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Showing posts from 2010

NECX Champs Race Report

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NECX Champs Bar Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo . I had to support the NECX Champs on principle, because I am always in favor of things that involve more cyclocross in the world. And not just because I make ONES of dollars on a cyclocross results website! Ice Weasels holeshotter/beer-drinker Jeremy Durrin was asking me about the bar cam midweek so I ended up putting it on his bike. I appreciated the result, mainly because he talked about stuff being on camera the entire time, rode waaay to hard to try to make the front group, then exploded so bad that I caught him and ended up finally seeing myself on camera. But I get ahead of myself. For some weird reason I ended up staged on the front row (Verge points? I guess? I was seeded higher than THE WILICHOSKI so there must be some mistake) and nailed the clip-in. Four pedal strokes in I realize that there is only one person next to me, Adam Myerson. Which means I am definitely going to have to get the holeshot, if only only t

Ice Weasels Race Report

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Blog! Remember me? I'm at a transitional period in my life and insanely busy, but it's ok, we can still hang out sometimes! One of the things I was insanely busy with was PROMOTING THE WEASEL. Every year you run a race, it gets a little easier, which is why every year we add more stuff and do even less preparation. To make sure it doesn't get any easier! This year's highlights included barely visiting the venue until the day before the race, somehow losing the numbers I bought for it, adding a flyover built from scratch by 5 Goguens in 5 hours, and doubling the number of kegs. And having pizza and sausage vendors. And having Thom end up going to Nationals instead of promoting the race with about seven days notice. So if I ignored you on Friday that was probably why. But! Thanks to Miriam (Thom's wife) stepping in and saving the day, we pulled it together in 24 hours. Bonus thanks to MRC for coming up with some number sets we could use, and every

Baystate Cyclocross Day 1 Chainstay Cam

Baystate Cyclocross Day 1 Chainstay Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo . My plan of not sleeping and drinking too much continued to catch up with me at Baystate Day 1, where I lined up second-from-last and finish sixth-from-last. Not much to say about this one as most of the race was gone by the end of lap one; but I did appreciate putting Hopengarten's elite debut on camera.

BRC Shedd Park Chainstay Cam

My life continues to be shockingly full-throttle so I am not getting up any weekend content today. Here's a video from last week. Not too much excitement going on, although I do WRECK FOOLS on the rideup on lap two. Eat it, Cat 3's! BRC Shedd Park Chainstay Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo .

BRC Shedd Park Race Report

I have been drinking significantly more than usual lately, but as a cyclist that could really just mean "a few beers." And of course as a 145-lb cyclist, a few beers is enough to get me to agree to MC with RMM at Lowell. I've had a lot going on my life (see previous post, infrequent readers -- thanks for and thanks for the emails/comments, frequent readers) so this race was already marked as a "do shitty, have fun" race. Tacking on a "get up too early, don't warm up, spend four hours on your feet" to it was no big deal. What was a big deal was trying to not be terribad at announcing. I'd say something like "I have a newfound respect for Richard Fries," but I already knew it was going to be hard, which I why RMM cornered me when I was drunk to get me to sign up for it. It went ok, which is not the same as "good," but it was a good experience. I would like to try again. Maybe at a place where I can actually see ri

Putney Oversharing/Race Report

West Hill Shop Cyclocross Chainstay Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo . You might've noticed that it's the end of the week, and once again I've got no race report up. This time I have a totally legit excuse -- my girlfriend of the last seven years broke up with me. YEAHHH THAT'LL STING. I love talking about myself on the internet, even when things go shitty (except usually it's just a "race report" instead of a "relationship report") so let's give this one its own paragraph. We had a good run, no doubt about it, but ultimately people change a lot in their 20s. There's no exciting scandal, no screaming matches, nothing dramatic about the end of it at all -- just the trite-yet-accurate phrase "we grew apart." But at least we both grew. I'm looking forward to seeing where my life goes now that I really know who I am -- and I'm sure Linnea 2.0 is going to make some guy very happy down the road. But we're not d

