Boone Roubaix 2013

Crazy Dan Boone and Dr. Pain's Lessons of Dirt

April 20th 2013

When Mike Robinson's (AKA Dr. Pain) wheels hit dirt he morphs into a Lycenthrope or shape shifter.  His aero position drops four inches, leg speed increases 20%, pupils dilate to improve hazard handling, and heart rate and wattage spike. His usual mild personality devolves into an ill-mannered terra-planing competitive S.O.B..

"Never stop pedaling when you hit a sand trap" he advises. "It only slows you down and you'll stop or crash. Bomb all descents at top speed. You need the speed to vault the potholes of death."

I have learned to never let him get ahead of me in deep sand. Somehow he just always floats away leaving you flailing the bike in shin-deep sugar sand unable to get going again. But I am grateful for his negative tutelage for it has proved invaluable in recent Roubaix events.

Being uncomfortable descending smooth pavement switchbacks at 50+ mph, I now rely on my new ability to turn it loose on the dirt and put time on timid rivals. There were several dirt sectors in this race that allowed me to do just that and end in overall victory for my age group. (50-59)

Our 250+ mass start race began in 38 degrees and ended in the mid forties. Hiding in the van huddled over the heater proved a poor strategy. We were told there would be a neutral lead out across the cold, rain saturated field but nobody told the lead car which immediately  took off out of sight. This left all 250 people struggling to stay up front on the twisty, hilly potholed course.
The carnage was unbelievable. No crashes, but within 2 miles the lead group was down to 25. My legs felt like lifeless turkey bones kept in the fridge too long. It was a painful struggle just to keep in the draft near the back.

Mike and Jayson were nowhere in sight.  So strange for the Mudd brothers to vanish this early.
Eventually pavement appeared, the pack slowed slightly and It felt like a grand fondo.
With a super-human effort a red-faced Jayson managed to get across the gap and latched on to the very back where I had pitched my tent.  "Oi!" he breathed. "I made it. Bloody hell I'm knackerd!"
"Welcome back dude!" I congratulated his effort slapping him on the back. A few seconds later we started one of the longest steepest climbs of the whole race. An un recovered Jayson began to slide backwards. "Bollocks!" he cried.  "See ya later mate........" and he was gone. I felt bad and considered giving him a push......but only for an instant because the 20-40 year-old riders were now climbing away from us single file and because he is not sponsored by Bike Works/Cycle Logic. Maybe next year he will be orange not blue and I will help him. Maybe.

Eventually I came off too. This climb was steeper than Hogpen at 6-Gap but not as long.

A few miles later I was joined by two younger guys from Team Pittsburgh and we started sharing the load. Me on the uphills and dirt, they on the fast paved downhills. Everytime we hit dirt I thought of Dr. Pain. What would he do?  Keep the pressure on, never hit the brakes and bomb the descents and potholes. A pattern set itself up......climb just hard enough to retain Team Pittsburgh.....descend fast enough not to lose them......then imagine chasing Dr. Pain on the next dirt sector. When my buddies came off I couldn't help a feral Robinson grin.

At one point a strong but nutty local rider bridged up. I think he was on drugs. He was way too animated. Every hilltop or hard effort he gave a rebel yell at the top of his lungs.  "Yee-ow!!!, feel that BURN!!!  C'mon boys!  Let's ROCK!!!  Hoo whee!!!"

I think he rode bandit.  Everybody had a three digit race number.  His was folded up to reveal  "6."   But he was strong and we let him help us like the Woody Allen joke:

A man visits a psychiatrist.
"My brother thinks he's a chicken."
"Have you told him he is not a chicken?" says the psychiatrist.
"No because we really need the eggs" the man replied. 

Later he started whistling the sag truck to take his vest.  They politely ignored him.  They knew something.......maybe he was the crazy side of the Daniel Boone clan. We kept the eggs though.

Finally we turned onto the final gravel parking lot loop and under the finishing banner. Team Pittsburgh raced itself hard for 15th place. Crazy Daniel ignored the banner and headed for the free beer. I rolled under the banner in about 2 hours 41 minutes.

Jayson came in 9 minutes later and Mike a scant 5 minutes after that. We all had the same basic tale.  We got dropped by the youngsters then rallied by forming small chase groups the rest of the race.
Few riders seemed to have road skills and required lectures on efficient rotations and echelons. There must be more mountain bike riders in these kinds of races.

