THIS SATURDAY, april 4, there is a CITA trailwork day happening at Banner pits (Summerset State Park) near summerset. It is being sponsored by me, Oakley Rob. I am hopeful to solicit the help of a bunch of folks that USE the trails that CITA works so hard to build. Will you help?
We have, in an effort to get participants, made this on a weekend with no MTB races on the calendar. For you folks that 'have to train'...perfect! A group will be riding down on gravel roads (35 miles), working, then riding home, so you can get 70 miles on the bike and 3 hours of cross training. There is an IMBCS race scheduled to be held at Banner later this summer, so it's in ALL of our best interests to get it looking and riding nice this spring.
The ride down will start between 6:30 and 7 AM with a leaving destination TBD. TRAIL WORK goes from 9 to noon regardless of if you drive or ride. Â for those that work, LUNCH will be provided by ME. We'll also give away some OAKLEY glasses, and we'll all help CITA build trails we can all enjoy, which is really the point of this.
PLEASE RSVP to me if you can come. I want to have enough food there for folks who come out. IF it is raining the day of, we'll probably have to reschedule. I'll send a mass email if that happens.
Additional information you need can be found at http://www.centraliowatrails.org
THANKS in advance, i look forward to seeing you on Saturday.
oh, and if you're NOT a CITA member, please consider it!
pass it on-
Rob V.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Spring is HERE!
These dirty rides all happened before Spring - but we'll celebrate the changing of the season with them anyway!!!
Dave - my man
Here we go for another 12!
Paul Meyermann, Robert Fry, Kathleen Porter and I went out for our first
100K of the year. Robert Fry just completed another 100K checking out a route for one of his Iowa Randonneurs events. He is going to run this event on the same
weekend as the Gravel State Champs that we are promoting September 12th near Cedar Falls!
John Adamson
Dave,
Well, since yesterday (March 15th) was the nicest weather we've had since about
November, Maxwell and I went ahead and got a full hundy in. It was so
very nice to be able to enjoy the riding without 3 or 4 layers on
every square inch of skin.That puts him at 3 metrics and a full, and
me at 3 metrics and 3 full. We'll be keeping them coming!
~Nick Wethington
hey dave,
shook off the lingering effects of st. paddy's day and took off about 8:15 this morning. cool temps to start but a calm wind made for an amazing morning. did my harmony and back route that is barely over the 62 miles. the cool temps warmed a bit and the day just got better. time to rest and eat a bit before heading in to work.
-shockey
Well, that makes 7 more this past week - I can't imagine that there weren't more garnered in yesteredays 70 degree sun! Personally, we're heading off to Mitchellville for the Dirty Road Race promoted by the All9Yards crew. It's not a metric, but it'll still feel good to get out on the gravel on a dry day that's above 34 degrees!!
A couple more things -
First, Oakley Rob is hosting the first of several "Great Big Day Out" rides on April 4th. Meet at El Bait in Des Moines, ride gravel to Sommerset St. Park to do a few hours of trail work (he'll provide food), ride back to DSM and he's having beer and food back at El Bait - sounds like a great day for riding and giving back - and thanks to Oakley and Rob - It won't cost you a thing! So, hike on your sweet Radars, and c'mon down!
Secondly, I'm hosting the first ever, hopefully annual, Honey Creek Fall Cycling Festival on the weekend of October 9-11 down at the Honey Creek Resort on Lake Rathbun. The main event will be a 100 miler or 100k gravel RR on Saturday. In addition, we'll have all kinds of great stuff going on, like campfire parties, a banquet with entertainment and speakers, an XC race, kids races - and for your roadie friends, we'll have some long, scenic and supported road rides too! Check out the details www.tworiverstouringco.com - I hope to see you all there!
Happy riding - Dave
Dave - my man
Here we go for another 12!
Paul Meyermann, Robert Fry, Kathleen Porter and I went out for our first
100K of the year. Robert Fry just completed another 100K checking out a route for one of his Iowa Randonneurs events. He is going to run this event on the same
weekend as the Gravel State Champs that we are promoting September 12th near Cedar Falls!
John Adamson
Dave,
Well, since yesterday (March 15th) was the nicest weather we've had since about
November, Maxwell and I went ahead and got a full hundy in. It was so
very nice to be able to enjoy the riding without 3 or 4 layers on
every square inch of skin.That puts him at 3 metrics and a full, and
me at 3 metrics and 3 full. We'll be keeping them coming!
~Nick Wethington
hey dave,
shook off the lingering effects of st. paddy's day and took off about 8:15 this morning. cool temps to start but a calm wind made for an amazing morning. did my harmony and back route that is barely over the 62 miles. the cool temps warmed a bit and the day just got better. time to rest and eat a bit before heading in to work.