Cycle-Smart International Day 2 Race Report

You might think that after four years of racing cyclocross, I would have my shit dialed . That is not the case. Every year, my routine gets "refined," and by "refined" I mean warped around everything else that changes year-to-year. Last year I learned how to prep for the 3pm race when your girlfriend is racing the 2pm race; this year I'm learning how to prep for the 3pm race when your team is racing the 12:30 and 2pm race and you would rather cheer and socialize with 800 different people than warm up. Not to foreshadow, or anything. Since I bonked my face off on Day 1, the one thing I got right was adequate food consumption on Day 2. I did this while watching Beta Ryan murder the Cat 3 field . Again. It was awesome. Then I went to preride a lap and made the mistake of expecting a SRAM shifter to shift gears. Instead of the paddle snapped off, which makes total sense since I did crash on it that one time, and there's no reason to expect a cycloc

Cycle-Smart International Day 1 Race Report

After 2 weekends of random staging in UCI races, I gotta say, I'm totally cool with it. I mean, I want to be outraged, but when you get right down to it, stuff more or less sorts out where it should in 60 minutes of racing. And the excitement of the number draw is unparalleled. Then again I haven't drawn back row yet, so I could be a bit biased. Anyway, I snagged good ole #27 on Saturday, which was on the first row of non-UCI riders. Good deal? And also, just about where I would be if we staged by crossresults.com or Verge points. How convenient. For some awesome reason everyone wanted to be on the right (even though we turned right) so I grabbed far left of row four. Obviously everyone is going to squeeze right through the turn (obviously!) so if you're not in row 1 or 2, it might be the shortest path but it sure isn't the fastest. Thus endeth the extent of my protips for UCI cross racing. The gun went off and some clown in front of me, who rides for E

Orchard Cross Race Report

Orchard Cross Chainstay Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo . Every time I go to write this blog entry, I get caught up in the beauty of the chainstay cam and forget what I was doing. Gaaaaahd that looks good. I can't believe how stable it is. Seriously, just watch it. Yowza. Ok, so after lasting ninety seconds at Canton, I had a problem. I don't actually train at all during the week for most of cross season, and it totally works, as long as you race every weekend . But now I had a giant bruise on my knee (my bad knee!) and the prospect of racing for under 2 minutes in the whole weekend. Crisis! Obviously this meant I would be ignoring my knee issues (heard that before?) and heading up to Orchard Cross on Sunday. I was relieved to see that golf ball-sized lump I went to sleep with was mostly gone in the morning, I had decent range of motion, and the frigid breeze was sure to keep the swelling down. Despite the blasting sun it was freezing up at the Orchard, so I w

Canton Cup Race Report

Canton Cup Chainstay Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo . I lasted ninety. freaking. seconds. I had a front row start, which I converted into sixth wheel off the pavement. Lindine, Keough and Goguen were CHECKING OUT after 90 seconds and for no good reason I wanted to be up there. I lapped wheels with Sam Morse, ended up on the outside of a corner that was much rougher than I realized, lost the front end and PLANTED my left knee in the grass. I bounced to a stop and was really surprised by little desire I had to jump up and grab my bike. Instead I sat there in shock while the field rode by, stood up, determined that my already-questionable knee was gonna have a massive bruise on it, and decided not see how much damage I could do to it with 60 minutes of adrenaline. Lame, but at least the footage was solid!

Downeast Cyclocross Day 1 Race Report

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Downeast Cyclocross Day 1 Bar Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo . Last year's Downeast CX was traumatic . Not only was it 38 and raining, but the course was bland on a level usually reserved for Canton ( burnnnn ). I was so not looking forward to coming back here that I thought long and hard about scheduling this as my "off weekend." As Verge series staff, I might have to show up -- but you can't make me race! Then. I looked at the course map and EVERYTHING changed. It was just an MS-paint scribble on a google map, but the message was clear: we are changing everything about this course, and it's going to be twisty as hell. Combine that with everyone fast being at the Louisville USGP and suddenly, I had a longshot at UCI points in front of me. What little training plans I have were scrapped, it's time to peak, baby! Of course the first step to having a surprisingly good race is to get a good start -- and I drew big bad #68 out of the hat for s

MRC/Cyclocrossracing.com Race Report

cyclocrossracing.com/MRC Bar Cam Lap 1 from colin reuter on Vimeo . I'll be honest with you, I completely forgot to blog about this after I made the videos. I had so much fun at the this race, and the internet was so abuzz with talk about it, I had this idea that I had contributed to the discussion as well. But then I went to write up Downeast Day 1 today and was like... wait... my last post was Mansfield? Really? So yeah! MRC overcame the 36-degree rainfest at their mediocre venue to summon up blue sky, 60 degrees, and a sweet new race location. Say it with me... CLOSE TO BOSTON = PROMOTER SUCCESS. Lancaster was a 45 minute drive for a lot of people and around 350 cross racers showed up. Awesome. Even more awesome was everyone fast driving to 6 hours to Granogue when this was in their backyard. This race became the ultimate Cat 2 redemption event after 4 straight weekends of us getting beat on by Cat 1's and pros (not that there's anything wrong with that...M

Mansfield Hollow Cyclocross Race Report

Mansfield Hollow Cyclocross Lap 1 from colin reuter on Vimeo . Mansfield Hollow is a "classic" cyclocross course that's actually pretty legit these days. Back in the day (oh yeah, I can totally say that after 4 seasons) it had a million dismounts and an insane runup that you needed someone to belay you for, but now it's pretty "normal," except for the 3 sets of barriers and the 2 sandpits. And that's a good thing! This would actually be a pretty sweet course for a Verge race, as it's got something for everyone and some nice sandpits, er, features. ANYWAY. I keep coming back to this one even though the wind in the field is always strong and I always wilt like a daisy in the face of it. This year was no exception, 30mph gusts that were a tailwind on the finish straight and a punch in the face everywhere else. I was ready to SUCK SOME WHEELS. Like, even more than usual. We rolled out with the standard 15 starters in a local 1/2/3, right in

Providence Cross Fest Day 2 Race Report

After Night Weasels I was a wreck. We shot for the moon and pretty much made it, but being a first-time thing it was way stressful. Chip's blog entry about dropping out the Cat 3 race to do Cat 4 awards is a good example of how strung out we were. When I went to bed at 2am that night, I made a rare good decision: I was skipping Providence Day 1, which was just over 48 hours away. I also decided not to register for Providence Day 2 until the day of the race, just in case my legs continued to be MIA on Sunday. This was of course stupid, because after spending all of Saturday AT THE RACES my brain was 110% into racing Sunday, legs or no. So I had a back row start, but oooh boy was I excited. I did the ole "back up 10 extra feet" and hit it with a rolling start trick, and it worked pretty well. A surprisingly number of guys sat down after 10 seconds, so I also went ripping past them. It was actually a bit too good, because I got into the thick of traffic by th

Gran Prix of Gloucester Day 2 Race Report

I think the bar cam is actually my own personal guardian angel. Put it on the bike and NOTHING can befall me. I want sweet footage of crashes as much as the next guy -- but I and everyone around me seems to stay upright as soon as the camera's on. On the other hand, if the battery dies and I take it off on the start line... We were back to the traditional uphill start, which is about 100x better than the sketchball downhill start. Best of all, it's nice and long so that you can pick up a ton of places by going full gas all the way to the grass and then smoking some brake pads. I started in the drops for SPRINTING POWER but didn't really make much headway until we crossed the finish line... then BAM, like clockwork everyone started backing off and I slingshotted forward into the top 30, for the second day in a row. In the biggest race on the east coast. Legs and brain were on the same page for once: LET'S DO THIS. So that's how I ended up all of six inch

GP of Gloucester Day 1 Race Report/Bar Cam

GP Gloucester Lap 1 UCI from colin reuter on Vimeo . Over here at UTSE we are running a week behind on race reports. You know how it is! In fact, this one is mainly a video report. For some reason we did a downhill start on Saturday at Gloucester which was INSANE. I actually ran out of gears (44x11) on the hill, you can see me clicking the right shifter in the video until it clicks no more. So that's a bit fast to be going in a cross race when you have a 90-degree turn coming up. Sure enough someone hit a hay bale and someone else came together with Justin Spinelli, and Spinelli got all f-ed up, and a bunch of guys got held up and BOOM, GOOD START FOR COLIN! I was definitely into the top 30, which is pretty awesome in a race with 85 starters or so. There were legitimately fast people blowing by me as they tried to rectify their poor starts, but it's all good. Man, it's so much nicer to casually slip 10 places back to 35th on lap 1 and 2 than it is to try to c

