Bi Polar Block's and his pet Triceratop

Just when you thought we were somewhat normal, today we will be diving into the split personality of our very own Block.  As many of our loyal followers know, Sickboy Block is new to the underworld of mountain biking.  Before us, he was your normal next door neighbor Joe who enjoyed 'triathloning' in his spare time along with something called fishing.  The Motor Club was mostly aware of how to spell this 'triathlon' word but that was about as far as our knowledge went on the subject.  Last week Block, despite his Sickboyism, did his first triathlon of the season.  And in order to make us fully understand his other life that doesn't revolve around us, he brought his own media coverage team with him to cover this event and report back to us.  So sit back, grab a drink and enjoy the read:

"Block rolled in early for the first of 3 races in the T Rex series.  He went over to pick up his stuff and get his number.  After a certain Addison incident that involved his race number, Block felt more secure about getting a 2 digit number and being in the elite wave....plus Jon wasn't around.  But when he walked over to the transition area and checked out his surroundings, he realized the numbers did not relate to waves and it was a bad draw for him as he was all the way against the fence, farthest possible distance to cover in transition.  I guess the USAT inserted a new rule stating that persons taller than average will be placed farthest away from the best transition area so they will not trample the smaller contestants to death.  Plus they have longer legs so it takes less energy to run the extra distance, therefore leveling the playing field.  Block was content with the new ruling as he figured it would only cost him maybe 10 seconds and he would be able to avoid all those weird people who grew up to be less than six feet tall.  So he set up his transition area and relaxed as he watched the smaller folks waste energy taking so many small steps to go back and forth to their vehicles.

(We never got the chance to ask Block why he had Zippo Lighter stickers on his hubcaps)

He then noticed one of the 'petite' people.  It was none other than the Motor Club's Mrs. Diesel who was there racing with her Mytriguys.com teammies.  Block tip toed around all the other little people with the better transition positions to go over and make sure she was all set but she was on top of her game and needed nothing from him.  She had a great draw for transition, just off center.  Two bikes down from her bike was a Cervelo P5.  Damn impressive, not sure how someone got their hands on one given that the Garmin team only had one of them in the Giro d’Italia just a month ago...and being in the center of the transition area mans a short person got it.  

Block then got into his wet suit and was happy to be 178 instead of the 195 last time he put it on....altho being black we were sure the color was very slimming when he was 190+.  He thoght about his target goal of 70 mins but still being sick he wasn't sure if he'd be able to get there.  So next he went into the water, then took a piss but we are not sure if he said he peed in his wet suit, the lake or over in the little people transition area.  

Of to the starting line he lined up behind some fast looking guys that looked like good draft targets....for swimming?  Off they went and turns out he made a bad choice, as the guys were slow. He faked right but saw too much congestion (that’s triathlon speak for too high of rate of getting kicked and elbowed) so he moved way left and found a great set of feet to draft.  He followed him all the way to the first turn and then lost him in the usual turn congestion but found another set of feet to follow to the second turn.

(We are guessing he is one of the longer looking people in this shot)

  The guy must have been sick of Block hitting his feet as he put a burst in at the turn.  Block drafted on and off on the long leg back to the beach.  He hit the sand and saw 14:43 on the clock, a real good time for tall people.  T1 seemed smooth and fast.  He mounted the P4 and as much as being tall is awesome it means you have big meaty hands, unless your last name has a 9 in it.  Block fumbled with trying to get his Garmin set mashing his big fingers onto those poor tiny little buttons.  In the end,he gave up and just got into aero position.

He Passed some people right away on the bike and was looking great from our angle.  But then he came to the first little uptick in the road it was like he threw an anchor out the back.  Two guys flew by him as he dropped down to 17ish on the mph scale.  Once back on the flat tho he was okay and actually caught 1 of the 2 guys but every little uphill was the same.  The Sickboy in him held him back from powering up the climbs like he normally does.  The one big positive was all the mtb cross training gave him some confidence on the fast downhill corner and while all the riders around him sat up, Block stayed in the aero position and did the "See ya suckers!" as he flew down the hill.

Next up he slipped out of the shoes and started running to drop off the P4.  Then it was full out run time.  At the 1 mile mark, the course loops back on itself which gives racers a chance to see who is within a minute or so in front or back.  There were lots of guys not far behind him and closing....and he took notice  He saw Rachel Jones about a minute behind him and thought to himself it wouldn't look good to lose to a girl, especially one he knew.  So he tried to up his game.  After the turnaround near 2 miles, he saw that she hadn’t really closed on him so that threat of losing to a girl was gone.  

His final splits were 14:45 swim (800 meters), 1:05 T1, 32:53 bike (12 miles) 1:07T2 and a 23:32 run (3.1 miles).

