The start of the day yesterday was much like the Bloomer of 2013.  It was Jon, Brian and Aryn picking the early parking spots and wondering why they didn't sleep in for another hour.  They were there so early that Brian used all three stalls in the bathroom right in a row just to say he could.

Race warm up went much like last year too.  Sit around at the cars BSing while sweating because it was 80 degrees already at 8:30am and the humidity was on high.  While Aryn put his chair in the shade, Brian decided to just follow Jon around and stand in his shadow.

As race time got closer some pre riding was done as well as more BSing with other racers and of course peeing in public.  The starting line was quieter than normal.  Possibly due to many racers still recovering from Lumberjack last week, others just wanting to be home and in bed but mostly because they all knew the next two hours of their life was gonna hurt.  Bloomer is not a forgiving course.  A couple spots to stretch the legs but for most of it you really need to pay attention to what you are doing out there or you are going to eat it.

Jon started off in good position with the front runners but was forced to a DNF when his chain got caught up in lap two and ripped his frame protector right off his bike...jamming his chain.

But even tho his day was cut short, Jon still took time to look good for the camera, which is something that comes very natural to him.

Knowing Jon was having a bad day, Aryn took it upon himself to try and put together a DUB9 like performance for the team and ride himself into a top three spot.  With Mike T out in front, Aryn spent four rounds mixing it up with Stephan Zierman, John Osgood and Andy Fedewa for spots 2-5.

Through 3.5 out of the 4 laps all four kept turning screws on each other and taking turns out front doing their best to ride the others off their wheel.  In the end Aryn fell 13 seconds short of third place and rolled in for the 4th spot on the podium behind his long time rival (and good friend) John Osgood.

Coming off back to back weekends of 100 milers, Brian 'the Bullet' McCabe was ready for a race that didn't require at least 7 hours in the saddle.  He proved his new rigid fork could go the distance at Lumberjack but the big questions was how would Mr Singletrack himself do on a course that was this demanding.  

As you can see by the picture, Mr Calm and Collected proved once again why he is the best technical rider on the team.  He took full advantage of the course and muscled his way up to a 2nd place finish for the day.

With the Holiday weekend coming up the team doesn't have any races scheduled.  Most will be using this week for some fun rides and relaxing buy the lake or pool.  After this weekend Phase II of the race season starts and there will be plenty of action going on into Labor Day weekend.

So kick off your shoes, put your feet up and have a beer....or half a beer if you're like Aryn.  Work on evening out those tan lines and we'll see you all back in action in Midland in two weeks.

FADE TO BLACK

10th Anniversary Lumberjack 100

Dub9 review:

After vowing to never do it again, when I signed up for LJ100 this year I vowed to do things differently.  This year it was going to be on a rigid singlespeed.  If I was going to suffer, I wanted the volume at 11!

Diesel and I got to the starting line earlier this year, accompanied by Mrs. Diesel, and picked a spot several rows back from the eventual winners.  When the siren sounded, it was a mad rush.  I was bobbing along with the other singlespeeders as waves of geared riders engulfed me.  I averaged 125 RPM for those first 5 minutes.  I was relieved to get on the trail and slow down.

About an hour in I caught up with Diesel and the KLM guys on the only road section.  Shortly after Joey had a brake issue, so I handed my tool pouch. Only 6.5 hours remaining, and I now had no tools.  I still had some Gu.

Somewhere along the line my wheel magnet got jarred, and my GPS had poor coverage, so there was no monitoring mileage.  I just tried to cling to Brad Lako as we came through the first lap in about 2:25.  I grabbed more gel, swapped bottles, and I was off again to try to keep Brad in sight.  I wanted to change gloves, but forgot in my rush.

Lap 2 was quite open, and more passing.  I never saw Brad again after these first miles, so I began meandering at my own pace.  I think this is the hardest lap mentally, and I struggled to maintain focus.  I was reminded of this when I broke concentration and found myself on the ground in a rather easy section.  It was however a nice opportunity for a nature break.  I finished the lap on the brink of cramping.

