bonus points will be awarded to anyone racing on plastic yellow chainrings

More details here:

http://onespeedopen.blogspot.com/

Once again, Team 400 Smith returned to the tree-canopied-university-drive-turned-velodrome for the 4th annual 6-Day Races at the CSU Oval.

turning heads, naturally.

Did you know that the Oval is 2065′ around?  Not that anyone really cares, but that’s about .4 miles.  I even measured it myself with a ruler.  Insert lewd sex-themed joke about your male parent here.

This year, a Professional Race Director was recruited to lend his expertise to the competitions, this man being none other than our team patriarch, Dan Lionberg:

Text is boring.  Look at more pictures!  Other scenes from the races:

sprint finish. i'll give you 1 guess who snags this one.

the lovely Swan sisters

400 smith bicycle cult's newest recruit, Elenita! gotta get 'em while they're still young.

…And now, for the race results:

That’s right, Team 400 Smith had finishes in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in each rider’s respective categories.

Nicole: 1st, Open Women.  How’s that for a debut season on t 400 s?  Watch out, Fort Collins females, she’s got plenty more tricks up those sleeves and sprints in those legs.

Rafael: 2nd, Citizen Men.  And he’s just getting started…

Claire: 3rd, Open Women.  At least I made it on the damn podium, I guess.

Let it be known.

The era of 400 Smith has lives on!

We have a very gigantic basement room.  It’s actually two rooms, so if you’re the kind of dude(ette) who needs some extra space for art/music/interpretive dancing/”homebrewing” synthetic drugs then this is the place for you!

Send an email to team director David Boerner

DavidBoerner@Gmail.com

Since upgrading to the threes, I’ve done quite well for myself, always finishing in the first third or so of every race.  I’ve made some points in the Colorado Cross Cup, and some of the people in my series have upgraded to the twos, so things just keep getting better (and easier) as the season progresses.

I’m now 16th in the in the Colorado Cross Cup for the cat. 3s (not bad considering I missed the first two races as a cat. 4).  I’m guaranteed a second-row start, and possibly a first-row start if enough people are absent.

I’ll spare you the boring races where I finished out of the top-five, but I had two surprisingly good results since upgrading.

USGP New Belgium Cup 2-3 Race, Day 2

(PICTURE)

As probably anyone reading this knows, I was selling coffee for the Bean Cycle at the USGP and that was my primary concern.  I was working from 6:30am until 9pm both days, so I sorta viewed Sunday’s race as an added hassle to an already very stressful weekend.

Oh well, I’d raced enough by that point that I knew what to do.

My boss showed up early to cover me, so I got dressed up in all of the clothing I had and hit the frozen mud ice-sculpture course for a couple of laps before they kicked me off.

It was actually really fun when it was still frozen – especially to see some of less technically-skilled riders out there warming up.  What these guys apparently didn’t realize is that roughly-formed mud-ice is a really great, fast surface to ride on as long as you’re not trying to ride on anything off-camber.  All you’ve gotta do is stay in the right part of the deep frozen groove and keep your leg off when in doubt.

The course, of course, was incredible.  Fort Collins’ own Rob Noble staked it out, and I think we can all call him “The Prairie Whisperer” after what he did with the place.  I haev visions of Rob living for decades in that field, gently caressing the ground, meditating, and talking to the grass.  There was nothing that felt forced or unnatural about the course – even the parts where Rob ran us off-camber on every steep, slick surface he could find!

And I haven’t even started on the atmosphere yet!  This was the first top-notch UCI course I’d ever ridden on and it was way different from the ACA courses I was used to.  There was a flyover.  Every part of the course was UCI-width with most parts taped off with the kind of sponsor-logo netting that you can crash into and sort of bounce off.  It was the kind of course you could release 100 crazed dudes onto and let them duke it out three-wide for the first lap!

The surface started thawing during my last warmup lap, becoming really nice and tacky in places for a moment.  Then they kicked me off the course.

