Guru was out taking some photos. He does not mind you using his photos, but please give credit.
Photos copyrighted 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
God's Country Photos and Results
God's Country was a success in my books. I saw a lot of new riders which is what I like to see. It was also good to see my friends out enjoying themselves. The trails looked really fun and I wish I was able to ride. Christopher did also, but he opted to not race so he could help out the team and make sure there was enough help.Thank you to everyone who came out yesterday and trusted me that when I said the trails were fine that I was telling the truth. I got 17 text messages over 20 missed phone calls asking me if the event was going to be postponed due to a little rain. Sorry I did not respond to all of them. Just no time with setting up the event.
I just wanted to send out a special Thank you to Art King, Tim Greene, Mabrey Wathen, David Wathen, Roger Harrison, Michael Mathews, Cynthia Twibell, Chris Love, Sean Gaulter, Tina & Shawna, Shirley A Lamb Emmert, Lisa and Ron Schnick, Frank Ferguson, Jeff Arnaud, Bob Tarne, Gerard Arantowicz, Carly Teater, Dan and Heather Jordan, Carolynn Locke , Christopher Locke, LMBC Trail Patrol, Midwest Mountain Bike Patrol, The Wheel Cyclery and Lawrence Mountain Bike Patrol for helping make yesterday's God's Country Mountain Bike Classic possible.
Results are up. Check out http://www.fattireduathlon.com/go/
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
2012 Ouachita Challenge Race Report
Another fun Ouachita Challenge is in the books. This year I opted to ride with my son Christopher. After taking about 3 years off the bike he started riding some 
recently and said to sign him up when registration opened. I told him that he would need to train some over the winter to get in shape to be able to finish. He agreed so I signed him up and put the OC as ha "C" event on my calendar......fast forward 4 months and Christopher had only ridden a handful of times off-road and about the same on gravel/road. Would this be enough?
Please let me by.....We lined up towards the back of the field with the intent on pacing ourselves and having a good time. Our finish time was not important. Everything started off good and we kept a relaxed pace on the 9 mile g
ravel road trip out to the first section of single track. The good thing about this plan was we conserved energy. The bad thing is you end up getting stuck behind some very slow riders that lack any technical ability. The trails are only so wide and generally slower riders will let you pass with no problem. Well we encountered that 1 in 9999 rider that refused to let us by and did everything in his power to prevent us. I could here him say "I payed my entry so you can just go F off". As we rode behind this guy for over 10 minutes. I, along with several other riders, tried to pass and kept asking to get by and rang our bells until our thumbs hurt. Some riders even got off their bike and tried to cut the trail and ended up just falling. If I was riding alone and did not have my son I can tell you with 100% certainty that I would have found a way quickly around him. But I new Christopher would not be able to put an aggressive pass on him nor did I really want to set a bad example. Finally, after several miles (I still do not know how I actually was able to contain myself for that long) the guy pulled over and let the 15+ riders go by.
Some sweet single track.....We finally got rolling on the sweet single track of the Ouachita trail heading towards our first aid station at Big Brushy Creek. Christopher was riding
very well and picked up the pace. He was handling the descents a lot better than the climbs, but still our pace was good and we started to catch other riders. I could see our teammates Tim Greene and Sean G. ahead of us. I was actually very surprised that Christopher was actually catching them. I let him ride his own pace but kept asking if he was o.k. and to make sure he stayed hydrated and ate. He Speaking of eating. I use Hammer products and trust them because they work. Of course nothing works if you do not use it and having easy access
to my gel flask is important. Important enough to buy a flask holder and strap it on my stem. My review of the product is coming, but let me just say that it is a total failure on rough, technical downhills that one would encounter at such an event as this one. I ended up losing 3 new gel flask on the downhill sections. Very depressing to see you gel flask go
flying down the trail in front of you. Especially since I just love that Vanilla flavor :-) Maybe I went to fast I do not know. They did work great on the easy single track sections and the gravel. I will get it that, but on rough stuff a Total Failure! We had a good stop and Carolynn did a great job of having everyone's food and water available.
