DIE BERGZIEGE

Keystone Snow Cruiser

I call this one BIKE ART.

These are actually four tires (Martin and mine) after a muddy race in Missouri.
First MUD scared the doodoo out of me, but after a while it is actually fun to master it and a great excuse to get dirty:)

Martin did really well in that race and that is his beloved bike

Now, we don't have to worry about mud. It is way to cold (we have a high of 8F today) and snow. Riding in the snow is a little bid like riding in the mud, only that you don't get as dirty.

Martin though wasn't satisfied with the way his bike handles in the snow, so he whipped up some alterations and viola:

THE

KEYSTONE SNOW CRUISER

All handmade and already tried out:)

Labels: bike art, mudfest, snow cruiser

Swanson is not ridable

At least today and well into tomorrow.
Dale, Martin, Mr. Whiskers and I walked the course today to check for fallen trees (one), branches (many) and taped the intersections off where folks might get confused.
It was WET. A trail, that has Mr. Whiskers' paw prints in it, because it is so muddy, is M U D D Y !

The three two-legged persons landed a few times almost on their butt, sliding in the mud, but all is good. The trail looks good and we are really hoping that:

a) it stops raining
b) nobody will be so irresponsible to ride the trail before it is dry enough and tear it up
c) we will have a good race on Saturday (maybe Sunday, if Saturday, the trail is still too wet)

Labels: mr. w, mudfest, nosnaws

MO stands for MOJO

Kansas City Cup, was the second race in the Heartland Race Series, but the race was actually in Missouri and I found out today, that MO stands for MOJO:)
It was also my second race this weekend since I had raced yesterday at Lewis&Clark.
You can see below the report about that race. It wasn't my best and I gladly put it behind me.

After the I got done there Martin and I went home, changed clothes, cars and went off south gen Kansas City.
We stayed the night in a hotel since that place doesn't have camping, plus we knew that had "some" rain recently and we didn't want to risk to get wet.
We checked the online updates and they promised, that the trail " would be 90% ridable and that they walked it and didn't leave any footprints" (I am laughing out loud, while I am writing this, because, this race was one of the biggest MUDFEST, I have ever seen and I wonder, where they walked without leaving those prints:D

Well, we showed up, we signed up. Yes, we! Martin raced as well, yeah!! And I went out to pre-ride at least a little bit. Some of those mud holes where so deep that I wished I would have brought my scuba diving gear, just in case.
The characteristic thing of that place is their sheet rock. Somewhat intimidating, when it's dry, but very slippery, when you smear mud on it...
I rode just long enough to get a good layer of mud on my bike and turned around to go back to the start.
Interestingly, I wasn't intimidated this time, by the sliding and squishing. I guess, my technical skills did get better.
Three female beginner riders had signed up, but only one other one started. I guess, the third one, was either smart enough or too scared to start.
We had again a hill start and again did I get away very slowly. Only this time, I knew that one of the beginners would get stuck on the first mile in the mud and my hope was to catch the other girl again. NOT another repeat... And yes, a few minutes in the singletrack/mud, she spun out and fell and I passed her. She got pack on her bike and we rode together for a bit. I actually tired to help her along. She was definitely, frazzled by the mud. At some spot, your bike was "swimming" on the mud and you had hardly any control over it. The only thing, I could do is, trying to move forward in a relatively small gear and whenever I "swam" to much to one side, I had to put one foot down. Riding over roots could mean, that the back of you bike slid away in an 45 degree angle. My motto, keep on pedaling gets you out of those and the cool part for me was that I don't freak out anymore:)
I left the other girl, sorry, I forgot your name, shortly after that behind and moved forward. It wasn't a fast pace, but I kept moving. And got my MOJO back!!
This was also the race with the most body or bike contact with other riders that I ever had. But my Bike Polo playing has me gotten used to that.
A lot of the real rocky parts, I walked, but the rest, I biked more than last year. (I have done the same race last year).
One lap was about 5 miles and we had to do two of them, so once more I dived into the mud puddles and kept moving not knowing, how far behind my competitor was, until at about mile 7.5, Martin passed me and told me that he thought that she was about 3 min behind me. That motivated me to put my afterburners on and I did the last 3 miles in a much faster pace. Just to make sure. And it paid off. I crossed the finish line first: