tuna report (Andy)

As a Cat 3 debut race Id say the International Tour de Toona went decently. Fridays circuit race of 50 miles was in torrential downpours and on rolling terrain. For those who road race this equates to 150 riders traveling at 30+ mph 4 to 6 inches from the wheel in front and to the sides... with limited to no visibility. To say the least it was a clusterfuck...6 wrecks. the first 4 were merely poor handling skills on the part of the victims, the last 2 were more interesting. Take the above equation of "150 riders traveling at 30+ mph 4 to 6 inches from the wheel in front and to the sides... with limited to no visibility" then take this mass and throw it onto a crit course for the last mile of the race = within a quarter mile of the finish at least 10-15 more people went down...Outrageous. Anyway I was usually somewhere in the vicinity of these debacles and finished a rude 41st of 150, holding the same time as the top finishers.

Saturdays road race was the greatest race of the year. With 3 mountain climbs over 80 miles it was a course to suit my strengths. The pace was fast for the morning and the group stayed together until the first climb up Blue Knob (some points reaching as steep as 17% grade) At this point the pack blew to pieces. I hit the base of the knob sitting mid-pack in about 50th position. Upon reaching the KOM summit I was 15th. It felt good to be one of the better climbers at the race. Upon cresting the summit I realized I had paced about 10 guys up the mountain with me, all strung out single file off my wheel. I held with them on the decent and we worked together over the rest of the race to put as much time on the breakaway as possible. the group blew to pieces over the next 2 mountains but still managed to stay together, with the occasional pace line of 3-4 guys to chase back 3-4 guys who thought they could get away. With 5K to the finish I attacked my group up a short hill with the hopes of maintaining and sprinting to 13th place...yes I know, why sprint for 13?....cause its better than 17th asshole!!! Needless to say I was caught on the decent of the hill 200 meters from the finish and managed a rude 17th place. To put things in perspective, over an 80 mile course with 3 mountain climbs of about 5 miles each the race pace still managed to sustain an average 22mph, Mountain Scum would have been dropped harder than the suspension on this Hummer


The Crit on Sunday was a God awful mess. The race organizers started the Cat 4 race 10 minutes late. Once I saw the 4s finish I jumped on the course and began to roll towards the start line. Upon rounding the last turn, mind you the course had been open maybe 45 seconds and was still choked with riders from the previous race, I was 150 meters from the start and heard a gun go off. I look up to see my race taking off 150 meters infront of me. Instinct kicked in and I began to chase with balls to the wall. After chasing well above LT for 4-5 laps I managed to tag the back end of the peloton and take a breather. When I look up again I notice the back end of the peloton had allowed a gap to open from rest of the group, a gap which I then attempted to close for another 2 laps as riders continued to peel from the blistering pace. By lap 8 I was closing the gap when my body decided that 20 minutes at way above LT wasn't good for my GI system. As far as facial expressions im sure the proceeding incident resembled this
By lap 9 I couldn't see and was forced to abandon the crit, watching the group slip away through the streets of Altoona. Needless to say the race organizers heard it from myself and 15-20 other folks who missed the start. YOU DO NOT STAGE A RACE FOR 45 SECONDS!!! FUCK!

So thats Toona, a disappointing showing for a first race, but I hear Toona is the best of the best in each category and brings riders from all over the US. To test my skills Ive entered the 3sports Endure circuit race in Richmond for this Sunday...not standing for less than a run for the money, I decided to enter the Pro,1,2,3 race rather than the 3,4 race. T-time 6 days

status: terrified (Andy)

Well it seems that sticking my genitals in my ass and cowering in a corner will do no good, thus the Cat. 3 debut must be made on the morrow with Stage one of the International Tour de Toona. The slogan of this race is "The road to Paris begins in Toona" to give you an idea of the caliber of racers this shits gunna see. Needless to say im terrified....mainly of having a shitty day, getting my shit dropped hard by some pro fuck, then sulking back home, any confidence I had of getting to the top promptly shut down.
On the upside:
- If I can get some decent sleep things should be ok as the legs arent completely off the boat yet
- Racing a pair of Zipp 404's for the first time, actually using race wheels for a first as well
- Race site is also HQ, thus no waking up at 4 A.M.

updates in a few days

First ever race report

Wow...who would've thought that the roadie fag wouldn't be the first one to post about some lame race he did. Anyway, this past saturday I went up to the Michaux State Forest in PA to race in the Curse of Dark Hollow XC. Michaux is sweet, but really rocky and technical...I tried to convince Andy to go but the thought of riding all that techy gnar made him wet himself and hide in his room until I left.

