Archive for April, 2007

30 04 2007

“Where ya comin from?”

Posted by: tjwoodruff, in Race Report

Yelled out a ten year old boy while pushing his bike up the road that I was descending while on a ride last week. Too many thoughts came to mind for me to give the kid an answer as I rolled passed and down the hill. I figure today is a good time to let you all know where I’m coming now.

The NMBS #2 weekend in the Santa Ynez Valley was a tough weekend of hot and dusty racing action. After some bad luck at the NMBS opener at Fountain Hills I could only improve this time. My last row call ups didn’t help much, but at least it didn’t detract from the STXC too much. I was able to steadily work my way up through the field for the entire STXC. This was the first short track that I’ve finished without being pulled which was a big success alone. 25th is also the best result I’ve had for a one of these events too; so all in all, a good day on the bike.

Courtesy of my last row call up in the XC I managed to get stuck immediately behind a two person crash ten seconds into the race. With less than a split-second I had two options: Option A was to turn left and crash into the metal fencing or Option B was to smack into the downed rider at full speed, without time to even hit the brakes. I went with option B since the fence was mean looking. Over the bars I went as my front wheel stuck right between Brent Miller’s shoulders. I picked myself up quickly and the bike was still wedged into him and standing straight up into the air. I felt bad about the situation, but not much can be done over such matters when you’re racing. With some air back into my lungs I frustratingly started chasing the entire field as they pelotoned it over the flat gravel road around the vineyard. As the race spread out I picked off riders one or two at a time and this went on the entire race. In the end I had made my way back up to 35th, but without ever riding with anyone else out there. Essentially I had done a TT from the start and with the result I know that with some better luck in the start I’d have placed much higher. One of these days it’ll work out…

Of course some pictures are also due from the weekend.

I think Treefarm’s saddle height is taller than his car. What do you say?

Paul, in original Sova style, attempted to launch his bike off the Taurus after the STXC. Luckily Jenna’s saddle got in the way of things…

And Chloe has been training her game face with diligence lately. Well, on second thought, maybe her results indicate that she’s been doing a better job with the fitness than with the game face… 11th in STXC and 8th in XC. Very nice.

Until Fontana,

TJ

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17 04 2007

Untethered

Posted by: tjwoodruff, in Uncategorized

The past couple weeks have been all over the place. Right after Fountain Hills I flew back to Wisconsin for five days so I could be with the family as my mom was expected to have heart surgery. It was great to be home and see the family, but of course once back to Tucson life was going full-tilt once again. I had two days to pack up the entire apartment, pack what I could into the car and sell the rest on craigslist, clean the apartment, and then drive stuff to Lake Havasu for storage before stopping in Rosamond for a night. Immediately after this Jenna and I picked Paul up at LAX before making the drive up to Monterey for the Sea Otter. Our heads were spinning and our bodies were tired out before we ever raced our bikes. Luckily we had some great accommodations and even better hospitality which allowed us to rest up prior to Sunday’s main XC event. Thanks Zanders!

The second row call up was pretty cool, lining up right behind Liam Killen, next to Christoph Sauser, and just in front of Thomas Frishneckt; some pretty fast company… A relatively easy start on the pavement had me in good position before hitting the dirt. I went backwards a bit on the first lap, but knew that guys would be popping hard on lap two and sure enough, they popped. I did too, but only about 10 feet before the line so it was all good. The last miles were battled out hard with Michael Simonson from Michigan, the powerhouse champ from Iceman ‘06. Unfortunately for me, he had one extra surge that I couldn’t match, but I was just happy to hang on and pick off those late race riders as we battled it out. 44th is much improved from my 2006 Sea Otter performance and finishing in front of a couple paid pros is always rewarding. A huge thanks goes out to Michelle Peariso, who took care of my warm ups at the start and did bottle feeds during the race. This was some huge support and the race would have gone much differently without her help.

Now I’m back to Rosamond for a couple of weeks and I’m looking forward to building on that rhythm once again. I felt it in the xc and with a couple solid weeks of training that fast feeling should only become more refined before the NMBS #2. Thanks for tuning in after such a long hiatus here. Life is on the road from here on out and it feels good to have that sense of freedom.

