Gopher Cycling Blog

We will be holding practice starting Wednesday again. I'm not sure how long these indoor practices will last, so keep your eye on the message board. Yeah, the weather is still a little cold, but I highly recommend everyone get outside and ride whenever they can now. It is great to get some training on the road, and we don't want to lose any momentum from this training trip...

That said, feel free to post if you'll be riding, in order that others may come along if they so desire.

Next weekend is the trip to our home race course. There are a few things on the agenda for the officers, but everyone is welcome, and encouraged, to make the trip. It will just be a one-day outing (Saturday). And, as you may or may not realize, any time you can check out a race course before you race it, you should. The ride should help us decide what to do, and if people are free that night, I am gonna suggest we have a team socializing/strategizing session - both for our benefit in that race and the other ones in Kansas beforehand.

Be sure to sign up for the KSU race on the message board by this Thursday, March 27th if you haven't already.

ALSO - if you know anybody who wouldn't mind volunteering their afternoon for our race, we'd appreciate it - see the message board.

Yesterday we went for a long ride, and finished the trip with an outing to Lou Lou's Fish Shack.

It was a lot of fun, but it's over. It may seem depressing to realize that, especially upon returning to the snow and chilly weather here. However, take solace in the fact that we still have five straight weekends of van travel/racing ahead of us.

It's really only just begun...

We went for a hard ride yesterday - approximately 55 miles and full of climbing and descents. Everybody had fun, and it was great training. I trashed my wheel, and Scurvy wiped out right behind me.

Today we did an easy 35 miles, and the mtbikers did their thing. I think Duncan might even have a date tonight.

The first van back home leaves tomorrow - bon voyage - we'll be thinking about you when we hit up the catfish buffet (we tried tonight, but couldn't get in).

Everyone else is gonna do 80+ miles and enjoy this weather while we still can. More later.

Yesterday the rain came. We waited... and waited... and waited... for it to stop. But it didn't. So instead of riding we had a nice day of sitting around the hotel. It seemed like a very long day.

So today we made up for it.

Billy picked a route out of Fayetteville totaling around 70 miles. We split into two groups and headed out into the country. Although we had to fight the urban expanse for awhile, we finally hit some good rollers out in the country. At the end of the ride we were justly rewarded with a tour through the Lake Weddington State Park - probably one of our favorite areas to cruise through. The landscape, dominated by rolling hills and trees covered in dried up vines always makes for a fast and interesting ride.

Jorgen and Devon headed out on a 100+ mile ride north of Fayetteville. The map of the route looked forboding. It snaked around a lake, hit up a couple mountains and then stumbled into Fayetteville via county road. Although I haven't heard much about it yet, I'm happy they came back alive...

Tomorrow - hill workout!

-Steph

So nobody really got naked, but I figured it'd be an interesting title for a blog post, along with being a sweet song.

It did rain though. Pretty much all last night and all this morning. This is slightly frustrating to all of us who just want to ride our bikes, but perhaps it will just be a good opportunity to get a forced rest day in. And hey, we're people too - we do more than ride bikes. Today'll probably just be mostly homework - some of us might hit a movie or just go shopping or something.

Tomorrow should be fun. We're driving an hour out of town to get some good climbing in.

And yeah, this is late, but happy St. Patrick's Day. Last night we unwound and began our new strategy of team-building through massage, and I'd have to say it went fairly well. Too bad nobody got any pictures. Those of you who weren't there are just gonna have to borrow the video from Kari.

It was fun to wind down, take a break from cycling, and get back in touch with the real world - even if it was only for 10 minutes or so.

Well, in our second year down here in Fayetteville, we had an even stronger showing in the Hell's Kitchen Road Race, which this year opened our week of training.

In the Cat 4 race, Burban and Steve each took turns putting in some valiant attacks early in the race, and I'm sure got warmed up pretty fast. Unfortunately, Stovetop got held up by a crash early and ended up working to bridge up for too long. The group of 81 was trimmed down significantly on the first lap, and we had 3 riders in the front group after that. On the second lap, Devon peeled off the front and rode ahead for the victory, successfully defending Andy Cook's title from last year. Jameson had some bad luck and dropped his chain, while I turned out to be too strong for my own legs, and blew out my knee on the second go-round of the climb.

I can't offer as detailed a recap for the other races, but in Cat 5, our very own Tinkerbell placed 4th, with Jorgen finishing just behind (in his first USCF race nonetheless). We also had BaDunca, Mitch, and Caleb in the 5's.

Brad rode a strong race in the Pro/1/2 Category, and we also had a great performance by the women's team. Bunny Thompson finished 5th I believe, with Kari right behind and unfortunately just out of the money, again. Megan and Amanda also rode well.

And oh yes, we of course had a great feed zone contingent, what with Paul, Scurvy, Todd Part 2, and Samuel.

