Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Wedgewood New Brighton CX

Haley ripping the sand pit.  
(Photo by Doug Brons)

Sunday the kids faced some real CX weather for some muddy fun at New Brighton Park.  It's great to have such a fantastic course right in our proverbial backyards.  If you missed this one, be sure to ride down to Vanier Park this Sunday.

Results:

Elite Women
Jenny 4th
Stacey 5th
Haley 7th

Men's Cat 3/4
Meat 2nd
Paul 3rd

Elite/Masters Cat 1/2
Basse 19th

A big thanks to Paul for keeping us warm with beer...

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Star Crossed OFFICIAL POST, in pictures!

As most of you may or may not know by now, a hand full of us packed our bags and bikes and braved the border to head down to the 2011 edition of Star Crossed in Seattle. Accommodations were graciously offered up by Matt 'Meat' Hornland's parents, and let me say that after knowing this turkey for as long as I have it was a pleasure to finally, ahem, meat the parents. Muchos gracias, Janice and Garth. Big ups to Ashley Stotts and Dave Colins for driving. Enjoy.

Tigger Hornland, protector of the small white mitten.

New Mighty cross dresser Ashley wonders why I'm taking his picture, when he's the one with the camera.


Mighty/Lower Mainland HQ.

SRAM equipped bikes need extra attention.

Jay Loder, pre-race warm up and water bottle yard salesman.

Classic Meat and Bunz pose.

When your kit smells this bad, no one wants to help you pin your numbers on.

I had to go 150 kms south of the border to get a Matt Kennedy sighting.

Having avoided the slippery drain cover, Nick digs into the straight away.

Kevin 'you're a hipster' Noiles.

Mighty riders on the storm.

I'd like to see a Bart Wellens VS Bart Taylor VS Bart Simpson CX Helltrack kinda race.

To properly clear the barriers, you must hold your bike as flat as a hand sprouted organic spelt filtered rain water infused pancake. Or a UFO.

With teeth like that, I can tell EV's Dan Spry didn't grow up playing hockey.

Something must have been happening just to my right.

This is what we do.

This is how we do it.

This is what we listen to while we do it.

And this is one of many ways to clean up when we're done.
Remember team mates, we have a local race next Sunday Sept 25 at New Brighton park on Vancouver's far east side. Come out and yell loud at us while scaring our competitors!

The end.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Starcrossed

Check out the sweet videos of the Elite Men's action at Starcrossed last weekend just south of Seattle won by two time world champion Bart Wellens.
(Video by James Birkenbuel)
Mighty had a good contingent out racing:
Elite 1/2 Men - Nick 26th
Cat 3/4 Women - Haley 10th
Cat 3 Men - Meat 21st, Paul 
Cat 4 Men - Ashley, Barber 
Masters - Lowball Loder

Full results HERE.

Doug Brons,  www.dougbronsphotography.com/, was on hand and took some amazing shots of the kids in action.

Hard racing.  But nobody had as bad a day as Joey, below:

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

SRSLY

T-Pick and Geoff Agnew spent a bunch of time this summer filming and editing the SRSLY video, and finally, here it is!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Whistler Fondo

It was a beautiful day to ride up to Whistler on Saturday.  And for Claire and Jenny it was a wonderful way to  cap strong road seasons.  Jenny attacked late in the Women's Giro race to forge ahead solo and win by almost a minute.  Claire sprinted home behind her to handily win the (greatly reduced) field sprint and they took the top two spots in the hardest road race course in BC.  Awesome.

Aside from Claire and extended family Jenny, Mighty was well represented in the Fondo with our charity team captained by Joe Fiorante that also consisted of Bill, Andrew, Dave, Connie, May, Meshkat and Mark.  They raised $6000 for Project Somos and all rode well on Saturday.  Unfortunately Mark had a bit of a mishap going into the finish but X-rays showed nothing serious and beer was instantly applied to ease his pain.  Ian and Darrel were also out in Mighty colours for a great team showing.  (I really hope I didn't miss anyone but there were over 7000 people out on Saturday!)