Promoter Madness & Race Report Catchup

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Hey, blog, remember me? That guy who used to write stuff on you? Yeahhh. I'm back! You still love me, right? Right?? It's Gloucester week. Gloucester is staging by crossresults.com points. It's the most awesome legitimization of the last three years of my work I could ever ask for. It's also completely terrifying . There is no way, with 1600 racers, that everything will go perfectly. Someone, somewhere, will end up staging further back than they think they should be. Just as long as they don't know where I live... The awesome thing is that that's not even the craziest thing I'm pulling together this week. We're doing this little race you might have heard of next Wednesday and holy crap, it's out of control. Baker of Hearts is on the staff so I am perpetually inundated with an inbox of "enthusiasm." No, Chip, we cannot give everyone who registers a puppy. Stop asking. Seriously though, this thing would never happen wi

Cross Vegas Video

I am not cool enough to go to Vegas, but Linnea is. I gave her the camera, with instructions to generate me some non-embarrassing blog content, since all I have is videos of me getting dropped by Cary. This is her contribution: Cross Vegas Elite Women Lap 1 from colin reuter on Vimeo . I stayed up until 1:30 AM watching the live/broken video feed from cyclingdirt . One of the highlights was her coming up over the barriers, getting cheered on by Richard Fries, and then botching a remount with the camera focused on her. I asked about it and got this response: "I was like, "oh god there's a crazy person on the wrong side of the barriers" and got distracted." In case you forgot, Linnea rides for Embrocation Cycling Journal , which is a true cycling brand, not like my thing , which is mainly a website with a server that catches fire on Mondays. I will go fight a fire now, enjoy the video. No, I don't know where you're staging at Gloucester yet

Green Mountain Cyclocross Day 1 Race Report

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Race reports! Do we still do these, internet? Or do we just update our Facebook status and be done with it? God, I hope not. Anyway, Day 1 in Vermont was yet another iteration of the long-gradual-climbing course they like to run up there. It is not "real cross" IMO, but of course, it is a "bike race" and therefore one should shut up and race it. The 2-minute power section from before the start line to the top of the hill, though? Gross. Same with the climb from the barriers to the top of the BMX track, although you could at least argue that cleaning the BMX track takes skill. I remember thinking 20 seconds into the holeshot, "oh, this is going fine" right before getting bottled up dead center of the pack and having 10 guys pass me. Whoops. It was ok, though, because when we hit the first turn that required braking, two guys crashed on the inside and the crash spilled out until it was tape-to-tape, slowing a ton of people. I snuck by like a ta

Green Mountain Cyclocross Day 2 Bar Camn

Not a typo. A "Camn" is just a cam that looks damnnnnn good. Green Mountain Cyclocross Day 2 Bar Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo . Lap highlights: * Josh Lehmann arms hitting my brake hoods as he tries to avoid the scorer's table in the start * A Keough crashing on the down/up and trying to go upstream with his bike to get out of the fray * Greg Whitney getting cleaned out by an unknown Canadian on a 180 * Riding the rideup in traffic * Slamming the door on someone (Matt Green maybe?) who tried to dive bomb me on the descent after the rideup.

Precross Rambling

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It was only a matter of time. My plan of "do as much stuff as you can before you die" has finally backfired and now I have TOO MUCH STUFF TO DO. The blog is now far enough down the todo list that I can barely do it justice, but with cross season coming up I'm hoping for a resurgence starting next week. For now, let's catch up. I'm writing this from the Sun Valley airport as I prepare to miss a connection in Salt Lake City. I'm in Sun Valley because my brother is out here (I've done this before ) and I had this funny idea that a bunch of endurance rides at altitude were gonna somehow save my cross season. Am I right? Probably not, but I'm not even sure it needs saving. Talk to me after Gloucester. But let's back up. I did the Treasure Valley Rally a few weeks back, and didn't write it up. GOSH, I WONDER WHY?? TVR is the hardest mountain bike course I've raced this year, possibly ever. It's as technical as the Gloucester

The Night Weasels Cometh

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I did not race my bike this weekend.  It was a combination of post- 24HOGG um depression and lack of appealing options .  This lead to some incredibly productive downtime, some of which even happened without the aid of caffeine.  Check it out. I made the crossresults.com team site .  Did I mention that I started a team?  I think so.  So far they are a beautiful army of misfit cyclist who heed my beck and call.  This past weekend they kicked off the season and did hilariously poorly .  I already love them.  Except for Kevin. The crossresults.com kits came in this week and they look fabulous.  One thing I forgot to mention last time I was gushing about them, these aren't the team kits so much as the website kits.  The team will be racing in skinsuits with a different but equally sexy color scheme.  If you were avoiding purchase of one of these because you didn't want to own the kit of team you don't race for... fear not.  This will just let people know that you like