My number was good enough for a fourth-row start.  All the usual suspects were there at the start line, including all the dudes who had recently upgraded to cat 2 (nice to see you again, guys), and some of the cat. 2s who were fishing for a good result in a pro-free race.

I’d never raced a cat 2-3 race, so I wasn’t really expecting anything, but I gotta say that I was feeling pretty sharp going into this very technical, muddy course with a flat bar and a MTB cassette.

“Just don’t follow these guys too close on the technical stuff,” Andy Clark wisely advised me just before the gun.

BANG!

I almost moved up several rows along the left wall on the straight, then I almost got ridden into the wall, and settled with going into the course about 30th.

I was passing people on downhill, off-camber grass; passing them on uphill, bumpy prairie hell hills; passing them when they crashed on mud; passing them on the inside with my leg off, both wheels a-slidin.  Finally I settled into what I was told was 9th place.

The mud was fucking ridiculous – it was like riding through a halfway-cured adobe made with plenty of straw.  It was so slow at times, and really had me worried about my bike.

The mud was also slick on the downhill curves – a fact that apparently helped me greatly.

I don’t mean to sound like a dick or anything, but I was pretty surprised how slowly people were riding the downhills.  It must have been a drop-bar thing.  To me it seemed like the best way to approach the downhills was, “ride as fast as possible down them, then slow down before the corner.”  This worked well as I could easily make up huge gaps on the downhills.  It also backfired a couple of times when i crashed at the bottom of the longest downhill two laps in a row.

After getting around a crash from two fast juniors, I caught a guy I didn’t know and duked it out with him for the second half of the race.  He could catch me on the power sections if I gapped him, and I could catch him on the downhills if me gapped me.  I settled for just riding his wheel for the last two laps (not much of a draft, but good to keep tabs on your enemy), giving him a wide-berth around the tricky corners.

He raged the final downhill just fast enough for me to not pass him, so I pulled on the brakes and followed him into the two slick mud corners at the bottom.

We both made the first corner, but he crashed on the second in dramatic fashion.  He ended up superman-ing off the side of his bike, landing face-first on the mud, sliding on his stomach.  I rode up the left side of his body – close enough that I’m surprised I didn’t crank a pedal into his back – and sprinted up the long hill afterward.  When I looked back from the top of the hill, he was just getting back on his bike and had clearly resigned himself losing our battle.

I rode the rest of the lap nice and safe to finish fifth place.

Holy crap, my best result yet as a Cat. 3 and many of the people I beat were cat. 2s!  I even received one cat. 2 upgrade point (which I assume I can still use as a cat. 3?).  It was awesome to have such a good result in my hometown, at my home race, in front of my coffee booth.

After removing most of the adobe hut that had grown around my bike, it was back to work for me.

“help me overcome the ‘barrier’ of poverty”

GMSV #2 – Lookout Cross

I was feeling pretty good the day before this race, and definitely ready to race well after being sick and getting a mediocre result the week before.  Then I went out and raged on the dancefloor for three hours the night before.

I could feel the dancing in my legs on race day, but I had a long time to warm up.  I probably pre-rode five laps of the course, trying to get all of the loose, mountain-bike-y corners dialed in.  I rode a couple of laps with Fort Collinser Tom Hayes, probably the guy I’ve raced with the most this season and definitely one of my favorite guys in the ACA. Tom’s a mountain biker, and I don’t think either of us understood the advantage we had on this course, since we were warming up together.

The field was really small.  18 starters, according to the ACA (I coulda sworn there were people in the third row).  This meant that pretty much everyone with Colorado Cross Cup points got a front-row start, including me – far right start going into a right-hander.

The gun shot and Tom and I went into the course third and fourth.  The roadies who got around us on the start had Tom and I chomping at the bit around those first three corners.  Tom got around them first and opened up a gap by the bottom of the downhill.

I got around one, but kept getting stuck behind this guy who was cornering just poorly enough to slow me down but not let me by.  He went wide near the bottom of the hill and I got next to him and forced him to stay off the course until the next corner, where I got through clean and into the climb first.