We all agreed the promoter Andrew "Stack" Stackhouse is much friendlier and more approachable than all Florida road race promoters combined.  He was very interested in everybody having a good experience. He was MC and also drove the whole course filming and offering help and encouragement to all the racers he encountered. He walked the parking lot welcoming everybody one at a time.
We will definitely be back next year and will do as many of his upcoming races this year as possible.
K-Dogg

Here is the video that Jayson O'Mahoney put together...enjoy.


 

Southern Cross 2013 report

Mountain people say if you don't like the weather just wait 10 minutes and it will change.
They lie. The 51 mile Southern Cross extreme CX race was 28 degrees at the start and 34 at the finish - 3 1/2 cold miserable hours later. It was so cold at the finish the hot lasagna they served outdoors
was brittle before we sat down. During the race a power bar was a flat, cold rock. Completely inedible.
Mike's gummy Power Blok clicked when he dropped one. Water bottles spouted an ice dome with slush that had to be chewed.

Unaccustomed to these conditions Ed, Mike and I pawed through a ridiculous plethora of of bike clothes in every possible combination. What to wear?
A 12 mile 20% plus dirt  climb is best  done naked. However, an 8 mile descent begs a wool burka.
If you have to change a flat you'd best start a survival fire. We ended up horribly overdressing to cope with standing still 30 minutes at the start. Surely we could peel layers later?

The course itself was miserable. A 400 person mass start is crazy enough without ankle-deep slimy red Georgia clay.  Imagine riding a light dusting of hay over a blaze of fresh dog crap.  Deep slimy ruts formed as 800 tires slipped helter skelter careening around the initial technical CX 1.5 mile start.  The air buzzed with angry orange blobs launched off tires and and slapped onto bike frames, vests and sunglasses. My heart rate maxed out at 195 running up one of those shite hills less than 2 minutes from the start. But.......suddenly  you notice you aren't cold anymore. Now you are feverish.

No time to change as we left the dirt and began forming little  echelons  desperately chasing other little echelons heading toward the first 12 mile climb.

About 20 seconds ahead I could just make out Ed's familiar orange Cycle Logic kit safely esconched in the lead group-but no matter how hard I sat-on we just couldn't close.  (I didn't catch Ed until he crashed and flatted 30 miles later.) But soon the 12 mile rocky climb began.

Immediately I was baking like a butterball turkey with the stops stuck.  Sweat soaked through 4 layers of  lined lycra and dripped down my open chest as my ticker beat 175 at 6 mph.
Legs were somewhere between track standing and 30 RPM.

What was I thinking?  Everything moved in slow motion for an hour.  Riders I could catch in 10 strokes on the flats were actually 20 seconds ahead. You had to carefully thread through a minefield of quartz and granite rocks as big as melons.  Touch one this slow and you might not get going again. Cries of "that's it!" echoed up and down the valley as people started walking.

Eventually you top out at the feed station where  volunteers clang bells in your face, yell "good job!" and generally piss you off — not racing.

And then you descend, and descend, and descend some more.  Four zippers head North now.  Over-gloves are found. Your powerbar is now a lollypop-all you can do is lick it.  Luckily the Gu still squeezed out - on my cheek, on my gloves and on my jacket.  At 29 degrees and 37 mph
your eyes weep, your nose gushes and your hands ache on the brakes.  Throw in ruts and dodging boulders around every other blind curve understand how Ed eventually crashed.......and flatted at the same time.  He hit a big rock, flew over the bars and ended up on his knees facing away.  He didn't mention this to me when i came upon him calmly fixing replacing his tube.  At the end (he still caught me for all that) he had a mild concussion, a bloody bulb on his upper back and minor strawberries. Truly The Fighting Irish.  The Fighting Irish that do yoga.

A few more hard, hot climbs, a few more freezing,scary plummets and we ended back on the final 1.5 cyclocross section. Mike was so tired he chugged half a can of the traditional beer hand up at the hardest run up hill. He said it was a tempting to bail and cruise the 1/2 mile paved shortcut  back to the warm Mommobile.  But we both managed to click back in and stagger on with honor- ignoring even more irritating cheers of "good job!" or "come on buddy! ride through the creek! You can do it!"  Personally, I was in a black mood and mumbled "I don't give a #%*#!" and simply sloshed through the frigid  water not risking a fall on my #%*#in arse this close to the end.

Unfortunately we don't have  video due to "technical" issues -meaning it was too cold to remove gloves and push tiny camera buttons and that our Australian film crew had a broken collar bone.