Highlight of the day: We had a good showing and no one seriously injured themselves or their bike

Lowlight of the day: All the ice cream shops were closed when we got back.

Recovery ride today, rain tomorrow, and hills on wednesday.

Normally when you know something makes you hurt or causes you pain you avoid it. However, there exists a select class of human beings whose brains aren't wired correctly. Instead of shying away from these specific situations, they seek them out. These people are known as cyclists, and this particular painful event is called Hell's Kitchen.

Today twenty-one U of M cyclists departed at eight-fifteen for the race course. The trailers were jam-packed with bikes and the vans stuffed to the brim with extra race food, clothing and racers with a little bit (a lot) of nervous tension. We arrived at the race course to a fully-packed venue. Needless to say we had a hard time finding a parking spot for the 15-passenger van and trailer (the equivalent of a whale finding a spot to sun bathe on a florida beach flooded with spring break goers...). Somehow, we wedged ourselves in a spot in between two farm driveways. We weren't sure if we were parked illegally - but as Jameson said, "It's not like they're going to tow us..."

Bikes were quickly unloaded and set up. Race packets were picked up along with free schwag bags for participants. We looked like a force to be reckoned with in our sharp team kits of maroon and gold.

Staging for the race started at 10am. Soon, the women were off. We were fortunate enough to be able to ride the race with the Men's 50+ field for several reasons. First, we had 10 women racers, but the Men's 50+ put our numbers up over a field size of 30. Second, men are bigger, and a lot nicer to draft off of. And finally, we got to race with Billy!

The race was pretty mild mannered until we approached Hell's Kitchen Climb. Somehow, Kari and I found ourselves off the front of the pack on climb segment one. I got excited, and probably took it a little bit harder than I should have. Kari (the smart one) told me to slow down. Predictably, we were quickly caught by some charging master's riders and then by the rest of the women's field. Kari and I struggled to stick to their wheels. My legs were hurting, as I'm sure Kari's were too. The devil always makes things burn in Hell's Kitchen.

By the time we got to the top, the other women were up and over the summit of the climb. Then Coach Billy came to the rescue. It took us a good seven miles, but Billy pulled Kari and I up to the rest of the women's field. We sat pretty until the climb. This time (after two Gu's) I felt much better - but I still couldn't stick it on the hill. Coming over the top I was desperate to catch the four women who got away - so I paired up with a master's rider. For the remaining six downhill miles I became very familiar with this guy's behind. He, (his enormous draft) and his carbon wheels meant a screaming fast decent. We were slowly gaining on the women's field but the finish came too soon. I watched the women's field finish from the bottom of the hill...

I was cheered in by a great U of M crowd. Billy and Kari came in soon after I finished. As Pat has already described, the rest of the U of M racers also had successful races.

And to think that forty+ miles of pain wasn't enough, a group of us decided to do a warm down with another lap on the race course, and a ride home to the hotel. All said and done Billy, Meg, Kari, myself and others clocked over 83 miles for the first day.

We love pain, don't you?

I love riding in 15 passenger vans. Especially when your destination is Fayetteville, Arkansas. Riding for 11+ hours through cornfields, jammed in like sardines with 12 of your closest friends, an endless supply of goodies (cookies, rice krispie bars, muffins and trail mix) and engaging conversation - it just can't get any better than this. (Until your butt starts cramping, you eat at a horrible Mexican restaurant called Bueno and your cookies run out... but you get the point).

Group One arrived after a safe and fairly uneventful ride from the Twin Cities. We rolled into the lovely Fayetteville Days Inn around 10pm. Somehow, Megan and I ended up getting the exact same room that we did last year. This triggered a sort of nostalgic reaction from both of us. We placed the electric skillet in the same place, we took the exact same spots on the beds, and the hole punched in the bathroom door was still there! Luckily, the room had been freshly repainted and the beds were bed-bug free.

Looks like its going to be a fun week...

-Steph

"Where are you going for spring break? Mexico?
That's cool...I guess."

The University of Minnesota team is heading down to Fayetteville, Arkansas for our second year in a row to spend our spring break riding and racing, in preparation for the NCCCC road calendar, which begins in Kansas two weeks after we get back.

The first van goes down tomorrow and the rest of the springbreakers will join us on Saturday night. First order of business is the Hell's Kitchen Road Race, a great event which we first competed in last year and are very much looking forward to.

After racing on the first Sunday and hopefully getting our outside legs back, we'll do mostly base riding. We'll have at least one day where we just get a lot of climbing in, and like always we'll do some handling/technique work. And oh, the MTBer's will get their rides too.

So today it was ~50 degrees outside, we're leaving for spring break, and we've got a sweet season of racing ahead. If you're not excited now, I don't know what your problem is.