-shockey
Well, that makes 7 more this past week - I can't imagine that there weren't more garnered in yesteredays 70 degree sun! Personally, we're heading off to Mitchellville for the Dirty Road Race promoted by the All9Yards crew. It's not a metric, but it'll still feel good to get out on the gravel on a dry day that's above 34 degrees!!
A couple more things -
First, Oakley Rob is hosting the first of several "Great Big Day Out" rides on April 4th. Meet at El Bait in Des Moines, ride gravel to Sommerset St. Park to do a few hours of trail work (he'll provide food), ride back to DSM and he's having beer and food back at El Bait - sounds like a great day for riding and giving back - and thanks to Oakley and Rob - It won't cost you a thing! So, hike on your sweet Radars, and c'mon down!
Secondly, I'm hosting the first ever, hopefully annual, Honey Creek Fall Cycling Festival on the weekend of October 9-11 down at the Honey Creek Resort on Lake Rathbun. The main event will be a 100 miler or 100k gravel RR on Saturday. In addition, we'll have all kinds of great stuff going on, like campfire parties, a banquet with entertainment and speakers, an XC race, kids races - and for your roadie friends, we'll have some long, scenic and supported road rides too! Check out the details www.tworiverstouringco.com - I hope to see you all there!
Happy riding - Dave
Saturday, March 14, 2009
'Cup'dates
Yep - there's been lots goin' on. Lot's o'ridin. And it's still early Spring! Gunna be a busy summer!! Here's what we've missed this past month:
From Mr. Shockey: (starting with # 6, then 4 and finally #5)
#6 Metric;
hey dave,
cirrem actually made metric #6 for me this year and was hands down the most difficult by far. anyone who was there knows, anyone who wasn't might be able to sympathize with past experiences of their own but we all know that's not the same. huge congrats to anyone willing to start that thing. i think my face is still stinging from the driving hail/sleet/whatever that was coming out of the sky. might still have the write-ups from metrics 4 and 5 and i'll try to send those over. hope everyone's enjoying this slap-in-the-face reminder that its still winter out there.
#4 Metric:
took advantage of sunday's warm temps to get in another metric. headed straight west into the wind and passed just north of ridgeway then just south of cresco. turned back eventually and paused at vernon springs for a quick snack then flew with the tailwind just south of ridgeway and back to town. highlight of the trip: scaring up a herd of buffalo and watching them run. just over 62 miles when i was done. gravels were just starting to get sloppy from the thaw as i was getting done so timing was good.
#5 Metric:
headed out sunday with scotty who used to live here in decorah and is now just visiting from the milwaukee area. a year and a half ago he was my main training partner for my first attempt at transiowa. his visit and some warm temps made the decision to do a metric on sunday a no-brainer. headed out of town kinda northish up through bluffton then headed east through locust and sattre, dipped into allamakee county just a bit and circled back around to town. somewhere around 64 miles with gravel conditions far less sloppy than the day before and a pretty mild wind made for a great day of riding.
shockey
Nick Wethington & Co. have been busy too:
Dave,
Well, February turned out to be a great month for Matt, Paul and I. A
few weeks ago, Matt Maxwell and I both got a metric century in. We
rode with Paul Jacobson and a couple of other guys for a while, but
our ride up to Gilbert and back rounded it off to a complete 62. Two
weeks ago Sunday I did 20 miles in the morning, met up with Matt and
Paul and did about 60 miles with them (they both got a metric, which
puts Matt at 2 for the year and Paul at 1). After riding with them I
did another 20 to round it off to a complete century, putting me at 2
full and 3 metric (after completing Cirrem) for the year and leaving
me in a good place to get 12 apiece! It's supposed to be kinda nice
this Sunday, so I might try to get my full in for March and possibly
another to start up my Cup o Mississippi Mud chasing. Dennis Grelk
has inspired me to try for all three, but we'll see how good I feel
about that come December.
I hope you had fun at Cirrem yesterday, and got all dried off and
picked the gravel bits out of your teeth. It was a great ride, if not
a little sloppy.
Cheers,
~Nick Wethington
And Buckshot Blackford is in the chase;
Dave,
Throw me in for a metric as of yesterday.