Lap 3 started with more of the same, but as I finished the long climb at the start, my legs came around.  However the rest of my body was breaking down.  My hands were feeling raw from the 5 hours of wet gloves, and my feet were tingling.  I could feel my pace slipping, but I couldn't do anything about it.

At the halfway point aid station I received a pro hand-off of half a banana and continued on.  It was surreal slowly passing other shattered soul barely turning the cranks, most of them with an entire lap to go.

The "gentle" climbs at the end took every once of effort to climb, and the descents were worse as I could hang on, and standing would cause my calves to cramp.  I crossed the line in 7:42:35, and 11th place singlespeed.  I wanted top 10, but did not have a time goal.  I barely dismounted my bike, and stumbled back to the tent where I just wanted to lay down.

Diesel was not long after.  He came in at 8:14:20 which was good enough for 50th out of 228 for the Open Men's division.  Then it was time to eat, drink, and swat mosquitoes.

As much as I enjoy torturing myself in the name of fun, it is more enjoyable to share that misery with others, even the ones that won't publicly admit that you are friends.

It is Monday, the beer is gone, the pain is subsiding, and I am back to work.  Soon this will all be a dull memory probably until 4 am sometime late next June.

Forever Forward.

State Games of Michigan

Youngblood review:

I arrived at Cannonsburg just before 8:00 ready for a 9:00 start time but when I went to check in, they had not set up registration yet. I found a worker who told me registration would be ready soon so I went to look around and noticed the start and finish areas of the course were not ready either. I really started to wonder how are they going to get all this ready in the next hour? It turns out they were not, while the web site said 9:00 for start times my actual start was set for 10:08. So what to do with an extra hour. Brad answered that for me by getting his Stryder bike out and having me follow him around while he made friends with every other racer who also had an extra hour to waste. Fast forward to start time—with only 9 or 10 of us on the line it felt like a very small group and we were ready to go. As soon as we started I jumped out to the lead even though I really did not want to, nor did I try but I guess someone has to set the pace for the first lap. The trail starts with a flat wide section giving us plenty of time to get in a single file line as we entered the woods and started the long first climb. Next comes a few miles of fairly tight single track that flow exceptionally well and trail conditions were excellent so a group of three of us started to put a little space between the rest of the pack. With about a mile and a half to go on the first of four laps we hit a new section of trail that was really loose and tight. It looked like it should have been very fast since it was a downhill switchback section but as soon as you tried lean the loose dirt would just push out and send you sliding so the trick was to stay inside on the turns and not go too fast. About halfway through lap two the guy who went to on win passed me and another rider followed him. The leader was able to pull away from us slowly but as soon as we hit the long climb on lap three I passed the other rider to get back into second. The rest of lap three and the first half of lap four were pretty uneventful but fun riding. But about halfway through lap 4 I could see the third place rider (a different guy than the one I passed) and he was slowly reeling me in. At that point I told myself it is ok if he catches up now, but there is no way you are going to let him pass you. With about ¾ of a mile to go and the new loose section behind us we entered the last bit of singletrack which was about ½ mile long were I decided I did not really care to try my hand in a sprint finish especially since the last ¼ mile was on a really sand two-track so I picked up the pace and put some distance between us.  I felt safer about my spot as I left the woods and started my way up the two-track but it was not time to let up. As I crested the final hill with about 100 yards of downhill to go I looked back and noticed I had put a little more space between us. I crossed the finish line 9 seconds ahead of third happy enough with my performance.  Time for awards and more chasing the Stryder speed demon.

Pix of the weekend:

Brian gained 2 pounds this season so far.  Only sensible way to lose two pounds the week of a race is to replace something on your bike with a lighter part.  Hence, a new RDO fork.  Problem solved.

Jon working hard to catch up to Brad

Only to find out later he was right behind him....that sneaky Brad Lako.

Can we go home now?

Mitch exercising his Manual

Need to get a Junior METAL Podium shirt because we all know without the Stryder warm up there is no way Mitch would have made the podium.

