12 hrs of Hanson Hills...

Well, it's go time again...

Our team did a 12 hr race at Hanson Hills Recreation Area. Justin, from our team is the Operations Director for this facility. Unfortunately I was unable to race this one due to other commitments. We were fortunate enough though to find a good replacement for the team.

Before this race we were in the first place standings for the Michigan Endurance Cup series. We just needed to basically finish this race to stay on top of the point series. This was pretty much a "fun" race for our team.

We battled with another team all day and pretty much rode our race. All the riders did very well and we kept the top position in the points series.

This race pretty much solidified our standings for the year. We ended up winning the overall title as the number one team for the Michigan Cup Endurance Series 2007.

What a great year and a great feeling knowing we accomplished our goals of becoming a winning team.

Next race...Iceman in November.

12 hrs of PANDO....

Well, here we go again...

Pando is an old ski resort near Grand Rapids MI. The course was a 5 mile lap, which was done at a high rate of speed (basically sprinting the whole time for 12 hrs). The loop starts with a sprint up the 'front' slope of the ski hill and immediately turns 180 degrees to come right back down along the tow rope line. Then it heads around the back on some two track, throw in some reasonably fun singletrack, a climb and descent on another ski slope and you pretty much have the circuit.

The start of the race...
We end up getting the hole shot right from the start and so begins the race.

Once the race was on we took turns doing 2 laps each. As the day progressed, we settled into a battle with a west coast team that was nip and tuck all along. When late afternoon rolled in so did the clouds and rain. It ended up getting pretty chilly at night.

I definitely took this course for granted. I figured, short laps, not too much climbing (so I thought). Man was I wrong. I started to disintegrate towards those late night laps...the downpour of rain and cold weather started to do me in. I felt major cramping in my legs and back.

When all was said and done we ended up having a controversial race ending. It turns out, the other team we had been battling all day had a technical going into the last hour of racing. Up until that point they were up on us. When they came off the course to deal with there mechanical, per race rules they were to start that lap all over again. Well since we were on course already we technically would have been ahead of them. Unfortunately the course lap counter coupled with some mis-communication screwed things up and they counted there lap anyways.

The promoter was to do some investigating in the matter. Oh well, we know we ran a damn good race. Case closed, on to the next battle.

Knockin' em' down....

Yup, another race, another win. We participated in a relay race event that was held at the Lakeshore Park in Novi this past weekend.



To say it was just another win though would be a huge understatement. I think deep down inside my team and I felt like we were going to win. Even some of the other racers and even the event coordinators mentioned us as a shoe in for the win. We just didn't think it was going to be such a ownage though.

There was some smack talking about a week prior to the race that I don't really care to get into... let's just say the gauntlet was put down and it was go time. I think my team and I felt the need to send a message to everyone that we race to win, no matter what event it is.

The conditions were great, the course was well layed out and the atmosphere was fun.

We basically destroyed the field. After our first lap we were up by around 5-8 minutes. By the second lap we had about a 10 minute lead. Then from there it just grew. By the time we finished the race we were in the lead by almost 18 minutes from second place. We actually lapped the third place team which was almost an hour behind us....yes +57 minute lead over the 3rd place advanced team.

How could that be possible?....you ask.... I don't have a good answer for that except we all rode pretty damn hard.

This is what the competition sees....LOL

I think the best part of the event was the fact that some of my family came out to cheer us on. I was so happy to have them there to see us racing. Having the race so close to home made it a lot easier for our friends and family to come out.

Alexis, Dante, Cereno and my mom...

Cubby, in awe of how fast daddy came through on his first lap...

Alexis wondering how daddy can ride sooo fast at his old age....

My dad, resting after a hard day of spectating...

2 for 2

Well, we did it again. Another race, another win.

This one wasn't too horribly bad. There was some climbing involved, but all in all the course was pretty decent. Okay I lied, the climbing sucked especially through deep ass sand, but it did have a lot of single track sections that flowed really well. There was this off camber downhill section snaking through some trees that was a blast to ride really fast. For a minute there I thought I was on my downhill bike because I was flyin'!

Before I knew it my right handle bar had clipped a tree and I was doing a superman for about 10 seconds in the air. Than I came down, hard, right on my arms and back. OUCH. Got up checked the goods and off I went to finish the lap. Fortunately just some minor scrapes, cuts and sore neck for a couple days. I survived.

Keeping hydrated...It got very hot after about the 5th hour of racing.

Puttin' the hammer down on the last stretch of the course...

Oh yeah, we managed to beat the second place team by almost 3 laps when it was all over. Woohoo. Off to the next challenge.

Soul Cycles single speed steed....