Saturday was a great way to cap off a long, hard road season.  Seeing the Mighty women on the podium and the charity team having so much fun for a good cause was very satisfying.  Not every rider on Mighty did the Whistler Fondo on Saturday (some are already distracted by that silly Cylcocross-dressing) but I feel every person in the Mighty Family has helped contribute to those women standing on the podium and our club showing they are amongst the best in BC.  Just remember that as we go into the off season of hard training rides in ugly weather...

Jenny and Claire lifting some big ass cheques...


Saturday, September 10, 2011

Paris Brest Paris 2011

Back at the end of August I rode the 2011 Paris Brest Paris. I was convinced to try to take self-photos along the ride to document it, which I tried to do. All my photos and story of the ride (in the captions of the photos) are over on flickr.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Langley Cyclocross Classic - Race Report

hot cross.

I don’t think the fall sport of cyclocross was intended tobe run under the beating sun at 25C. however, for our season opener FortLangley Cyclocross Classic (run by Mighty/Team H&R Block), it’s exactlywhat we got. apparently it doesn’t affect Aaron Schooler, but more on thatlater.

the Mighty team was out in full force on race day, with aspects of the Mighty Road Team, Rando Team, Drinking Team, Support Team and B Team out to help with setup/marshaling/donut eating/takedown. Ryan Golbeck has been kind enough to lend photo evidence.

Matt Kennedy and Shane Savage, galavanting about
the Aldor Acres farm had been laid out for optimum pain,with dry flat gravel, run ups, single track, hard corners and a magicaldirt-like substance with properties closer to sand on every fast or challengingcorner.

with this years scheduling, Cat ¾ Men were first to hit theroad (with Citizen shortly behind). Mighty 3’s were Paul McCloskey and Matt Hornland,with Ashley Scotts in 4. with a field of 10 riders, Paul picked up the holeshot off the line, with Ross Green and meat close behind. Paul set a turbo paceover the gravel into the barriers, handling into the grass switchbacks and tothe runup where meat has a fuzzy memory of when or how, but managed to overtakeand was into the woods and out to the fast descent and crooked tree-maze (Bassemay be a nice guy, but is not a kind course designer).

teen wolf panting

crush crush crush

Paul battled with LucasGallagher on the runups, overtaking in the technical and speed sections, alsomaking sure not to pull riders up to meat (thanks) who had gone off the front.6 laps later, the race finished with a Mighty podium, meat 1st and Paul 2nd, 15seconds apart. Ashley completed his first race in 7th place.

Ashley coming through.

as the midday sun really started to beat, the Women’s Openand Masters took to the line. another stacked Mighty start: Stacey Hutton,Haley Mousseau and Chessa Adsit-Morris (in her first race).

Stacey offering beers to competitors

thecompetition was steep, and challenges also came in the form of Masters Men ¾who started 1 minute behind. this field of 31 riders kicked up tons of dust andcaused a few challenging situations for the women’s field, but I bet money Jay“Showtime” Loder was the most polite in the bunch (he certainly looked the mostprofessional).



Chessa had a tough mechanical with her wheel falling out overthe barriers, but was OK, while Stacey powered through a rough fall and slideinto barbed wire to come out in 6th. Haley hammered through thefluctuating men’s field to capture 8th. so much dust.

Nick Berry lurking about. don't worry, it's his truck.

at 1:00 the late race, Men’s Elite, with Mighty Nick Berry in thefold, and Masters Men ½, Mighty Basse Clement, course designer, stepped outunder the hotness. in the first feed zone I’ve ever been at for a CX race, Ididn’t see much of the elite handling, though many were riding the challengingrun-up. water was completely necessary though. 60 minutes under the swelteringsun being pelted with dust, our boys rode strong. Nick pushed through islingering leg injury and captured 8th elite spot, with Basse puttingin the sweat for 12th in his field of 21. Aaron Schooler not onlygave us rides in the H&R team van, but captured 1st place forhis first race of the season. he also gave Shane a juice box.

a great event and excellent turnout for the first race ofthe season. congrats to Mighty Riders and Team H&R for throwing a greatrace. thanks to all who volunteered their time and you can see more photos here and here and here.



I'll let someone else describe the Double Crown "recovery" ride on Sunday...