Crankworx: Road Trip and Home

We had quite a few days off until our next event, The Pump Track Challenge.

The event was definitely bigger than expected. After some good practice we had seeding runs, we got a best of two runs format.

With a good first run I put it down the second run and ended up qualifying in 6^th place just behind Brendan Fairclough, Troy Brosnan and Mitch Ropelato.

This set me up in an awesome spot for the finals.

We had a few hours to kill before the finals started at 8PM under the lights, so we headed up to the Peak to Peak lift which takes 1250 feet above of a huge canyon.

With all that out of the way it was time to get ready for Pump Track Finals. The nerves set in once I saw the 2,000 plus people watching and the live TV cameras.

After a few practice runs the nerves went away and I knew I had a good chance to finish towards the top. In the first round I had a bye because of my top 10 qualifying spot. This automatically put me into a top 16 result. I went out and did my bye run by myself and got a chance to see just how many people were out watching and all the video and photographers out there.

The second round put me up against Evan Turpen who has been killing it at the world cups this year and was a very strong competitor at the 2010 National Champs. Before I knew it my run was done and no one knew who won, it was to close to call, it went to the announcer and I had lost by .03 seconds. I ended up with a 10^th place finish for the event and was pleased to see the list of world cup riders I beat. Mitch went on to the finals and beat Brendan Fairclough after a big crash by Brendan.

The event was unreal under the lights and turned out to be a highlight of the week.

My Unreal Junior frame was awesome and rode like a champ for me when it really counted. The last event I was in was the Camelbak Karaoke Jump Jam at the river jumps, it was a good time for sure, just a huge session with all my close friends and tons of people out having a good time watching.

The rest of the trip was spent watching/ riding day after day, before we knew it, it was time to pack things up and hit the road.

The whole trip went by like flash, some of the best riding and best times I’ve ever had on my bike. After the trailer was packed we started the drive back to Seattle.

We spent the night in Seattle and then flew back to California. I’ll spend a week and a half in California before heading to the World Cup Finals in Windham, NY and then the World Champs in Mont Saint Anne.

I’d like to thank all my sponsors, Unreal Cycles, Fox Shox, 661, One Industries and WTB. I’d also like to personally thank Peter at Unreal Cycles for all the help and support for this trip!

Crankworx/Whistler Trip 2010

New to the Unrealcycles Family, Tim Mangini heads off with his trusty Junior for its debut road trip.

Tim Writes:

"Having never been to Whistler I was pretty stoked to get the opportunity to be there for 10 days during the 2010 Crankworx festival".

My trip started from my home in Benicia, CA, I flew from there to Utah to spend a few days in Ogden (about two hours north east of Salt Lake) with the Ropelato family before driving the rest of the way to Whistler BC.

While in Utah I got to ride Deer Valley Ski Resort as well as the Layton Skate Park. Both were a good time but Mitch and I were more than ready to embark on are road trip to Whistler.

After driving close to a thousand miles we stopped to spend the night near Seattle, WA. The next morning we picked up Bernard Kerr and our “Team Manager” for the weekend Clint.

The trip was now in full swing with everyone in the car we could finally make our way to Whistler.

We didn’t get in till close to 1 AM, and had a lot of work to do before Pro Dual Slalom the next morning.

The morning came faster than we thought and it was time to head up for practice, with only two practice runs I had to go straight into qualifying.

The first run went flawless and I posted a time that placed me in the top 20 for that round, as I only needed to be in the top 32 to qualify into the finals.

The second run was on the “blue” course which I didn’t get a practice run on so I had to go into it blind.

I ended up having a big crash ¾ of the way down the track and it put me to the bottom of the scoring tower.

I missed making it in by only 8 places. I was a bit disappointed but looked forward to watching Mitch who qualified 3^rd, and Bernard who also made it in.

After qualifying we headed up on the mountain for our first downhill runs of the trip. We had to ride the famous “A LINE” trail. After some downhill laps we went back to the dual slalom to watch the finals.

Mitch ended up with a second place and in my opinion should have won the event.

With an eventful day 1 in Whistler wrapped up we hit the town for the night.

The night life in Whistler is like nothing I’ve ever seen, massive parties almost every night and all the riders are out and about.

The nights in Whistler were some of the best we’ve had.

There is more from this trip, watch for the next update as they head to a Pump Track Challenge race and then to Karaoke Jump Jam.

One more bike...

Any bike junky will agree, there is always room for one more bike, and all it takes is the tiniest excuse to ignite the insatiable New Bike Fire. I admit my addiction. No 12 Step program on the planet can cure it and I have no desire to change. Usually, I shamelessly seek out the excuse - faster stronger lighter tricker newer shinier prettier cooler - whatever! Once the fire is stoked, it burns 'til the Brown Santa arrives with the Fix. Every once in a while though, the fire is lit by necessity. No, I didn't break my bike, it wasn't stolen, worn out or outdated; my beautiful Genius Diablo was just not fast enough - not up against true TT bikes anyway. I found out the hard way on a blazing hot weekend in Chico, CA.

Road stage racing was a new venture for me this season. My fitness was peaking and I wanted to test myself, so I signed up for the Chico Stage Race, which consisted of a 45 mile road race on Saturday, a Crit on Sunday morning and finished up with a 10 mile Time Trial in the afternoon. Saturday was hot. Africa hot. It was 100 degrees on the start line, and about 120 in my shiny black mountain bike shoes. I was ready for it though and I ended up winning the road race - my first road win ever! Re-hydration and sleep had me good to go for the Sunday morning Criterium, where I took second place by a bike length - my best crit finish ever! A mistake on the last lap cost me the win, but I had earned a 30 second time bonus for winning the road race, and had captured all the time bonus primes in the crit, so I was feeling confident and strong sitting in 1st place overall before the afternoon Time Trial.