Enjoy the ride, -TJ

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03 04 2007

Big Stuff

Posted by: tjwoodruff, in Race Report, Off the Bike Report

The events that have taken place since last Thursday have been more than I could have ever anticipated. And if ever I’ve taken racing too seriously, this weekend was surely a time where I kept it all in perspective. Thursday I learned that my mom had a heart condition that would require a relatively immediate surgery scheduled for early this week. With this in mind I booked a plane ticket home for Monday before heading up to Phoenix for the NMBS series opener.

Friday’s TT got off to a good start as I finished 26th, somewhat satisfied, but knowing that perhaps I was overly conservative on the first gradual climb out of the start. It was also fun to find my mug on cyclingnews.com, check it out here. I knew that this result meant that I could do a good XC, so it was a boost before the weekend’s main events - the STXC under the lights Saturday and Sunday’s XC event.

Saturday I was called up in about the 15th row, not an ideal situation for a short track… I knew that I’d have to ride hard and make up ground quickly if I would have a chance at a good result here. Unfortunately 30 seconds into the race this option left as quickly as I went over the bars. I came off the course’s first dirt mount directly into another bike. My hip, forearm and head took the brunt of the blow. I got up slowly and limped around the course to be pulled. I could hardly move that night as my hip was quite stiff.

Sunday things had loosened up and I was excited about having a good XC race. I got off to a good start for the first 15 minutes before launching my bottle over some rough braking bumps. The thought of no fluid intake for the first 40 minutes of the race in 90 degree heat scared me a bit and I lost some ground, but was still riding respectably. Not much later I slashed my rear sidewall on one of the long loops rougher sections. Along side me were Kris Sneddon and also Adam Synder, both fixing their own punctures. I slammed a PowerGel so that I could properly boot the tire before installing the tube. I got off with about 35 pounds of air courtesy of the BigAir. I could only laugh at my luck before I went on to pinch my tube no more than five minutes down the trail. At this point I was more or less out of luck until a spectator directed me off course to his truck. “Follow the wash out to the road and I’ve got a tube and CO2 there in my seat bag.” Sure enough, I followed the wash out to the road and was able to make some quick repairs. I followed the wash back to the place I exited the course and started racing once again. That first lap took an hour so I knew that leaders were likely no more than 10 minutes behind me, a thought that kept me charging hard for laps two and three before I was pulled. The leaders finished about 5 minutes later so I guess the officials didn’t wait around for me. Too bad they’ve got me scored as a DNF rather than a lapped rider so maybe they’ll get it fixed.

The bulk of Monday was spent traveling back to Eau Claire after airport delays of 3.5 hours in PHX. I got back in time to visit with my mom and the family some before sleeping at yet another motel. Today was to be the surgery day so most of the day was spent in the family waiting room. About two hours after we all thought that the surgery started the surgeon walked in and said “The surgery is off”. We were all wondering what they’d been doing then… And why was it off? Apparently the surgeon’s vision is sharper than that of the cardiologist. His final review of the echocardiogram revealed that the mitral valve was not damaged enough to warrant surgery today. The same imaging was done Friday and the cardiologist told us that things appeared “worse than first thought”. So obviously there is some explaining to be done, but in the end no surgery is good new for my mom and that is what matters most in the end. It’s just too bad that they realized this only after having her laid out on the operating table fully prepped for the big surgery. Needless to say we all went through a lot of stress that apparently wasn’t fully warranted. She’ll return home tomorrow once she’s off the anesthesia and cleared.

I fly back to Arizona on Friday so perhaps with the recent change of events I’ll have some quality time with the family rather than simply a lot of hospital bedside visiting… My hip is feeling better everyday which is great, but I’ve also been realizing that my nose is quite sore and has begun to bruise. Things feel swollen in there so who knows what happened. Perhaps more than I thought as tonight I found a dent and a crack on my helmet to match the 1/4″ long scratches on the lenses of my VTi’s… I’d say that my luck was horrible, but considering all that my mom has been through, perhaps my situation isn’t so bad after all.

I must give props to two racers who have surely gained Momentum for their 2007 seasons: Mike for stomping the Semi Pro’s in his first ever attempt and to Chloe for making a seamless transition to the rank of the ‘Pro’ Pro’s, after having three awesome results as Luna’s newest and youngest ever racer. As the stages got more challenging she only placed better: 13th in the TT, 11th in STXC, and 9th in the XC. These two riders were awesome!

Keeping it Real, -TJ

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