I gave it everything I had on the first long grinder climb to catch Tom’s wheel.  I expected others to catch up too, but they never did and I followed Tom for the remainder of the lap.  Without a word, I pulled through to start lap two, and Tom and I pulled one lap apiece the rest of the race, extending our lead to “insurmountable” territory by halfway through the race.

Tom and I were silent until near the end, when we started talking about what we were going to do.  We’re friends on Facebook, so we’d have to be gentlemanly when the time came for us to race each other.  We made a pact to work together until the last lap, at which point I pulled through and rode briskly but made sure to preserve some energy.  By the time we hit the barriers midway through the lap, I was riding pretty slowly, preferring to save my legs and let Tom attack first.  Tom didn’t attack, though, so I turned the pace back up, then attacked with everything that I had on the final climb.

Tom said that he stood up to match my attack, but couldn’t match it.

I was raging so much faster on that final uphill than I had been, that I crashed on the relatively straightforward corner at the course’s high point.

Tom nearly caught back onto my wheel, but I raged the final downhill and barrier well enough to keep my tiny gap and hold it to the finish line for the win.

I’d raced close to Tom at practically every practice race this season.  Then I’d seen his great results in the threes (including a win), so I knew that it was theoretically possible for me to win a race in the threes.  But I really didn’t expect the necessary circumstances to come together this season.

It’s been quite a season for me.  I won a race in the fours, upgraded, and won a race in the threes.  It was a small field and certainly easier than other cat. 3 races I’ve contested, but I’ll take it.

The State Championship race is this weekend and if I win this time, I’ll get an automatic cat. 2 upgrade.  Please say a prayer to the Bike Gods to preventing that from happening!  I don’t want to race the pros yet!

Well, I want to urge you to come out this weekend.  The weather should be perfect(ly shitty!).  And once you get too cold throwing snowballs at me while I “race” in the 2/3 race on Sunday at 9:30, you can hang out inside the gigantic New Belgium tent where you can further heckle me while I make you french-pressed Bean Cycle coffee!

OK.  So you’re going, right?

Because we’re going to take pictures of all the hilarious-ass shit that went down (I’ve heard tell, so far, of a bum bonfire with smores, a 16-person hot tub, a flyover, a short bus with a party deck on top, etc.). And if you weren’t there, you won’t just have to repent to The Bike Gods.  You’ll have to live with your own guilt!

It’s been a good start to the cyclocross season for me, with two races and two podium finishes.  The party’s over now, as I’m moving up to the threes, but it was fun while it lasted.

Week 1: Interlocken

I raced my first ever officially-sanctioned race the week before Aspen Lodge.  I was sick with a cold, and the field was pretty big (65 dudes).  I wasn’t getting a call-up either, so I’d have to line up behind about 30 people.

I knew I’d be strong in the Cat. 4s, but I figured this wouldn’t be my week.  I wasn’t really 100%, and there’s always somebody in the fours.

But when the bell rang, I got a nice opening, got far-right, moved WAY up, and ended up going into the narrow course about 12th place.  I was passing people with ease, and by the time I came through the start-finish for lap two, I’d made the final surge to the race leader’s wheel.

“Well, shit,” I thought.  ”This is gonna be easy“

I rode the leader’s wheel for most of lap two (it was windy, so having a draft was nice on the West-facing straights (even though he was a really small, young kid)).  Then he made me pull for a little while.  Then he dropped the living shit out of me on the run-up.  Unfortunately, there was another run-up right afterward, and the little dude doubled his gap.

I tried.  I could make up a little time on any power section.  But that kid just kept up a tempo I couldn’t match.  I started focusing on the guy behind me by halfway through the race.

I shoulda focused a little harder at the finish because he almost beat me at the line for 2nd place.

Boy, that would have been embarrassing.

Not bad.  2nd place in my first CX race.  I spent an entire road season (I only actually raced four races) trying to get on the podium in the fours, and then I just sort of waltz right on during cross season.  Plus, I had the convenient excuse of a cold for not winning.

