2nd and today I was 5th. However, I'd rather race fast guys and finish lower than win against weak competition. In addition, given my average aerobic engine, I gave up ambitions to win every race long ago. For me, it's all about giving my best effort, getting better each year and having fun. Every once in a while, I manage to pull off a win or high placing and I really appreciate it when I do. The rest of the time, I'm battling myself. I think that's why I like MTB and Cross so much. They are much more personal struggles than road racing.

Big ups to Doug today. He raced the Odgen Crit in the 55+. The 45's and 55's raced together and there are some very strong guys in these groups. Doug has only raced a few crits and never been able to hang on to a fast group. However, today he made it to the last lap with the main group. That's a big step and I'm proud of him. If you haven't done a race that requires maximum effort it is hard to explain the feeling.

Finally, congrats to my friend Reed Topham. Reed started riding MTB's a few years ago and did his first MTB race just one year ago as a 40+ sport. He's worked hard to get fit and improve as a racer and today finished 2nd in the 40+ sport class. Pretty cool.

Oh yea, the team is having a good week. Robert and Sohmy are both in the top 20 at Gila in New Mexico and Dave and Chrispy finished 2nd and 4th in Odgen today. TeamRico was 3rd at 5 mile today in the Pro class as they started the final lap before he flatted.