The weekend started off great with a ridiculous amount of carbo-loading...Saturday night, I cooked mass quantities of spicy hashbrowns, sausage and biscuits, and topped it all off with 3/4 a box of cereal and about a half gallon of oj. Andy witnessed this gastric spectacle and was appalled, estimating my calorie intake at that meal to be in the 3000 range. It takes a lot to fuel this 130 pounds of fury for 3 hours. In an ironic twist, the erstwhile James McHone U25 Roadie Fag Development Team uniform made its race debut on my shoulders this weekend, stricken with the inability of the roadie fags to muster a race team and driven by the necessity to provide James with pictures so he doesn't evict us, I was given a free kit and orders to play in the dirt.

After an ass-early car ride to the venue, I met up with fellow Harrisonburg dirt junkies Kirby, Ryan F., Thomas and Dylan. I started strong in the sport class, despite massive chainsuck on the line, and joined in a sketchy paceline with Ryan and Kirby down the first rocky singletrack downhill of the race, I hung on to the leader for quite a while until going through a slow, twisty section, I had a total psychological bonk. This cat I was riding with asked if I had ever ridden at Gambril in MD, and I responded "yes", intending to finish "that's where i broke my collarbone", but before I could interject, he concluded "the rest of this course is exactly like it!"
Uh-oh...I experienced total confidence meltdown and rode like a small child for much of the next hour, losing contact with the leaders as I desperately avoided another fractured clavicle.

Fortunately, the last part of the course had lots of fireroad climbing in which I made up some time and rediscovered my balls before hitting the final segments of single track. I finished up a lucky 13th...pretty good for riding so deep in the slums I couldn't see out.

Post race, Thomas and I held a publicity photo shoot for the McHone squad, pictures to be posted soon.

Oh and Andy has some stupid race called tuna or something coming up. I was going to do it, but I heard most of the roads are paved, what's up with that?

<3,
Ryan

Ja now zee focus izz only on zaa climbing (Andy)

Im not gunna lie, the mountain bike ride was an enjoyable one, a good change up from the continuous 5 and 6 hour days ive been putting in 75% of the weeks. My only complaint...I easily put 3 maybe 4 minutes on a top notch mt. biker (kyle) on every climb and 6 to 7 minutes on the mountain landfill...in a normal race this is Maillot Jaune material...over in this disaterously twisted event of mountain biking kyle and ryan had to wait 10 minutes for me to arrive at the bottom of every decent....thus they consider themselves to be the more capable athletes again because they happen to be excellent earth magnets...I believe ive seen mudslides pull out the same style bullshit performances. At any rate after being named the Cat 4. uphill TT champion in Virginia and upgrading to Cat 3, I believe ive finally found the event at which I excell; climbing. Not any climbing....long ass steep ass climbs. After a few precise calculations Ive determined that dropping a few more kilos may possibly put me on the podium in mountain top finishes. Until then my current physique is not up to par

If the animal kingdom birthed great cyclists....
Mountain Biker

Roadies

My New Training Method

After my controversial victory in the power-off, I have decided to focus my efforts on developing a spectacular sprint. Forgoing traditional training techniques, I have instead taken a job moving furniture for James Madison University. If I remember to lift with my legs, I anticipate a 300% increase in leg power (see diagram for projected quad growth).

Before:










<---the Old Ryan




After:















<---the New Ryan (The Euro-Mullet is coming along too.)






With this new method, by August I should have enough in the tank to whip the roadie fag on the town lines and enough in the bank to finally pay off my Gary Fisher…win/win!