The challenge of the day was going to be the successful navigation of Blow Out Mountain
. This is one hardcore and challenge trail. To me the entire event is downhill if you survive old Blow Out..... I was totally blown away by Christopher during this section. The kid was catching groups of riders and just blowing past them as everyone was having trouble and having to walk the many technical sections. I had plans to take a lot of photos but Christopher ended up dropping me as I just could not keep up with him. Hopefully it was just the advantage of his 29er bike that he was riding and not the fact that I am jus
t getting old.... As we dropped off of Blow Out Christopher opened up a small gap on the fast downhill section. My motto for long distance events is "save your body and your equipment" I ride well within my ability level. I have had way too many bad crashes and hits to the head. Don't want nor need any more. Fast forward a mile down the trail and has I am flying down the mountainside I come upon a nasty crash and barely come to a stop before I crash into the Black Turner 29er. Yes the same Black Turner 29er that my son was riding but where was he? He is rolling down the hill the victim of one of those tree attacks that you hear about sometimes. You know the one, the tree reaches out and grabs your bars and yanks you off your bike. I hate when that happens. First order of business is to check on the bike. Wait, that is not correct is it, first check on your only son. Then check and fix bike.
It takes awhile, but we get going again only this time at much slower pace. Bad crashes take the wind and sometimes
spirits out of you. We roll into the a aid station before some more climbing and descending. I was happy to find out the Christopher had drank all of his water and Heed. We
chill out the station for awhile and allow him to eat some food. He was not looking well and I had some serious doubts as to if he could finish. We were well ahead of the cut-off times but overall fitness and being able to carry on after his crash was a major concern. Upon leaving the Blow Out / Fiddler aid station we were greeted to some of the hardest climbing of the day. T
his section took for what seems like hours to complete. We should have reached Sims within about 30 minutes, but this section took us well over an hour. During this section Christopher stopped several times with cramps. I told him we could not stop in the middle of the woods. There is no way out other than ride or I carry him. There was no way I was going to carry his big ass so we continued on. Before we exited the OC trail Keith Baker caught up to us and we rode into Sims together.
We meet Carolynn in Sims but still had about 6 miles to go before the first check point. Christopher real
y wanted to reach that point and then was going to pack it in. I went ahead and finished up the event by myself. Christopher got in a little over 40 miles which when you consider his fitness level is actually very good. We are looking for another challenge to do this summer. We wanted to do the Dakota Five O again, but it has already sold out. We will find something because the one thing we both like about mountain biking events like the Ouachita Challenge is that they are fun. As our teammate Tige Lamb demonstrates to the left.
recently and said to sign him up when registration opened. I told him that he would need to train some over the winter to get in shape to be able to finish. He agreed so I signed him up and put the OC as ha "C" event on my calendar......fast forward 4 months and Christopher had only ridden a handful of times off-road and about the same on gravel/road. Would this be enough?Please let me by.....We lined up towards the back of the field with the intent on pacing ourselves and having a good time. Our finish time was not important. Everything started off good and we kept a relaxed pace on the 9 mile g
ravel road trip out to the first section of single track. The good thing about this plan was we conserved energy. The bad thing is you end up getting stuck behind some very slow riders that lack any technical ability. The trails are only so wide and generally slower riders will let you pass with no problem. Well we encountered that 1 in 9999 rider that refused to let us by and did everything in his power to prevent us. I could here him say "I payed my entry so you can just go F off". As we rode behind this guy for over 10 minutes. I, along with several other riders, tried to pass and kept asking to get by and rang our bells until our thumbs hurt. Some riders even got off their bike and tried to cut the trail and ended up just falling. If I was riding alone and did not have my son I can tell you with 100% certainty that I would have found a way quickly around him. But I new Christopher would not be able to put an aggressive pass on him nor did I really want to set a bad example. Finally, after several miles (I still do not know how I actually was able to contain myself for that long) the guy pulled over and let the 15+ riders go by.Some sweet single track.....We finally got rolling on the sweet single track of the Ouachita trail heading towards our first aid station at Big Brushy Creek. Christopher was riding