Regardless of the suffering throughout the course, the real fun was the last half hour. Kurt Benson (aka Kyle’s Uncle) and I duked it out for a semi-climactic finish. I caught him a couple miles out of town and rather than attempt to kill each other pushing the pace we reached a gentleman’s agreement to find a suitable sprint point close to town and go from there. Kurt, ever the showman, decided to make it more interesting by wiping out hard not once, but twice inside the last 3 miles. He dropped a wheel off into a crack on a nasty wooden bridge flipping over the bars and apparently didn’t think he’d done enough damage at that point and opted to have me roll over a couple various body parts as I attempted to miss him. Holding to the agreement, I waited while he got himself back together and we let that sneaky Ben Shockey slide past us. From there we determined the turn onto 25th street would be the start of the sprint (if you can call 7 tenths of a mile a “sprint”). I did my best to drop him off my wheel as we headed up a slight incline since that seemed to be my strong point of the day. Alas, I had nothing left in the tank and he gritted his teeth determined we would be sprinting it out across the Cumming Highway to the tap. As we both stood up to hammer the last hundred yards he later told me he was attempting to give me the old slide job and cut me off. A slight miscalculation on his part (only by 5 feet or so) had him bouncing off my back wheel and skidding across the highway leaving me to finish out the sprint wondering what the hell just happened. We finished close enough to DFL to taste it, but alas, we weren’t quite that lucky.
Thanks,
Rick Blackford (www.buckshotsblog.com)
As is Tim Bierbaum:
Hi Dave. I was able to take advantage of the nice weather we had back on Feb 8th. I headed south past Bevington until road construction forced me west. Then I just wandered around a while until heading back. I ended up with 105 km for the
Thanks,
Tim
I know the Cedar Falls crew has been riding - send me a note at dave@bikeworldiowa.com and I'll get it all updated!
Happy riding!
Peace -Dave
From Mr. Shockey: (starting with # 6, then 4 and finally #5)
#6 Metric;
hey dave,
cirrem actually made metric #6 for me this year and was hands down the most difficult by far. anyone who was there knows, anyone who wasn't might be able to sympathize with past experiences of their own but we all know that's not the same. huge congrats to anyone willing to start that thing. i think my face is still stinging from the driving hail/sleet/whatever that was coming out of the sky. might still have the write-ups from metrics 4 and 5 and i'll try to send those over. hope everyone's enjoying this slap-in-the-face reminder that its still winter out there.
#4 Metric:
took advantage of sunday's warm temps to get in another metric. headed straight west into the wind and passed just north of ridgeway then just south of cresco. turned back eventually and paused at vernon springs for a quick snack then flew with the tailwind just south of ridgeway and back to town. highlight of the trip: scaring up a herd of buffalo and watching them run. just over 62 miles when i was done. gravels were just starting to get sloppy from the thaw as i was getting done so timing was good.
#5 Metric:
headed out sunday with scotty who used to live here in decorah and is now just visiting from the milwaukee area. a year and a half ago he was my main training partner for my first attempt at transiowa. his visit and some warm temps made the decision to do a metric on sunday a no-brainer. headed out of town kinda northish up through bluffton then headed east through locust and sattre, dipped into allamakee county just a bit and circled back around to town. somewhere around 64 miles with gravel conditions far less sloppy than the day before and a pretty mild wind made for a great day of riding.
shockey
Nick Wethington & Co. have been busy too:
Dave,
Well, February turned out to be a great month for Matt, Paul and I. A
few weeks ago, Matt Maxwell and I both got a metric century in. We
rode with Paul Jacobson and a couple of other guys for a while, but
our ride up to Gilbert and back rounded it off to a complete 62. Two
weeks ago Sunday I did 20 miles in the morning, met up with Matt and
Paul and did about 60 miles with them (they both got a metric, which
puts Matt at 2 for the year and Paul at 1). After riding with them I
did another 20 to round it off to a complete century, putting me at 2
full and 3 metric (after completing Cirrem) for the year and leaving
me in a good place to get 12 apiece! It's supposed to be kinda nice
this Sunday, so I might try to get my full in for March and possibly
another to start up my Cup o Mississippi Mud chasing. Dennis Grelk
has inspired me to try for all three, but we'll see how good I feel
about that come December.
I hope you had fun at Cirrem yesterday, and got all dried off and
picked the gravel bits out of your teeth. It was a great ride, if not
a little sloppy.
Cheers,
~Nick Wethington
And Buckshot Blackford is in the chase;
Dave,
Throw me in for a metric as of yesterday.