(I guess his media team didn't have any cameras so there was no picture of him crossing the finish line.  So we decided to make up one of our own...okay, we are not this creative but it was the 

best picture we could find on short notice and we'd like to think we could come close to this if we tried)

After the race he was quoted saying:  "Just shy of the 3 mile mark I felt tightness in my chest and thought this is really bad, Doctor #1 with his elevated heart attack risk prediction may be right after all.  But it went away real quick, so I said the hell with Doctor #1.  Put a push into the final stretch as I could hear a guy behind me and didn’t want to get passed.  I went under the banner at 1:13:22, about 3.5 minutes longer than target.  I was both happy and disappointed - happy to have finished but disappointed that the pneumonia set me back when I was so close to top form."

So that takes us through what it's like being Block for a race that doesn't require tires with treads.  We are damn proud of our Big Fella as he finished despite battling pneumonia in recent weeks.  He still has two more of these planned and we hope he'll recover quickly so he can reap the rewards from all the off season work he put in.

Addison Oaks and Beyond

Another weird weather day in Michigan for this one.  Although no one was complaining as the mid 60's temps are great for racing.  It's probably more the lack of direct sunlight that is starting to get to some.

Block, Soze and A-Train were the ones suiting up for the #4 stop on the USAC Tailwinds Tour.  Sounds more impressive than it actually is.  But it's what we local Michiganders have for racing and we love it.  Team Wissman is doing a great job keeping this series going.

Soze camped overnight Friday while A-Train got there around 8:30 am and Block Porsched up around 9:30.  A-Train was up first and was to go at 10:00.  It would be roughly a 7 mile loop according to J-Dub's warm up lap and A-Train's goals for the day were to finish the 4 laps and also try to place one higher in the standings than the last race he attended.  Addison was more user friendly to his riding style as there was more single track and less places to flex the road legs.  Well one out of two isn't bad, right?  A-Train went the distance but still finished Red Lantern style as his legs had nothing this day.  He told us that he had started off harder than he should have given his current conditioning level and eventually blew his legs up early.  So he spent the rest of the race picking shrapnel out of himself and when it was all finally gone it was to late to make any moves.

Soze took to the 1:00 starting line and made his rookie appearance in a MOTOR jersey.  Microsoft has had him out of state working for a few months making the weekends travel time for him mostly and earning him the nickname Oklahoma Soze.  After only doing one race last year and maybe none the year prior, OKC-Soze thought it best to race Beginner because he didn't want to be trail traffic to the Sportsters.  Plus most of his training has been running and occasional road riding as he keeps his road bike in Oklahoma.  Mostly he was there just to hang out with the team again and have a good time......and get in some trail miles.  Nothing wrong with that!  Well The Soze did his two laps in ~1:10 and that was enough to put him on the podium for a medal and a picture.  Right when he stepped off he handed his daughter the medal for her to keep and told her he won it for her.

Block.  Nothing was going to stop this guy from racing.  He rode fast enough in his class to net 3rd place losing by seconds to the guy one step up.  But check out the events surrounding what could have been a better day for him.  First, he still had a 102 degree fever 12 Hours before his race.  Less than 30 mins before his starting time, his rear tire went completely flat.  A-Train and Dubs, with the help of some borrowed KLM tools, were able to get him up and running again without breaking the seal bead of the tire.  Right after the race Block was complaining about a loud noise coming from his brakes.  A-Train checked it out to find out that the outboard piston of his rear caliper was not retracting meaning Block rode the race with his rear brake on!  The noise was caused by the heat generated from the brake not releasing.  THEN, after seeing that we noticed the front tire was down to about 10 psi......what a crazy 24 hours for Block.  But it didn't stop there.  On Saturday night the fever was back and by Sunday he was at Urgent Care and diagnosed with pneumonia.

So to overcome all this and still take third place in his race class, reminds me of when Michael Jordan played with the flu.  This should go down in Mountain Bike History and put him on the ballot for the Hall of Fame.  This makes three medals in three races for Block....or should we call him Iron Ken?

And let's not forget Diesel.  He ventured north for the Michigan Mountain Mayhem.  Yes, there are no 'mountains' in Michigan but he completed the dreaded death march that had 10,000 feet in of climbing in the 200km route.  We might have to rename him Captain Insane-O.

Four riders.  Four scenarios.  Four finishers.

We may not be the fastest guys out there but we are one thing for sure . . . . head strong.

Last, good ups to D9 for another Expert podium, B-Rad on his third win of the season and Tailwinds for putting on another good event.

This coming weekend Diesel heads north for the second weekend in a row to tackle the Lumberjack 100 with Dub-9.  Will be the first time they both try this race and we are looking forward to hearing all about it!