very well and picked up the pace. He was handling the descents a lot better than the climbs, but still our pace was good and we started to catch other riders. I could see our teammates Tim Greene and Sean G. ahead of us. I was actually very surprised that Christopher was actually catching them. I let him ride his own pace but kept asking if he was o.k. and to make sure he stayed hydrated and ate. He Speaking of eating. I use Hammer products and trust them because they work. Of course nothing works if you do not use it and having easy access
to my gel flask is important. Important enough to buy a flask holder and strap it on my stem. My review of the product is coming, but let me just say that it is a total failure on rough, technical downhills that one would encounter at such an event as this one. I ended up losing 3 new gel flask on the downhill sections. Very depressing to see you gel flask go
flying down the trail in front of you. Especially since I just love that Vanilla flavor :-) Maybe I went to fast I do not know. They did work great on the easy single track sections and the gravel. I will get it that, but on rough stuff a Total Failure! We had a good stop and Carolynn did a great job of having everyone's food and water available.The challenge of the day was going to be the successful navigation of Blow Out Mountain
. This is one hardcore and challenge trail. To me the entire event is downhill if you survive old Blow Out..... I was totally blown away by Christopher during this section. The kid was catching groups of riders and just blowing past them as everyone was having trouble and having to walk the many technical sections. I had plans to take a lot of photos but Christopher ended up dropping me as I just could not keep up with him. Hopefully it was just the advantage of his 29er bike that he was riding and not the fact that I am jus
t getting old.... As we dropped off of Blow Out Christopher opened up a small gap on the fast downhill section. My motto for long distance events is "save your body and your equipment" I ride well within my ability level. I have had way too many bad crashes and hits to the head. Don't want nor need any more. Fast forward a mile down the trail and has I am flying down the mountainside I come upon a nasty crash and barely come to a stop before I crash into the Black Turner 29er. Yes the same Black Turner 29er that my son was riding but where was he? He is rolling down the hill the victim of one of those tree attacks that you hear about sometimes. You know the one, the tree reaches out and grabs your bars and yanks you off your bike. I hate when that happens. First order of business is to check on the bike. Wait, that is not correct is it, first check on your only son. Then check and fix bike.It takes awhile, but we get going again only this time at much slower pace. Bad crashes take the wind and sometimes
spirits out of you. We roll into the a aid station before some more climbing and descending. I was happy to find out the Christopher had drank all of his water and Heed. Wechill out the station for awhile and allow him to eat some food. He was not looking well and I had some serious doubts as to if he could finish. We were well ahead of the cut-off times but overall fitness and being able to carry on after his crash was a major concern. Upon leaving the Blow Out / Fiddler aid station we were greeted to some of the hardest climbing of the day. T
his section took for what seems like hours to complete. We should have reached Sims within about 30 minutes, but this section took us well over an hour. During this section Christopher stopped several times with cramps. I told him we could not stop in the middle of the woods. There is no way out other than ride or I carry him. There was no way I was going to carry his big ass so we continued on. Before we exited the OC trail Keith Baker caught up to us and we rode into Sims together.We meet Carolynn in Sims but still had about 6 miles to go before the first check point. Christopher real
y wanted to reach that point and then was going to pack it in. I went ahead and finished up the event by myself. Christopher got in a little over 40 miles which when you consider his fitness level is actually very good. We are looking for another challenge to do this summer. We wanted to do the Dakota Five O again, but it has already sold out. We will find something because the one thing we both like about mountain biking events like the Ouachita Challenge is that they are fun. As our teammate Tige Lamb demonstrates to the left.
Monday, April 2, 2012
2012 Ouachita Challenge Pictures
All photos copyrighted.
If anyone would like a higher resolution photo just let me know.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Last God's Country?