I rolled up to the start of the TT on my trusty Diablo, knowing all I had to do was hold my own to win the overall. Looking around, I realized I was the only girl at the start line without a proper TT bike. Surprise Surprise - the other girls had metamorphosized into aero aliens between races! What the heck, how much faster could they be? 3... 2... 1... GO! Off I went and before I new it, I could see the wavy heat mirage finish line through the sweat stinging my eyes. I had a good ride and I felt like I had left everything on the shimmery-hot blacktop. It wasn't 'til my eyes uncrossed enough to see the finishing times that I realized that I had brought a knife to a gun fight. I was over 2 minutes out of 1st in the TT and had dropped to 2nd place in the overall. Damn! I knew these ladies were not faster than me; I had proven that two races in a row! Obviously, they had the right equipment and it made all the difference in the end.

Needless to say, the new bike lust flared in my brain and bowels like a mouthful of wasabe dipped habaneros! And once again, my heros at Unreal Cycles came to my rescue, soothing the burn with a gorgeous cool Genius Cronometro and sick tubular carbon Grammo wheels - even the name sounds fast! With just a couple of hiccups in the build process, I was ripping up the pavement on my new TT bike! During the first ride, it became obvious how big a difference the aggressive positioning and aero nature of the Cronometro made in my overall speed. Ok, now I need to race this beauty! Since I have to wait a year for a do-over of the Chico Stage Race, I am going to spend some serious TITS (time in the saddle) getting used to the new position. My first TT race is coming up next week! Stay tuned!

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A German Excursion

2010 was meant to be the year that saw me crack the nine hour barrier, so to give myself the best chance of doing it I signed up for the Challenge Roth.

Roth allows 100 of the fastest athletes the opportunity to start just behind the pros in a separate wave, which allows for clear water and an open road to the best times. The problem is that 2010 training did not go according to plan and between travel, work, injury, blah, blah, blah, my condition while good was untested for long distance.

My race started out great, with a solid start and some fast feet to follow.

The course is set up with 2 turns and 4 distance marks (1500, 3000, 3400, and finish). At the 1500m I took a peak at my watch to see 20:41.Perfect!At the 3000 I looked and say 41:something. Fantastic!

Shortly after that I felt ill. I have no idea what happened because I have never experience this before. In order to cope I was forced to slow considerably until my stomach settled. Around 3400m I recovered, but my swim time was damaged and I exited the water in 58 minutes, which is about 3 minutes off my expected time.

Through transition everything went well and I was off onto the bike. Genius Cronometro TT with super deep Grammo Viper 88 front wheel

One minute and eleven seconds into the ride my disc mounted computer came off and I would be left for the rest of the day without a clue how fast or far I was going.

Turns out that the racks used in transition were the types that engage the wheel instead of the bars, and the boards that trap the wheel bumped my magnet loose..not ideal.

The mission was to dip below 5 hours on the bike, which would put me in fighting position to run into my goal time. I've done it before, so repeating didn't seem impossible

The bike ride is by far the best supported ride of my life. The spectators are insane! There are people in every town and on every hill going bonkers, cheering and drinking. The Solerberg climb is straight of a Tour de France postcard with thousands of spectators standing directly in front of cyclists only to move just in the knick of time.

I felt strong throughout the ride, but it was far hillier than I had expected with climbs much longer and steeper than the playbook described (2km at 10% was a surprise).

So, I realized that going under 5 was not in the cards, but a solid ride was going to happen.at least I thought so.

At mile 85 (guessing since I have no computer) I am climbing a hill and a marshal pulls up next to me on a motorcycle and begins speaking to me.Problem is that he is speaking German.

Since I only know how to order beer in German, and I sure that was not the topic at the time, I told the marshal that I only speak English. I was not aware of breaking a rule, so I thought he was just going to tell me something.

His response was, "Penalty". To which I responded, "who". He pointed at me. I said ,"for what". I expected an explanation, but was greeted with, "Acht minuten".

Without becoming vulgar, let's just say that I was very upset.

I now needed to find a penalty tent in which to serve my 8 minute mystery penalty. If a penalty is not served a DQ is issued and I didn't come half way across the globe to DQ. I spend the next hour looking for a penalty tent. This was an hour of sub-standard speed. I served my time and moved on..pissed.

Onto the run and I was way behind schedule, but thought I could still pull together a good run. I was running 4:30 minute kilometers which would have resulted in a very good marathon. I thought even if I fell apart I would still run sub-3:30 which would be a good day. The problem is that my unstable training put me in the position where the heart and fitness were there, but the legs were unaccustomed to the incredible pounding a marathon puts on them. At 28km I became unraveled.

My legs were screaming in pain and it was everything I could do to just move forward.

By 39km instead of feeling the draw of the finish line I was in my own personal Hell and didn't think I could continue. But, the spectators of Roth give you their energy and will you to move on.

I made it to the line in just over 10 hours.

I was just glad to get there.

Even more glad when the finish line catchers dropped me off at the beer tent. It was non-alcoholic, but it was a delicious break from the sports drinks I was rotting my teeth with all day.

Even though the race didn't give me the time I was looking for, I know that is was just a coincidental sequence of events in training that were out of my control that put me in this position.

The next time I race IM (Arizona 2011) I am going to crush it on my New 2011 Grammo and run like I know I can.

Sub-9 is in me and I'm going to get it out.

Thanks for all the support.

Jerome