In other news, we took Andy on a mountainbike ride he actually enjoyed, check back soon for more details.

<3,

Ryan

Roadie 4 Lyfe....Ja (Andy)

After my humiliating defeat at the hands of the scum I took a moment to reflect on the situation. I think my performance had something to do with this. Friday, 3 hour ride. Saturday, 4 hours, Sunday, 6 hours. Monday was also supposed to be 6 hours but it ended up being 2 due to complete bodily failure. Tuesday, 2.5 hours (my coach is trying to kill me) Good thing Wednesday and Thursday were recovery days...apparently. Thus entering into the competition against Ryan I was slightly unrecovered. Nonetheless I used my superior tactical prowess to best the worthless slug in 2 of the 3 events. Regardless of the outcome I have to repeat the same training cycle of last weekend this weekend. With one ride down Ive decided to take to the mountains with Ryan to change things up a bit (long rides solo can get mentally exhausting). We shall see how I fare on the single track with some dudes big ass GF.

On a more incredible note, my all time favorite rider and motivation Jens Voigt won todays TDF stage. All hail King of Breakaways!!!

Dont fuck with the Jens, Ja da Deutche will destroy your legs

On the Outcome of Round One and Challenges yet to Come

Unfortunately for Andy's roadie pride, the power off came out in a draw. Sort of. We did a best two out of three power start sprints, with Andy winning one, and myself winning two. My first victory was all thanks to my superior sprinting technique, as I threw the bike at the line while we were riding side by side...since this was a test of raw power and not sprinting ability, I had to concede the draw...even though later review of the photo evidence revealed the bastard drafting me on the last two sprints...


Which allowed him to pull even with me near the finish necessitating the picture-perfect sprint finish.








<--Note my superior form.





Not to mention him not being able to keep his rear wheel down while sprinting (So Cat 5, Andy).




In response to what I consider at best a technical draw, I have challenged Andy to a 3-Stage Descend Off. One singletrack descent to be picked by me, one paved (lame) descent chosen by Andy, and the Equalizer round, in which neither of us should have too much advantage...a gravel road descent chosen by our roomate Kyle (Seen here crying because his derailleur cable frayed while spectating the power off.)

Our power may be close to equal, but technique is harder to come by. Although Andy's lardass does has a gravitational advantage, I'd better start pounding cupcakes if I want to win this thing...










p.s. For all my French friends dissapointed they didn't take a stage win today, Happy Bastille Day, Euro Trash!

Round one.....Fight! (Andy)

Naturally a mountain biker would label his/her sport as real cycling. Look at the way they gracefully throw their behemoth machines down the side of a root and rock chocked crag. The splendor is awe inspiring, one may even deem it sexy. Its hard work eating your face off to then use immense amounts of body weight to pull your fat ass down the side of a mountain yes? I've seen the hailed "climbing ability" of most mountain bikers. For a time I was fearful to face such land yachts in the field. Then again, riding a 26/38 gearing should make you a good climber yes? Put them on a true gearing and watch the bitching and moaning begin. See their miniscule heart rates race up to near max with a cadence of 45rpm, pathetic; to scared to race; go at your own pace.....weak....

With a height of 172.7cm and weighing in at 59.42 kilos Ryan does not meet the status quo criteria of a mountain biker. If anything he makes Mayo and Rasmussen look like cupcake pounding whores. With my bulbous ass running at 185.4cm and 70.76kg (preferred race weight is 68 kilos) the Ferret and I, the Greyhound, have decided to have a "power off" to see who, indeed, is the more apt cyclist.

By way of introduction...(Ryan)

My friend Andy (Roadie Fag) and I (Mountie Scum), addicted as we are to reading the blogs of professional and semi-professional bike racers, have decided to create this twisted mockery of one ourselves. Rather than traditional race reports and updates on our respective conditions, Roadie Fag vs. Mountie Scum will consist mostly of us talking the shittiest trash to each other and perpetuating the ancient blood feud between the proud clans of roadies and real cyclists.