It is hard to believe that 11 years ago Gerard, Carolynn and I started this little event called the God's Country Off-Road Duathlon. This years edition was the 10th Annual as we took a year off due to total exhaustion. Does anyone remember where that first event was held?I had some big goals for this years event and decided we should make a weekend festival of it - God's Country Fat Tire Festival. The pla
n was to hold a traditional mountain bike race (UFD round #1) on Saturday and then our big duathlon on Sunday. A weeks worth of rain put a damper on our plans a little and hit us big with final registration numbers. We still had some good numbers, but we did not reach my goal which I will talk about later. The LRT dried out so quickly that it ended up that we could have raced on Saturday after all. But I guess better safe that sorry. Sunday's course conditions were the best I have ever seen. Our MTB race well be held on April 7, 2012 at the same great location.This past week was very, very stressful and tiring. Adding event promotion to a f
ull time job is bad enough, but with all the weather issues and big decisions that had to be made I was at my ends wit come Friday. Maybe it was a good thing we postponed the MTB race because I really do not know if we could have pulled off a two event weekend. Luckily we had some great volunteers that turned up and lent us a helping hand. Thanks to everyone who helped out on Saturday and Sunday. I have said this before, but without volunteers events just would not happen. It takes a good leader and a great team to make things happen.My legs felt
like crap Sunday morning and when it came time to finish loading up the trailer Sunday morning at 4:30 am I looked at the final piece of equipment (my Anthem X) I decided to go ahead and bring it just in case I need to do any final trail marking. Race morning went smoothly again thanks to the volunteers and everything being somewhat organized on my part. As the racers started to arrive I got the "racing bug" and started mulling participating. About 30 minutes before the start I got dressed and went out to make sure the course was marked well enough and that the Patrol was in place. Everything was fine so I decided to just go ahead and line up and at least start the event. A quick run to the packet pickup to get my bib number and timing chip and I was officially in the event - Short Course option.I briefly went over race instructions and lined up with the rest of the field. All the fast guys were lined up front including two time winner Tige Lamb. I opted to get about mid-pack. With tired legs you never want to start out to quickly. Christopher sounded the air horn and we were off.
The first run which is ~ 2 miles long (many stated the run was long at about 2.3 miles and I think they are correct :-)) starts on the Levee and then heads down to the single track. I always seem to run quicker in the woods than on roads be them gravel or pavement. I was way back in the field at the start but once we hit the single track I started making up ground quickly. My final mile was a good one as I finally got this old body of mine warmed up and rolling. After a quick transition I was off on the bike. The first several miles were filled with riders. Passing was a slow process. At least for me it was. I am usually a little aggressive with passing, but being the event promoter you really have to be nice :-) A little after the big log section I finally was able to bring the pace up to race speed. Most of the fast guys like Tige and JP were gone by this point, but I still put in a solid effort on the bike. I knew Eric wa
s close behind me but felt like I was close to the overall lead on the Short course. Heather asked if anyone would finish under an hour and I said I would finish in around 55 min. Check out the photo on the right. One thing I do know is my body and the effort I can put out on a given day. Some days it's not much of an effort, but sometimes .... End result was 1st in the Male 40 - 49 division and 2nd overall short course.My form is coming along. The past two weeks I have actually regressed some due to all the additional work I have done and the missed training due to said work. I still have a lot of ground to cover if I want to do well at this years Xterra events including the UCI Cross World Championships in May. This is one of the main reasons that this just may be my last God's Country Off-Road Duathlon. It takes a lot of time and commitment to promote events. There is only so much time available in ones life. Luckily my wife and son support me and whatever I decide. Maybe it is time to give more to them? The other reason is this may be the last one is participation numbers. I am very goal oriented if you haven't not noticed. Some objectives you have control over, others you do not. As a promoter my goals were not reached at this years event. Was that my fault? The weather? Lack of demand for the product? I feel like I have come up short this year but was it because I created unrealistic goals?
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