Overall the event is well worth attending and rates a "10" in overall experience. They just need to do something about the climate up there. Brrrrr!

K-Dogg

One Hundred Spaghetti Legs With Dirty Red Sauce

October 6th's Spaghetti 100 Kids on Bikes charity ride brought out the best and the worst in the 100 or so entrants of the 62-mile dirt "ride." The best was raising money to help underprivileged kids with bikes and safety programs.

The worst occurred when the promoters dangled a "World Champion" (of Tallahassee) rainbow jersey for the first across the finish line.  Suddenly a charity  "ride" morphed into a full-on "race" with all the associated selfish and cutthroat tactics that could be mustered to possess the golden fleece. 

Cycle Logic was well positioned because of it's reputation for "dominating the charity rides" and according to the ride promoter "turned a lot of local racers heads this weekend" with their brute strength and devastating team tactics. 

Cycle-Logic racers Rob "Chicken Chucker" Robins, Mike "Dr. Pain" Robinson and Kerry "K-Dogg" Duggan formed a sleeper alliance with Bike Works mountain bike star Clint "The Rock" Gibbs, CX endurance master "Frisbee" Todd Leedy and newby Justin "Chase Everything That Moves" De Leo.   

The alliance worked. Very well.  

Once we hit the first hilly red dirt section, 100 starters quickly funneled down to 30 players after a silly crash that dammed things up briefly.  Rob's video camera recorded a spectacular tumble mania and his own subsequent acrobatic hand stand save. No harm done but Rob, Mike, Clint and Justin were forced to stop and regroup.

Todd and I managed to escape the confusion, chased and sat on a strong player we called "Green Hat." He was frustrated we wouldn't work, but eventually understood we had trapped teammates. Soon the pack caught back on, almost immediately one of us attacked. When one was caught another would launch. Over and over for the next three hours the 6 of us kept it up.

There were dozens of hills and boggy areas where small group or solo attacks worked well at whittling down and tiring out most of our rivals. A few teams camped out at the back but instead of sandbagging (hard to draft on sand, mud or sandy hills) it turns out they were just pooped. 

The pack eventually was down to about 8 players, not including the 6 of us. Our sleeper cell strategy was long exposed but there was little the locals could do about it.

Twelve miles to go. We were now backtracking hilly sections that were suddenly much longer and steeper.

Off the front! (went Dr. Pain)

To the front to block! (went the Gainesville combine)

Across the gap! (we allowed one rival teammate to bridge) 

Another team was then forced to bridge up everybody.  

Attack! (went Clint or Rob or me)  

Over hill and over mud.  A few more rivals faded off the back. 

Keep the pressure on! Force the few strong riders to work even harder to keep us in check!

Our original plan was for either Mike or Rob takes the fleece. At the very least someone from Gainesville. Riding your guts out for someone else is very liberating and actually more fun because there is no pressure to win-just to ride hard and have fun.

But.....

Eventually I managed to bridge up to an FSU racer on a solo escape. Together we went hard up and over another oak canopy hill. Twisting, turning, up and down, we took 30 second pulls until the chase slowly vanished behind.

Five dedicated teammates politely but firmly swarmed to the front. Team passive/aggressive went to work. Nobody gets away-nobody makes us work. Smile when you want to stick your tongue at them.

Up front, FSU and I increase the gap even though we overshot two turns in the confusing maze of dirt side roads. Don't panic.

With 10 miles to go FSU cracked on a long dirt hill. I didn't see it coming. One minute we were partners in crime,

the next his legs got a lethal injection. I felt sad. Sorta. He might have out sprinted me at the end.  Most do.

Ok, put head down and just ride home.  Roll the biggest gear you can spin. Concentrate on breathing instead of 

painful legs. Don't fall off bike. Repeat. Ultimate reward is getting off the damn bike. Oh, and the fleece.

Behind me Rob has deemed the gap was big enough to safely launch. Nobody can catch him. Another mile and he would have caught me. I would have welcomed it.

Totally shattered, the finish line vanished under the wheels. The pain stops and turns to euphoria. One or two minutes later Rob chucked his chicken across the line too. Another short gap and Mike rolled in for 5th. Could have got 3rd but the "finish" was an ambiguous zone of road graffiti. No matter.  The game was well played. We are covered in red mud but grinning like 10 year-old boys.

That is the real Fleece!

K-Dogg