Next up for the crew, Bloomer XC on 6/29

Bridges To Somewhere

Race #4 of the USAC Tailwind Series, Addison Oaks.  As much as the entire team loves this race scheduling conflicts and a staircase prevented some of the team from showing up.  However, Jon, Mitch, Aryn and Ken were able to make the trip.  Brian was somewhere in the middle of nowhere doing a 200km ride with Mrs Diesel and her peoples.

Experts - Jon, Mitch and Aryn were off to a good start for the day.  While Mitch and Jon were up near the front Aryn was 10th man back going into the woods because he's a moron.  Laps 1 and 2 were fast and a lead pack of about 13 guys rode wheel to wheel for about a lap and a half until Mitch decided it was time to see what the dirt tasted like.  A broken cleat from the crash took Mitch out on lap two and he had no choice but to limp back to the tent for a DNF.

Note Mitch's cleat is in the pedal still with one screw while his shoe and other screw isn't.

Jon held on up front to finish 3rd while Aryn was able to work laps 3 and 4 a little and ride himself up to the last spot on the podium and take 5th.

Is smiling for the camera at races the same as waving?

One of the many bridges over dirt that had to be crossed

Sport - After the Expert awards Jon had to bolt but Aryn and Mitch stayed around to make sure Ken got a proper send off.

Work that camera you bad boy!

While Ken did not make the podium this week in his class he still put together a solid run and the video of his finish was the highlight of the day:

Brian finished his 200km road ride in Twin Six fashion and stated the hills seemed much larger than last year.  He didn't get any pix other than this generic tourist photo of him and Mrs Diesel.  

And when shaving your legs, always make sure you shave with an experienced teammate near by to avoid first time shaving disasters like this: (Mitch showing us all what not to do)

  Next up:  Jon and Brian go back to Lumberjack this weekend for their second Hundo while Mitch plans to head to the Meijer State Games.  Ken has his Tri on 6/18 while Mike and Gerry both try and recover from non cycling related injuries that need better stories to make it seem like they were doing something awesome when it happened.  And Aryn, well, he'll probably be face down, drunk and passed out in a public park on his weekend off from racing.

What Didn't Happen this Weekend?

Let's cut to it....gonna be a short with the text and long with the pictures.

First up: Jon, Aryn, Brian, Mike and Ken were at Stony Creek Sunday for the annual Tailwind XC Marathon.  Jon, Aryn and Brian were there to do 50 miles while Mike and Ken were going to throw down 40.  After everyone was done pedaling their bikes for 3.5+ hours the team walked away with 4 podiums for the day.  Jon 2nd, Aryn 5th, Mike 5th and Ken 5th.  

2 Greens in one shot again!

Congratz to Soze on his first podium of 2014!

Biggest podium surprise of the weekend.  Big Block showing he can go the distance!

Then there was Skylar who was much further up north riding much larger hills than these clowns.  She held her own and pulled down a podium of her own in her class.  (glad we signed her early before she demands a larger contract)  And not only did she get third place, she got a plaque!  It's bigger than the four medals combined that the guys collected.

But before any of this took place on Sunday, Mitch and his wife Laurie welcomed a new METAL member into the family, Thunder Raven DeYoung....but you can just call him 

THUNDER!!!

So that's 5 podiums and a baby delivered in less than 24 hours.
I'd like to see some other team out there beat that.

The team has two weeks off before the next Tailwinds XC Race at Addison Oaks.  In the mean time, here's some pix of the weekend's events to keep you all entertained:

Leader of the pack

Before you know it Jon will start wearing pink to be like Brian

Team White Lightning coming in for a bottle exchange

Grumpy looking for a banana

Mrs Block with a textbook hand off

Soze has been known to sing out loud during races for motivation

Abi-girl given Daddy-O a bottle

Jon laughing because he realized he brought mismatched gloves again. Silly Dubs.

Plotting revenge

The Wrench in action

Still not sure what Ken was whispering into Jon's ear

Aryn at his happy place

Thanks to Twin Six, Loaded Precision Components, GU Energy and ESI Grips for getting the crew through another weekend!