The 14-year-old who beat me

Week 2: Aspen Lodge

Just missed a high-five with the kid who beat me at interlocken

I had no such excuses going into Aspen Lodge.  I was more-or-less over my cold.  I’d slept well, drank plenty of water, eaten a perfect breakfast, etc.  The course was very tricky, was at high altitude (9,200ft?) and featured a lot of climbing – but all of that would definitely benifit me.  And that little kid who beat me the week before had received a forced upgrade, so I wouldn’t have to worry about racing him.

There was a lot of pressure to succeed.

Luckily, it all sorta fell into place, just like last week.

I managed to spin my own ineptitude into an asset by pinning my number on upside-down.  A spectator offered to re-pin me, so I moved towards him to exactly where the second row of call-ups turned out to be.  I didn’t get a call-up, but I was already sort of standing on the second row, and the race was about to go off in a matter of seconds.

I tried out some bizarre ultra-fast breathing technique off the top of my head to get my heart rate up, then the gun fired.

It was the same as last week – totally surreal.  A cyclocross start is a total shit show with people crashing all around you, running into each other, riding into the tape, and overcooking the first turn.  It’s also really hard, theoretically, but I can’t feel it for about half a lap.  I operate purely on instincts, pushing as hard as I can, riding people into the outside of corners, making insane suicide accelerations into u-turns – all to get another wheel and another and another until I can see the leaders.

Then I start feeling the pain, I reach my threshold, and I rest behind a wheel until the course widens and I sprint for the next wheel.

It’s always wild for the first lap, but at Aspen Lodge I could match the leaders’ pace and pass on some of the more technical bits.  I made it to third, then followed second-place’s pass up a horrifically slow gravel uphill, rode his wheel through the very brief asphalt straightaway start-finish, followed him on the stairway run-up, and realized immediately upon starting the uphill pit stretch that I could and should attack him before the top of the hill and a windy grass section.

“HOLY SHIT I’M WINNING THE RACE,” I thought.

“Dude, you’re halfway through the second lap.  Chill out,” I told myself.

“Ride your own race, David,” somebody who turned out to be Brian Holcombe yelled.

And I did.  I slowed my frenzied pace a little, realizing that I’d already opened up a sizeable gap in a short amount of time.  Then I just kept up my pace for the next four laps.

Once I learned the Aspen Lodge course and established a comfortable gap, I was able to have a pretty good time out there.  There were a few places to air out ol’ Jake the Snake, and I took full advantage.  The u-turn section was really fun once I figured out how to rail them without taking my leg off.  And the long, dusty downhill with one of the longest leg-off turns in history was quite a reward every lap after all that climbing.

By laps six and seven, I was increasing my pace, high off of the ecstasy of a practically-assured victory.  The guy in 2nd place just kept moving further back, and it made me ride faster and faster.  I laid low on the last lap, not wanting to fuck up such a gigantic lead.

But I gotta tell you, dawgs, and don’t repeat this:  I started getting pretty misty-eyed on that last lap, yelling out loud “THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  HOLY SHIT!  THANK YOU!” to the Bike Gods.

Here’s a video of my Dad freaking out a little bit too.

I knew I was on form to race in the threes, but I really wanted to get a win before I upgraded.  And cat. 4 races in Colorado, as I’d learned during road season, always include at least one or two random fast guys who blow everyone else out of the water.

Thankfully, I got to be that random guy just this once, and now I’m off to try my luck in the “Killer Bs,” as they call them.

Wish me luck at Xilinx tomorrow!

We’re doing another jersey order.  Does anyone want to join?  It’s $76 for a short sleeve, $80 for a long-sleeve (unless we get twelve, then take 20 bucks off each jersey).  They’re quite a garment – probably the nicest piece of cycling kit I’ve ever owned (although pretty thick and hot during the summer).

Anyway, lemme know if you want in on this.  Yes, they’re expensive.  And yes, being on 400 Smith Racing is worth it.

Anyone?

Nicole Swan?  Is that you in the back of that photo?  Don’t you feel left out?

Please join our team, Nicole!

Come on, Nicole, PLEASE?!