Regardless of the suffering throughout the course, the real fun was the last half hour. Kurt Benson (aka Kyle’s Uncle) and I duked it out for a semi-climactic finish. I caught him a couple miles out of town and rather than attempt to kill each other pushing the pace we reached a gentleman’s agreement to find a suitable sprint point close to town and go from there. Kurt, ever the showman, decided to make it more interesting by wiping out hard not once, but twice inside the last 3 miles. He dropped a wheel off into a crack on a nasty wooden bridge flipping over the bars and apparently didn’t think he’d done enough damage at that point and opted to have me roll over a couple various body parts as I attempted to miss him. Holding to the agreement, I waited while he got himself back together and we let that sneaky Ben Shockey slide past us. From there we determined the turn onto 25th street would be the start of the sprint (if you can call 7 tenths of a mile a “sprint”). I did my best to drop him off my wheel as we headed up a slight incline since that seemed to be my strong point of the day. Alas, I had nothing left in the tank and he gritted his teeth determined we would be sprinting it out across the Cumming Highway to the tap. As we both stood up to hammer the last hundred yards he later told me he was attempting to give me the old slide job and cut me off. A slight miscalculation on his part (only by 5 feet or so) had him bouncing off my back wheel and skidding across the highway leaving me to finish out the sprint wondering what the hell just happened. We finished close enough to DFL to taste it, but alas, we weren’t quite that lucky.
Thanks,
Rick Blackford (www.buckshotsblog.com)
As is Tim Bierbaum:
Hi Dave. I was able to take advantage of the nice weather we had back on Feb 8th. I headed south past Bevington until road construction forced me west. Then I just wandered around a while until heading back. I ended up with 105 km for the
Thanks,
Tim
I know the Cedar Falls crew has been riding - send me a note at dave@bikeworldiowa.com and I'll get it all updated!
Happy riding!
Peace -Dave
Sunday, March 08, 2009
I wondered.....
...just why it's been so quiet out there! Seem's though my email box is messed up - from now on, email info on your rides to dave@bikeworldiowa.com with the heading "Cup O Dirt" - and if you have some older stuff that you haven't seen posted... I'd ask you to resend it. Also - I've gotten 2 cups so far... with 13 more on the way... they're coming!
Now that we've gotten the business out of the way - It was an honor to present Mr. One-A-Month Club sole member, Tom Anderson, with his hard earned Cup prior to todays 100k. Congratulations, again, to Tom - his tenacity was inspiring!
Speaking of todays 100k - Looks like maybe 8 or 9 folks finished todays ride... and only a few are serious Cup chasers, Ben Shockey, Nick Wethington and Matt Maxwell. Grelk had a bad day with his crank... and the rest of us... well... it was freakin' cold, wet, windy and, of course... muddy! A hard day indeed! It was agreed (in the warmth of the Cumming Tap) that we nailed a 50k - and that Sumpter is hosting the "Thimble O'Dirt" this year.
Many thanks to Jed and Kent for hosting the event and congrats to those who dared brave the bitter elements (rain, wind (from every freakn' direction!)sleet, snow and hail!) - and a hearty congratulations, a pat on the back... and a long, hot shower to those few that finished. At this time, I belive the finishers were: Jed Gammell, Jared Osterloh, Sean 'Wrong-Way' Walker, Kent Carlson, Matt Maxwell, Nick Wethington, Ben Shockey, Aaron (something from Iowa City), and Kyle Sedor's Uncle. (and not in that order)
The pre-race Cup distribution seemed like a good thing - and, should Jed and Kent host this event next year (in July!!!), we'll do the Cup passing out there next year!
Happy riding - Peace, Dave
Now that we've gotten the business out of the way - It was an honor to present Mr. One-A-Month Club sole member, Tom Anderson, with his hard earned Cup prior to todays 100k. Congratulations, again, to Tom - his tenacity was inspiring!
Speaking of todays 100k - Looks like maybe 8 or 9 folks finished todays ride... and only a few are serious Cup chasers, Ben Shockey, Nick Wethington and Matt Maxwell. Grelk had a bad day with his crank... and the rest of us... well... it was freakin' cold, wet, windy and, of course... muddy! A hard day indeed! It was agreed (in the warmth of the Cumming Tap) that we nailed a 50k - and that Sumpter is hosting the "Thimble O'Dirt" this year.
Many thanks to Jed and Kent for hosting the event and congrats to those who dared brave the bitter elements (rain, wind (from every freakn' direction!)sleet, snow and hail!) - and a hearty congratulations, a pat on the back... and a long, hot shower to those few that finished. At this time, I belive the finishers were: Jed Gammell, Jared Osterloh, Sean 'Wrong-Way' Walker, Kent Carlson, Matt Maxwell, Nick Wethington, Ben Shockey, Aaron (something from Iowa City), and Kyle Sedor's Uncle. (and not in that order)
The pre-race Cup distribution seemed like a good thing - and, should Jed and Kent host this event next year (in July!!!), we'll do the Cup passing out there next year!
Happy riding - Peace, Dave
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